Category — Friday Blog Roundup

Last week, we went to the movies and the woman behind the counter seemed familiar.  I asked her if she had ever worked at a shop in town, and she immediately said, “Was I rude to you?”

I was taken aback, and I said, “No, absolutely not.”

But she kept repeating, “I probably was rude.  That’s just how I was back then.”  I kept reassuring her that I only had fond memories of interactions with her at the shop.  She wouldn’t look at me; she just kept smiling tensely at the counter between us and repeating her assertion that she had probably been rude.

I was thrown off because I couldn’t tell if she had been fired over interactions with customers and she still carried baggage from that situation, or if she had left by her own volition and was in a constant state of inwardly cringing at her past.  All I know is that my subconsciousness associates her with kindness and good times and happiness.  So clearly the way she remembers herself is very different from how I viewed her as an outsider.

I guess I’m saying this because I’m still thinking about it, and that it goes both ways.  That outsiders may judge us harshly without knowing our story.  And, at the same time, we may judge ourselves harshly whereas strangers view us as a source of kindness.

*******

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:

• “Breaking the Silence: Why I Stayed” (Just J.o)
• “Who is Sitting Next to You” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you, Cristy!
• “#Microblog Mondays: Baby Parade” (My Path to Mommyhood)
• “The Birth Plan: Pregnancy After Loss Style” (PALS)
• “Struggling” (The Road Less Travelled)
• “So, Why Didn’t We Just Adopt?” (Not So Mommy)
• “Advice Column Gets It Wrong” (Infertile Phoenix)

Okay, now my choices this week.

An Engineer Becomes a Mom has a post about the universe working in strange ways to bring the right thing at the right moment.  In this case, it was a telephone call last spring, and this old draft-post-pushed-live gives the backstory of the moment when someone from her biological father’s family reached out.  I found it incredibly moving.

NotMyLinesYet has a post about all the things missing: from her period to her willingness to interact with her own body.  It’s one of those important, must-read posts that give you insight into the world of infertility.  What we go through physically and emotionally.

Lastly, Anabegins has an eye-opening post about the FOMO that is built into Thanksgiving (and, frankly, every other holiday, too).  Either you feel the pressure to travel to be with people, even with the stress of traffic or high airfare costs, or you make something closer to home and deal with that stress.  Either way, it’s like the upside down of holidays: the part that Hallmark probably doesn’t want us to think about too deeply, but a really interesting question about how we set our stress and emotional-tugging limits.

The roundup to the Roundup: Sometimes we’re better than we 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 November 17th and 24th) 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 week I went into my settings to discover what Facebook knows about me.  90% of it is wrong.  I really felt like I was being trolled by Facebook; like it was showing me wrong information to tease me.  But it did figure out that I like video games.  I do.  I like video games very very very much.

Which is why it has hurt my heart that I’ve been playing fewer video games over the last few months.  I took on too many work contracts, which is excellent for our budget and terrible for my video game time.  I’m trying to be a grown up about it, but it’s hard because I’m not very mature.

Mostly I’m saving up all of my energy and video gaming time for Wizards Unite.  I refused to play Pokemon Go because I hated their terms of service, but I’m totally willing to hand over all my personal information to pretend to be a wizard.  I am so excited for this game.  Are you going to play?

*******

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.

Baby Smiling in Back Seat has a post about being too scared to speak up about her infertility in the past.  She writes, “An opportunity had presented itself to educate a large group of people about infertility. The whys, the hows, the whos, all of it. A topic I knew better than almost any other. But it was too raw for me and I didn’t.”  There is more to this story than contained in the post, but it’s still food for thought: about expiration dates for talking about infertility (is there one?) and the topics we find we can’t speak about despite being experts due to life experience.

I adore The Road Less Travelled’s post about what she has learned from 10 years of blogging, which also inversely contains thoughts on getting through 10 years of living childless/childfree after loss and infertility without blogging.  It is a fantastic list, and it made my heart swell thinking about how much I love our little corner of the blogosphere.

Lastly, Something Out of Nothing has a post about her second pregnancy — another hard-fought pregnancy — and how it is different from the first time around.  It was interesting how it mirrors many of the statements made by women pregnant without assistance, but also the difference between how pregnancies are monitored in different parts of the world.

The roundup to the Roundup: Harry Potter augmented reality!  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 10th and 17th) 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 week I taught the youth of America what it is like to be a writer for Career Day.  I am always shocked when anyone asks me to talk about anything.

The kids begged me not to add into my presentation how much time I spend bouncing ideas off of Linus the Guinea Pig.  I did admit that one of the best reasons to be a writer is that you are at home with all of the Halloween candy.  The second best reason to be a writer is that you know multiple definitions for words like sanguine, so you’re helpful when other people are doing the crossword puzzle on the Metro.  The third best reason to be a writer is for that moment when you open the box with copies of your book.

And you get to spend your day with characters who interest you (that you hope also interest everyone else).

Maybe I planted a little mental seed for someone at the school and they’ll tell me about their book one day.

*******

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:

• “Waiting at the Clinic” (Countingpinklines)
• “10 Years Down the Road Less Travelled” (The Road Less Travelled)
• “The Weight of the Moment” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you, Cristy!
• “Her Son is Only Hers. She Can’t Bear to Think Otherwise” (Lavender Luz)
• “Knowing What is Important” (No Kidding in NZ)
• “#MicroblogMondays: Flip” (Searching for Our Silver Lining)

Okay, now my choices this week.

In Quest of a Binky Moongee has a post about her mother slipping into the role of grandmother.  It is a sweet post about life after a long, family building wait.  She writes: “Of course she knows that they have no genetic connections to her. And of course this fact makes no difference in her love for them. My mother is truly an inspiration for me to learn how to be patient with my babies when sleep is lacking and crying and whining become frequent.”  I got choked up reading it.

Countingpinklines charts out her last IVF cycle, passing it along to anyone who wants to see because it’s exactly what she would have wanted before she started this process.  She explains, “From what I’ve read, it doesn’t seem like IVF cycles are very different between individuals. Meds and doses vary but the time frames are roughly the same. I wish I had this diagram before doing the whole process. It would have helped me wrap my mind around what was going on much more.”  This is what I love about our community; our impulse to pass along anything we know.

Lavender Luz has a post about a parent and child joking about adoption.  She realizes in the moment that they’re not being cruel.  “It’s just that they’ve never thought of the implications of treating adoption as a joke.”  She opens up a conversation about it, speaking without judgment but merely giving the mother food for thought.  It’s a really great post about thinking on your feet.

Lastly, holding One Step at a Time in my heart after the death of her father.  She has a very moving post about his last days.  It opens: “My father took his last breath while I was on the beach with Nicky. Nicky was running back and forth in the water with his hands up like a traffic officer, telling the waves to stop rolling in. “You can’t stop the waves from coming, Nicky.” You can’t stop death from coming either.”  Please go give her a hug.

The roundup to the Roundup: Not messing up Career Day.  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 3rd and 10th) 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.

(1) I need a vegan brownie recipe.  Actually, it doesn’t have to be vegan, per se, but it cannot contain eggs.  My friend and I are in a bake-off, and her daughter is the judge.  This give her an unfair home field advantage, so I am using my blog to gather recipes.  The prize is apparently a million hugs, so I’m thinking I may lose this one by default.  But still, I’m fighting hard.  Send me your best vegan brownie recipes.  And if you’ve ever perfected a vegan chocolate chip cookie, I’ll take that, too.

(2) I also need gluten-free cookie recipes for cookies that travel well.  Again, trying to charm a gluten-free child with baked goods, and while I’ll be dropping off some cookies face-to-face in a few weeks, I also need to be able to mail batches if she falls in love with any of them.

So send me good recipes that you’ve made and help me win.  Because everyone deserves a good cookie, no?

*******

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: Flip” (Searching for Our Silver Lining)
• “The Return” (Baby Smiling in Back Seat)
• “Me Too” (Bent Not Broken)
• “Don’t Stop Believing” (Genuine Greavu)
• “Time Famine” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you, Cristy!

Okay, now my choices this week.

The Road Less Travelled has a post about the misery filter, discussing a recent column in the New York Times.  She writes, “I agree that an emphasis on relentless optimism and the carefully curated images we see on social media contribute to the shock — & shame — that we feel when something goes wrong in our lives (as it inevitably does, at some point).”  It’s a fascinating look at an “education for suffering.”  Go over and join the conversation.

Searching for Our Silver Lining has a beautiful post about unsilencing yourself and speaking about your struggles.  She speaks about it on the personal level — the act of unburdening your heart by letting others in — but also on a more collective scale.  She writes about infertility: “It’s because a brave few started all of this by coming out of the infertility closet, shameless sharing their stories. And those few grew to many more, empowering many more to do the same. And though infertility and pregnancy loss are still taboo, particularly if you don’t resolve by parenting, the truth is there are more much needed conversations that are happening. The unsilencing has lead to awareness.“  Here’s to sharing your story.

Torthúil writes about hosting a birthday party, and it’s (1) an awesome accomplishment and (2) a fascinating behind-the-scenes reminder of what you may not know about a person.  That people generally have their reasons for why they do what they do, even if they don’t share them with you.  (But thank you, Torthúil, for sharing the reasons with us.)  Aaaaand, if you’ve ever struggled with planning a party, she gives you an easy template to follow.  Win!

Lastly, Anabegins talks about letting silence flood back into her brain.  Until I read this post, I hadn’t really thought about the fact that I’m really behind on podcasts because I’ve been driving around in silence for the last few weeks.  So, yeah, turning off podcasts sometimes clears your brain.  But this is the brilliant part: “So I decided to reinstate quiet into my commute and the blank space is back! Plus I get to save up the podcasts to add some joy to the truly uninspiring moments of life, like laundry-folding and kitchen-cleaning.”  Yes, that’s where I’m going to fit podcasts back in, too.

The roundup to the Roundup: Give me egg-free and/or gluten-free baking recipes.  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 27th and November 3rd) 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.

Facebook has been killing me softly with its memories feature. Every morning, I open Facebook, and every morning Facebook tells me that it bets I would like to see a memory from last year. No, Facebook, I would not. We’re currently living the outcome of the election and our country is a mess. I would not like to relive the experience again and again and again.

No like.

Particularly painful is that I know an update is coming up in the next week or so where I told the ChickieNob this was the last time she would go to bed in a country that never had a woman president. Sorry, kid, not only did you wake up to another 365 days with that glass ceiling, but instead we’re in yet another cycle of #metoo.

Last year I went to speak to the students at the middle school for Career Day right after the election. Everyone was still shell-shocked, and we spent more time talking about the election results vs. my job. I’ve been asked to return and speak for Career Day again, and like a bad Facebook memory, all I can think about is how the world felt this time last year.  How it still feels the same.

*******

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 and Light” (Searching for Our Silver Lining)
• “With Different Eyes” (Bent Not Broken)
• “Survival is Not Mandatory” (No Kidding in NZ)
• “Showered” (Infertilityhonesty)
• “Microblog Mondays: Home Sweet Home” (My Path to Mommyhood)
• “You Make Yourself Sad” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you, Cristy!
• “How Infertility Kills” (Searching for Our Silver Lining)
• “Ripples” (Searching for Our Silver Lining)

Okay, now my choices this week.

A Separate Life has a post about friends she made via the Internet through a blogging challenge back in 2006. She writes, “These links around the world, born on the ether and solidified over the years, or born in real life and maintained on the ether, make me happy and sad, they educate me and delight me and sustain me, and add to the richness of my life. Our hugs may only be virtual, but our love is real.”  So true.  It’s a gorgeous post; go read the whole thing.

Jewish IVF is returning for her seventh IVF cycle. She talks one of the lesser discussed aspects of IVF — that the patient has to be on top of every aspect of the cycle or be possibly affected physically, emotionally, or financially. She explains, “It’s a challenge to constantly be on the ball and know that if I miss something then we lose out.” It’s scary when you consider that thin line. While it’s true in so many places in life, the stakes feel high when we’re talking about something so expensive and so invasive that is completely dictated by time.

Author* brings light to a very serious topic: domestic abuse. She explains how it can happen even to the most outspoken woman; even the strongest self-advocates. It’s a post about the rational meeting the emotional; what the head knows and the heart suspects. It’s an important post for every woman to read. *Because this is about domestic abuse, I’m not going to post the blog name.  Please don’t put it in the comments, too.

Lastly, Bent Not Broken has a post about her sister announcing her pregnancy on social media before she has told her. While she knew about the pregnancy from their mother, her sister hadn’t told her directly because she worried about hurting her feelings. Though, of course, posting on social media meant she still found out about the pregnancy, but she did so without the personal touch that comes from a direct discussion. It’s food for thought for anyone struggling to talk about something.

The roundup to the Roundup: No, thanks, Facebook.  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 20th and 27th) 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.