Each time I opened up Facebook on Wednesday, my entire feed — ten or more posts in a row each time — was about Heather Armstrong. Either posts about mental health in general (and open offers of support) or Heather and her impact on the blogging world. Really, the writing world. Would blogging have curved along the same road without her? Maybe not. At least, I think she changed the blogosphere for women, if not all writers.

I have nothing profound to say. Just a quiet sadness for a voice missing from the world.

*******

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.

*******

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:

• “That Day Again: 20 Coping Tips” (No Kidding in NZ)

Okay, now my choices this week.

I had No Kidding in NZ’s post about Mother’s Day for this week. The day is charged for lots of people and lots of reasons. It is fantastic advice and perspective for anyone struggling to get through Sunday.

Lastly, Infertile Phoenix gives another update about reconnecting with an old friend. She explains how infertility impacted her and writes, “She said she couldn’t be there for me because she didn’t know what was going on. I told her that, in retrospect, I don’t think anyone could have been there for me at the time. Even if they knew everything.” I don’t think people can truly fathom the emotional pain accompanying infertility and pregnancy loss. I think Phoenix captured that depth well in this post.

The roundup to the Roundup: Dooce. 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 May 5 – 12) 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.

Twice a year, Modern Mrs. Darcy puts out a reading guide — recommendations for upcoming books, the sort that comes out on many book sites a few times per year. The difference is that if you normally like her suggestions, she is curating a list of things you will like vs. having you sort through hundreds of upcoming titles to find the ones worth reading.

People who subscribe to her book club get the guide during the online reveal party. Everyone else gets it a week or two later. But she announced that they wouldn’t do a free version this year. If you want the guide, you must be part of Patreon or buy it a la carte.

And people got salty.

Everyone was given ample warning in a blog post, and the choice was left in the hands of the reader. If you want the guide, pay X. If you don’t want to pay X, no worries. You won’t have the guide, but you can still enjoy the rest of the site. You could, in that case, make your own guide by reading another site or newspaper’s book coverage, subscribing to your favourite publisher’s newsletter, or looking at lists on Goodreads.

The guide costs money to make, so it makes sense to charge money to receive it.

The internet has been free for so long — a necessary step to get people hooked on internet content — but it will be interesting to see how paywalls and subscriptions fare. How do we shift the internet to make it sustainable?

A friend told me that she heard a news story that said you spend 93% of the time you’ll have with your kids before they leave high school. Or on the flip side, you only have 7% of the time you’ll have with your parents after you leave high school.

I couldn’t find this number online — Googling brought me answers ranging from 80% to 95% — but the message was still the same. You have very little time left with the people you love.

I spent the rest of the day obsessing over the number.

People don’t spend 24 hours together — work or sleep gets in the way. So working with the idea that we spend, on average, eight waking hours together, I multiplied it out to reach 52,560 (8 x 365 x 18). If 93% is correct, I get 56,516 waking hours with the kids. 3,956 hours spread out over my remaining years.

If I live another 40 years, it comes out to 99 hours per year, which averages 12 days per year (if we still go with 8 hours per day). Or 24 days per year if they live nearby and we spend 4-hour chunks together. A visit every other week. Or a week-long trip together and a handful of smaller visits. Or make a conscious decision to get more than my universe-allotted 99 hours.

Sad math.

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

*******

I love this idea of the opposite of a trigger. It’s a glimmer. So if something triggering sets off a landslide of bad feelings, a glimmer does the opposite. It creates a sparkle of good feelings. Just as you may know your triggers, you can also discover your glimmers and access them (vs. avoid them). I really love this.

85,000+ likes later, and it seems many other people and organizations do, too.

*******

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.

Bed, Bath, and Beyond is closing. We had money on a gift card at the store, so I sent Josh and the twins to see if anything needed for college was still on the shelves an hour after the announcement came in the morning. They ended up with pillows, shampoo, and an empty gift card, so I’d call that a success. I tried for a spatula the next day, but it was too late. I’m a little bummed about that. I have a thing about spatulas. (Attitude: all the spatulas, all the time, all the colours.)

I am sad that it’s ending for the people who own and work in the stores. It has always been there when I needed it, and while it contained nothing I couldn’t get at another store, it held it all in one place. I’m just not good with endings.

The same week, our special restaurant announced it would be closing, too. Closing, too? It was too much. This restaurant was the site of our first date, my 30th birthday party, and many family dinners (including one memorable one when one of the twins stopped the conversation at the table to announce that while they knew how babies got into a woman’s body, they had no clue how they came out).

We will get takeaway one last time, but it’s hard to say goodbye to a good restaurant. Doubly hard to say goodbye to a good restaurant and store in the same week.