Category — Friday Blog Roundup

We had a lovely little Thanksgiving at home. I made a ton of side dishes, a pie for Josh, and brownies for the rest of us. I started cooking on Wednesday, so Thursday was laid back and filled with Zoom calls. It was fine. On the plus side: we got a lot of relaxation in. On the minus side: we didn’t get to see family and friends.

Thanksgiving is the only holiday I don’t host. Up until now, everything has felt normal-ish as each holiday popped up on the calendar because I’m accustomed to preparing the meal. So the seders were kind of sad due to the people missing from my home, but I normally cook for days beforehand. So Pesach felt normal-ish until the actual meal. Same with Rosh Hashanah, et al. But we go to my parents for Thanksgiving, so I’m not accustomed to making stuffing and Brussels sprouts. At least, not for Thanksgiving. So no holidays off this year. The cooking train continues rolling.

I’m looking forward to spending the weekend reading with my pig. So there’s that. Though I’m missing seeing everyone this year.

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

• None… sniff.

Okay, now my choices this week.

Infertile Phoenix is missing her children. She sees a picture of children playing in a blanket fort, and she writes, “But suddenly, I felt a visceral longing in my heart and being that will never be filled. My son or daughter never got to be a big brother or big sister to my other son or daughter. They didn’t get to build living room blanket forts, play together, and antagonize each other. I didn’t get to hear them laugh and bicker. And I felt profoundly sad.” She takes this enormous feeling and puts it in perspective, making it manageable while still painful. It’s a lovely post about how to acknowledge grief and work through it.

Finding My Plan B writes about an amazing online retreat where she learned so much about herself. She explains: “The retreat gave me a place to switch off from my life, to stop and to hear … I went on The Bridge feeling confused, misunderstood and unaccepted. I crossed the Bridge realising that I already know who I am I was just too afraid to be her because of other people’s opinions.” Love where she ended up through this.

Lastly, Much Ado About Nothing has a profound musing on self-improvement: “But the mind can be a dangerous place, and I’ve realized I have a lot of things in my life I have never completely worked through, because I didn’t know how.” She is trying to come to terms with choices that were taken away from her, and she has set confronting the facts into motion. It’s a turning point post that leaves you holding your breath.

The roundup to the Roundup: Thanksgiving. 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 November 20 – 27) 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 was talking with the Wolvog about bears (as one does), and I told him that I couldn’t remember which type of bear this advice went with, but there was some type of bear where you were supposed to run away. He stared at me incredulously and said, “Brown… get down. Black… fight back. White… goodnight.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“With a brown bear, you pretend to be dead. Spread out your limbs so it’s difficult to turn you over. It will eventually walk away. With black, fight back. That bear is terrified of you. And with white… well… you’re dead. So it doesn’t really matter what you do. But did you notice that zero percent of those solutions included running away? You’re not going to outrun a bear.”

Um… that makes a lot more sense.

Teens are full of interesting information.

*******

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 Skinny Black Girl has a post about why she isn’t blogging that is perfection. I love this post so much. And it’s probably best if you read it without knowing much before going over. Though I will entice you over with this: “It’s hard to write about yourself when you’re lost. When you’re sick of yourself. When you have no idea who the hell you are anymore and you’re known for bold declarations of just that.”

No Kidding in NZ writes about encountering thoughtless commentary on her trip. It was spoken by a friend of her sister’s. She writes, “I often assess my trips here, noting if there were any instances that made me feel childLESS rather than childFREE. I am wondering if that is healthy, even while I bristle slightly at a conversation at my sister’s place.” We all have our biases, but we should also know (and sometimes need to be told) our biases.

Finally, she had me with Skeletor. Hopelessly Infertile and Surrounded by Fertiles is having a hard time being positive. On the bright side, I give her ten points for the Skeletor quote, “I don’t like to feel good. I like to feel evil.” Plus at least five extra points for finding the clip on YouTube. (P.S. Me too on the Skeletor-front.)

The roundup to the Roundup: Bear advice. 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 November 13 – 20) 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.

Last week, when the returns were trickling in at a snail’s rate, I started taking screenshots. I couldn’t keep the numbers in my head, and I spent a lot of time on Wednesday saying, “Have the numbers moved?” Screenshots solved that problem and provided an answer. Because the time was also part of the screenshot, I could start judging how many ballots each state would get through in an hour. I felt in control of something that was completely outside my control.

Of course, we know the answer now so I no longer need these screenshots. But I’m finding it difficult to delete them. They capture a moment in time, and I feel weird tossing them in the trash. But I also need the space on my compiuter.

Maybe I’ll keep one or two. Maybe I’ll just be happy with the results, delete the screenshots, and keep looking forward because there’s still a lot of work to be done.

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It’s Friday the 13th. Remember? Compulsive need to say that every Friday the 13th? Zero clue why.

*******

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:

• “My Blog Is a Teenager” (The Road Less Travelled)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Infertile Phoenix is controlling what is under her control. She writes, “Some things don’t have a definitive ending. They happen over time and change your life forever. It can take years to figure out how to live again within your new reality.” Yes—all of this. And applying lessons forward is the only thing you can do.

The Next 15000 Days has a quote about the concept of acceptance, highlighting a strange question that really only has one answer. Some things just are. She explains: “Am I OK with being childless? There are many days that I am and there are also days that I am not.” It’s a brief post that will make you think.

Finally, The Road Less Travelled has a post about passing along family heirlooms and the stories that go with them. The post also serves as an important reminder to draw up your will. But the main focus is deciding what to do with those physical objects that have been passed through families. She points out: “If we want people to appreciate the things we want to leave to them, we need to make sure they understand their significance.”

The roundup to the Roundup: What to do with my election screenshots? Friday the 13th. 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 November 6 – 13) 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.

Things in the what I don’t know category—what will happen with all of the tension in the US, what will happen with finalizing the election results, what will happen with COVID-19—feels much larger than the things in the what I know category, which pretty much consists of dinner tonight. And even that is not a given. I have good intentions to make ravioli. Who knows if I’ll be able to pull off boiling the water.

I’ve been declaring every weekend self-care Saturday and Sunday. I’ll be on the sofa this weekend with my pig, reading novels and trying to recharge.

*******

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:

• “Love Bats” (My Path to Mommyhood)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Anabegins sums up the heart of this election: It shouldn’t be close. And in some ways, it’s not. At least, if we’re to believe that things will change by the time the final votes are counted. It’s not just about voting out bad leadership. It’s also about all those supporters that still exist after the leader has been removed.

My Path to Mommyhood has a post about a term that keeps popping up again and again this week: manifesting. Once described, I immediately recognized it from The Secret and vision boards. Why has it made a comeback? I have no clue. Perhaps it never went away. Regardless, she is in a lot of pain right now and could use some good thoughts: “The body is real talented at letting you know when you’ve overextended yourself.”

Lastly, The Skinny Black Girl has a post that is… perfect. You’ll just have to trust me on this. (This line is like the perfect on the perfect: “My life fits in the palm of my hand and I like it that way. Because it’s never too much.”) Click over already.

The roundup to the Roundup: Living with the great unknown. 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 October 30 – November 6) 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.

Halloween finally falls on a weekend, and no one can enjoy it. Instead of Daylight Saving Time, we should have a do-over on the calendar so we can have a second chance to get a Saturday night Halloween.

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The vet made us a paw print, and Josh picked it up when he went over to pay the vet bill. I’m definitely glad I have it, but I immediately slipped it into a drawer because I didn’t want to look at it right now. I made the mistake of asking Josh to read off the itemized bill, and it was a long list of what they did for the surgery. And that broke my heart; thinking about his tiny body going through so many steps.

It is weird to feel sad about Linus while, at the same time, feeling happy about Beorn. Which is sort of infertility in a nutshell.

*******

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:

• “Fragile (with comfort food: Arroz con Pollo)” (A Half Baked Life)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Chrissy Teigen wrote about her loss, and there was a line that struck me: “Silently twisting their negative words into positives, thinking that everything might still turn out okay.” That action of knowing things aren’t going to be okay, and then working to convince yourself that maybe—just maybe—you’re wrong or the doctors are wrong or someone is wrong.

The Barreness has a very moving post about her breast scan. She made me feel like I was sitting there with her, holding my breath, waiting for the news.

Lavender Luz has a post about oversharing an adoptee’s story. While it’s framed around adoption, a lot of the advice is applicable to all parents and all kids, so I encourage everyone to read it. But it’s especially eye-opening from the adoption perspective. Especially this: “Unfortunately, my mom’s adoption story was not really “our” story. My story was a different one. And each time my mom shared her story, she unknowingly pushed my story to the background—so much so, that there was no space for me to make sense of it.”

Lastly, FinallyMyLinesNow has an amazing open letter to an embryologist who refused to give her information while they were on the phone. She gently explains: “Information isn’t control. But information is about as close to control as I can get. Information lets me plan my next steps. It lets me prepare for the most probable outcomes. Information is pretty much the only panacea for the pain that comes from the lack of control of something so fundamentally important.” I seriously hope that people read this and remember how much we can positively or negatively impact someone.

The roundup to the Roundup: Weekend Halloween wasted. Linus and Beorn. 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 October 23 – October 30) 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.