Category — Friday Blog Roundup

The impulse to own a waffle-iron during my first 45 years of life: 0 times.

The impulse to own a waffle-iron during one random week of the pandemic: 78 times.

The Wolvog loves waffles, but I didn’t want to own one more tool or appliance. All was fine—for his first fifteen years, he just ordered them when we were at a restaurant. Except we’re no longer going to restaurants. Or hotels with breakfast rooms. Or… anywhere one gets waffles.

I bought a $9 electric waffle maker and told the twins I would leave batter in the refrigerator and they could make themselves waffles in the morning. They were happy, and the Wolvog informed me that while the little waffle maker was enough, it was not the waffle of his dreams.

I wanted him to have the waffle of his dreams.

So I bought an old-fashioned waffle iron that weighs twenty pounds. You heat it up on the stove and then pour in the batter. I had to try it the day it arrived, so I made waffles at 9 pm after I cleaned it. Golden. Fat. Crispy. Buttery. The Wolvog sighed as he ate and said, “In less than one week, you have hit peak waffle.” There is no higher compliment.

So I now own a waffle-iron. And a mini waffle maker. It’s breakfast-for-dinner time.

*******

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:

• “The Losing of Things” (Stirrup Queens) —thanks, Jess!

Okay, now my choices this week.

Look at me getting all loosey goosey with the dates. But I read Searching for My Silver Lining’s post about bobbing this week. She returns to a memory of learning how to tread water while holding a brick—part of her lifeguard training—and how that skill transfers to today, when so many people are exhausted from emotionally treading water. She writes, “In short, though I’m exhausted, I’m still somehow afloat while desperately treading water with cement boots. I’m seeing this from others too. May we all continue to bob.” Love it.

Jewish IVF has a post about people getting comfortable with the new normal. She points out: “There are people who have gotten used to the new world. They’re out and about in a way that works for their family. Then there are those of us who are still as worried today as we were in the tail-end of March.” I am still in the tail-end of March phase. And as she says, it’s not the black-and-white facts that give her anxiety but all of the grey areas where we need to make decisions because we’re not being given concrete, consistent guidance.

Lastly, Hopelessly Infertile and Surrounded by Fertiles took a pregnancy test on CD44. It was negative, and she writes: “I didn’t cry when I got the negative test. I never expected anything different. I didn’t even feel like I wanted to cry until I talked to my gyn’s office and they told me they wanted me to come in for my annual checkup… in November.” In another time and place, she would have gotten what she needed emotionally from her doctor. But it’s these small moments: that sense of irreality that comes during what were once the outlier experiences. Which are now part of the old normal; covered up by the new normal.

The roundup to the Roundup: I hit peak waffle. 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 August 7 – 14) 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.

At first, I wasn’t worried about Isaias at all. I mean, I was worried for people on the coastline, but I wasn’t worried about our area.

And then the day before the storm was set to hit, we received a bunch of messages about things preemptively closing because Isaias was going to produce heavy winds and a lot of rain. The local government said that people should stay off the roads during the storm. Josh had planned to go grocery shopping the next day, so he moved up the trip and got home before the stores filled.

I spent the evening worrying. We charged devices in case we lost power, but I was more concerned with falling trees.

And then the storm came and went. Our area was okay, so I could have stuck with my original worrying plan to focus all of my anxiety on the coastline. It was weird to worry about something other than coronavirus for a few hours.

*******

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:

• “The Stories We Make Up About Home” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you, KatherineA
• “A sainthood not extended… virtue (not) bestowed” (The Road Less Travelled)
• “My Unsolicited Advice” (Infertile Phoenix)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Dreaming of Diapers writes about the way the virus has impacted her life. She writes, “Due to the pandemic, my husband got demoted at work and we decided to put our house on the market to adjust to his new salary. And, I’ve tried more of everything to get pregnant and nothing has worked… and I’m terrified to close that chapter of my life for good.” She is writing more now to get out these emotions. For some people, the pandemic isn’t a pause; it’s a completely different path.

Dubliner in Deutschland discovers that distance is relative. Before the pandemic, home didn’t feel far away. During the pandemic, home suddenly feels very distant. I’ve been wondering if the pandemic will change where people live if they haven’t already settled down. I’m sure we’ll be thinking about the impact of the pandemic for years (or generations?) to come.

Lastly, An Engineer Becomes a Mom asks what is your story? She tells her story—the highlight moments—and then points out: “That’s it, it’s just a story. It shaped me, certainly the way I was raised shaped me, yet it’s not me. That’s the part where I think a lot of us get stuck. We get stuck in the story of our lives as if it’s actually us.” She teaches you how to walk through your SFD (you’ll need to click over to understand the acronym).

The roundup to the Roundup: Isaias. 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 31 – August 7) 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.

The twins and I have still been volunteering during the lockdown because it’s human-free and outside. We clean enclosures and feed the animals.

This week, we were mucking in two separate spots, and they called me over because a rabbit had just given birth—as in minutes to an hour earlier. One of the bunnies in the litter didn’t make it—it was only partially formed—and the rest were outside the nest area. The mother was lying down, too tired to move in the heat, though one of her friends helped us along, hopping around the nest. We got to gently set down each of the nine, living baby bunnies in the nest where they squirmed together, burrowing down into the hay and fur. The mother’s rabbit friend watched over them.

My heart exploded.

Newborn bunnies are about the size of a mouse; hairless with their eyes closed. Each one was so warm and sleepy and snuggly. By next week, they will have fur and long ears. But right now, they are at the start of everything. We didn’t know they were going to be there when we got to work, which made the moment that much more magical.

*******

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. (Especially because it was the 14th anniversary of the Roundup)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Inconceivable has a post about her truly final cycle. After they finished, there was still a feeling that they shouldn’t be finished. After a lot of back-and-forth, they tried one last time. And got a positive before another loss. It is truly the end of their road now. She writes so achingly beautifully about her daughter, named after a character in the Lord of the Rings trilogy: “If somehow walking out of Mordor with her is the biggest battle we faced, this is the day we go to the Grey Havens and bid good-bye to something precious and special and end this final chapter.”

Infertile Phoenix has an empowering post about not remaining stuck. She has been waiting for a moving truck, and it fell through on the assigned date. She responds with a cheeky: “Oh a two week wait that ended with an undesired outcome? I’ve been here before. Lots of times. Moving forward!” That made me smile, big time.

The Road Less Travelled has a post about Auntie’s Day. Like the rabbit aunt above, aunts make things better. She points out that few people posted about it and asks, “How else do we spread the word that this holiday exists, and that aunts deserve recognition too?” We start by telling each other about it—early, often, and even after. It’s the fourth Sunday in July, so put July 25th on your calendar.

Finally, Not a Wasted Word changed her mind on kids being in the classroom this fall, and she talks about the situation from a teacher’s point-of-view. I think she makes an excellent argument, so I’ll let you pop over there and read her thoughts.

The roundup to the Roundup: Baby bunnies. 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 24 – July 31) 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.

It’s the 14th anniversary of the Roundup. (Pssst—that’s the first post from 2006.) I’ve been writing it almost every Friday for 14 years—more than a quarter of my life.

It’s the longest running project on my blog, and since my blog started in the early days of blogging, it is in a tiny category of continual, long-running internet projects, such as Wordless Wednesdays and… um… everything else I just Googled is now defunct. So. Our tiny niche on the internet gets to claim one of the longest, ongoing, never-pausing projects. Go us.

But it’s also a tiny peek into what sticks and what doesn’t. IComLeavWe is defunct. The LFCA is defunct. MicroblogMondays is still going strong (but is much younger than the Roundup—only six years old or so).

Thank you to everyone who keeps writing their blog so I have something to read and posts to roundup every Friday.

*******

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:

• “Immer weniger” (Elaine ohne Kind)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Kveller has a post about how infertility prepared her for parenting during the pandemic. I’d argue that infertility prepares a person for the pandemic—full stop. You don’t need to be parenting to see how going through the stress of infertility helps you process the stress of the current world. She writes, “When I was going through infertility, I did not know what was going to happen. I didn’t know when my next appointment would be, if I could attend my friend’s birthday party, or even plan a vacation —and I certainly didn’t know when or if I would get pregnant! Turns out this experience prepared me for parenting in these uncertain times.” Me, too.

The Barreness got me with Nirvana—we are stupid and contagious right now. She meanders through a backyard visit with parents, protest signs, and life during COVID-19. This line is exactly how I feel as a fellow rule follower: “As a rule follower, I am saddened by nobody else doing the work.” Maybe it’s not actually nobody, but sometimes it feels like nobody.

JewishIVF has a similar sentiment with her post on choices with COVID-19. She writes, “I could do all these things if I chose to. It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s that it feels unsafe to make those choices … It must be nice to not live in a head-space of constant worry. Maybe that’s what I’m jealous of.” It made me think about how that was also a feeling with infertility. How would it feel to not exist in the head-space of constant worrying and just live normal family building? I was always jealous of that.

Lastly, Hopelessly Infertile and Surrounded by Fertiles writes about grandmother’s last friend dying. Her grandmother died near the end of her friend group, and she writes, “There were 3, maybe 4 of her super-close contemporary friends still alive to mourn her, and now they are all gone.” Even without knowing her grandmother or her friends, it made me sad to think that a “whole generation of beloved matriarchs is gone.” Sending peace of heart.

The roundup to the Roundup: The 14th anniversary of 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 17 – July 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’ve entered the phase of sheltering at home where you try to recreate all of your favourite restaurant recipes. (Though we followed Da Mario’s recipes months ago when he posted them on YouTube.)

This week, we re-created Bueno y Sano in my kitchen. I even made the charred red peppers they used to have on the menu back in the late 1990s. And thinned the sour cream and put it in a squeeze bottle so it could be drizzled across the burrito. It would have been a more authentic experience if I had pretended that I didn’t notice all the people in the room and read People magazine while I ate. (That was my Thursday night routine in grad school. Bueno for dinner. People magazine on the table. Pretend I didn’t notice students trying to catch my eye so they could ask me a quick question.) But apparently that is anti-social, so I spoke to everyone as we ate.

I also re-created our favourite rice paper summer rolls from the Vietnamese restaurant at the beach. They were so close to accurate that the ChickieNob whole face changed as she chewed, and she looked like she wanted to cry and laugh at the same time. We’ve been making them every day for lunch.

It’s the stuff that we can’t reheat that I miss the most. The only takeaway we’ve gotten has been stuff that can be popped back into the oven and returned to high temperatures. That’s not recommendable with sour-cream-filled burritos. And it’s really not possible with the summer rolls or sushi.

I miss restaurants. This is a good second-best option until we can get back to restaurants again.

Have you recreated any restaurant recipes?

*******

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:

• “Independence Day, Freedom, and Koshari” (A Half Baked Life)

Okay, now my choices this week.

No Kidding in NZ has a powerful post about the “it won’t happen to me” mentality, and how having it “happen to you” changes the way you approach the world. She writes: “Since infertility and loss, I’ve felt my mortality much more keenly, and feel very far from invincible. I’ve lost my default setting.” And maybe losing that default setting is a good thing if it reminds you that things won’t be okay so we need to do X, Y, and Z. Pass this one along to anyone who still believes they’re invulnerable.

By the Brooke is back with a life update. She managed to make me laugh many times, even while talking about the weight of the world. Like this nugget: “Zuzu also let Coco cut her hair recently. Longtime readers may recall that Coco has a long history of making poor choices when it comes to scissors and hair.” Fair warning: You’ll have the Hamilton soundtrack stuck in your head by the end of the post.

Kmina’s Blog has a heartbreaking post about her neighbour who died from COVID-19. She writes: “My kids remember how he would stop and tell them stories about butterflies. Until they won’t, it’ll be just a thing we retell but don’t remember exactly.” And finishes with this thought: “It is a very weird year to grow old. I’ve already aged 2 to 3 years by now, and it’s only July.” A very moving post.

Lastly, Infertile Phoenix has a post about her current two week wait to move. The amount of time is not lost on her, but noticing it brings out a fantastic reaction: “I loved it. It made me smile. A concept/time period that used to always be on my mind has totally slipped from familiarity for me. It made me happy to realize that my thinking has naturally changed over time. I no longer feel controlled by a two week wait. I no longer even think about it.” Cheers to better.

The roundup to the Roundup: My kitchen restaurant. 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 10 – July 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.