Last week, when the returns were trickling in at a snail’s rate, I started taking screenshots. I couldn’t keep the numbers in my head, and I spent a lot of time on Wednesday saying, “Have the numbers moved?” Screenshots solved that problem and provided an answer. Because the time was also part of the screenshot, I could start judging how many ballots each state would get through in an hour. I felt in control of something that was completely outside my control.

Of course, we know the answer now so I no longer need these screenshots. But I’m finding it difficult to delete them. They capture a moment in time, and I feel weird tossing them in the trash. But I also need the space on my compiuter.

Maybe I’ll keep one or two. Maybe I’ll just be happy with the results, delete the screenshots, and keep looking forward because there’s still a lot of work to be done.

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It’s Friday the 13th. Remember? Compulsive need to say that every Friday the 13th? Zero clue why.

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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:

• “My Blog Is a Teenager” (The Road Less Travelled)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Infertile Phoenix is controlling what is under her control. She writes, “Some things don’t have a definitive ending. They happen over time and change your life forever. It can take years to figure out how to live again within your new reality.” Yes—all of this. And applying lessons forward is the only thing you can do.

The Next 15000 Days has a quote about the concept of acceptance, highlighting a strange question that really only has one answer. Some things just are. She explains: “Am I OK with being childless? There are many days that I am and there are also days that I am not.” It’s a brief post that will make you think.

Finally, The Road Less Travelled has a post about passing along family heirlooms and the stories that go with them. The post also serves as an important reminder to draw up your will. But the main focus is deciding what to do with those physical objects that have been passed through families. She points out: “If we want people to appreciate the things we want to leave to them, we need to make sure they understand their significance.”

The roundup to the Roundup: What to do with my election screenshots? Friday the 13th. 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 6 – 13) 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 have a special iced coffee tumbler I use every morning, and it came with a teal reusable straw. Setting the scene: Election Night. Before any returns have come in. Josh doing the dishes, and I hear, “Crap.” He came in holding part of my teal straw.

It felt like a harbinger of things to come.

I had no clue I was that emotionally-invested in a straw until it snapped in two.

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I got the paid version of the Calm app a few weeks ago. (The fact that I am emotionally-invested in the colour of my straw probably points to why I need this app.)

ChickieNob and I have been trying to work our way through sleep stories, but they’re a huge time commitment. I wish they had eight minute versions. Or ten minutes, tops. Spending almost a half hour with someone speaking very slowly and calmly is making me feel like ripping up paper and smashing tea cups.

I love the meditation visual… image… video… sort of things though. If you have the app, you know what I’m talking about. The beach scene? Or the one that feels like a first-person perspective on a boat going toward the horizon? I want to hook up my phone to the television again and run all of the water-related videos on an endless loop.

There is a lot on the app, and I still need to explore. It feels like a good weekend activity.

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Speaking of which, after not wanting a stationary bike ever, I decided that a stationary bike would be the most amazing thing ever. I want something akin to a poor man’s Peleton. Something without a lot of bells and whistles that I can set up in front of the television so I can watch first-person biking videos streamed through my phone while on the bike to feel like I’m moving. Something like this. (Warning: non-Cotswolds-like music in video, so maybe mute for more enjoyment.)

A long time ago, I would go on the Wii Fit and run around Wuhu Island. Maybe I just need to do that again. Except I really want a stationary bike. Does anyone have an inexpensive one they love that they can recommend?

If you play video games, you’ve probably encountered resource management games. The point of these puzzles is that you have a variable that limits what you can do. So, for instance, in Zork, you have a lantern. It has limited light that diminishes with each turn. So you have to plot out your time in dark places because you don’t want to waste the lantern while you’re up in the forest and can see without artificial light.

Or you have food that gets used up by the player character or a limited number of items that be carried (and all other items need to be stored someplace central and safe). The point is that some people love these types of limits and some people hate these types of limits. Once upon a time, I was in that former category. I thought those limits made the game more exciting.

But now my life is one long resource management game.

Josh goes shopping every two weeks. Which means that days ahead of time, everyone chooses meals for the next two weeks. Then I create a PDF of all the recipes and use it to plan out the shopping list. Because he goes food shopping for two other households, I have to get their lists and meld them with our list, and then put the whole thing in order by section and aisle so Josh can walk through and see everything in order. Then we have to put our groceries away, drop off the other groceries, and follow the plan to the letter until it starts over again two weeks later.

While it’s fun to do resource management for a single player character, it is really hard to do resource management for four different living beings. Plus a very insistent guinea pig. I spent an afternoon organizing all of my spices, generating a spreadsheet of what I had and what I needed for my two-week cooking window. I HAVE A SPICE SPREADSHEET.

Nine months. We’ve been doing this for nine month.

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?