Globle turned out to be the Wolvog’s gateway game. Initially, he was meh about Wordle, but once A told me about Globle (where you have to guess the country), his geography-nerdy heart exploded, and he got sucked into the Wordle world. We now all play Wordle, Globle, and Worldle, which is like Globle except you get the country shape and then the kilometer distance with each guess. We all play the three games in the morning, but then need to wait until dinner to discuss our guesses.

I save Guess My Word, Nerdle, and a few open-ended Wordle-like games such as Absurdle or Hello Wordl in the evening.

It’s like a second job by this point.

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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:

• “Change of Perspective” (A Blank New Page)

Okay, now my choices this week.

No Kidding in NZ has a post about marking milestones. These milestones may be personal to each person’s journey, but you know them when you encounter them. They indicate a level of change. She writes, “But we can grieve loss AND embrace growth, mourn something that is gone at the same time hoping for something new, and in doing this, we can begin to look forward.” I love that.

Family Building with a Twist proposes a thought experiment that includes two brilliant questions, “What do you think your 16-year-old self would think of the life you have?” and “How do you think you would feel if you lived the life your 16-year-old self envisioned?” Like her, my 16-year-old self didn’t know a lot about infertility. But she would definitely be thrilled to discover that she will have twins. I love these questions.

Lastly, The Barreness checked in with an update. This post is why I love blogging, and why I still read blogs over all other forms of social media. Her stream-of-conscious processing of a life is more interesting than a snappy meme on Twitter. She asks at the end of her update: “Is anyone else feeling this too?” Again, that is blogging. To hear the echo, yes, we feel this, too.

The roundup to the Roundup: Globle and Worldle. 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 February 11 – 18) 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.

Um, I LOVE this. If I ever posted anything to Instagram, I would totally do Faceless Friday. I mean, yes, it started as a creative project to capture all the beauty that exists outside of the face, but it’s also inadvertently a way to give kids privacy.

We never post pictures of the twins’ faces because we wanted to leave the decision to be up on the internet in their hands. We’re glad we did because as they’ve grown up, they’ve been able to express to us that they don’t want to be online. But this project is a perfect way to share an image and capture a life while giving the child the ability to choose differently in the future.

Plus every image in that feed feels like it’s on the brink of telling a story.

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 January.

All of Us Villains (Amanda Foody and Christine Lynn Herman): Hunger Games with magic and no main character (so you have no clue who will win) — that is how I keep describing this book. It also isn’t as bleak as the Hunger Games. The sequel is coming out next year, but it’s totally worth reading this first book now.

The Club (Ellery Lloyd): All of the pleasure of White Lotus without the stomach-turning close-ups. (Anyone who has seen the show knows exactly what I mean.) It’s terrible rich people at a terrible rich-person resort doing terrible-rich person things. I devoured it. Lots and lots of twists.

Taste (Stanley Tucci): So… this is a bit of a mixed bag. I loved the book while we were listening to it. He is a fantastic narrator, the stories were entertaining, and he made me want to eat. Constantly. After finishing the book, my cousin told me something that made me see the stories in a completely different (not very good) way. So take this audio book a little like Instagram; enjoyable to look at as long as you remember that there are piles of dirty laundry out of the frame.

The Maid (Nita Prose): I liked this book. It isn’t much of a mystery; you kind of know everything super quickly, and the one “twist” wasn’t much of a twist. So don’t go into it thinking you’ll get a mystery. You’ll get a character sketch. If you like the character, you’ll probably be happy with the story. (That was how I felt.) If you don’t like the character, there isn’t much else there.

What did you read last month?

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

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Every year at my elementary school, they would put an enormous “mailbox” in the front hall, and people could drop in Valentines that were meant for a person outside of their class. In other words, you went around the class putting your cards in your classmate’s box. But if you were in third grade and you wanted to send a card to a fourth grader, you dropped it in the mailbox. I have no memory who delivered the out-of-class cards.

All I remember was that it was the most exciting day of the year. The mere chance that a kid outside your classroom liked you enough to fill out a card and drop it in the box… FOR YOU.

I hope you get an out-of-class Valentine-like happy experience today.

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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’ve always loved kintsugi — the Japanese art of repairing objects by mending them lacquer that contains gold or silver. A broken bowl comes back together, crossed with beautiful lines.

I recently learned about visible mending, the act of repairing holes in clothing so they can continue to be of use, but making the repairs visible. The mending speaks volumes: “This item is so loved that it was fixed instead of tossed aside.”

It feels like a good metaphor for living life. For making the most out of crappy situations and brokenness. But doing so openly; in full admittance that life is not Instagram. Even though visible mending is well represented on Instagram.

I have a pair of yoga pants with an enormous hole in the knee. I’ve continued to wear them, and the hole has grown bigger and bigger. I wish I had found this earlier when the hole was still a tiny patch of thinned fabric. But doing this is kind of a Valentine to your favourite things.