Category — Friday Blog Roundup

A few months ago, we were watching Schitt’s Creek, and we came to the episode where the family throws a surprise party for David. ChickieNob commented that she had never had a surprise party, despite the fact that we surprise her EVERY YEAR with a floating birthday.

Anyway, do you know how hard it is to plot out a surprise party when no one leaves the house? How do you bake a cake without anyone smelling it? Or get presents without anyone noticing?

You do it when it is NOT someone’s birthday so they aren’t on high alert.

Josh and I freaked out the twins this week, jumping out and screaming surprise and singing “Happy Birthday.” We ordered gifts online, intercepting them at the door before they could see. Josh picked up ice cream because we couldn’t figure out the cake thing. They were totally surprised, mostly because it was not their birthday. But… you know… we did it. We won. Checkmate.

*******

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:

• “#MicroblogMondays: Garden Therapy” (My Path to Mommyhood)
• “I Wish Someone Would Ask Me…” (Grief Is the Word)

Okay, now my choices this week.

It’s Inconceivable writes about several frustrating situations with friends (and family). In all cases, she felt shunted to the side. She writes, “Despite being close friends with someone and watching their kids grow up, looking after them, being their sounding boards, spending time with them, going on camping trips with them, remembering them at Christmas and so forth – they aren’t your kids, so when things like this occur, you get relegated to the background and the periphery and there’s not a fat lot you can say or do about it.” It’s not just the action itself; it’s the role social media plays in letting you know what you’re missing.

An Engineer Becomes a Mom writes about labels. “I’ve spent most of my life hiding behind these particular labels: Introvert, Pessimist, Rule-follower, Worker-bee, Engineer, ISTJ, Dominant (DISC Profile), Enneagram 1. These labels are just that, labels, and the attachment I placed on them was limiting.” It’s a post about how we see ourselves, and how that changes over time. I love this: “What I’ve found is that as I grow and heal, I’m shedding the personality I wore my whole life and growing into a different version.”

Lastly, The Road Less Travelled has a post about revisiting with an old radio program. The creator of the program died several years ago, but the radio station is rerunning old episodes right now. It is like getting back in touch with an old friend. She writes: “I can’t think of anything more comforting during these turbulent times than to spend an hour with Stuart again on Sunday mornings.” I’m glad you have this.

The roundup to the Roundup: Operation Surprise Party completed. 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 3 – July 10) 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.

Today is the 800th (really 700th—the numbering went off by 100 many years ago, and I never fixed it) Friday Blog Roundup. Which means there are 699 other posts on this blog that are all Friday Blog Roundups. I highlight—on average—four posts per Roundup, which means I’ve highlighted about 2,800 posts.

2,800 posts!

Let’s pretend that it takes eight minutes to read each post, re-read the post again before I write the Roundup, and write the paragraph. That’s 22,400 minutes or 373.3 hours. Which comes out to 15.5 days. Of course, that assumes that I do nothing else except read and write for 24 hours. But still. You get the point.

I have put a lot of my life into the Roundup.

Thank you for writing.

*******

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:

• “Adoption, Discomfort, Ethics” (My Path to Mommyhood)
• “The Fine Line Between Adoption & Trafficking: Ashley Mitchell on the Paul Peterson Case” (Lavender Luz)
• “No Kidding 2020 Project: Day 20 – Celebrate” (No Kidding in NZ)
• “Summer Without Summer” (Res Cogitatae)

Okay, now my choices this week.

No Kidding in NZ asks if there will be greater cultural acceptance of childlessness in the future. She goes through several possible scenarios, ranging from pessimistic to semi-optimistic. While she thinks that she ends on a down note, I actually think her fourth scenario is a hopeful one. She writes, “Maybe society will recognise the dangers of unmitigated population increases and realise the value of the childless population, and the contribution we make towards the next generations.” If we believe that it takes a village to raise a child, we need to acknowledge every contribution—the visible ones and the invisible ones. And yes, there is a very real contribution we make when we take care of the earth. So thank you. And thank you for making me think.

An Unexpected Family Outing has a post about helping someone who is grieving while maintaining social distancing. When her friend loses her mother, she thinks she doesn’t know how to help her. But she writes, “But, having been the aggrieved myself (my daughter was stillborn in 2016), I took a moment to think about all the ways I know to show up for someone after a loss. There was no need to play by a rule book. There’s no one way to grieve and, in turn, there is no one way to support those who are grieving.” She has pulled together a list to pass along what she knows.

Finally, I had Res Cogitatae’s post about summer for this week. She sums up so much of what we’re feeling in our house, too. It’s summer, but it doesn’t feel like summer because it contains none of the things we associate with summer. But she ends on a hopeful note: “We will have a different sort of summer. A slower, simpler summer. In the grand scheme of things, just like always, we will be fine. But I hope this will be our only stay-at-home-summer.” Me too.

The roundup to the Roundup: This is the 800th (really, 700th) 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 26 – July 3) 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.

Remember how I told you I fixed the freezer? I may have spoken too soon. On Monday, the freezer started making an awful rattling sound whenever we opened the door. We Googled online, but we could only find sites talking about this sound happening when people closed the door.

So we took the panel off again (we’re now pros at this) and discovered that we never dealt with the chunks of ice that were on the panel itself. The fan could spin, but it rattled as it clunked against the ice. So we spent the evening directing a stream of hot air from a hair dryer at the back panel as it hovered over a bathtub to catch the dripping water.

It made us feel like adults.

I mean, in the sense that no one was coming to save us and we had to deal with the wonky freezer. We put everything back together and plugged it back in, and so far so good.

By the way—if you don’t have one—refrigerator thermometers will tell you before you lose everything in your refrigerator that you have problem. We only discovered this tool after we lost everything in the refrigerator. But at least we’re good to go from this point forward if the freezer ceases to work again.

Second time is a charm?

*******

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 Road Less Travelled covers Father’s Day amongst other topics. “Dh admitted last night that he sometimes gets jealous of BIL and his obvious pleasure in being a grandfather. BIL has a huge heart, and he’s always been very generous about including us in things and assuring us that we are an important part of the family.” But, of course, even the biggest hearted people sometimes don’t notice what they’re doing. The post captures the quietness of the weekend this year. (P.S. I’m a little jealous of the future haircut. We don’t have one on the horizon yet.)

Slaying, Blogging, Whatever is remembering her grandmother on what would have been her 100th birthday. She writes, “I know I am projecting. I know it is mere fantasy. But, that is what we do when we miss people’s presence in our lives.” So true.

Lastly, My Foxy Family is navigating a difficult relationship. She explains: “He asked me to tell him my thoughts, to be honest even if it’s hard for him to hear. But I don’t want to hurt him. And I’m still not sure if it is safe to be vulnerable when I’ve been burned too many times.” Parenting after infertility is not always the happily ever after. She writes on her sidebar: “Infertility turned my world upside down and led my sober husband back to drinking.” Sending peace of heart.

The roundup to the Roundup: Freezer fixed for real. (I think.) 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 19 – 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.

Josh and the kids cleared the weeds out of the backyard, and it is lovely. Maybe lovely is too strong a word. It is a space to sit and think. I’ve needed to do a lot of thinking this week.

I am looking forward to a quiet weekend. I haven’t gotten a lot of sleep this week, so I am not going to set an alarm tomorrow. I usually do on the weekend because I like to be awake before everyone else (quality alone time with Linus) and feel productive. But I am tapped out. I need to sleep, close out the world, and reset. And it is Father’s Day in the US this weekend, so we’ll see my dad from a distance and thank Josh.

Wishing you peace of heart if you need it. I sense a lot of us need it right now.

*******

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:

• “Daniel Radcliffe Responds to J.K. Rowling’s Tweets on Gender Identity” (The Trevor Project)
• “Finding Meaning Again” (Infertile Phoenix)

Okay, now my choices this week.

In Quest of a Binky Moongee has a post about her niece’s graduation and the movement of time. She writes, “I remember this post that I wrote when she started college. That was when we hadn’t even made the embryos that became our children. I was feeling sad that she was going away for college and it seemed impossible for my future children to know her well.” Of course, many of the things we fear don’t come true. Her children love their older cousin, and she writes: “Infertility and the delay in having my kids didn’t rob me the joy of my kids being close to my niece.” It’s a very sweet post about finding ways to connect during this socially-distant time.

Empty Arms, Broken Heart has a brief post about her child processing adoption. She is working through big feelings that she can’t always put into words. She writes: “I suppose it’s because she trusts me that she pushes me away so hard.” Sending a hug.

Finally, Lavender Luz perfectly articulates how much word choice matters when it comes to discussing adoption. She dismantles a poorly written article, from outdated language to logical fallacies. She explains: “I’m frustrated because people looking for reasons to choose a closed adoption, which some adoptees have called a form of child abuse, will come across this article and consider it fact, permission to proceed in a harmful way.” Keep writing, loudly.

The roundup to the Roundup: I need to reset. 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 12 – 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.

It was a week. That’s the best thing I can say about it. I helped the ChickieNob process JK Rowling’s transphobic tweets—that was a hard one to wrap her brain around because Rowling’s words seemed to run counter to Harry Potter’s central message. It was an excellent reminder that even people who imagine fantastic, magical wizarding schools onto the page can hold hurtful, harmful views.

I also read Rowling’s personal essay, but I didn’t find a lot to hold onto with the exception of the last line: “All I’m asking – all I want – is for similar empathy, similar understanding, to be extended to the many millions of women whose sole crime is wanting their concerns to be heard without receiving threats and abuse.” No one should receive threats or abuse. That said, people also shouldn’t present their unfounded fears as facts.

I read her say; I still don’t agree with her.

*******

School is ending. Our high school, unlike middle and elementary school, operated fairly independently, similar to college. Students got assignments and exams on Monday, and turned them in mostly by Friday. They now enter summer homework, and we told them they need to create a summer project for themselves. In other words, next week will not look appreciably different from this week. Everything is blurring.

*******

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:

• “Zum Nachdenken” (Elaine ohne Kind)
• “I Can’t Breathe” (Finding my Plan B – The Black Women in the Room)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Searching for Our Silver Lining reminds us of the important act of shutting up and listening. She talks about how much can be gained by hearing someone else’s thoughts. She specifically addresses the conversation around feminism. Go read her words.

The Barreness also writes about Black Lives Matter and systemic racism, tying together yoga practice and the hard work of sitting with uncomfortable truths. She writes, “Many days it is like pulling myself through taffy, other days it is total joy. This practice is healthy for me, as things are upside down in my country. I am ashamed, angry, heartbroken and yet still hopeful.” I love this post and the analogy it contains.

Lastly, My Lady of the Lantern wonders how it could be so long between posts. She writes about the pandemic: “Something I discussed as a remote instance with my students in February, is now the reason why I have been home for a couple of months now.” Isn’t it so weird to think back to how we were thinking and moving as recently as February? Again, the one nice thing in the pandemic is that old familiar voices are popping up to check in.

The roundup to the Roundup: It was a week. School is almost over. 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 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.