Category — Friday Blog Roundup

I think the thing I missed most about being home (and not traveling) these last 2.5 years is overhearing conversations. I mean, yes, I travel to see specific things or to experience other cultures. But the thing I missed about travel were observing other people or catching snatches of conversations. You can’t re-create that from home.

Or hearing Hebrew from a stranger. Obviously easier if you’re living in Israel, but we had a few wonderful moments on the trip when I’d catch a word — on the Grand Plaza in Brussels or a train car in Cambridge — and I’d perk up, twisting my head like antennae shifting to point in the correct direction. I missed that.

Now that we’ve figured out masked travel, it feels do-able again. Something I couldn’t imagine even post-vaccine last summer.

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Thank you to everyone who celebrated the Roundup anniversary by posting links last week. You can see all of the posts here. Not too late to add your own.

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Stop procrastinating. Go make your backups. Don’t have regrets.

Seriously. Stop what you’re doing for a moment. It will take you fifteen minutes, tops. But you will have peace of mind for days and days. It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.

As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week. To read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Things With Secret History” (Finding a Different Path)
• “With Childlessness, the Related Losses Multiply” (Childless by Marriage)
• “The Ends of Eras” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you, Jess!

Okay, now my choices this week.

Finding a Different Path has a post drawing a parallel from COVID-test weirdness to pregnancy tests that let you know you were just a little pregnant. Her results were kind of positive. Then kind of negative. Did she have COVID? Who knows. (Though she behaved as if she did to protect others.) The point I nodded at: “Why must all the medical things fall under, ‘huh, that’s a mystery,’ for me?”

Infertile Phoenix has a post about getting rid of teaching stuff, which is just as hard as getting rid of the baby stuff because it’s all tied together. She thought she would be able to use her knowledge on her own child. She writes: “I cried because I didn’t get to raise my children. I cried because I’m so good at teaching, but it literally doesn’t cover my bills. I cried because it’s the end of the semester, it’s hot, I’m sad, and I’m just plain worn out.” But three cheers for taking back the space and getting rid of things that are weighing you down.

Lastly, The Road Less Travelled has a great summary of a series of posts by Anne Helen Petersen on being without children and building relationships with kids amongst other related topics. I especially like how she captured and unpacked AHP’s final piece, “How to Show Up For Your Friends Without Kids — and How to Show Up For Kids and Their Parents aka How to Be in a Community.”

The roundup to the Roundup: What I missed from travel. Thank you for celebrating the Roundup. Your weekly backup nudge. And lots of great posts to read. So what did you find this week? Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between July 22 – 29) and not the blog’s main URL. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week? Read the original open thread post here.

I warned you that it was coming and gave you homework. It’s the 16th anniversary of the Friday Blog Roundup, and to celebrate, I asked you to find two posts: (1) one of yours that I highlighted here that you also love and (2) someone else’s post (from any time period) that you think everyone should read. So drop them in the comment section below. As well as anything else you’ve loved from the last four weeks.

Thank you for being here weekly. This ongoing series has framed my week for 16 years, and I’m grateful for all of your posts.

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Stop procrastinating. Go make your backups. Don’t have regrets.

Seriously. Stop what you’re doing for a moment. It will take you fifteen minutes, tops. But you will have peace of mind for days and days. It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.

As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week. To read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Gone” (The Barreness)
• “Losses and Last Resorts” (No Kidding in NZ)
• “Happy 31st birthday, sLOVEnia!” (The Next 15000 Days)
• “Hello, Summer!” (Finding a Different Path)

Okay, now my choices this week.

A bunch of longtime voices have returned.

Much Ado About Nothing has an update. She left her job for a new one that appreciates what she brings. She writes, “I know what my experience is worth, and I demanded it. I went in like a badass version of myself I haven’t felt like in a long while, and I refused to be nervous and intimidated.” I love that.

Are You Kidding Me is back — same site though the blog has a new name: Dear John. She is writing letters to her husband who died earlier this year. They are raw and moving and her latest one made me sit still for a few minutes after reading. She is selling her husband’s things, and she writes: “It’s so difficult to give up your stuff. I don’t want it here any more, but it feels like letting you go too soon. You don’t need the stuff, and you would definitely be in favor of getting rid of it. But it makes me cry.” Abide with her.

Lastly, My Lady of the Lantern returned to close her blog. She explains: “I have never wanted to abandon a blog without telling that I was going to abandon it. I found it irksome when some of my favourites just stopped posting one day, and then never returned. And I don’t want to do the same. So as of today, I think I can safely say that I no longer feel the urge to blurb here.” I’m grateful for the closure and the final thoughts.

The roundup to the Roundup: It’s the 16th anniversary of the Friday Blog Roundup. Your weekly backup nudge. And lots of great posts to read. So what did you find this week? Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between June 24 – July 22) and not the blog’s main URL. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week? Read the original open thread post here.

Every two weeks since the pandemic began, we’ve made a meal list. Everyone chooses between three and four dinners they want me to make, I compile the list, make a PDF of recipes, use it to write up a shopping list, and… well… as you’ve probably guessed, cook the meals. On one hand, it’s super useful. I’m never scrambling to figure out what to make in the afternoon. We limit trips to the grocery store. We have little food waste because I jenga the meals together so I can use up a rare ingredient the next day. It works. I mean, until it doesn’t work.

I’ve hit a wall of decision fatigue. Making the list has become my most dreaded task. I don’t know what I want to eat days in advance. No one else knows either. It has seeped into the rest of life. I am so tired of making decisions.

The solution is to give up the list making for a week or two. Allow myself to become more annoyed by the lack of structure. Go back to appreciating the system that has served us well for over two years.

Anything goes. Cereal for dinner. Pasta four days in a row. Cucumbers three meals per day.

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Apart at the Seams is on sale until July 15th for just 99 cents. A story that will occupy you for hours for less than a dollar? One click, that’s all it takes to have it on your Kindle. Tell your friends. Tell your family. Tell random people in the grocery store.

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Stop procrastinating. Go make your backups. Don’t have regrets.

Seriously. Stop what you’re doing for a moment. It will take you fifteen minutes, tops. But you will have peace of mind for days and days. It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.

As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

*******

And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week. To read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• None… sniff.

Okay, now my choices this week.

We are all talking about Roe. Family Building with a Twist sums up what many of us are thinking/feeling: “Like many, I am appalled, devastated – choose your adjective – about today’s ruling by SCOTUS. And I wasn’t surprised. I read the released draft ruling and I knew how this court was going.” Just because you know something is coming doesn’t mean that you don’t feel it down to your bones when it happens.

Lastly, The Road Less Travelled has lots of odds and ends, but also links for the Childless Collective Summit. It’s online, and she provides a link to a review of last year’s summit. Go check it out.

The roundup to the Roundup: Decision fatigue. Apart at the Seams is on sale. Your weekly backup nudge. And lots of great posts to read. So what did you find this week? Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between June 24 – July 1) and not the blog’s main URL. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week? Read the original open thread post here.

This is the 900th (okay, really 800th because things got misnumbered years ago) Friday Blog Roundup. It will have its 16th anniversary in July, but… come on. By Internet standards, 800 posts marking 800 weeks and, on average, 4 posts per week (early posts had 4 – 6 posts, now it’s more like 3 – 4 posts) equaling about 3,200 reviewed posts, is like the Methuselah of the blogosphere.

So I’m giving you homework. This is the 900th/800th Friday Blog Roundup. You have until July 22nd, which will be the 16th anniversary of the Roundup, to find two posts: (1) one of yours that I highlighted here that you also love and (2) someone else’s post (from any time period) that you think everyone should read. So about four weeks. Start working.

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Stop procrastinating. Go make your backups. Don’t have regrets.

Seriously. Stop what you’re doing for a moment. It will take you fifteen minutes, tops. But you will have peace of mind for days and days. It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.

As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

*******

And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week. To read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Done Skipping Life” (The Next 15000 Days)

Okay, now my choices this week.

It’s Inconceivable felt like something bad was coming… and it did. She unpacks the last few months of life, her brother’s health crisis and her own, and she comments: “Yes, even at follow up hospital appointments where you’d think access to my rather large medical file would make staff realise I don’t have kids, I get asked about family… all the time. All The Fucking Time.” It’s a hard post because it is clear after a cancer diagnosis that she will be in a medical situation for quite some time. And it’s also clear that she could use some support and a virtual hug from everyone.

The Barreness has a post about the dumpster fire of a situation the world is in right now. She writes: “I am having lots of feelings with no place to take them.” Me too. Maybe because everything is too big, too important, too heavy. And it’s all at once. I love the unpacking of how it feels to be changing and becoming a different woman; not knowing yet who this new version of you will be.

Lastly, one of the nicest things about blogging is exposure to other worlds. I love it when No Kidding in NZ writes about Maori culture, and the new year celebration feels like an amazing way to pause and reflect on where you’ve been (and who has shaped you) and where you’re going.

The roundup to the Roundup: 800 Friday Blog Roundups. Your weekly backup nudge. And lots of great posts to read. So what did you find this week? Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between June 17 – 24) and not the blog’s main URL. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week? Read the original open thread post here.

I want to talk about really amazing customer service. Josh and I already had a lifelong addiction commitment to drinking Mayorga coffee, but this story ensured that we continue on our Cafe Cubano path into future generations.

Every six weeks or so, Josh orders several two-pound bags of coffee. After a day or two, they arrive and our house smells amazing because I leave them in the front hall until he gets home to put them in the freezer.

This week, I opened the box so the hall could start smelling like delicious ground coffee, and I could tell something was different when I picked up the bags. He hadn’t gotten the coffee ground like he normally does, and we don’t have a grinder for whole beans. We got rid of it when the kids were babies and the sound bothered them, and we never replaced it.

So we had no way of using this enormous box of coffee.

I called them to see if he could drive by and get the coffee ground — the warehouse isn’t that far from our house, and pre-COVID, we always went in person to get our beans. But the guy explained that he couldn’t run even sealed bags of beans through the machine once they left the warehouse. My heart sank. I closed my eyes and leaned my forehead against the window.

“But,” he said, “You could donate those bags to a local food bank, and I could send you the ones you wanted right now.”

“But it was our fault. We ordered the wrong thing,” I pointed out.

“I know, but we can make this right.”

It is such a simple thing: a solution where everyone wins EXCEPT the company. The food bank wins because they get coffee they can pass along. I win because I get the coffee I want. But poor Mayorga doesn’t win because they’re accepting the burden of making everyone else happy.

So. This is what I can do for Mayorga (beyond customer loyalty of life). If you are looking for really amazing coffee from a really amazing company that clearly cares about their customers and community and the world as a whole, please get Mayorga coffee. You will not be disappointed because it’s literally the best coffee in the world. As in the whole world. Tall claim but if you taste it, you’ll understand.

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Stop procrastinating. Go make your backups. Don’t have regrets.

Seriously. Stop what you’re doing for a moment. It will take you fifteen minutes, tops. But you will have peace of mind for days and days. It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.

As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

*******

And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week. To read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Grief Revisited” (Afterward Honesty)

Okay, now my choices this week.

No Kidding in NZ muses on whether grief is forever. It’s a great post, pulling love apart from grief and showing how they’re two separate entities when you’re not in a space of active grief. She explains: “I honour my losses, and my pain, the grief I once felt. I do that because of love. Love outlasts grief.” It’s a beautiful post about the time after.

Scientist on the Roof talks about the pressure to be a superhuman parent. She writes: “You can’t be too permissive – that’s bad parenting. But you can’t be too strict, either (that’s bad parenting, too). You have to ‘connect,’ you have to show compassion and understanding. You have to be firm… but not too firm.” It’s not realistic, and the pressure sets up people for failure. I understand why she’s angry at all of the unsolicited advice out there.

Lastly, Infertile Phoenix has a post about opening up to her classmates about infertility. She posts her research topic, unsure of how her classmates will react to talk about pronatalism and IVF statistics. But she’s surprised by the support and the outreach. “Y’all. My cohort is small. Very small. Three people, not including myself, have already been open about being affected or having someone close to them being affected by infertility and involuntary childlessness.” She is looking for one more person for her research project. “If you are a woman who is permanently involuntarily childless after IVF failure and would like to participate,” contact her.

The roundup to the Roundup: If you could marry a cup of coffee, I would be wed to Cafe Cubano. Your weekly backup nudge. And lots of great posts to read. So what did you find this week? Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between June 10 – 17) and not the blog’s main URL. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week? Read the original open thread post here.