Two and a half years into the pandemic, I realized something. Socializing outside is tiring. I mean, socializing when you’re out of practice is exhausting in and of itself. But add in the heat of summer or shivering through the cold in winter, and hanging out with people outside may be safer but it’s also draining.

We had two weekends of back-to-back outdoor socializing with people, which was fantastic, but now I’m ready to not go outside for 48 hours. Just books. My guinea pig. Tea. And zero minutes with fresh air.

Small goals.

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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:

• “Winning in a Childless Life” (No Kidding in NZ)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Finding a Different Path has a post about card shopping for a wedding gift. I’m sure you can imagine what themes card makers went with to celebrate the marriage, and she muses on how offensive new baby cards would be if they followed the same trajectory. She makes a vital statement: “There’s got to be ways to congratulate people without making one life out to be better than another.” Which gets to the heart of a whole host of issues.

It’s Inconceivable has given an update on her breast cancer treatment and shared about the loss of her dog. It’s a heartbreaking story, and she could use your support. She asks: “How many more times am I going to deliver news to this beautiful man that will make him cry?” She is going through such a hard time right now, and her honest words will make you think about how we take care of the people around us.

Lastly, Res Cogitatae writes about pandemic traveling. She has admittedly converted me to the idea of getting a CO2 monitor. (Read her post to see how she uses it.) Though I agree with her: “Public health shouldn’t depend on privilege.” And right now, it does.

The roundup to the Roundup: Tea and book time. 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 12 – 19) 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 read that month. Book reviews are important for authors, and I want to get better about 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 July.

Rivals (Katharine McGee): I thought this series wrapped with the last book, so I was extremely happy to see that she decided to continue the story. The characters are great, the alternate history is fun. The book is like literary potato chips; you won’t feel like your life is enriched by reading the story, but who cares because it tastes/reads so good.

Death and Croissants (Ian Moore): This is up there as one of my favourite books of 2022. We aren’t getting the paper version in the US until this spring, but you can get the e-book version right now on all platforms. (And Blackwells ships for “free” to the US in the sense that the price you see on the site includes shipping. So it’s $10.97 for the book and shipping. The publisher’s site – Farrago – also has buying options for the US so we don’t have to wait). It is so much fun. It’s in the same vein as the Thursday Murder Club — clever, lighthearted mystery that makes you laugh and tilt your head to the side in sympathy for the characters at the same time. It’s set in the Loire Valley, mixing real places (that boat where you go through Chateau de Chenonceau) with a fictional B&B town. It’s funny. It’s sweet. And I loved it so much from the first chapter that I dragged my family to 12 different bookstores in London looking for the second book in the series. More on that next month…

Magpie (Elizabeth Day): I have never felt more seen by a book. She captures infertility perfectly, probably because the author has lived it. And far from being a painful read, it was like spending time with a friend who got it. While it wasn’t the best thriller — I figured out the twist 11% of the way through the book — it was an excellent novel. And I would gladly read whatever she writes next.

What did you read last month?

This is a lot of fun. I cannot remember how many questions I answered to get to the final body count (67 for me), though if I did it again, I may have made other choices. But let’s say that I’m responsible for 67 fictional people.

The fun part is you can see what percentage of people answered the same way. About a million people have played so far, so the percentage breakdown is interesting.

Have fun. And learn something about where you stand on a bunch of absurd situations.

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

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This is fun to play with. It’s a globe, and you can zoom in on your area (or any area) and discover the notable people born there. It’s not a complete set of all notable people born in that area. The directions explain: “Data has been processed to show only one person for each unique geographic location with the highest notability rank.”

I’m not sure how highest notability is determined, but it’s fun to see who is from where. And it cracked me up to see Natalie Portman next to Jesus.

You can also toggle to show the town names so you can center your area on the screen, and then go back to the notable people. Have fun!

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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 that are connected to businesses or are sponsored post.

I can’t stop thinking about how I say, “I can’t stop thinking about…” a lot. (I then can’t stop thinking about how probably everyone who read this article silently said to themselves, “I can’t stop thinking about how I say, ‘I can’t stop thinking about…’ a lot.”)

The subhead: “On the Internet, where attention is the currency, obsession has become a default register.”

And musing on the statement: “This constant refrain is, in a way, the coyote howl of social media. It is used to point to something that the utterer is concerned or excited by.”

Yes.

It’s funny when you take a step back and think about the words, but they’re also true. Things I read on the internet move in my brain, swirling around and around as I chew on them like a stick of gum.

If you are bored, go on Twitter, drop “I can’t stop thinking about” in the search bar, and hit “latest” for tweets. I can’t stop thinking about how I just spent five minutes reading random things other people can’t stop thinking about.