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

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Back in August, the BBC had an article about the upside to worrying. As someone who worries a lot, I was happy to have any excuse to continue with my anxiety rather than fight it.

Worrying moves you to action. If you’re scared about something, you’re more likely to do something about it if there’s something to do. Worried about that tiger? Run from it. Worried about the direction of your country? Vote. Worrying gets you prepared. Worrying helps you problem-solve.

I like this article because it doesn’t put down worrying. Instead, it acknowledges there is a time and place for worrying, and if you’re going to worry, there are ways to make the worrying useful.

I pass this along in case you are as worried as I am right now about the state of things.

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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.

My comfort food is onion rolls—you know, the kind you get at the grocery store from the self-service bins? They are likely horrible for you, but I love them.

When I was having a particularly terrible time during graduate school, I would escape the area and go down to see my grandmother a lot. And she always gave me onion rolls, slathered with butter. Later on, after she died, I would get myself an onion roll if I was having a bad day because they made me feel closer to my grandmother.

But I haven’t had an onion roll in eight months. Even though they’re my comfort food.

First of all, did I mention the self-service bins? Yeah. Not doing that right now with COVID-19 or perhaps ever again. You can get multiple onion rolls sold in a bag, but I haven’t found a brand I like. They all have a weird aftertaste. So I haven’t had an onion roll in eight months, and this week, I hit my breaking point.

Luckily, the first recipe I tried tastes exactly like the rolls of my childhood. I modified them by using one onion and caramelizing it for a long time over low heat. I’d use two onions next time. Plus I used four tablespoons instead of four ounces of butter (a whole stick!). But other than that, I made it as is. They were so damn good. And I felt completely satiated afterward; like I had spent a few hours with my grandmother.

What is your comfort food? And can you make it/buy it still?

Things in the what I don’t know category—what will happen with all of the tension in the US, what will happen with finalizing the election results, what will happen with COVID-19—feels much larger than the things in the what I know category, which pretty much consists of dinner tonight. And even that is not a given. I have good intentions to make ravioli. Who knows if I’ll be able to pull off boiling the water.

I’ve been declaring every weekend self-care Saturday and Sunday. I’ll be on the sofa this weekend with my pig, reading novels and trying to recharge.

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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:

• “Love Bats” (My Path to Mommyhood)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Anabegins sums up the heart of this election: It shouldn’t be close. And in some ways, it’s not. At least, if we’re to believe that things will change by the time the final votes are counted. It’s not just about voting out bad leadership. It’s also about all those supporters that still exist after the leader has been removed.

My Path to Mommyhood has a post about a term that keeps popping up again and again this week: manifesting. Once described, I immediately recognized it from The Secret and vision boards. Why has it made a comeback? I have no clue. Perhaps it never went away. Regardless, she is in a lot of pain right now and could use some good thoughts: “The body is real talented at letting you know when you’ve overextended yourself.”

Lastly, The Skinny Black Girl has a post that is… perfect. You’ll just have to trust me on this. (This line is like the perfect on the perfect: “My life fits in the palm of my hand and I like it that way. Because it’s never too much.”) Click over already.

The roundup to the Roundup: Living with the great unknown. 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 October 30 – November 6) 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.

I am feeling hopeful. Like the Magic 8 Ball says, “All signs point to yes.” Except, I have also read/watched Lord of the Rings enough times to know that you don’t turn your back when the Balrog is falling. You wait until you hear his corpse hit the rocks below or burn up in the fires before you walk off the narrow ledge. And maybe not even then.

I won’t relax on January 20th because the nightmare isn’t over—his supporters continue to exist. And if I have learned anything from 2020, it’s that there is not a point where we’ll breathe. There is just moving from moment to moment.

Election Day marked an entire year since I’ve seen my sister. I kissed her goodbye back in 2019 and made plans to see her in the spring. That trip was canceled. In a few weeks, I’ll mark one year since I’ve seen my brother. He lives closer, but our winter trip was stymied by colds and holidays. We thought we’d be able to pull off late January or early February. That didn’t happen, either.

I’ve stopped putting goal posts up, saying maybe by January 20th, maybe by a vaccine, maybe by the next midterms. I feel hope in this moment that we’re turning a hard-to-turn ship. And that is where I am right now. Because it’s all about moment to moment, not thinking anything is a given.

Josh asked what we were going to do today. On a normal year, we’d climb into bed after dinner and watch the returns with the kids. And that’s what we decided to do again, even though we know that we will likely go to bed without knowing the winner. Some information is better than no information, and it was weird enough voting by mail this year. Not watching election coverage would be even weirder.

I am nervous about the wait. I am also nervous about results and what comes next, after the results are in. So it’s just a big, simmering pot of nervousness, and there’s nothing left to do but wait and hope.

Four years ago, I was so excited for Election Day. Excited to vote, excited to watch the returns… I mean… until reality set in and Josh vomited and I sat crouched on the floor all night, refreshing the news on my phone because I couldn’t believe everything was really happening. I have none of that excitement today. It’s just my jaw firmly set, eyes forward, trying not to get carried away by any single piece of information.

Let’s get through today and tomorrow and the next day until we know, shall we?