Category — Friday Blog Roundup

It’s impossible to determine THE date everything changed last year, but in many ways, the 12th—today—is what many people in my area think of as the one-year anniversary. It’s the day they announced that kids would be home from school for two weeks. The shelves of the stores were empty as people prepared to hunker down.

But… this isn’t the day that I think of as the start of the pandemic. For me, I think of March 3rd as the anniversary date. It’s the date that you could no longer get Purell in the stores. I know that’s sort of an arbitrary thing, but that’s the point where I realized that I should get everything we need to last a few weeks at home. A bag of lemons. A few boxes of pasta. Some extra flour and butter. I made pancakes and froze them so I wouldn’t have to worry about eggs expiring. We were going to get through this, whatever “this” was.

Today marks a complete year at home. No in-person school. No in-person work. No in-person social events. No visits inside a home. I went from mostly paper books to mostly e-books. I went from no plants to an indoor herb garden. I walk in place in front of YouTube videos.

I’ve stopped believing this will be over soon.

*******

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 in order 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. In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• None… sniff.

Okay, now my choices this week.

Remember how I gave you a heads up last week that March 9th was a day of kindness? Kristin Fitzgerald-Zita has a post about it on Mindful. She explains: “There are lots of other things about me: I knit, I write, I live with an anxiety disorder … But in so many ways, ‘bereaved mom’ defines me because it’s the lens through which I view my world.” This is a story of impact; one that continues year after year. Please continue to do kindness in Thomas’s name.

The Road Less Travelled has the most thought-provoking post about how men and women approach social media. I nudged her to write it, and she didn’t disappoint. I am much more likely to silence than unfollow, AND I do feel a sense of responsibility in holding friend groups or family together. I thought this was such an interesting observation. Join the conversation over there.

My Perfect Breakdown uses International Women’s Day to encourage women to speak up about their health. Doctors ignored an issue for years, encouraging her to “just keep trying,” and she currently needs a hysterectomy. She writes: “Keep fighting for what you know is right. Don’t stop. Don’t let anyone tell you that they know better. As women, we need to continue to use our voices and push for the healthcare we deserve. (And education, and equal pay, and, and, and…)” YES!

Lastly, FinallyMyLinesNow has an update at 14 weeks pregnant, post-cerclage. I love this: “I’m 14 weeks now. Sore but not in agony. Scared but not terrified. Finally also nauseous, but not constantly vomiting. So, progress.” May things keep going smoothly through the summer month.

The roundup to the Roundup: One year at home. 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 March 5 – 12) 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 year for many many many years, on March 9th, the ALI community has performed kind acts in honour of Thomas. Thomas’s mum wrote up a great description of the origin of the day. It’s a really amazing idea of helping a person continue to impact the world, and it’s super simple. You just do something kind in Thomas’s memory, making the world a tiny bit better than it was moments earlier.

They are encouraging people to keep their kind acts COVID-19-safe this year. I’m giving you a four-day heads up so you can put on your thinking cap this weekend. What is a small thing you can do on the 9th to put good in the world in Thomas’s memory?

Get thinking.

*******

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 in order 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. In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Ghost Life” (Finding a Different Path)
• “My Account at the Emotional Bank” (Stirrup Queens) —thank you, Jess!

Okay, now my choices this week.

Infertile Phoenix writes about being in limbo again. She pulls in her experience of infertility to get through the pandemic-induced limbo. She writes: “All this waiting… It’s just like… Well, you know. Having experience with something IS helpful. I’m thankful for that.” It is a temporary time period. Not a pleasant one, not one anyone wants to be in, but it helps to think about its temporary nature.

Infertility Honesty writes about her candle and flower ritual, explaining: “Mourning is defined as the outward expression of grief.  Everyone grieves, but not everyone mourns.” She contemplates how the ritual has changed over the years, especially this year when everything is so off-kilter. And I found the moment in the snow incredibly moving.

Risa Kerslake writes about her child’s second transferversary. She writes: “Two years ago she was placed inside me, along with the sibling we’ll never get to meet. Truthfully, I don’t think a lot about that day. It was traumatic. I mean, traumatic, but filled with so much hope at the same time.” Those last few sentences of the post made me feel weepy. Happy but also weepy.

Lastly, The Next 15000 Days has a (not really) silly story about a common myth: let’s call it the “prayed hard enough” myth. After a helpful webinar, she dives into a not-so-helpful book. It’s a tiny post, so you’ll have to click over to read it.

The roundup to the Roundup: Be kind on March 9th (and other days, too). 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 Feb 26 – March 5) 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.

Since the United States marked a half a million people dead from COVID-19 earlier in the week, several thousand more have died. Over a half a million people.

It is hard to look back at articles like this one from last year which stated: “If Americans embrace drastic restrictions and school closures, for instance, we could see a death toll closer to the thousands and breathe a national sigh of relief as we prepare for a grueling but surmountable road ahead.”

The vaccine in the article is here much sooner. The deaths so much higher. We knew so little last March.

*******

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 in order 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. In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “On Grief Shaming” (Grief Is the Word)
• “Oh Hello, Welcome To My New Space” (Finding a Different Path)
• “#MicroblogMondays: Pandemic Family Day” (The Road Less Travelled)

Okay, now my choices this week.

I have the first post on Finding a Different Path for this week. My Path to Mommyhood has moved spaces and changed names (so update your bookmarks and feed reader). I love this: “The last three (oh wow, almost four) years have been about rebuilding. About standing in the rubble of a dream denied, and figuring out how to pick the pieces up and create a life that is meaningful, that is beautiful, and that is its own path, not a detour.” Welcome to your new space!

Speaking of blog name changes, The Evolving Engineer has a great post about “I Am” statements. After not being able to bring herself to state a series of “I Am” statements, she writes, “Imagine my surprise when, one morning, a few weeks ago, I woke up with a string of I Am’s running through my head. I shared it with my husband, and I shared it with a friend. It felt grounded and light to walk around for a while with this string running through my head.” She captures a turning point moment and shares it, knowing that others may have had the same doubts.

Anabegins captures the collective mood. She walks through ways she is trying to get out of ruts and find happiness. And she ends with an important point: “I guess it’s up to me to find the joy and make it happen.” It’s hard but true.

Lastly, No Kidding in NZ recounts an easy friendship with a person whose life path has differed greatly from her own. Her friend has made the hard times easier, and it has kept them close. But she also notes that after her friend’s children move from the home, there will be “a period of time – maybe 10, maybe 20, maybe even 30 years, when her life won’t be all that different to mine. It’s useful to reflect on that.” It’s an important reminder that things that seem far apart at one point can look close together at another.

The roundup to the Roundup: 500,000. 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 Feb 19 – Feb 26) 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 may be my favourite Twitter thread ever. I read it the same week that Josh told me about a Paul Hollywood recipe for challah that contains milk, not realizing how the two tweets were interconnected.

But can we backup for a moment? MILK. And spells challah “CHOLLA.” Listen, I get that our alphabet is sometimes hard to translate into English letters, but YOU. ARE. NOT. EVEN. TRYING.

Paul Hollywood (of great British bake off) includes dairy in his “cholla” recipe and suggests it be served at Passover 🤷🏻‍♀️ pic.twitter.com/QQTUAM8sLY

— Rachel Yavinsky (@rachelyavs) February 11, 2021

I could not stop calling the challah “milk bread” last week. You know, the bread we serve for our bread-free holiday.

Anyway, the original Twitter thread got Bon Appetit to change their offensive hamantashen recipe.

lol i am planning a purim lesson and researching Hamantaschen fillings. One of the top google results: this piece written by a non Jew called “How to Make Hamantaschen actually good.” Who published it? I think you can guess: https://t.co/zRc6jqszBg

— Abigail Koffler (@abigailcoughler) February 10, 2021

This may be my biggest pet peeve: When there are excellent recipes created by people inside the culture being rewritten by people outside the culture, not to make them accessible to a group of people (such as making hamantaschen gluten-free) or melding two cultures (such as matzo ball ramen) but to make the original culture’s food “better” by a different culture’s standards.

There is no milk in challah. There is no butter in hamantaschen. Or, as she so succinctly puts it:

Traditional foods do not automatically need to be updated, especially by someone who does not come from that tradition.

— Abigail Koffler (@abigailcoughler) February 10, 2021

Do not even get me started on hummus. I have big feelings about hummus.

*******

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 in order 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. In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• None… sniff.

Okay, now my choices this week.

The Next 15000 Days has a post about being okay and not okay at the same time. She writes: “Most of the days I feel OK and in peace with my childless life. Sometimes something happens that spoils my peace and then I need my blog to write my thoughts down. I need someone out there to read my lines and tell me that I am not alone.” You’re not alone. And blogging allows us to know that without a doubt.

Scientist on the Roof writes about pandemic fatigue. She explains: “The plague fatigue is because of constant need to make risk evaluations and decisions.” Yes—to all of it. The decisions we have to make. Navigating other people’s decisions. It is exhausting.

Lastly, the book from By the Brooke is here. She writes: “The internet sure can be an ugly place, but this little corner of it has been so, so good to me.” Huge congratulations on the major accomplishment.

The roundup to the Roundup: There is no butter in hamantaschen. 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 Feb 12 – Feb 19) 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’ve been skipping impeachment coverage because I don’t want to see violent footage from the Capitol. Life is stressful enough without having that footage in my brain. Instead, I catch up on the details via email alerts.

Which makes for a very quiet impeachment.

In general, the volume has gotten much quieter with Trump out of office and off social media platforms. Delightfully quieter. I don’t cringe every morning when I scroll through the news. But adding in the decision to not engage in 24/7 impeachment coverage brought down the volume an additional notch.

I get a three-day weekend, and I’m beyond excited with the idea of not. doing. anything.

*******

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 in order 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. In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Shared Experiences in Beauty and Grief” (No Kidding in NZ)
• “What’s Saving Me” (Infertile Phoenix)

Okay, now my choices this week.

No Kidding in NZ draws a connection between the pandemic experience and infertility. The lack of control. The limbo state. The general exhaustion. Moreover, she talks about the non-infertile response, especially because New Zealand is not experiencing the pandemic in the same way as the rest of the world: “I’m not truly experiencing this pandemic, in the way that some people never experience infertility, or think about it only as a future but unlikely possibility. So I am having to learn something new – how to sit with you, to listen to your frustrations and fears without dismissing them.” Such an interesting take on being adjacent to the experience.

By the Brooke brings back her advice column to answer a person’s question about a terrible exchange with a neighbour about “lab babies.” (The neighbour’s term, by the way.) The answer includes: “Her opinion is likely never to change if she’s never asked to reflect on it.” The best part is that she walks you through a sample conversation with someone who is anti-IVF and how you may want to guide the talk. Hopefully, no one needs this post. But if you do, here it is.

Lastly, Res Cogitatae points out that we’re not all having the same pandemic. She writes, “Very quickly it became obvious that we were living through different pandemics, our experiences shaped by our geographical location, employment responsibilities, and, perhaps most of all, the composition of our households and the stage of life in which we found ourselves.” And maybe that is the hardest part about the pandemic, especially when we’re talking about the same area: that the choices we’re making or the circumstances we’re in are so vastly different.

The roundup to the Roundup: A quiet impeachment trial. 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 Feb 5 – Feb 12) 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.