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

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I was this many weeks old when I learned what “rouging your knees” means. I knew it from that opening song in Chicago, but I literally thought it meant applying rouge to knees. Which sounded odd, but to each their own.

Then I found out that while it started as blush, back in 1920’s, women PAINTED THEIR KNEES. As in, they painted flowers and little faces on their knees to get people to notice their short dress.

We need to bring this back.

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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 am intrigued by this timeblocking method. I tend to have two categories of work: shallow work and deep work. Shallow work is made up of small tasks I can fit around a meeting. Or it doesn’t matter if I’m interrupted by a phone call. Deep work is stuff like big reports or deep dives into data. I want to work for hours on the same thing without interruption.

But this is giving each task you have to do a label: Must is everything that has to get done that day. Should is the stuff that you should do that day but it’s not critical if it gets pushed back a day. Could is the stuff that you could do that day or you could do it another day. Won’t is the stuff you’re not going to do, but you’re tracking it so you don’t forget that you considered it. There’s always a chance you’ll loop back to your won’ts in the future.

I was trying to figure out how this fits with shallow and deep work because there are shallow musts and deep coulds. But it made me start thinking about my week as a whole: could I create Must blocks and Should blocks and Could blocks, and scatter those through the week?

Food for thought.

Remember when I said a million years ago that I wasn’t getting a watch? Well, I lied. And I got myself a watch. It has definitely made me move more because I compulsively close my rings. As in, I’ve never not closed my rings. Even after the 2nd shot—I forced myself to walk for 20 minutes before curling up in a little ball again. So it’s good for that.

But I’ve now had it for 180 days, which means that I finally can see my trends. It was pretty much the most exciting thing that happened in my week. I immediately opened the app the second I completed my move goal for the 180th time to see ALL OF MY NEW GOALS.

This thing is like a goal-setting machine.

No, I mean, seriously. All it does is keep making up more reasons why I need to move. And all I want to do it sit and read. So… it’s kind of like a frenemy who lives on my arm.

But the trends are so pretty. Well done, UX designer, who used such happy colours.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week. In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• None… sniff…

Okay, now my choices this week.

Searching for Our Silver Lining has done amazing posts on COVID-19, and this one is no exception. She’s straightforward and backs up everything with data. She writes about her family’s experience with COVID-19 as well as the greater world: “Over the past few months, I’ve watched a nation go from celebrating the end of a pandemic to return to lockdown.” I love the hope (and the weight) expressed in the ending.

Infertile Phoenix highlights the ways she has changed and the triggers that bring back up feelings about infertility. She gives an example: “One of my close friends from graduate school had her second baby. She texted me a pic of her and her newborn and… IT DIDN’T MAKE ME SAD. This is a Big Deal.” It IS a big deal. Though the comment(s) that she recounts in the aggravation section will make your head explode.

Lastly, It’s Inconceivable is back with an update and a post about friendships. She writes: “Anyone ever heard of the term ‘Friendship Apocalypse’ (to quote Jody Day). It’s a real thing and I love the terminology! It definitely exists in the CNBC community and I bear witness to many women noticing their friendships fading away as the passage of time slips past as their peers who go on to have children.” It’s about making friends when you’re older and nurturing friendships and letting the ones slip away that need to slip away.

The roundup to the Roundup: I’m going to keep moving and moving and moving. 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 September 10 – 17) 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 August.

Still Life (Penny Louise): I am a late arrival to Penny Louise, but I make up for it with passion. We’ve already started making French Canadian book-themed meals for dinner, finding recipes for every food mentioned in the pages. The world is lucky to have good books, and this is the best kind: when you want to go to the place in the pages because you love the people and stories so much. I’m only at the beginning of the series, but I can’t wait to get to the later books because I’ve heard they get better and better, and I already loved this one a lot.

The Box in the Woods (Maureen Johnson): This is a hard one because I loved the first books in the series. I was sad when the series was over. And then, suddenly, it wasn’t over! There was going to be another book! But this is maybe a case where the series should have ended where it ended. I liked it enough, but I never felt like I was in western Massachusetts. The situation didn’t feel believable. I spent a lot of time thinking, “But why didn’t they just…” and that is never a good sign with a book. BUT I still enjoyed it so much more than many other books. So worth reading, but not the same level as the other Truly Devious books.

Tokyo Ever After (Emiko Jean): This book made my heart happy. Great writing, great characters, great location—everything added up to a truly enjoyable read.

The Other Passenger (Louise Candlish): The writing drew me in—and I’ll definitely read more by this writer due to the strength of the writing—but the plot twists are pretty obvious. It didn’t detract from the reading enjoyment. Maybe it’s the opposite: it didn’t detract from the enjoyment, but I kind of wished things had been a little more surprising to add to the enjoyment.

The Last Thing He Told Me (Laura Dave): This book received so much buzz that I probably held it to an unrealistic standard going into the reading experience. But it was just okay. It was solid. I liked the writing, but I never believed the choices the characters made. Not because humans don’t make these sorts of choices but because I didn’t believe THESE humans would make these choices. I sort of felt like I was getting a story about random neighbours, even though I should have been closer to the characters due to the first-person narration.

What did you read last month?

My new job has a self-care perk—$100 per quarter to spend on something that makes you happy. Anything? Yes, anything that helps you relax and enjoy life outside of work.

It’s use it or lose it, but the problem with the word “anything” is that it makes it hard to narrow down what would bring the most happiness. But the clear winner right now is putting mystery-related content into my eye holes. So I bought myself a subscription to AcornTV.

There is nothing that stopped me from doing this prior to the self care perk. But the fact that someone else treated me to it made me all the more giddy as I flipped through the mystery show list. I have so many Veras to get me through winter. It affected my mood the rest of the day. I kept thinking about curling up in bed at night with everyone, watching UK (and Canadian, Irish, Australians, and New Zealand) mysteries.

And then the ChickieNob and I tried to plug my phone into the television to watch a documentary that night. And it didn’t work. We could see the show on the phone, but it wouldn’t transfer to the television so we both could watch it. We tried numerous tricks and enlisted the Wolvog to help, who finally informed us that the only way we could get this to work is to get a Roku or similar device and log into my new account on this new piece of hardware.

And suddenly my totally awesome self care thing didn’t feel like self care at all. It felt like one more thing I had to deal with after being super excited about it all day.

I wanted it to be easy, but moreover, I just wanted something for myself. Something I didn’t think about anyone else while getting or using. It was just my thing to make me happy. No waiting-for-hardware-so-everyone-else-could-enjoy-it-too necessary.

So I’m starting to watch my mysteries by myself, which feels weird. I don’t know why it feels weird because I read books by myself. But I never watch television by myself. But this is the solution I’m going with until we get hardware and other people can join in because I don’t want to wait to start watching the mysteries. I just want to watch them when I want to watch them.

Now if only they’d get the Great Canadian Baking Show, I’d be set.