Category — Friday Blog Roundup

Linus and I have been having a good time curling up on the sofa and reading the Washington Post.  He likes to face the iPad screen as if he is reading, too.  He’s just a really smart pig.

Reading the Washington Post is the way I’m going to quiet down the noise online.  I decided this week that I am only going to get my news from five sources: Washington Post, New York Times (less so, since I only have a certain number of free articles per month), NPR, BBC, and CNN (more news than commentator opinion).

If something is actually news, it will show up in one of those five sources above.  Not every story will hit all five spaces, but important information will hit one of those five spaces.  And if it doesn’t appear in any of those five spaces, I’m going to mark it down as somewhere between not true and too soon to tell.

The rest of my time online, I’m reading personal stories or emotional reactions to the news.  In other words, I’m reading your blogs.  I don’t mind reading about current events in a space where I already connect with the writer; in fact, I enjoy that.  But the constant barrage of opinion pieces of Medium and Huffington Post, not to mention the countless memes and tweets, have me burned out.  As I said earlier this week, it’s like one, on-going scream.  And I need things to be a little quieter if I want to think.

Where are you getting your news?

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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:

• None… sniff.

Okay, now my choices this week.

In Search of Motherhood has a post about making a hard choice.  She turns down an academic position despite wanting it badly due to how much it will take her away from her kids: “But it is so incredibly frustrating.  I am forced to choose between a satisfying professional life and dedicating time to my children.  It shouldn’t have to be this way.”  It shouldn’t, and that’s a fight worth having: making the workplace a healthy part of a life vs. the workplace overshadowing a life.  Everyone needs a work-life balance, whether parenting or not.

Riding the IVF Roller Coaster has a post about immigration that contains an important reminder getting lost in the global conversation: “I think that people forget that people don’t want to NEED to leave home. They were proud not of what it had become but of its heart. They were proud of their language; my friend tried taught me some Vietnamese because I was interested. They were proud of their food and shared it with me. They had a large flag in the dining room. They also felt an obligation to the country that took them in.”  It is hard enough to leave what you know.  It is harder still to feel unwelcome where you land.

Lastly, Pages, Stages, and Rages has a post about how Broadway songs are keeping her sane.  She admits: “I then thought of what I used to do when I was uncomfortable and I thought of Man of La Mancha. Got the CD and listened to it. And today, today, it is helping me go on. Helping me say that I can follow the quest. No matter how hopeless, no matter how far.”  I love this, from one musical theater geek to another.

The roundup to the Roundup: Where I’m getting my news.  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 January 27th and February 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.

I’m going to find out tomorrow if we get to bring home the baby guinea pig or not.  I checked in with the woman mid-week, and she promised to send me a message the moment she heard from the other person.  So you’ll either get a picture of a really cute guinea pig on Sunday, or you’ll get a weepy post from me about how we didn’t bring home said guinea pig.  Either way, at least I’ll know in a few days.

I bought a new carrier, feeling hopeful.  We’ll use it at some point, and it’s better to be ready than scrambling.  We have a Plan B and C and D in case this particular pig doesn’t work out.

I’m getting all my guinea pig names lined up.  ChickieNob named Cozy.  Josh mostly named Truman.  I have already been told that while the first name I’m offering up will be under consideration, the middle name I paired with it is off the table because it’s “awful.” (No, it’s not, ChickieNob.)  We’ll see.  I plan to fight hard for naming rights.

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The house has been very quiet without Truman.  It is weird to chop vegetables and not hear him begging for a few pieces of carrot.  It is weird to leave the house and not say goodbye to him.  It is weird to enter the house and not call out hello.

We talk about him as if he is still here.

*******

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:

• “Nothing Shameful to See Here” (Alaskan Blueberry)
• “Inauguration 2017” (Family Building with a Twist)
• “Why We Chose Agency Adoption, and Not Private” (My Path to Mommyhood)
• “About Those Shoes We’ve All Been In” (My Path to Mommyhood)
• “Five Years After My Daughter’s Death…” (Inkling Post)
• “Writing About Those with Different Outcomes” (No Kidding in NZ)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Bent Not Broken has a post about privilege, recognizing your own, and the recent marches.  She writes: “I know what it is like to struggle every single day.  I vow never to forget this.  I also know privilege. I vow to not use my position of privilege to judge others, and instead to use my voice to advocate for them.”  I got chills reading down her refrain of “The march was important to me.”

A+ Effort has an eye-opening list on her blog about representation — from the first female senator to the first Native American Supreme Court Justice.  If you’re wondering about that last one, click over to read the whole list.

Anabegins has a sweet post about belonging.  Okay, so it’s also about not belonging, but the sweet part comes near the end when she talks about three fictional fish.  “The other day I was telling him one in which the 3 were hanging out together on a holiday. He looked up at me and said, ‘I wish I had friends like that, that I could see everyday, and do things with,’ and I said, ‘I know buddy, it seems like it’d be really cool, huh’.”  It’s about the difference between having friends and being part of a group.

Lastly, A Half Baked Life also has thoughts on the women’s march.  It was inspiring, but there were also things she noticed that stuck with her long after she got home.  “The march was an unprecedented crowd of people with no arrests, kindness and civility.  It was incredibly diverse, but it was largely white. Imagine what would have happened if that many Black women showed up in one space?  The police would have come in riot gear, not in yellow vests.”  She verbalizes the things that gave her pause as well as the things that lifted her up.  It’s a great, well-rounded post about her experience.

The roundup to the Roundup: Update about the new guinea pig coming Sunday.  I miss Truman.  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 January 20th and January 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.

I am sitting here, feeling a vague wave of nausea, waiting for everyone to wake up so we can face this day together.  We will not be watching the Inauguration.  We don’t normalize hate in this house, and unlike our local Girl Scouts, we don’t participate in events just for history’s sake.  We make mindful decisions based on the facts we have on hand, and those facts point us directly in the opposite direction of this administration.  Where they hate, we’ll help.

We’ll start by not participating in today’s event.  It’s a small step, but it’s an important one because if we don’t take this first step, that normalization paves the way for a lot of other small steps that lead nowhere good.

Wishing everyone a deep breath today.

*******

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 Other Side” (Searching for Our Silver Lining)
• “Just a Normal Day in the Backyard” (Persnickety Chickadee)
• “Wordless Wednesday” (Persnickety Chickadee)
• “Nicht Mein Problem” (Elaine Ohne Kind)
• “Adoption on Screen: ‘This is Us’ and ‘Lion’ Give New Focus” (Lavender Luz)
• “IVF vs Adoption Waiting” (My Path to Mommyhood)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Biogirl’s post on keeping (or not keeping) resolutions cracked me up, especially the part about her journal from childhood.  Yes, you will need to click over to find out the diary entry because it’s too brief to write about without ruining the punchline.

Notes from the Ninth Circle brings in a baseball analogy when she gets bumped down to the fertility minor league for a cycle while her body recuperates.  I kept returning to this line: “But it feels weird to have a new plan and be waiting to implement it.”

My Path to Mommyhood reassures all good-hearted people that yes, she has considered it; “it” being whatever is about to come out of their mouth.  She points out: “That question feels like it is a judgment on our choices, which were difficult beyond measure and individual to our circumstance.”  It’s a great post, and one that people should read before they pose the question.

Lastly, Lavender Luz has a post about adoption reform.  She states: “Reforming policy and law is one necessary step, but it’s not the last step. Not until ideas of respect, empathy, and inherent value of others also take root in people’s hearts can true and enduring change happen” while drawing a line between reforms that brought about equality in regards to law but not full application in every facet of society.  The post begins in the link above and continues to a second space.

The roundup to the Roundup: Abnormal times call for an abnormal response.  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 January 13th and January 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.

I just discovered Curtis Sittenfeld.  People, why didn’t you tell me about her books?  Okay, you probably did tell me about her books because she has been on my TBR pile for a long time.  I wanted American Wife because… well… it feels fitting at the moment, and I’ll get it from the library this weekend, but I ended up starting with Prep.

It is so good that I tried to hold it open with the edge of the microwave while I made popcorn on the stovetop, desperate to sneak in a single page.

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I haven’t gotten a chance to listen to this episode of Terrible, Thanks for Asking yet, but the sixth episode is about miscarriage and secondary IF.  You can download the MP3 from the site, though I can’t figure out how to embed the episode on the blog.

If you don’t know this podcast, the explanation on the front page of their site says it all: “You know how every day someone asks “how are you?” And even if you’re totally dying inside, you just say “fine,” so everyone can go about their day? This show is the opposite of that.”

A much needed conversation.

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It’s Friday the 13th.  Why do I have a compulsive need to mention that in the Roundup whenever Friday and the 13th collide?  I have no clue.

*******

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:

• “Infertility Doesn’t Just ‘Go Away’” (Our Misconception)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Inconceivable has an update about her absence, musing about the hidden stories we contain.  How you can carry infertility and loss with you every day, and no one around you has a clue what is happening in your heart.  It’s really a nod to all of our silent stories; everyone carries something.

River Run Dry has a post about the feeling of Not Enough that came to me at the perfect moment (so thank you for your words).  She captures crying in the car: “I feel Not Enough right now, and it’s only Tuesday, and all the days I need to get through are stretched in front of me, weeks and months and years and decades full of tasks and To Dos, and I’m so scared I’m always going to be To Doing and my heart will never feel full… I looked up and saw this gorgeous sunrise.”  I love this post.

Different Shores had to endure coffee with a woman who moaned on and on about her daughter who wasn’t producing grandchildren.  She had to sit across from her while she announced that she couldn’t think of anything worse, nor could she hear the possibility that there was nothing empty about living without children.  She writes, “Fear illness, fear poverty, fear dangerous presidents, but please don’t fear a life like mine.”  That is a rallying cry if I ever heard one.

Lastly, No Kidding in NZ takes the idea of people crossing cultures and applies it to different types of families.  In the same way that we go into other people’s cultures and enjoy them through travel or restaurants or celebrations, we can also visit each other’s lives and celebrate all that is good in our choices.  If you can see the benefit of getting to eat food from various cultures, surely you can also see the benefit from sitting and listening to someone tell you about a life different from your own.

The roundup to the Roundup: Just started reading Curtis Sittenfeld.  Podcast you may want to hear.  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 January 6th and January 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.

Justine (who has a very good story to tell about an epic win and should definitely blog it so bother her a lot until she writes it down) and I drove at each other for an extended lunch this week.  I took mostly back roads instead of highways, and listened to podcasts as I drove through farmland.  (Be prepared for an onslaught of posts processing said podcasts.)

We met at an indoor market.  It was sort of like if 50 food trucks decided to gut their trucks and set up shop under the same roof.  We both ended up with crepes, but it was the sort of place that is perfect for a graze-y meal; talking for hours and getting up from time to time to sample another dish.

Next time: the hot pretzel booth.

It is just so good to be with someone who gets you, and you get her, and it’s all just good connection.

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Massive thank you to Persnickety Chickadee for teaching me about drop bears.

Don’t know what they are?

Go Google like I did.

*******

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:

• “Making Mistakes 2016” (Traci York, Writer)
• “Generations” (Torthúil)

Okay, now my choices this week.

I like that Anabegins does quarterly goals.  That seems a lot more realistic than a yearly goal.  She breaks down the goals into different actions for various facets of her life.  I am going to do this, too, because I can imagine April a lot more than I can imagine next December.  If you’re struggling with the idea of a year, break it down into chunks.

Torthúil writes about the world’s greatest fortune cookie message.  Being prepared to modify your plan begins with the plan itself: Is there only one decent outcome?  If there is, then maybe the plan needs to be restructured.  It’s a brief post with a lot of food for thought.

Lastly, Bereaved and Blessed has a moving post about her daughter processing information about her sibling that died before she was born.  It begins, “I overheard Abby tell her friend (who was over for their first playdate, at our home) that she wanted to talk about her sister in Heaven.”  She recounts the conversation between the two girls and the conversation she had with her afterward.  Go over and read the whole thing.

The roundup to the Roundup: I got to see Justine.  Drop bears.  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 December 30th and January 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.