I recently commented on Lori’s GoodReads post with my star system because it had been on my mind after seeing someone else’s review in my feed. I do not rate books unless I can give them a four or five. Meaning, if my impulse is to give it a three or below, I keep it to myself, mark the book as read, and move on.

I do this for a number of reasons. One, I know the author will see the ranking and not be able to discuss it with me. I mean, imagine if a friend ate dinner at your house, yelled out a score for the meal, and then ran out the door to jump on a ship and disappear forever. If she called out four or five stars, you’d probably just focus on the strange behaviour. (Why is she eating, running, and calling out a score? Where is she going on this random ship?) But if she gave your meal a two, you’d also wonder where you went wrong with cooking or menu planning.

Of course, I could go deeper and give the book a review BUT my feeling is that if I didn’t enjoy something, I don’t want to dedicate more time to that thing by talking or writing about it. If I read something and don’t rate it, you can guess that I didn’t like it. No extra effort expended.

I also believe that just because I don’t connect with a book doesn’t mean that it isn’t the perfect book for another person. Negative reviews could scare off that hypothetical person. If I’m asked, I may tell a person why I didn’t enjoy a particular book and who may find that book totally enjoyable. But if I’m not asked, I assume that the right people will find the book or it will disappear from people’s TBR pile.

I’ve also been burned by other people’s reviews. I recently read a book that I disliked tremendously. I bought it because it had mostly five-star reviews on GoodReads––over 24,000 of them. But it was terrible and I’m out $17 that I could have spent on the next book in the series I’m reading. Reviews usually guide me towards great books and save me time, but sometimes they go the other way, guiding me towards things that I don’t enjoy.

So that’s my star system. I don’t always remember to add books that I read to GoodReads––I track my books in a paper notebook––but when I do, I only star or talk about the ones I really like.

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

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I guess fall doesn’t technically begin until September 23rd, but Labour Day always feels like the last day of summer. Maybe it’s because school begins this week or because people expect vacations to wrap up by this evening. But it feels like the last day of summer.

The school supplies are purchased. The pencils are sharpened. The suitcases are packed away for a little bit.

What are you looking forward to this fall?

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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’ll dump this little post that terrified me this week into this quiet weekend. A woman writes about her inability to get another job after being out of work for two years. It bookends an article that I read months ago about professional decline. The twins moving into a different stage of life has clearly jump started thoughts on my next stage of life where we’re moving towards retirement.

Let me be honest: I have zero plans to ever retire. I mean, yes, I am saving for retirement while simultaneously trying to figure out whether I’m doing this well or awful at it. (I think I’m awful at it.) But I don’t want to retire. I am terrified of retirement and losing that daily purpose. I’m not someone who is great with down time. I don’t long for days off of work. I really enjoy what I do, and my best days are the ones where I’m ticking items off the to-do list left and right. I need the structure of work.

But according to all of these articles, one day people will likely make me retire. Unlike the guy in the second article, my feelings aren’t tied to career glory. I’m not looking to do something different and incredible. I just want to keep doing my job. It’s about wanting my structure and having my structure remain strong and stable. Not a professional folly but a professional building with a foundation and four walls and the ability to hold up a roof.

This is just me fretting. I’m reading about retirement plans and worrying about the economy and wondering about the future. Don’t mind me — I’m just having a run-of-the-mill, midlife crisis.

We just got back from a quick trip to the beach. The skies were more grey than blue and the water tumultuous due to storms coming up from the Caribbean. But we could still sit outside and read, so I’d call that a win.

What wasn’t a win––and was more striking than usual––was beach erosion. The twins only have memories of the place from the last twelve or so years, but even they could remember the multiple rows of car spots in the parking lot, which are down to a single row in some spaces, and the long walk from the car to the water. They have no clue how enormous that beach was when I was their age thirty years ago. There is now only a sliver left of the sand.

The town has been talking for years about moving the beach. It would require setting up an off-site parking lot and using a shuttle service to take people to the new beach. It makes me sad to think about the beach changing.

There are only so many times we can apologize to the younger generations for messing up their world.

On a side note, we stopped in a nature center to talk to the rangers about a birding program we’re planning to attend this winter. I asked if there were more than four or five types of birds we’d be able to see, and the ranger made a small face of disbelief at me. I wasn’t joking––I didn’t know that not all seagulls are the same.

Josh pointed out a bird list by the door of birds seen in the vicinity that week that was about one hundred names long. “Plus they all have awesome names that I can start calling you,” he whispered gleefully. So… yeah… we’ve nailed down our first new hobby.

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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:

• “MicroblogMondays: Tips for Better Reading” (The Road Less Travelled)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Empty Arms, Broken Heart has a post about invisible grief and the tendency (or expectation) that people continue on with life as normal while miscarrying or not being able to conceive. She writes, “It did not make the grief process easier to keep it to myself … In trying to keep my grief to myself, I found it poured out in ways I didn’t intend.” Her point about the damage we do when we try to make our grief invisible is thought-provoking.

Dreaming of Diapers returns with bad news from her final FET. I realized I was holding my breath as I read the first part. It is about trying to process the end while you’re still in the throes of the end. It’s a heartbreaking post, but I wanted to highlight it so everyone could surround her with love.

Finally, RisaKerslake writes about a comment she received on a recent post: “it can still be a jab to read something where you’ve just poured your heart out and someone thinks you’re basically an awful human being.” She wrote about how she felt parenting after infertility, and she was told that she should “learn to appreciate what [she has].” I’m not sure why anyone thinks they need to negate someone else’s expressed feelings. But I love Risa’s thoughts on how processing the feelings from infertility aren’t one-size-fits-all.

The roundup to the Roundup: The beach has changed. 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 August 23rd and August 30th) 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 was babysitting recently, and it came time to put the baby to bed. I asked and knew their general evening routine. I dressed the baby, gave him a bottle, and sang him the song that I used to sing Truman the guinea pig to keep him calm while he was in the car.

I put the baby in the crib and he let out a cry. I stayed for a moment, rubbing his back and telling him that he was okay. It was bedtime and he needed to go to sleep. He let out two more cries when I went into the hallway and was quiet by the time I got downstairs and checked the monitor.

I’m not saying that I’m magical or special. But I’m good at getting kids to go to sleep or keeping them entertained. I’m good at reading books aloud and remembering all the voices across a series. I’m good at sitting still and listening to a kid and asking questions. I’m not saying I’m a perfect mother; but I am a proficient mother. In a future dystopia where our jobs will be determined by where we excel, I’ll be chosen to be some sort of caregiver of kids.

[Aside: In the movie version, I would play the docile person who goes with the plan while my plucky friend breaks free of The Mold — which is what they would call this whole work system in the dystopia — and follows her heart.]

I feel immodest writing this, but I have so few things I am good at. This is what I’m good at. This and baking. There are so many things I suck at, but that’s not the point of the post.

The point is that I have these skills that I needed once upon a time, and I’ll never need again on a continual basis. I mean, yes, I could become a nanny, but I won’t because I have a job that I love. Or I could be asked to babysit in the future, but…

The point is that I think part of my grief of having the kids grow up (and I do want them to grow up) is that I no longer have a need for some of these skills. A few are transferable to other stages of life or caregiving, but a few, like getting a kid on a nap schedule, are time-limited. And I feel sad that I have these unused skills that once upon a time filled me with pride.

As a teacher, there is always a new year of students. As a writer, there is always another book or another client. As long as I am able to bake, I can keep finding people to eat my baked goods. But this kid-raising thing; that was finite.

This isn’t a problem that requires fixing; it’s just a realization of what makes me so sad about this whole growing up thing as they head back to school and the world beyond.