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

*******

Josh brought home croissants from a nearby bakery and took an additional pastry out of the bag. “It’s kind of how I imagine a cronut,” he said, and he proceeded to eat this sweet, buttery, doughnut-sans-hole confection. He gave me a bite, and it was amazing.

The next time he went to the bakery, I told him to pick me up a cronut-that-is-not-a-cronut. It hit me while he was out that the thing may be the fattest pastry in the world—a kouign-amman from Brittany—and I asked him to check the sign in the case. Sure enough, that’s what it was. And it tastes better than I even imagined. It was like dozens of layers of love.

What is the best thing you’ve eaten recently?

*******

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.

Long before I found blogs or IVFC (which appears to be gone) or Resolve, I hung out on the Babycenter bulletin boards. So this essay about the boards hit close to home, especially passages like this:

On BabyCenter, women like me who didn’t feel the need to move on, get over, or forget about their pregnancy losses find a refuge. I continued wasting money on stacks of pregnancy tests that would end up in the trash — only to be fished out 30 minutes later for just one more look at that line — but at least I no longer felt isolated.

I remember those boards were the only thing getting me through my day. I went to those women for advice about injections, questions about my chart, commiseration when there was a workplace baby shower that I didn’t want to attend. Unlike the author, I never got to a dark place with the boards and only found support and empathy.

I connected the most with two other women and we formed a separate email group (which was easier to check during my lunch hour), which meant that I slowly pulled away from the boards. That email group continued for another year beyond the boards before it fizzled out and I found blogs, IVFC, and Resolve. I’m still in touch with some of the women from that Resolve board. One I found again through my blog, so it all comes full circle.

Can online bulletin boards become a dark place? Sure, just as any space can become a dark, unhealthy space. But they made me feel connection to something when I felt so isolated in my day to day world.

We finished Schmigadoon! last weekend. It has been such a bright spot of happiness this summer. I started getting texts about the show the day the first episode dropped because the main characters are named Melissa and Josh, which seems as good a reason as any to start watching a show. But it quickly became a family ritual to re-watch the previous episode each Thursday night and the new episode each Friday night.

After we watched the final episode, ChickieNob and I bought all of the music and turned it into a playlist because each episode got its own album. (That was kind of annoying.) I moved Cinco Paul singing, “To the Right” to the end of the list because it didn’t fit with the rest of the music. (ChickieNob added the song because it made her laugh.) It is nice to have this thing that makes me feel happy whenever I listen to it.

My two favourite songs are “With All of Your Heart” and “Tribulation,” but all of them are so good.

*******

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 in order 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. In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “#MoreHarriets (please!)” (The Road Less Travelled)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Anabegins pretty much sums up the feeling of this summer. She writes: “I’ve been sensing an undercurrent of despair throughout my virtual and real life social circles. I feel it too. It started slow & behind the scenes and is now full-force, doom spiral level that I have to consciously decide to push aside so I can get through this hour, this day, this LIFE.” And how we all need a good wallow to get through this.

Cup of Jo also touches on the reality of this summer. She writes, “It was so weird that we all thought we would have one shared experience, but instead ended up having a completely different one, all together.” So true.

I also liked The Road Less Travelled’s post about #MoreHarriets, which is “about the importance of childless/free role models, and the importance of representation in life choices generally.” Go over to read the quotes she pulled out.

Lastly, Jewish IVF is starting FET #8 and found an error in the protocol. She explains: “I took out my notes from 2019 and confirmed that I’m right. Then I went back to the blog post where I wrote even more notes, and confirmed again.” The conversation turned up another error, and the timeline needed to be reworked. It’s a team approach with multiple sets of eyes on the cycle. And a good reminder to take notes and use your blog as a backup note space.

The roundup to the Roundup: Schmigadoon! 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 13 – August 20) 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.

The Dark Vineyard (Martin Walker): This is the second book in the Bruno series, and it’s even better than the first story, which introduces you to the town and its inhabitants. Now you know the people and have the lay of the land, and Walker takes you on a deep dive into wine making… and… murder. They’re lighter mysteries—your brain won’t spend a lot of time focused on solving the case because it’s too busy enjoying the food, people, and scenery.

The Maidens (Alex Michaelides): If you know anything about therapy, psychology, or human nature, you probably will not enjoy this novel. But if you can set aside everything you know about life and people, you will thoroughly enjoy this second novel by the author of The Silent Patient. I say that even though there are too many plot points that don’t move the story forward or wrap up too quickly. Okay, maybe a better review would be that this is not a well-written book BUT I enjoyed the process of reading it.

The Magician King (Lev Grossman): ChickieNob and I listened to the audio book version, and it made me want to go on a walk every afternoon. I think this book (and the whole trilogy) should be required reading in high school. It makes me sad when people quit after the first book and never get to witness Quentin’s transformation. This book is my favourite in the trilogy, and it means so much to me that my favourite line in it hit ChickieNob in the same way, too.

Moonflower Murders (Anthony Horowitz): A great book by one of my favourite authors? Yes, please. This was such a fun story, and the way the mystery wrapped up in the end was perfect and brilliant. You probably need to read the Magpie Murders to understand everything in this one, but that’s a plus in my book.

The Secret Bridesmaid (Katy Birchall): I am completely stunned by this book. Someone told me to put it on my TBR, and I did. It’s not the sort of thing I normally read, but I LOVED this book. It was so sweet; a great celebration of friendship. But it’s also a masterclass in conversation. Seriously! There were so many times when the main character needed to have a hard conversation, and she navigated them all perfectly. There’s even a breakdown of how you comfort a person towards the beginning of the book that literally spells out, “Step one,” “Step two,” “Step three…” I love this book so much, and I’m going to recommend it to everyone.

The One (John Marrs): This is a book that gives you a lot to think about. It was a decent Netflix show and a better book. It’s easy to pick up and put down, and it’s designed in such a way that it’s easy to keep the stories straight and always feel compelled to read another chapter. There are some pretty disturbing twists, but all of them make you think about the intersection of technology and humanity.

What did you read last month?

I love the phrase “time millionaires.” Unlike money, everyone gets the same amount of time in each day, but people use their time in a way that makes them feel as if they have more time or less time.

Laura Vanderkam gives three ways to increase the amount of time you feel you have (since you can’t actually add extra minutes onto the clock).

Rethinking time by the week instead of by the day (the same advice they give about looking at your overall nutrition) makes you feel differently about how much you’re getting done. Building backup slots into your schedule means that every priority gets done. And investing time in rewarding things (relationships) makes us feel better about spending time and may even save us time in the future.

I thought she had great advice in this post.