Category — Friday Blog Roundup

So once upon a time, we were at a Hebrew school crossroads, trying to decide how/if we wanted to continue.  I was really on the fence, not sure the best path forward.  That day, I received a note through the Listserve.  I’ve been on the list since the first note because I signed up for it before it began since I wrote an article about it.  I never left, and I read every single one that comes into my inbox.

I’ve written three Listserve writers since it started in 2012.  One was a fellow infertility blogger.  One was a funny coincidence that I felt had to be shared.  The last was the author of the note I just mentioned.

He wrote about being in Israel and how all these decisions and events from his past led up to his current life.  First of all, it was just a really smart, well-written piece, but secondly, he specifically mentioned how his Bar Mitzvah didn’t really mean anything to him at the time, but how it informed these other life choices.  And he wrote, “This is all to say that I’m learning about the power of knowing your history, of being able to continually connect your present experience with the past—the now with the then.”

It felt like a sign from the universe; to get this note delivered to my inbox exactly when I needed it.  We decided to keep with the whole traditional Hebrew school to B’nai Mitzvah path, and look, here we are.  Anyway, I wrote him at the time to tell him this story, and we went back and forth with notes.  I promised I would write him in 4 years and let him know if the kids thanked him or cursed him.  It has now been 4 years, and I got to write to thank him for his words all those years ago.

The point of all this: You write something and you have no clue how your words will change someone else’s life.  They’ll make a different decision or they’ll try something new, and their life will go off in a new and wonderful direction.  I like to believe that the right words generally reach you at the right time if you’re open to hearing them.  I know they did that night when I opened the Listserve email.

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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:

• “Sometimes, You Can’t Run After Them” (Inconceivable!)
• “‘As a Father’ (Same Song, Second Verse)” (The Road Less Travelled)
• “Squawk Box: Secondary Losses” (Unpregnant Chicken)
• “Read Your Own Story” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you, Cristy!

Okay, now my choices this week.

So, yes, she’s above, but I only read Inconceivable! over the weekend to find her gorgeous post about The Runaway Bunny.  She writes, “The Runaway Bunny seemed particularly apt.  If you run away, I will run after you, the mother bunny promises her little bunny.  I had run after this child, first with all the poking and prodding, then medications, and finally the IVF.  Right then, it seemed perhaps I had finally caught this baby.”  It is a post marking Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness month, and it is such a gorgeous, heartbreaking post.

Misconceptions About Conception explores whether genes matter to her after she gets back pictures from a family photo shoot.  She admits that she has no comparison, no way of proving she is correct, but she knows what she knows with her heart.  It’s a beautiful post about love.

Lastly, My Path to Mommyhood has a post about being asked the “do you have kids” question while she was trying to enjoy herself at a ball.  (A ball with video games?  I am so there.)  My favourite line: “I think sometimes people feel better if they think that they’ve given you hope, even though for us hope came finally in the letting go of that possibility so we could focus on the rest of our life.”

The roundup to the Roundup: When the right words come at the right time.  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 13th and 20th) 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.

You get to hear my annoyance because the store in this story requires you to create an account in order to leave them a message online.  And I’m not creating an account.

So.

I received an email from a bookstore telling me that best selling hardcovers were 30% off.  Click “see all” to see the list of books.  I think I will.

So I clicked “see all” and saw that — WHAT? — John Green’s new book was on the list and was 30% off.*

Awesome.  I’ll just run over to the bookstore and buy John Green’s new book.

So I go into the bookstore and pick up the book.  I take it to the counter to pay.  The cashier charges me the full amount.  No, I tell her, look at this email on this handy little smartphone I have in my pocket.  This is YOUR email stating that the book is 30% off.  She could see it, but she wouldn’t honour it because it was not coming up that way in her machine.

So I left the store without the new John Green book because there are other bookstores in town and while the errand was now a waste of my time and energy, there was the principle of the situation.  I’m not going to reward a store for falsely advertising a product.

I looked on my phone and saw a nearby store was selling it at 20% off the cover price.  I walked over to said store and — lo and behold — it was there at 20% off, just as they stated.  So I bought the book.  Errand redeemed.

What is the point of all of this?  That John Green has a new book out.  And if stores are going to advertise, they need to honour their advertisements.  And that it’s easier to be cranky about false advertising than everything truly awful happening in the world right now.

* Yes, I just took screenshots of the email and the website because I’m that cranky right now.  I am right.  They are wrong.

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It’s Friday the 13th.  I have this compulsive need to type that every time the Roundup falls on the 13th.

*******

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:

• “Strengthening the Ghosts” (My Path to Mommyhood)
• “What Adds Dimension to My Life” (No Kidding in NZ)
• “How Do You Say ‘Thank You’ to Someone You Never Met?” (Inconceivable!)
• “Roadtrip: Ottawa” (The Road Less Travelled)
• “#World Childless Week Day 4 Words that Hurt” (Infertilityhonesty)
• “The Consequence of Intimacy” (Stirrup Queens) — Thank you, Katherinea12!
• “The Snake Bite of Death” (Stirrup Queens)
• “What Will They Think of Me?” (Stirrup Queens)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Searching for Our Silver Lining has a post about the “I’ll nevers” we make when we are in crisis.  As she admits: “I made a lot of statements and promises about how life would be one day when I was no longer in the trenches.”  She recounts a particularly trying day and says, “A big part of it was the guilt I faced as I could literally see the 2012 Cristy, with all the ‘I’ll nevers’ that I swore up and down not to do staring me in the face.”  This post.  That’s all I’ll say: this post.  Read it.

My Path to Mommyhood has a post about the often-used phrase “as a mother.”  But it’s not what you think.  It’s about the one time… maybe ever?… a person has caught themselves and corrected themselves in the moment, realizing their feelings maybe came from something larger than this one role.

Lastly, The Road Less Travelled has a post about buying diapers for her SIL’s niece.  What I thought was most interesting was the different feelings she and her husband experienced in the moment.  You’ll have to click over and read to the end to discover their reactions.

The roundup to the Roundup: Sharing my annoyance.  It’s 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 October 6th and 13th) 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.

Once upon a time, maybe one or two remarkable newsworthy things happened in a week and Josh and I would text about them during the work day.  For instance, a news story would break, one of us got an alert about it, and we’d comment back and forth via text.  The evening news would be consumed with that news story.  Maybe it would even hold court as the front running news story for a few days.

We’ve mostly stopped texting each other about the news during the day.  We cannot keep up.  It feels like most of it is bad.  What is there even to say at this point that hasn’t been said or thought the day before or the day before that or the day before that?

I don’t know if the world feels more tumultuous and chaotic because it actually is or if I’m viewing it through a skewed lens.  But it feels awful.  The world just feels awful.

*******

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:

• “Old Photographs” (My Path to Mommyhood)
• “Capturing Vacation” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you, Cristy!
• “The Next Hurdle” (Searching for Our Silver Lining)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Different Shores has a post about not writing as much about not having a child; that the subject has mentally moved to the back burner as more current thoughts crowd into place.  She explains: “Caring about my childless state has dropped right to the bottom of the list, faded into insignificance.”  It makes sense; I think of the things that occupied my thoughts at other times in life and all have faded or changed over time.

Inconceivable! has a post about their frozen embryos.  I love this line: “What – as the dust settles – we’re only now truly starting to account for in a meaningful way is how much the whole journey has taken out of us.”  And yet the decision twists and turns until she ultimately reaches a place of peace.

Non Sequitur Chica sums up eight years of anniversaries.  Infertility looms large, and she wonders how life will be different now that family building is behind them.  We’ll have to check in this time next year for another update.

Lastly, Look No Tubes has a pregnancy update, wondering about people who go to scans for fun.  What is it like to go to the sonographer with happy anticipation instead of a heart full of dread?  She writes, “Anyway, I’m still not feeling entirely relaxed about the pregnancy – I don’t think I’ll ever get to that point. But it does feel as if we’ve gotten over some hurdles today. Hopefully, eventually, I will unclench enough to be able to plan beyond my next scan.”  Congratulations on reaching that milestone.

The roundup to the Roundup: It all feels wrong.  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 September 29th and October 6th) 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 sister bought me guinea pig socks.  Do you know how amazing it is to go to the mailbox to get the mail and see a lumpy package inside?  And then open strange package and find a pair of socks featuring guinea pigs thinking about carrots?

It made my whole week.

ChickieNob instantly wanted them for herself, but HANDS OFF.  I will share t-shirt collection.  I will share my high heels.  But I will not share my guinea pig socks.

They make me so happy.

*******

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:

• “May I Please Have An Order of Heartbreak, with a Side of PTSD?” (The Daily Dose)
• “The Bad Mother” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you, Cristy!
• “Sacrificing Our Outrage” (Lavender Luz)
• “How We React” (Fighting Infertility)
• “A Weird, Vicarious Two Week Wait” (My Path to Mommyhood)
• “Living an Ordinary Life” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you, Jess!

Okay, now my choices this week.

No Kidding in NZ has a post about being an aunt.  I love this post because it’s nuanced; looking at the pros and cons of parenthood or not as well as the fact that just as you cannot control whether or not parenthood happens, you also can’t control the child that ends up in your life.  I love this: “But there are also complicated and confused emotions, knowing that I wouldn’t wish my sister’s concerns on anyone, and feeling relief that I am not the one primarily bearing that burden, but also knowing that there is great joy in her role as well as great fear and sadness, and that I would have willingly born these myself, if I had had the chance.”  It’s a gorgeous post — go read the whole thing.

Res Cogitatae has a post about the worth of changing things when life is working for some but not for all.  She asks: “If everyone else in your family is happy, is it selfish to want to change things just because you aren’t?”  The comments are good, too.  Go join the discussion.

Lastly, Family Rocks has a post about how a kind gesture also brought out feelings of shame and a sense of “less than.”  It is a post about doing a lot, all with a chorus of internal voices telling you their opinion, too.  It’s a post that will both feel familiar and also contains a deeper layer once the surface is peeled away to explain what life is like when you find yourself living a Plan B you never imagined.

The roundup to the Roundup: My sister got me guinea pig socks.  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 September 22nd and 29th) 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 thought the world was going to end, but it turns out that it probably isn’t.  Wheeew.  Though I was so certain that tomorrow was it for mankind that I stopped rounding up posts.  Didn’t make a lot of sense to highlight great blogs no one would have time to read.

Okay, maybe I just heard about the world ending thing today from the Washington Post, but it sounded like a better excuse than saying Rosh Hashanah derailed my week.  Between the cooking and the cleaning and the services, I didn’t have time to write up the stuff I bookmarked.  So you’re getting a non-post, and we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled program next week.

Provided the world doesn’t end before that.

So… when is the next world ending prediction?