So which country is the birthplace of modern magic, has one official language but seven local languages, and a capital city with zero stop signs? France! I mean, sure, the country may be better known for its baguettes, art, and landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower, but if I said that, you wouldn’t have gotten the joy of Googling yesterday.

So I’ve spoken about this Gwyneth Paltrow story before, but I really wanted that for my kids, too: “I wanted you to see Paris for the first time with a [person] who will always love you, no matter what.” And we said that to them on the last day, while we were standing in front of St. Sulpice. They got to see the City of Love (and a lot of the rest of France) with two people who will love them, no matter what. Plus, they got to practice using their French on a daily basis.

So we went to France for about three weeks.

We started in Paris and stayed near the Eiffel Tower for a week.

We spent the first part of the trip in the canicule, or heat wave. Yes, it was just as bad as you were hearing on the news. It’s a city with very little air conditioning, so we had to shift things around and did most of the neighbour walks towards the end of the trip (we returned to Paris) and spent most of the first part of the trip in art museums and various landmarks.

We went to the Louvre, Musée d’Orsay, Pompidou, and Rodin. We went out to Versailles. We went to the top of the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe de l’Étoile. We went to 3579206 churches. (Okay, maybe it was more like 12 churches, but it felt like 3579206 churches.) And every single garden in the city. We ate falafel in the Marais and baguettes on Rue Crémieux. And crepes. There were so many crepes.

And Josh finally proposed on the Pont Neuf, which is what I had hoped he would do 19 years earlier.

And then we rented a car and headed to… Normandy. And I annoyed everyone in the car by belting out “Normandy” from Once Upon a Mattress. Our first stop was Étretat.

It was gorgeous, but even better, the water was so cold! We had a great time on the beach and then continued on to Bayeux, which was a highlight of the trip. We loved the town and the Bayeux Tapestry. And we toured the World War II fields. And we fell in love with the poppies that line all the roads in the area.

After a few days, we continued on to Mont St. Michel.

And St. Malo, which is technically Brittany. We ended up returning to Brittany later, but that story in a moment.

Actually, this is getting a little long, so I’ll throw up the rest of the towns tomorrow.

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

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I just got back from a trip. Hint: it’s the birthplace of modern magic. (As in, we literally went to the father of modern magic’s birthplace and grave.)

The place has one official language that is used everywhere, but also has seven local languages that are still in use in varying degrees, though some of the dialects are listed as “endangered languages.”

And the capital city has zero stop signs. Once upon a time, there was one stop sign, but that disappeared in 2014.

Any guesses? I’ll post the story tomorrow.

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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 once went to a conference where they handed out 23andMe kits to every attendee. I gave mine away when I got home. I have no desire to do a genetic test, even though I do have a desire to get the results. I know, that doesn’t really make sense. But what I mean is that if there was a way to get the information without it passing through a company, I would do it in a heartbeat.

But because the information goes through 23andMe or gets added to a database on Ancestry.com, I’m not keen to participate. I don’t think we have any big family secrets, but I’m going to guess that all of the other people in this article also would have said that before taking the test.

Dozens of reports have emerged of people discovering via genetic testing that they were conceived by a sperm or egg donor, or that their parents had secret affairs. Some have found and connected with half siblings or even met the donors responsible for their conception … Decades ago, no one ever imagined that family secrets like these would ever be revealed by science.

It’s one thing when you go into genetic testing seeking information. It’s another to think you have the information and discover that you were lied to at some point, usually by someone who loved you. And that’s before we get to the heart of the matter: that these tests ask you to give a company with a very lax privacy policy a lot of data. I don’t even use my fingerprint to unlock my phone. I really don’t want to hand 23andMe my DNA.

I know a lot of people find the tests fascinating, and I do, too. Really, if I could run the rest at home and keep the results in my house, I would do it. I’m even jealous when people talk about getting their results and having all of that information. But then articles like the one above pop up.

This is the 750th Roundup. I have written this post 750 different times. Except that the number is actually 650. Things got misnumbered along the way.

But that makes sense because this blog is 13 years old, and the Roundup is almost 13. And there are 52 weeks in a year. 13 x 52 = 676. Which means that in a 13 year period, I’ve missed a handful of Roundups. (Because some of the “missing” posts were actually Roundup Extravaganzas, something we did years ago for big milestone Roundups.)

So… congratulations, little Roundup. You made it to 750 (well, 650) posts.

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I’ve decided that I want to learn how to play poker. I’m going to run into a wall when it comes to betting because I hate gambling — I will never be comfortable putting actual money on the line — but I love card games. And it feels like a good… project. Something that comes with a lot of books to read and strategies to learn. Plus decks of cards are very small. You can carry them anywhere. I just need to find a group of people who equally like card games and hate gambling. They exist… right?

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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:

• “Why aren’t you doing what I think you should do?” (Hopelessly Infertile and Surrounded by Fertiles)
• “The Cost of My Freedom” (Infertile Phoenix)
• “21 Weeks: Finally feeling better, for real now?” (RisaKerslake)
• “On keeping calm and (mis)carrying on” (The Uterus Monologues)

Okay, now my choices this week.

No Kidding in NZ has a post about a feeling she had looking at a picture. Her friend posted a picture of her teenage child, and she realized that her own child — conceived around the same time and lost via an ectopic pregnancy — would have been the same age. Those moments hit you in the gut.

Infertile Phoenix explains how she feels changing her name back after her divorce. It’s a powerful little post about “shedding the last physical remnant I have left of my children,” one syllable at a time.

Lastly, My Perfect Breakdown has a post explaining why she isn’t writing as well as why she also feels the impulse to write. And I love this sentiment: “Life wont be perfect, because I’m confident there is no such thing. But, I am looking forward to a summer of mostly good, almost perfect days with my family.”

The roundup to the Roundup: 750 (okay, 650) Roundups! I want to learn how to play poker. 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 July 5th and 12th) 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.

Carolyn Hax had a fascinating dilemma. An infertile woman wants to keep their infertility private, only sharing with a close friend or two and the therapist. Her husband wants to tell his parents and siblings, and wants her to tell her family. You can’t be in and out at the same time. Who gets to decide how open they are when it’s a problem shared by two people?

Carolyn gives a few suggestions for how to meet in the middle and find a solution that works for both people, but she ultimately gives the woman veto power since it’s happening in her body.

This is one of the first times I ever willingly dove into the comment section. When I looked, it already had over 1.7K comments. Yeah, you can say that people had big feelings about this one.

I’m totally curious what people think of Carolyn’s advice.