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

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I rarely click anymore when lists for “your state’s most famous dish” pop up because I know that (1) it will be crabs, (2) I’ve never had crabs and never will, and (3) only know a handful of local people who do eat crabs. It just isn’t part of my universe.

But CNN Traveler lists our state food as Salvadoran, and I am totally here for that and agree wholeheartedly. It may be because we live in that mentioned area with plenty of Salvadoran options, but that IS the food I associate with my area much more than crabs. I’m aware I would have a different view of my state if we lived on the water. But since we don’t, and since every other cuisine-of-your-state list points to crabs, I’ll take this for a win.

If you live in the US, is your state accurate?

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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 recently read Anxious People by Fredrik Backman, and it was lovely. I’ll unpack the book more when I review the books for the month in mid-December. But it was one of those books that I covered in multiple underlined passages. I hate to repeat the word again, mostly because it also sounds (and, frankly, is) wishy-washy, but they were really lovely thoughts that popped up where I didn’t expect them.

One of them came on page 259, when the police officer remembers his mother’s words:

“We can’t change the world, and a lot of the time we can’t even change people. No more than one bit at a time. So we do what we can to help whenever we get the chance, sweetheart. We save those we can. We do our best. Then we try to find a way to convince ourselves that we will just have to… be enough. So we can live with our failures without drowning.”

No more than one bit at a time. And that has to be enough.

It begs the question: where is the “worth it” line when it comes to enough; the small acts we can do that barely impact the world or even other humans, but they’re what is left in our control. For instance, we recycle all recyclable items. But even if everyone recycled all recyclable item, it may not be enough to impact the environment because recycling isn’t the panacea we were promised it would be. Don’t get me wrong—it’s still the right thing to do. But recycling isn’t the same as not using plastic items in the first place. It’s a better act that comes with its own limitations, still impacting the environment only less-so.

So that is what I mean by the worth-it line. Is recycling worth it? It’s a small act that costs nothing except a little extra time. So, yes, even if the impact is tiny, it’s worth it. Though the worth is tempered by the fact that everyone needs to do it to have an impact. Is one person recycling all the recyclable items worth it?

It feels like the worth of the act is only defined by not doing it. That reaching out to another person may not change anything at all, but not reaching out to another person will almost definitely have a negative impact if they’re suffering. That recycling may not change anything at all, but not recycling will almost definitely have a negative impact by being one more item taking up space in a landfill. So the worth-it line is eternally set as something-is-better-than-nothing.

Even when something isn’t enough.

We had a lovely little Thanksgiving at home. I made a ton of side dishes, a pie for Josh, and brownies for the rest of us. I started cooking on Wednesday, so Thursday was laid back and filled with Zoom calls. It was fine. On the plus side: we got a lot of relaxation in. On the minus side: we didn’t get to see family and friends.

Thanksgiving is the only holiday I don’t host. Up until now, everything has felt normal-ish as each holiday popped up on the calendar because I’m accustomed to preparing the meal. So the seders were kind of sad due to the people missing from my home, but I normally cook for days beforehand. So Pesach felt normal-ish until the actual meal. Same with Rosh Hashanah, et al. But we go to my parents for Thanksgiving, so I’m not accustomed to making stuffing and Brussels sprouts. At least, not for Thanksgiving. So no holidays off this year. The cooking train continues rolling.

I’m looking forward to spending the weekend reading with my pig. So there’s that. Though I’m missing seeing everyone this year.

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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.

Infertile Phoenix is missing her children. She sees a picture of children playing in a blanket fort, and she writes, “But suddenly, I felt a visceral longing in my heart and being that will never be filled. My son or daughter never got to be a big brother or big sister to my other son or daughter. They didn’t get to build living room blanket forts, play together, and antagonize each other. I didn’t get to hear them laugh and bicker. And I felt profoundly sad.” She takes this enormous feeling and puts it in perspective, making it manageable while still painful. It’s a lovely post about how to acknowledge grief and work through it.

Finding My Plan B writes about an amazing online retreat where she learned so much about herself. She explains: “The retreat gave me a place to switch off from my life, to stop and to hear … I went on The Bridge feeling confused, misunderstood and unaccepted. I crossed the Bridge realising that I already know who I am I was just too afraid to be her because of other people’s opinions.” Love where she ended up through this.

Lastly, Much Ado About Nothing has a profound musing on self-improvement: “But the mind can be a dangerous place, and I’ve realized I have a lot of things in my life I have never completely worked through, because I didn’t know how.” She is trying to come to terms with choices that were taken away from her, and she has set confronting the facts into motion. It’s a turning point post that leaves you holding your breath.

The roundup to the Roundup: Thanksgiving. 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 November 20 – 27) 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.

Every year, we joke about making a turducken. It’s sort of the gold standard for Thanksgiving cooking: a chicken inside a duck inside a turkey. (I think I have the order correct?)

We are not having a turducken. We are not even having a turkey. The twins wanted a meal of really good side dishes, which often involve dairy. (And we don’t mix meat and dairy in the same meal.) So we’re having a dairy meal—just tofu for protein, not even a Tofurkey—so we can have mashed potatoes and mushroom stuffing and Brussels sprouts.

But I was thinking that the turducken as a symbol is the perfect inverse image of this particular Thanksgiving with its matryoshka mess of troubles. It’s personal situations (infertility, perhaps) inside election / transition stress inside civil unrest inside COVID-19. It’s everything snowballed together into a stressful little holiday.

So.

If you are having a hard day—or even if you’re having an easy day—I am sending peace of heart. Feel what you are going to feel today. Miss who you are going to miss today. Big breath in, and big sigh out.

[Melissa stands up, taps her fork against her glass, and clears her throat. The conversation around the table dies down. She looks at everyone at the table.]

We do this every year: Come together as a community and have a virtual meal before we scatter to our actual meals. Unless, that is, you do not celebrate Thanksgiving. But I hope that you’ll join the table for virtual food and company even if you don’t follow this tradition offline.

Of course, you may be going nowhere this year due to COVID-19. I know that we will be home, missing everyone. This is a really hard year.

We’ve virtually eaten together since 2009. That’s when this tradition began. There are some people hurting at this table. For some people, this pre-meal is what gets them through their real meal later in the week. People have written that they’ve printed out this yearly post and comments and left the paper in their purse because it helped to have a tangible reminder that there were people out there who got it. Who weren’t going to ask them when they were going to hurry up and have children. Who weren’t going to cringe when someone spoke the name of a child they lost.

We are all so different. All of us. Around this table. But we have this one facet of our lives — and yes, even though it may be a big, overpowering one for you right now, it is only one facet of who you are — where we overlap: infertility or adoption or loss. And I am so thankful, so grateful, that I found all of you. Everyone needs a You-shaped space where they can be themselves. And that’s what I have here.

So every year, I ask people to bring a virtual dish to our meal. Place it in the comment section, explaining what you brought and why. And say anything else you need to say before sitting back down to enjoy the company. Update about where you are; your emotional state.

We’re an international group, hailing from countries all around the world. So while Thanksgiving is an American tradition, I hope that everyone around the world feels as if they can participate. (Especially our Canadian neighbours who celebrated Thanksgiving weeks ago.) I’d love for your dish to come from your culture or country. Don’t worry about the contents on the table clashing.

As always, I am bringing stuffing. It’s comfort food; mushy and soggy and warm.

So what did you bring and what do you want to say to the community?

And please, start eating as everyone is introducing their dish. We don’t want the food to get cold and there are so many of us at this table. Thank you so much for coming, and I’m going to carry the warmth of this meal with me for the rest of this week.