When I was little, there was only one way to mark a day. A birthday was marked with a birthday cake. Not a birthday salad. Not even birthday candy. There was a cake and candles and usually a birthday party somewhere close to my birthday. And at that birthday party, there were games and goodie bags and… well… cake again.

The point is that when you’re little, traditions are set by the people delivering the traditions, and sometimes we think that is the “right” way or the only way to mark a day. I loved my childhood birthdays, but as an adult, we’re more likely to have birthday cookies and birthday reading time, which fit me better than a birthday party. The way we mark events can change. We make days how we need them to be.

If this day is easy or hard for you; if it’s something you’ve been dreading or looking forward to; if you’re looking at the screen and thinking, “What is she talking about? I don’t know what is  happening today” — it’s all okay. You get to choose the traditions.

I’m marking the day by reading about art thieves (as one does) and seeing my mum. Because that makes me happy.

It feels a tad on the nose to leak an abortion ruling on the same week as Mother’s Day. (Congratulations, ladies! We’re forcing you into motherhood if you get pregnant!”) But… here’s the thing. We knew this was going to happen. We knew it was going to happen because a ruling was coming this summer, and all signs pointed to this outcome. We knew it was happening when the Court skewed heavily right due to Trump pushing through Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination and confirmation. I mean, even without knowing the future, we knew this was a strong possibility when Trump moved into office. So I’m not shocked. Sad, of course, frustrated, angry, worried. But not shocked at all.

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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.

Cup of Jo has an essay about infertility with a line that hits home: “I saw my gynecologist. She checked for cysts with an ultrasound but found none, told me spotting was common, and said to return in six months if I still wasn’t pregnant. I knew she was wrong, though I wanted her to be right. I wanted everything to be fine so I could have our baby.” Almost every single one of us has a story of “I knew something was wrong, but I was told just to wait.” But what I related to was that idea that we want our doctor to be right. We want that waiting to fix something. There is so much I love about this essay, especially the ending. It isn’t what you expect, and I’m grateful she left the story open.

Lastly, not an IF-related story, but one that resonated deeply. Inkle is a game studio, best known for their game 80 Days. They have a new game out called A Highland Song. They wrote this week about storytelling through letters that applies deeply to blog writing and the comment box. And I love this: “A Highland Song is always going to be a game about being on your own, in a place much bigger than you for which you’re ill-prepared. But even if you’re alone, you don’t need to be lonely. We all carry a universe of voices inside our heads, and there’s plenty to explore inside, as well as out.” Gorgeous.

The roundup to the Roundup: Sad but not surprised. 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 April 29 – May 6) 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.

Remember in the olden days of blogging that there was your online world and your offline world, and they rarely overlapped. The type of post you almost never see nowadays that was a common theme in 2007? My friend/aunt/town librarian found my blog, and I don’t know what to do.

Facebook (and Twitter, Instagram, etc) kind of changed that. Embedded had a post about this recently (sort of). They recount a conversation they overheard in a coffee shop. One person found the other’s Instagram account and followed it, and the other person responded that they never followed back people they know in “real life.” (I personally prefer online and offline because everything is real.)

They write that they don’t know “why someone would refuse to follow their friends on social media.”

But I completely understood because I only follow tourism boards for countries on Instagram and a handful of family members. It means that when I open Instagram, there are either pictures of places I’m going or I’ve been, or pictures of nieces and nephews. And that’s it.

And while I’m not against reading blog posts from people I know, it definitely usually works the other way around: I find the blog, I read the blog, I like the blog, I start a conversation off-blog. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Facebook is a little of column A and a little of column B: people I know in the offline world that I found online, and people I met in the online world that I’m connecting with in another medium.

It is a fascinating post. Go read it and tell me what you think.

There’s a thought that bubbles up sometimes when I think about the twins in college: We can go wherever we want that we can afford while the twins are away. For seventeen years, we’ve been tied to their schedule — especially the school schedule — and we’re released from that for the most part.

We can go to New England for a week and work out of a hotel — just because. We don’t need a reason to go to places that make us happy.

But… instead of making me happy or excited, this thought makes me feel untethered. I’ve liked being linked to their schedule for seventeen years. I’ve liked having fall mean something. I’ve liked trying to figure out weekend plans. It has given my world structure.

Parts of my year will still move around their life. I will want to be home any time they are home, and I will want to visit them wherever they are. But there are all the Betweens; all of the weeks where we can do Anything. Yes, those words needs capital letters because they feel like they are looming over me, casting a shadow with their enormity.

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

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There is a burrito place in Massachusetts that I went to on my first day of grad school — technically before classes began — with two fellow students I met in the department lounge. I loved this burrito place so much (maybe because in that moment I felt so happy to have met two new people and felt a sense of belonging) that I went back at least once a week for the next four years.

The menu has changed over the years, but every time I’m back in the area, we go there and I ask them to make me a burrito that was on their menu twenty years ago. They have all of the ingredients, so they’re happy to recreate it. And then I spend the next half hour wrapped up in a taste memory. They recreate it perfectly, and I want to cry whenever I access those memories through the first bite.

I wish there was a way to capture taste moments the way we capture visual moments with a photograph or auditory moments with a recording.

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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.