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

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Here’s a morbid question: I do a big book-buying spree every few months. These are the books I want to own and not borrow from the library. I intend to reread them (fully or partially) or loan them to family members to try.

But it occurred to me when someone mentioned Swedish Death Cleaning that there will come a time when I will not buy books without a plan for how I will release said book when I’m done reading it. If not, I’m leaving my clutter for someone else to deal with. And added to the idea of books are all the things you purchase as souvenirs as you go through life that only hold meaning for you. It’s not that someone else won’t appreciate those items, but they are purchased with only my enjoyment in mind.

But what is that age? How do you know when you should slow down on acquiring and start thinking about tidying things up? I am (hopefully) decades away, but the question occurred to me now.

What do you think?

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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 connected to businesses or sponsored posts.

Josh and I went to see Mandy Patinkin and Kathryn Grody interviewed by their son Gideon on Valentine’s Day. My favourite moment came in the middle of the show when their son talked about his father’s love of quiet and asked us to give him 45 seconds of silence. He pointed out that it’s rare to get 45 seconds of silence while surrounded by 2000 people.

People did it, and it was beautiful. Just 2000 people, not moving, not speaking, not coughing or shifting or trying to have their voice heard. It reminded me of what I love about silent book club vs. reading alone. Quiet is heavier when you get it around people.

I always have profound moments at Strathmore. The last time we were there, Alan Cumming got the whole audience (2000 people!) to sing “Tomorrow” from Annie with him. Which started out silly and ended up being oddly moving and hopeful.

We went up to visit the twins at college.* For three days, we wandered around their campuses, ate apple cider donuts, hiked in the snow, explored new towns, and hung out in the hotel room talking. It was amazing to be back together, making the time to the next break a little easier.

It’s also hard to say goodnight every night and leave them at their dorms. (Or drop them off on campus so they could run off with friends. We know they’re not actually tucked up in bed at 10 pm.) It’s hard to say goodbye and drive away on the final day. It feels physically and emotionally awful.

It’s the balance of the highs and the lows.

* On the way up, we met A Half Baked Life for 15 minutes underneath the neon vape sign of a mini mart to give and get a hug. Mini mart meetups are the best.

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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 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. To read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• None… sniff.

Okay, now my choices this week.

Did your father win an Oscar this week? No? Then go over and live vicariously through Finding a Different Path’s account of watching her father win a major award. Look at the pictures and feel the love: “I love my dad so much, and it’s always difficult to say goodbye. Those was an amazing visit though, with a day at the LA Zoo, the Aquarium of the Pacific, the fancy schmancy day, and the best Thai food I’ve ever had in my life last night.”

Lastly, No Kidding in NZ has a super helpful post about how to think positively (or what you’d put “on your personal encouragement card“) — both to use AND to get you thinking about your own list. I love this: “Love yourself, and feel compassion for yourself. Give yourself comfort. Stop beating yourself up. It helps more than you can imagine.”

The roundup to the Roundup: Good visit. 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 February 16 – 23) 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 bookmarked my friend Neil’s post on Facebook because it made me think deeply. (And it’s public, so now you get to think deeply, too.)

He wrote about deciding to skip a museum in favour of seeing a train station, kicking off a list of what he did and didn’t do. These tiny decisions change his experience with the place. He writes:

Travel is interesting because of all the choices you need to make as a tourist. That’s why I never know what to answer when you ask me what to do in New York. What’s more important to you, a big museum or pizza in Queens? It’s hard to do both in one trip.

It’s one of those things that I clearly knew — travel, like all of life, is just a series of decisions — but it’s also mind-bending to think about how you could have an entirely different experience due to those choices. You could walk away from a place thinking you know it, and another person could walk away thinking they know it, and both of you have gone to entirely different spaces and seen, eaten, and heard completely different things.

ChickieNob’s college gifted her with a plant at move-in, and she brought it down in a bag over winter break. My grandplant looked a little scraggly, but we nursed it back to health while she was home.

I am currently watching my grandplant so she does not have to schlep it back and forth during breaks. It’s like having a little bit of the ChickieNob here. I sit and talk to it as if the plant is a direct line to my daughter’s brain.

I have big plans to re-pot my grandplant soon, along with one of the clippings I took from her back in October. It’s just nice to see her reaching out toward the sun.