Category — Friday Blog Roundup

I am one Roundup away from my 700th Roundup.  It’s falling quite close to the anniversary of the very first Roundup, which was on July 21st.  I didn’t know how to hyperlink text back then.  It also seems like I didn’t know how to get the permalink for the post because I only included the main URL for the blog.  Oh weren’t we all so adorable back then?

Next week, I will write the normal 700th Roundup, but the week after that, I would like to celebrate by asking YOU to dive deep into your memory and come up with a post (or posts) that stuck with you.  You can go back as far as July 21, 2006.  You can nominate your own OR you can choose someone else’s post.  I’m giving you two weeks fair warning so you have no excuse.  Be ready to celebrate on July 6th.

And yes, I have a blog post chosen.  It is one that I have returned to read many times, and I think about all the time.  It is the best framing I’ve ever read.  It has changed my life; I hope it changes yours for the better, too.

So show up with your post and get ready to party.  Because… come on… 12 years of pretty much every single Friday?  That deserves a celebration with my favourite people.

*******

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… (dude, you guys better do better on July 6th — see above)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Wild and Precious Life has a post about how the separated families makes raw her own loss.  How she has to squelch that — this is about their situation — but also how it drives her because she knows what it feels like to live a nightmare.  It’s a beautiful, aching post about a truly awful situation.

Empty Arms, Broken Heart has a post about changing names now that the adoption is finalized.  The kids call all adults by their first name prefaced with Mr. or Ms. (As in, Ms. Melissa.)  And now it’s time (maybe?) to transition the kids to calling her parents something akin to Grandma or Grandpa.  And it begs another question: “I guess the biggest issue, regarding what my kids should call my parents, is really the very large elephant in the room, which is what do my parents call my kids?”  This post made me think about the complicated nature of names.

Lastly, Inexplicably Missing has a post about being in a waiting space.  She explains, “I promise I’m not stagnating. I just happen to be still. Hanging out. Watching. Waiting. Somewhat planning my next move. Somewhat not.”  Thinking and breathing are both good things.  Love this little post.

The roundup to the Roundup: July 6th — Roundup celebration (be there or be square).  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 15th and 22nd) 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.

My cousin talked me into my second audio book.  I don’t normally do audio books because I have a terrible attention span.  I get through about five minutes of concentrating on the story.  Then I start daydreaming, and a few minutes pass and I realize I haven’t been listening at all.  Books — unlike news podcasts — require you to listen closely and keep details in your head.  The only audio book I’ve ever gotten through was Barrel Fever by David Sedaris, and Josh and I listened to it as we drove through Canada.  That was 18 years ago.

But she told me that I would love Alan Cumming’s book as an audio book, and she’s totally correct.  He’s a great storyteller, and hearing the book aloud is similar to hearing a Spaulding Gray monologue.  Plus it’s a great story; a heartbreaking one, but I’m riveted listening to him talk about his father.

Especially close to Father’s Day.

It has made me reconsider audio books.  Not all the time, but I think I’ll check out another one when I finish this one.

*******

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:

• “What I Learned — Microblog Monday” (Pages, Stages, and Rages)

Okay, now my choices this week.

NotMyLinesYet has a moving post containing a letter to her children who aren’t here.  She writes, “When we cremated the girls, DH and I wrote each one a letter that was cremated with her. I realized today while I was taking a walk that I wanted to do the same for the six babies we didn’t even get to cremate.”  It’s a beautiful letter and a moving way of honouring those lives.

Much Ado About Nothing has a post about friendships told in tiny vignettes.  The friends who slip out of our lives and realizing that she has been living with her best friend all along… It’s just a really good post.

Lastly, Dubliner in Deutschland has a post about her transversary (her transfer anniversary).  It’s a great post because we rarely know at the time that we’re living the most monumental moments of our lives.  And this ordinary transfer plus the row over where to eat and the emotion of the day resulted in her daughter.  I smiled through the whole post knowing the end of the story.

The roundup to the Roundup: Trying audio books.  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 8th and 15th) 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.

We are crawling towards the end of the school year.  I’m waiting for the twins to bring home their yearbooks so they can finally show me the people who appeared in this year’s stories.  It’s a strange thing — when they were little, I was in the school all the time, and I knew everyone in their grade.  Now it’s apparently “uncool” for your mother to hang out at the building.  So I know everyone from their elementary school and a handful of kids who have passed through our home.  But everyone else is like a book character in my head.

So I’m looking forward to finally having a face to put with the name for the recurring characters in the stories they tell me after school.

I liked The Atlantic’s article on signing yearbooks and how it has changed over the years.  My high school gave us insert pages that we could carry around instead of the book itself; both for easier transport AND to ensure that people didn’t scribbling over their picture.  This was brilliant except that I never took the sticky tab off the insert pages to put them in the book.  So the pages are somewhere in storage, and the books are unsigned on the shelf.

My favourite signing rhyme from childhood didn’t make the article: “Remember A, remember B, C that you remember me.”  I thought that was so freakin’ clever.  And “May your summer be long and useful, like a roll of toilet paper.”

We were such cards.

*******

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:

• “Smiling at the Tumbleweeds” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you, Lori and Northern Star!
• “So Then G-d Spaketh: ‘Let’s give the poor bitch bipolar too!’” (Edenland)
• “While You’re Alive” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you, Jess!
• “Saying ‘No’” (No Kidding in NZ)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Something Out of Nothing had her baby.  It is a sweet post about the birth and becoming a family of four.  I loved it because I remember posts before he was conceived.  And now he’s here.  The story continues.

Countingpinklines has a post about her college reunion.  She is currently pregnant and cannot go, but she muses what she would have done if she was still waiting.  She writes, “For all that reunions can be fun, it can also be emotionally painful. Too many reminders of things not working out in life where you see everyone around present their perfect lives.”  I went to my high school 10th while we were doing treatments, and it was hard.

NotMyLinesYet has a post about an encounter with an oracle card deck.  You’ll have to click over and read the post to find out how the cards answered her question, but I love this line (and it will make sense after you read): “So here I sit, expecting miracles, no matter what’s in the cards for us.”

Lastly, Infertile Phoenix has a post about looking at pictures of other people’s kids.  She asks a lot of questions about how to protect her heart and honour where she is at this moment while also interacting with the world around her: “How do I interact in the world that’s full of fertile people? How do I participate in life with others when a lot of basic things are still so painful for me?”  There are no right or wrong answers, but all the questions in the post are good questions.

The roundup to the Roundup: Yearbook is coming.  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 1st and 8th) 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.

One of my books is on sale for the first two weeks of June on all platforms, and it’s for the best reason EVER.  (Okay, maybe not ever, but it’s a really cool reason.)  Apart at the Seams is on sale for $1.99 from June 1st to June 15th because June 13th is National Sewing Machine Day.  There is a whole day on the calendar to celebrate sewing machines.  We live in an amazing world.

So head over to your favourite place to get books and pick up Apart at the Seams for two dollars.  Technically under two dollars.  You can’t even get a spool of thread for that price.

Please help me spread word.

And the twins’ book was chosen by Amazon to be one of their Summer Toy List picks!  They get a super neat badge above the book name.

Hello Scratch! is on their STEM in the Summer list.  Amazon’s explanation:

STEM toys go beyond the classroom and after the school year to educate and excite kids of all ages. STEM toys encourage kids to learn and develop skills in the core disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The 2018 Summer Toy List captures the best STEM toys which have clear goals and encourage kids to learn and continue developing STEM skills while having fun during the summer. Keep your kids learning this summer by using the Amazon 2018 Summer Toy List where you can explore hundreds of this year’s top STEM toys.

I am so freakin’ proud of them.  Their book rocks AND teaches basic computer science concepts AND how to make retro video games.  And they indulge me in my Yahtzee obsession.  They really are cool kids.

*******

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:

• CIO Citizen, which is the awesome Facebook project of an ALI blogger
• “MicroblogMondays: Santa Cruz” (Searching for Our Silver Lining)
• “Gifts of Infertility Series #25 – A Reminder of What is Important” (No Kidding in NZ)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Constant in the Darkness has a post about how infertility colours our experience.  She sees a child wearing a t-shirt that reads: Bio Kid.  Guess where her mind (and my mind!) went…

The Road Less Travelled has a hard post about what is always a hard time of year.  20 years ago this month, she was happily pregnant with Katie.  20 years later, she is delaying travel plans to care for her ill father-in-law.  She writes, “On the bright (?) side — I was fretting that by taking vacation in early August, we would not be here for Katie’s milestone 20th ‘anniversary’ dates. Be careful what you wish for, right?” Sending a lot of love.

Lastly, My Path to Mommyhood has a post about what it means to look forward when you know you need to honour and remember what came before.  She explains, “Immerse is the key word — you can visit, you can reflect, but you can’t be a functioning, forward-thinking, forward-planning person if you are forever immersed in the events of your past.”  It’s a beautiful post about getting to a place where you can “celebrate the life you have and not the one you were denied for inexplicable reasons.”

The roundup to the Roundup: Apart at the Seams is on sale AND the twins’ book, Hello Scratch, is being featured by Amazon.  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 May 25th and June 1st) 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.

My brother wrote a book called Little Disasters, and it’s kinda sorta a big deal.  As in every major publication has reviewed it. (In case you were wondering, it’s very trippy seeing your brother in the Washington Post.)  We’re going to visit copies of it at the bookstore this weekend, and if you are so inclined, you too can visit copies at your local bookstore and purchase it.  Or order it online.

I am insanely proud of him.

[Yes, we are a literary family.  Yes, we are trying to convince my sister to write a book, too.  Yes, our goal is to take over one complete bookshelf.]

My book review comes with a warning; there is baby loss in the book.  You will ache for the couple who loses their child at birth.  If you’re in a vulnerable space, bookmark this and return to his book when you can read it.  If you’re not currently in a vulnerable space, this book is a page turner.  Bring it to the beach or the pool this summer.  I love it.  I love the person who wrote it, but I really love this book.  It’s an incredible accomplishment.

*******

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:

• “#Microblog Mondays: My Un-Mother’s Day” (My Pathway to Mommyhood)
• “There’s So Far to Go” (An Engineer Becomes a Mom)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Dubliner in Deutschland has a post about the reality of parenthood.  I love the title: “You Don’t Have to Love Every Second.”  It comes from a familiar idea: “…The fact that her daughter was such a miracle, she would feel a lot of pressure to enjoy every moment even the hard ones.”  It’s a pressure a lot of people put on themselves after infertility.  It’s a reassuring post that growth moves in spurts and the hard days are often replaced by easier ones.

Northern Star is back!  Constant in the Darkness has an update about her three year adoption wait.  They had such a positive experience with their first child’s adoption that they thought they’d have a similar wait for their second child.  She writes, “It was crushing. It was hard on our marriage. It was hard on my heart.”  It is about life throwing you curve balls, and how some knock you down and others you catch in amazement.

Lastly, My Path to Mommyhood has a post that outlines the difference between the words childLESS and childFREE.  I love this thought after a wonderful albeit stressful trip: “I could recover without needing to split my energy.”  Not a small thing.  And this: “And now I can give so much more to you guys, to my wonderful students who I love and embarrass and laugh with as if they are my own.”  Beautiful.

The roundup to the Roundup: My brother wrote a book.  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 May 18th and 25th) 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.