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

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I find this “clock” relaxing to watch, though I set it on the hex code screen using the # button. If I see a colour I like, I quickly take a screenshot so I can replicate it elsewhere because the hex code is printed over the colour. While it jumps sometimes to a new colour (e.g., red instead of blue), inside each section, it moves in a pretty predictable way. If you miss a colour, you can figure it out by changing the sixth digit one or two ahead or behind.

Enjoy!

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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.

I’ve never done 10Q, but I decided to do it this year, and it begins tomorrow (Sept 22, 205). You sign up and then receive 10 questions over 10 days. If you’ve never heard of it, this explanation from the site sums it up:

Answer one question per day in your own secret online 10Q space … When you’re finished, hit the magic button and your answers get sent to the secure online 10Q vault for safekeeping. One year later, the vault will open and your answers will land back in your email inbox for private reflection.

I’m not sure whether I’ll answer the questions publicly — as in, here — or privately in a journal or use the 10Q vault. I kind of like the idea of not being able to see my answers for a year and then reading them again down the road. And I also kind of like knowing my answers are somewhere within my control.

For me, the fall has always been the start of the year more than January, so I kind of like this pause right now to reflect and look ahead.

Even though I continued to post a backup reminder every Friday in the Roundup (see below), the truth was that while I was doing some backups, I was not doing others. When I got back from college drop-off, I wrote out a backup plan that I can follow each week, step by step, that covers everything. I have returned to a thorough backup job. It’s a good feeling.

This is a long way of saying that backups are a good idea, but they only happen if you make a plan and follow it.

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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:

• “In Conclusion: My Childless by Marriage Commencement Address” (Childless by Marriage)

Okay, now my choices this week.

No Kidding in NZ asks when caring counts. If you say you care but you never express that care towards another individual, do you actually care? She writes, “I understand that others might have limitations that mean they can’t provide the support we want and need. Even after we specifically articulate what we want and need. But being told that ‘they care’ is really irrelevant, if the person in need of support doesn’t feel that.” It’s an important reminder to show that care if you feel it.

The Barreness has a great post about being invited to a book club while waiting for her car at the mechanic. Book club may require quotation marks around the term. Click over to read what happens at the meeting of bog witches.

Infertile Phoenix talks about why it is difficult to recover. She explains, “One of the many reasons why I grieved so hard and so long for my unrealized dream of raising children is the idea that parenting is so pervasive that it’s the default way of thinking.” She gives the example of a frustrating conversation with her mum.

Lastly, A Half-Baked Life writes about deadheading flowers, a term I know but I don’t quite understand what it looks like in practice. She writes: “I guess in some ways it’s a little zen; don’t get too attached to the flowers, let them go, others will come. But it’s hard to be so ruthless when it comes to the things you love, isn’t it?” This line got to me: “It’s all terribly unfair, this pruning process, when we’re so prone to attachment.” I definitely am.

The roundup to the Roundup: Backups are good. 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 29 – September 19) 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.

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 August.

The Compound (Aisling Rawle): Like a new season of Traitors, it was hard to get into it until the numbers dwindled down and you knew the contestants better. And then I was all in. A character asks a question in the book that I’ve always wondered – why would anyone be a participant? It is so far from what I would choose that I would just love to hear why someone chooses to go on a show. In any case, it is a reality television competition in book form.

Vera, or Faith (Gary Shteyngart): I wanted to read this book so badly, but I didn’t enjoy it when I started it. But then I kept reading and it took awhile but it grew on me. So I ended it happy that I stuck with it. There are some gorgeous thoughts and phrasing in the book, and Vera is delectable, as she would say. So happy I read it, even though I was a little sad through the whole thing.

Mean Moms (Emma Rosenblum): A mindlessly fun book with a strange structure. You know the person behind everything halfway through the book but the characters don’t. It took a little of the tension out of the end of the book. But still a good summer read about terrible people.

The Collectors (Philip Pullman): A brilliant short story from the world of His Dark Materials. You can read it without reading the books, but you’ll get more out of it if you’ve read at least The Golden Compass. I’m rereading the books before the publication of The Rose Field. Love being in this world – it stays with you long after you close each story.

The Golden Compass (Philip Pullman): A second reading of this book in the same year. Or maybe last year? It is so nice to back in Lyra’s company. It’s like entering Narnia or falling into Wonderland. And I probably related to the story, especially the pain of separation, in a different way than I did so many years ago. Again, part of the re-reading before The Rose Field is released this fall.

The Marble Hall Murders (Anthony Horowitz): There is no such thing as a bad Anthony Horowitz book. I save Anthony Horowitz books for when I need a solid, perfect book — think of it as literary rainy days. And I needed to end summer on a high note. This one did it. I guessed a few things correctly but didn’t care. I just liked being along for the ride with Susan.

What did you read last month?

There is a commercial that keeps airing on one of the streaming services that shows a man standing teary-eyed in a house, and the voice-over talks about how he thought he would never be able to afford a home, but a loan from X place made his dream possible. It’s not that I don’t want the nice actor to have a house; of course, I do. It’s the point that housing, food, water, utilities, health care: These necessities should be affordable. Having a place to live is a basic human need.

Of course, it doesn’t have to mean home ownership. It could be affordable rent with a fair lease and stability.

If you don’t know the musician Erin McKeown, you’re missing out. She is a hugely talented singer and songwriter, but she’s also just a great writer.

In her recent Substack, she talks about losing her home for the last 20 years, a cabin that has featured as a character in her casual YouTube videos. She tells the story about how this cabin became her home, and then how it came not to be her home. She writes about trying to buy a house a few years ago (in lowercase):

the last few years, approaching age 50, i made a decision to change my priorities. reading our current cultural landscape, looking at my shifting physical and mental health, i decided to try to buy a house. to spare you a long and humiliating story, its not in the cards for me. … in this moment, i viscerally get why the mirage of homeownership is so potent. why people do crazy things to achieve it or keep it.

She ends with important questions: “what does it mean to say goodbye to a house? was it ever mine? what does a place mean to creativity? what happens to your art practice when you change your home?”

I think about this a lot. A friend of mine moved recently, and while the act was hard, the end result was freeing. She no longer has moving anxiety, even though the idea of saying goodbye to her space felt enormous.

Deep questions.