We woke up to the first snow of the year on Monday. It was just a dusting that melted by 10 am, but it existed and caused a two-hour school delay. Despite the twins being out of the school system, I still get the school alerts, so I woke up to an email telling me the start time of all-day Kindergarten and when the buses would run.

This will happen again and again this winter, so I’m hoping it’s just the first alert that will sting this deeply. I scrolled through old photos from past snowstorms, the kids’ faces peeking out from underneath layers of Polartec, clutching their kid-sized shovels. I thought about texting one of the pictures to our group chat, but I decided to save the sad for myself. There’s no reason to make everyone else nostalgic, too.

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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.

Scientist on the Roof left Russia so her children wouldn’t grow up with antisemitism, and despite America selling itself as the solution to every other country’s discrimination, her children are encountering it here, too. If you think it’s not happening around you, it is. If you think your Jewish friends or neighbours aren’t impacted by it, they are. And if you need to understand how upsetting this fall/winter has been for Jewish kids (and Jewish adults), read this post.

Lastly, The Next 15,000 Days posts her yearly Christmas wish to hear from her readers. It makes sense in the season of connection that we would slow down and share an email. Go over, read, and reach out.

The roundup to the Roundup: First snow. 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 8 – 15) 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.

As I say every month, I’m shamelessly stealing this idea from Jessica Lahey. She has a recurring monthly date where she reviews all the books she reads that month. Book reviews are important for authors, and I want to get better at doing this.

So. I’m going to review them here and also online, but I’m going to do it a little differently. I’m only going to review the stuff I really liked. I don’t see a reason to spend my time writing about something I didn’t love; it’s just using up more of my energy. So only positive reviews.

These are the books I liked (or mostly liked) from November.

The Christmas Appeal (Janice Hallett): I read a second Christmas book because Janice Hallett is a gift to the world. It pulls in the same characters from The Appeal and follows the same format of reading emails and text messages. So good.

The Last Devil To Die (Richard Osman): Speaking of so good, I will buy every Richard Osman book, plot summary unseen. I don’t even look to see what the book is about. I just go to the bookstore the first day they have it and buy it. This was a sad one, though all the books are moving in their own ways. This one was just more so. It was a good mystery and a good time with these friends.

The Three Dahlias (Katy Watson): I bought this book because Janice Hallett blurbed it. (I am such a cheap sell.) But this was so so so much fun. I loved it and can’t wait to start the next book. Best trio ever — fun and empowering. Beyond being smart, savvy women, I liked that they always straightened the other’s crowns, even though they didn’t enter the situation feeling inclined to have each other’s back. It just happened because they’re awesome.

The Trial (Rob Rinder): Speaking of being a cheap sell, I purchased this book because it reminded me of the cover of The Appeal. (Are you sensing a theme?) You don’t really solve the crime as you do with The Appeal — it’s a straightforward mystery — but I learned a lot about the British legal system. And it was a good read.

The Kind Worth Killing (Peter Swanson): This is an older book, but it took me a while to get to it despite reading several other Peter Swanson books. I liked the writing a lot, though Swanson’s male characters are so creepy and unlikeable 100% of the time. It ends abruptly, but I enjoyed the twists until the last page. I’m not saying this well because it was a five-star read — engaging, well-paced, and interesting.

The Other Half (Charlotte Vassell): I waited a long time for this book to come to the US. (It has been out in the UK for months.) It was like a modern Brideshead Revisited as a murder mystery, and I loved the main detective and his co-workers.

What did you read last month?

I’m not sure which is cooler — the amusement park itself or the website telling the story of the amusement park. [Really, take a break today and enjoy exploring the site. It is gorgeous.]

It’s an art amusement park with rides and exhibits created by some of the most famous artists of this century (Jean-Michel Basquiat, Salvador Dalí, Keith Haring). The rides feel closer to experiences, akin to Yayoi Kusama’s infinity mirrors.

I want to go to this, pretty please, yes, please?

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

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I heard about an app this week where you meet people in your city for breakfast. The app explains, “Because dinner sounds like a date, and lunch sounds like a work meeting. Breakfast is usually just that — breakfast.” It’s just getting together with another human being and eating together. You can use the app once a day to match with someone in your city because breakfast happens once a day, and they add new cities any time they receive 151 profiles in the same area.

While leaving my home feels like a lot early in the morning, I would be totally into this if I were younger.

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.

I dropped Beorn’s hay bowl while washing it, and it broke into four large ceramic shards. The hay bowl matched the food bowl — they came as a set — and we returned to the store to get a second bowl, but Petco no longer sold it. I couldn’t find the set online because it has to be three years old. So we went with a different, slightly larger, tan bowl.

And Beorn will only eat the hay down the rim with the new bowl.

Meaning, anything below the rim remains in the bowl. Beorn happily consumes anything above the edge. He stands over the bowl so he can see the rest of the hay, but he refuses to eat anything below the rim of this new, suspicious, terrible, tan hay bowl.

I’ve apologized non-stop, and he looks at me dryly while I explain for the 900th time that I messed up. That soap makes your hands slippery, and I will take more care in the future when washing the remaining green and white food dish. But he won’t budge on this.