Before the pandemic, I lived a plant-free existence. It wasn’t an accident; it was a choice. I did not want to take care of plants, and I made no space for them in my home. And then the pandemic hit, and I wanted various herbs without going to the store. After much trial and error and many many many dead plants, I learned what grows well inside. I’ve kept a small indoor garden going for over three years.

My parsley plants died this summer after my self-watering system failed while we were in Montreal, flooding the plants. My basil plants kept going for a few more weeks, but they, too, experienced a quiet death.

My instinct was to replace them — most of our plants only last a half year or so — but Josh thought replacing them before college drop-off was a terrible idea. If I did it after, I would have weeks before I had to try rigging up the self-watering system again.

But it’s weird not having plants. I went from no plants to feeling like the colour is off in our home without plants.

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

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Not a secret that I have been struggling with the twins leaving. I write about it several times each week. This mental model gave me food for thought because I reject any messaging about how I should also focus on the good parts of an empty nest. That’s not where I am. And with this, I don’t have to feel optimistic in the short term. I can feel whatever I’m feeling in the short term with the idea that a future point will be different.

Dropping it here in case it is helpful for anyone else.

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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’m back to being in a state of wanting something I can’t have. With infertility, the want was apparent. With life after active parenthood, the desire is less clear. I want them home. I want them to be little. I want them to need me and interact with me like they did for the last eighteen years. But it’s strange because inside all of that want is the conflicting feeling of wanting them to have an amazing time in college and loving seeing the world through their eyes and celebrating their independence.

I want that superpower that the guy in About Time had where he could relive any day he wished. And then, he could jump back to the present, simultaneously enjoying what he has and what he had.

At this time next month, we will be apart. I will have plenty of photographs and not enough videos or audio recordings to jump back in time mentally, which isn’t the same thing at all.

Beorn celebrated his third birthday this week. We held a photoshoot in the morning. We told him we were taking “glamour shots,” and he lunged at the phone to nibble the edge of the case. He then turned around to nudge the blinds with his nose to make them swing. And he finally gave us a lot of side-eye before agreeing to a few pictures in exchange for spring mix.

He has a teddy’s sweet temperament and an American shorthair’s jubilance. Beorn, you are still the best of all worlds three years in.

Happy birthday.

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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:

• “You Won’t Get Today Back” (The Next 15000 Days)
• “Well, This Is New…” (The Road Less Travelled)
• “Conversations With Adults” (Infertile Phoenix)
• “Leitplanken” (Elaine ohne Kind)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Movable Type has a post about taking a pregnancy test during perimenopause; a very different experience than peesticks earlier in life. She explains, “As tiny as the likelihood, I had to pee on a stick – for old time’s sake – only this time, this time I did NOT want to see the double line. Never have I been so happy to get a negative.” The shift is interesting.

Lastly, Finding a Different Path has a beautiful post about craving noise but having quiet, and how moving helped with life being different from what she wanted. She writes, “But moving away from those noisy ghosts was a great way for us to mark that transition, the contrast that wasn’t so outwardly apparent of Wanting the Chaos to Accepting That Our Life Is (And Sounds) Different.” It’s a post about the different ways quiet can sound.

The roundup to the Roundup: Happy birthday, Beorn. 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 August 4 – August 11) 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.

There was a Slate article that people kept sharing a few weeks ago capturing what we used to do after work because work had a clear end-point. Before technology became commonplace and everyone was expected to have a cell phone and computer at home, work mostly stayed at work, except for a few jobs. Sure, I could grade papers after work, but I generally didn’t drag work home. Work stayed at work, so there was a time after work.

Slate captured what happened before, during, and after work in the age before cell phones:

Sean: We really would just drive to someone’s house and see what they were doing. You and a couple people would be in the car and you’d be like, “Let’s go by Brian and Mike’s.”

Matt: Either we’d made plans or we’d just go to the same few places. During the week it was the Front Page in Dupont and GG Flips, or on Thursdays or Fridays it was Lulu’s on M Street. Someone I knew would be there.

Enjoy the whole article.