If you can get past the accusatory title, this essay provides an entirely new (to me) way of looking at purchases. Every object is your time.

They state it perfectly: “Stuff I didn’t particularly love. Stuff with no serious meaning to it. Stuff I didn’t care about. Stuff that, if you had secretly tossed, I wouldn’t even realize went missing … Standing in front of all my stuff, it hit me that all of it used to be money, and all of that used to be time.”

Whoa.

I mean, it’s absolutely true. Every object you hold represents the money spent on the object. The book is $22.99. That $22.99 can take the form of paper bills or it can take the form of the book, but in either case, it is $22.99. But what is money except a tangible version of your time and effort? 8 hours of work = x amount. So when you spend money on an object, you are also spending a representation of your time.

I don’t buy a lot of things that I don’t use up pretty much immediately (food, toiletries, etc). The exception would be books, and I feel okay about the books I buy. Or the fact that I buy books. If I buy clothing, I try to make it as timeless as possible. Zero articles of clothing that mark a moment. We wear out things before we replace them. But sure, there are things that we’ve collected through the years that feel like clutter, but I don’t really have an “appetite for novelty” or a “fear of missing out,” though I assume many people do.

I also wouldn’t say that my lack of purchases comes from values. As I said, the thought above blew my mind. I just have a lack of desire for new things. Unless they’re books. I like familiar things, not new things. So that is not a value system; that is just a fact of my personality. And it’s not better or worse. Though it probably does inadvertently save me money.

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

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You know how, on The Good Place, the characters sometimes kill Janet by pressing a button, and doing so makes her come back with enhanced features? Killing Janet is usually Janet’s idea. But as they walk up to the button to press it, she is also programmed to beg them not to do it. So they walk up to the button and then have doubts because she’s crying out to them to stop. So they pause, and then she points out that she is programmed to do this, and they should ignore her. And the whole dance starts again until they finally go through with it?

That is how I feel about cutting off a streaming service. Today is our last day with one of them, and I feel like I will be better off after it’s done (more money in my pocket, more time for things I actually want to see on other services). But in this scenario, I am also the Janet screaming my head off. “Don’t close the account!”

I am going to ignore my inner Janet and close the account. I’ve done this with other streaming services, and I find that the day after I lose access, I never think about it again. But that day before, oof, my inner Janet is working overtime.

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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 connected to businesses or sponsored posts.

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 reads that month. Book reviews are important for authors, and I want to get better at 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 October.

What We Can Know (Ian McEwan): This book is an excellent reminder that sometimes you feel bored or want to stop something or don’t know where it is going, but if you hang in there, you will have your mind blown. What a fantastic ride. What a hard gulp of a thought about what we leave behind and how it will be interpreted in the future. This is one of my favourite reads of 2025.

Lyra’s Oxford (Philip Pullman): A bit thinner as a story than the Collectors or the novels. Enjoyed it because I enjoy all time with Lyra in Oxford, but it feels more like a sketch than a finished drawing. Still, as a completist, I felt like I had to read this one before getting to The Rose Field.

A Particularly Nasty Case (Adam Kay): I liked this but didn’t love it because it felt like a repeat of This Is Going To Hurt without the emotional bits. On the plus side, I laughed quite a few times. It’s a cute cozy mystery with an unlikeable narrator but I wanted to like him. There is a moment early on when the narrator points out why he and Nina should be friends on paper, and that’s kind of how I felt about the book. We should connect on paper.

Serpentine (Philip Pullman): Again, His Dark Materials completist, so I needed to read this tiny novella before continuing on to The Secret Commonwealth. Each tiny Lyra story hurts and heals my heart. This one was no different. I love this world so much. I’m glad I decided to reread and catch up on the novellas I missed on the way to the Rose Field. It is a great way to spend time in this tumultuous world.

Guilty by Definition (Susie Dent): Word nerds, rejoice. I read two books set in Oxford at the same time — The Secret Commonwealth (Philip Pullman, fantasy) and this — and they often visited the same places: The Trout or Cornmarket or Godstow. So it was a very strange experience jumping back and forth from real Oxford to fantasy Oxford, and a great way to experience the word play of this mystery. I loved being in the CED (or… alternate OED) offices, learning about the world, and following the twisting path of the story.

What did you read last month?

Guess who is phasing out of baby food? Quentin Aeneas is now a big boy, and we’re weaning him onto adult food. He likes it because Quentin pretty much likes everything with the exception of birds. He passionately hates birds and still growls whenever he hears one, which is about 30 times per day. And then he looks at me as if to say, “Am I wrong?” And I respond, “I know. Birds are the worst.”

He still loves Josh so much and gets excited when he comes home. Bedtime is the best. That makes him so excited that he has to popcorn around in a circle and yank all of his hay out of his bowl. Just because. And then run through it because there is that much joy in his heart.

He is super patient when I’m doing yoga, and though he often talks to himself, he never begs for his vitamin C cookie until I’m finished and closed the iPad. He loves the weekend when we share an apple for breakfast. And while he will eat carrots, peppers, and cucumber on his own, he likes an audience when he eats lettuce, and he’ll sometimes wait until I can sit down with him to begin eating, even if it means waiting a long time.

But best of all, he loves having his head rubbed, and he finally does what I loved so much about Beorn: He rests his head in my palm while I stroke between his eyes. I love to watch him get blissed out and then become so happy that he has to run around in a circle to let it all out.

Be yourself, Quentin!

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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 to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

And now the blogs…

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But first, second, helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week. To read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “On the Road with Those Who Get It” (The Next 15000 Days)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Another blogging milestone. No Kidding in NZ reached 15 years of blogging. I love this thought: “Thanks for reading, being here, writing in parallel on your own blogs, being part of my No Kidding life. I’m not sure how much longer I will continue, as blogs seem to fall out of favour, and readers dwindle. But if I can reach one new person, it’s worth continuing.” It is about reaching one person at a time. And very happy to be one of those people who have learned from you.

Lastly, Middle Girl writes about meeting up with her cousin, whom she hadn’t seen in decades due to divorce. She explains: “While we are close in age, we have people and experiences in common, the second half of our childhoods and a large chunk of our adulthoods were spent in separate worlds. Her memories and my memories did not align.” It’s a story with a bit of a twist, and it brings out thoughts on family and the meaning of those ties.

The roundup to the Roundup: Eternally happy Quentin Aeneas. 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 7 – 14) 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.

Many years ago, my brother introduced the kids to Trader Joe’s cat cookies for people, and they immediately became a shopping trip staple.

When we dropped the kids off at college this year, we swung by their local Trader Joe’s for cat cookies and Bamba, and they were sold out of both. Panic! They grabbed other snacks, and I said I would pick up these treats at our local Trader Joe’s before our October visit. That way, I would be sure they would have them.

While Bamba was quickly back on the shelves, there continued to be a blank space where cat cookies should be. Every time we asked about it, the person would check the computer and tell us they would be back in stock X days later. We would return, the shelf would be empty, and we’d be told there was a delay, and now it was Y says later. They have not been discontinued. They’re just having trouble getting them in stock.

We tried up until the trip, tried random Trader Joe’s along the way, and tried up in their college town one last time. No cat cookies.

I haven’t given up. The Cat Cookie Crisis of 2025 has only made me more determined to keep at this until I can present tubs of cat-shaped cookies to the kids. Making me a hero.

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The kids also taught me the term “rubberducking.” It comes from computer science, where coders are encouraged to “explain their code, step by step, in natural language—either aloud or in writing—to reveal mistakes and misunderstandings.” And they do this to a rubber duck or other inanimate object.

I needed it explained because a person said to me, “I’m not a rubber duck!” And I didn’t understand the reference. It’s when another person uses YOU as their rubber duck. They’re not telling you so you understand them better. They’re using you as a rubber duck to talk through their problems so they can hear them outside their head. And the point the person made is that humans absorb emotions, rubber ducks do not, so talking at someone for a half hour while listing out all of your issues is not a productive conversation. It’s rubber ducking.

So now you know, too.