Category — Microblog Mondays

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

*******

It’s sort of amusing that this is the 40th MicroblogMonday because today is also my last day being 40.  Tomorrow I turn 41, and you might as well save your birthday wishes until then because today is about still being 40.  I am 40, damnit, and don’t make me age before I’m ready.

The last day of a personal year (as opposed to the calendar year) is so bittersweet because you know that you can’t slow time.  You know that tomorrow you will wake up and be an entirely new age.  And that is odd, you know, the idea that I will describe myself differently tomorrow.

Tomorrow will be for birthday celebrations.  Today is a last day celebration.

What is the perfect way to spend a last day?  What would be your ideal last day before a birthday?

*******

Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored posts.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

*******

I’m currently devouring V.E. Schwab’s A Darker Shade of Magic, and I came across a quote that I found applicable to any struggle in life.  Kell is lamenting that the landscape of his magical world changes too quickly, and he finds comfort in a non-magical city where the buildings go up through hard work and remain for centuries.

In Red London, tastes turned as often as seasons, and with them, buildings went up and came down and went up again in different forms.  Magic made things simple.  Sometimes, thought Kell, it made things too simple.

So it’s the drawback of something coming easily: you may not appreciate the magnitude of the accomplishment.  The student who never has to study may not reach graduation with the same emotion as the student who struggles to make Bs and Cs.  Do the wealthy put the same care into their possessions knowing that they’re replaceable?

We often talk about how struggle makes you more appreciative, and certainly in the infertility community, we often attribute a commitment to parenting as stemming from how long it takes to create the family.

Do you think struggles make you more appreciate of things, or do you think it’s possible to be just as appreciative if things come easily?

*******

Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored posts.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

*******

I just finished We Are Pirates by Daniel Handler (totally enjoyable read!), and he had an interesting thought on page 268:

We steal the happiness of others in order to be happy ourselves, and when it is stolen from us we voyage desperately to steal it back.  We are pirates.

So often, without meaning to, due to the way life is set up, we do steal happiness from others.  For one person to win, a lot of other people need to lose.  For every actress chosen for a part, she has inadvertently left a lot of unhappy people in her wake.  And when we are coming from behind, the idea of grabbing happiness ourselves (not thinking about the people who will be made unhappy due to our happiness) causes us to strive ahead, reaching for the brass ring, so to speak.

There are obviously situations where more than one person can be happy at the same time.  Where no one loses something due to someone else’s gain, but I think we also know that our own unhappiness feels so much heavier when we compare it to someone’s happiness.  That we tell other people about our happiness without being conscious of the idea that we are making other people jealous.  So there is that, too.

What do you think?  Do you think someone needs to be made unhappy in order for other people to be happy?

*******

Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored posts.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

*******

Just to make this all about me: I audibly released a sigh of relief when CNN sent out an alert stating the new name of the princess was Charlotte Elizabeth Diana.  In other words, not Alice.

Normally I’m only worried about family members scooping one of our names, but in this case, because the name would become a new trend, I equally didn’t want Alice used.  Not that Josh would ever agree to the name Alice, but it has always been one of my special names, and I didn’t want to share it with the Princess.  I know, ridiculous.  But the idea of having to hear my special name paired with this other woman’s baby felt like… too much.

Charlotte, that’s just the name of my notebook.

Inside that notebook is a list of names I always carry with me.  And yes, Alice is on the list.

Do you have any special names that you hope no one else — either in your family or famous people outside your family — use?

*******

Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored posts.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

*******

So these three people set off to find their doppelgängers via social media in a project called Twin Strangers.  They posted pictures of themselves and then attempted to harness the power of the Internet by having people submit images of people they knew who looked like the subjects.

So it would be like me posting a picture and asking all of you to either submit a picture of someone you know who looks like me, or pass along my picture to people in your social media accounts to see if they know someone who looks like me or pass along my image to their social media contacts.  So on and so on.

The woman in the project found her doppelgänger living an hour away.

The project site states: “They say there are 7 people in the world who look exactly like you…  We want to find OUR Twin Strangers.”

So… would you want to find your doppelgänger?  Or do you like the idea of looking different from everyone else?  (This is obviously a moot point for some identical twins.)

*******

Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored posts.