I am three minutes away from getting an Apple watch, and I blame the pandemic. Before the world fell apart, I would have described myself as a saver, not a spender. And that has mostly remained true with few exceptions here and there.

But lately, I have been coveting an Apple Watch with zero clue what I could do with an Apple Watch. I know it will count my steps. I’m not sure if it’s more or less accurate than leaving my phone in my pocket. I’ve been told that I can receive and send texts, though I have a hard enough time seeing them on my phone with that small type. I’m not sure how it will be more convenient to have it on my wrist. And beyond that, I have zero clue what an Apple watch will do that my phone can’t. Please remember that I’m not leaving the house right now. See, zero use for this watch.

And yet, it has become a family joke. I tell them that we’re all going to get Apple Watches and talk to each other through our wrists.

The Guardian recently had a piece on emotional spending. That is what this is: emotional spending. Buying an Apple Watch not because I have any use for an Apple Watch but because I want something new. Anything new.

Emotional spending isn’t a problem because I am also distrustful of online shopping (or purchasing anything I haven’t gotten to try on or touch) and spend more time thinking rather than doing. But the article hit close to home for me because I understand craving newness whether it was a complete revamp of my library holds list last weekend or a new pasta sauce or a watch that promises to solve all of my problems.

Except for… you know… that big pandemic one.

I’m not getting a watch.

This may be my favourite Twitter thread ever. I read it the same week that Josh told me about a Paul Hollywood recipe for challah that contains milk, not realizing how the two tweets were interconnected.

But can we backup for a moment? MILK. And spells challah “CHOLLA.” Listen, I get that our alphabet is sometimes hard to translate into English letters, but YOU. ARE. NOT. EVEN. TRYING.

Paul Hollywood (of great British bake off) includes dairy in his “cholla” recipe and suggests it be served at Passover 🤷🏻‍♀️ pic.twitter.com/QQTUAM8sLY

— Rachel Yavinsky (@rachelyavs) February 11, 2021

I could not stop calling the challah “milk bread” last week. You know, the bread we serve for our bread-free holiday.

Anyway, the original Twitter thread got Bon Appetit to change their offensive hamantashen recipe.

lol i am planning a purim lesson and researching Hamantaschen fillings. One of the top google results: this piece written by a non Jew called “How to Make Hamantaschen actually good.” Who published it? I think you can guess: https://t.co/zRc6jqszBg

— Abigail Koffler (@abigailcoughler) February 10, 2021

This may be my biggest pet peeve: When there are excellent recipes created by people inside the culture being rewritten by people outside the culture, not to make them accessible to a group of people (such as making hamantaschen gluten-free) or melding two cultures (such as matzo ball ramen) but to make the original culture’s food “better” by a different culture’s standards.

There is no milk in challah. There is no butter in hamantaschen. Or, as she so succinctly puts it:

Traditional foods do not automatically need to be updated, especially by someone who does not come from that tradition.

— Abigail Koffler (@abigailcoughler) February 10, 2021

Do not even get me started on hummus. I have big feelings about hummus.

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

• None… sniff.

Okay, now my choices this week.

The Next 15000 Days has a post about being okay and not okay at the same time. She writes: “Most of the days I feel OK and in peace with my childless life. Sometimes something happens that spoils my peace and then I need my blog to write my thoughts down. I need someone out there to read my lines and tell me that I am not alone.” You’re not alone. And blogging allows us to know that without a doubt.

Scientist on the Roof writes about pandemic fatigue. She explains: “The plague fatigue is because of constant need to make risk evaluations and decisions.” Yes—to all of it. The decisions we have to make. Navigating other people’s decisions. It is exhausting.

Lastly, the book from By the Brooke is here. She writes: “The internet sure can be an ugly place, but this little corner of it has been so, so good to me.” Huge congratulations on the major accomplishment.

The roundup to the Roundup: There is no butter in hamantaschen. 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 Feb 12 – Feb 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.

The ChickieNob and I have started a walking club. We invited Josh and the Wolvog, but neither saw the appeal of walking in place.

But the ChickieNob and I are indoor kids. We think walking club is our most amazing invention.

It started when I read an article on Jazzercise and looked online to see if I could try out a Jazzercise class before committing to the digital subscription. This led deep into the bowels of YouTube where I discovered that there is a thriving community of people who make videos as they walk, and then other people walk, job, or bike in place, watching them. (Just go on YouTube, put in “virtual walk” + a place you want to go.)

It sounds sad when I describe it like that, but it has become my favourite hour of the day.

We’ve found that you need to watch most of the walking videos on 1.5x or 1.75x speed.

We’ve started with places we’ve already been, reminiscing as we walk down familiar streets. But we’ve started bookmarking places we want to go. Or dozens of videos around a theme—the Scottish Highlands, for example—so we can turn off the sound and listen to an audio book while we walk. We comment on the random people we pass (who have no clue they’ve been captured on video like a fly in amber) or talk about whatever is on our mind; just as we would a walk outside. Except it’s pandemic stress-free because it’s inside. And we’re not freezing. We’re not affected by rain, and we don’t need to be mindful of cars driving beside us. We don’t have to wear a mask. Yet we’re averaging between 5000 – 6000 steps per walk.

Like I said, favourite hour of the day.

I think we’ll keep it up even after the pandemic is over because we get to see the world vs. our neighbourhood over and over and over again. Plus, we’re indoor kids.

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. I clearly had another great reading month—I liked a lot of books.

The Eighth Detective (Alex Pavesi): It’s a set of “classic murder mystery” stories framed within a larger story about an editor preparing these stories with the author for re-publication. They each follow one of the author’s rules about murder mysteries. The stories range from decent to great, and while I saw the twist coming from a mile away, I still enjoyed watching the book unfold.

Before the Coffee Gets Cold (Toshikazu Kawaguchi): This is such a sweet set of intertwined stories, all featuring a coffeehouse where you can go back in time. You can’t change the past, and you can only stay for a short time (until the coffee gets cold), but somehow every person who goes backward manages to find peace with the present. Loved it.

Admission (Julie Buxbaum): This is a fictionalized account of the college admissions scandal, and it highlighted what drives so much of the anger (that situation and also now in terms of the pandemic). There is an unwritten social contract that we follow, and when someone breaks that contract—that trust that we’re all going to operate from an “attempt to do no harm” space—it enrages us. I should probably unpack this in its own post.

I Let You Go (Claire Mackintosh): Such a great story. It felt a lot like Broadchurch (the television show) but in book form. And a very different murder. And not really following all the people in a town. So not Broadchurch at all, but still very Broadchurch-y. Maybe this is more accurate: if you miss the show Broadchurch, you will probably like this book.

People Like Her (Ellery Lloyd): Instagram influencer meets obsessive fan in a couldn’t-put-it-down book. It’s a commentary on social media—the real from the curated—but it’s also, at its heart, the story of a relationship. And the smoke and mirrors of the celebrity world.

The Duke and I (Julia Quinn): Yes, I watched Bridgerton. Yes, I immediately got the series and started reading it. (Expect more blurbs in the upcoming months because I think I’ll get through at least the first five books.) I already know that the books get better as the series progresses, but this first book was so enjoyable.

Finna (Nino Cipri): This is definitely my favourite thing I read this month. It may become my favourite book of the year. And it’s only January! That’s how good it is. It’s about two employees in an IKEA-knockoff store, who enter a Scandinavian Narnia through one of the fake “homes” in the store showroom to save a customer who was sucked into a wormhole. There were points where I laughed so hard that I couldn’t breathe. And others where I felt wistful. It is such a lovely book, and there’s a follow-up to it coming out soon.

The Wife Upstairs (Rachel Hawkins): This had such an unbelievable build-up before it came out, and I was scared that it wouldn’t deliver. But it was amazing. It’s Jane Eyre meets Rebecca in the modern South. It’s creepy and wonderful and you could probably read the whole thing in one sitting. It’s that good.

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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Maybe we can’t technically leave our home right now, but we can mentally leave our home with this completely amazing website that pairs radio stations around the world with video footage from a car. So you feel like you’re driving around London. Or Tel Aviv. Or Stockholm.

Or maybe it’s a drone sometimes.

Regardless, you can also change the radio station if you don’t like the one that autoplays when you log into a city.

I love, love, love, love, love this. It’s a life-changer.

What amazing things have you found?

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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.