Summer is winding down, and I’m in the deep end of the melancholy month.  That’s how I think of August.  I didn’t mind going back to school as a kid, and I liked it as a teacher, but I’ve started to dread August since the twins started school.  Once school begins, the year starts moving towards its conclusion; another grade complete.

This one, once again, comes with a transition.  It is — believe it or not — their final year of middle school.  When I started this blog, they were still drinking bottles.  Now they’re a few years from getting their driver’s license.  How did this happen?

This year we need to figure out what we’re doing for high school.  We have a bunch of options open right now, and we’ll take the fall to shut the door on some and apply to others.  I don’t believe there’s any single, “right” options — they’ll all be great and they’ll all be lacking.  That’s just the way things are.  Nothing is perfect, but you can make most situations fit your wants and needs.  Plus, you can’t really know if something is a good choice until you’ve lived it.  Thinking you can predict otherwise prior to the experience is a recipe for missing actuality in favour of a story we’re telling ourselves.

I really am in the deep end of the melancholy month.

We still have time.  We still have plenty of episodes of Dirk Gently to watch together.  We still have tickets to see Hamilton.  (Not our doing; we just have the most awesome friends, ever.)  We still have to get ice cream a few more times.  We still have a French packet to finish and books to read and a photo album to make.  We still have a few more things to tuck into this month before it ends.

But it never feels like enough time.

Crazy Rich Asians has been in my “to read” pile for months, but I pushed up its place in line when I realized the movie opening was one week away.  I knew the book had a cast of thousands — mostly in the same family — and I’d want to figure out all of those relationships in book form before I had to track it on the screen.  I finished the book 24 hours before our date night and felt pretty damn proud of myself.

Until I realized I wasn’t sure I wanted to see the movie anymore.

The book is fantastic, and I can’t wait to dive into parts two and three in the trilogy.  Could the movie be as good as the book?  The trouble with turning books into movies is that what feels natural to include in narrative feels stilted when it’s added to dialogue so characters can reveal details that can’t be conveyed otherwise.

To go or not to go.

What ultimately won out was a desire to see the fictional Indonesian island resort for Araminta’s bachelorette party and the scenery around Singapore.

So we went with all of the grandmas last night to see Crazy Rich Asians.  (I’m not joking.  Apparently elderly women love to go to the movies on a Thursday night.)  It was so much fun.  (Even though no one clapped with me when the bride and groom kissed at the wedding.  Apparently elderly women do not like to clap in the movie theater.)

It’s not like the book, and I spent half the movie leaning over and hissing, “they changed that, too!”  But that’s okay.  It is fantastic in its own right.

Kwan is a gifted storyteller so if you have time to pick up the book first, read it.  But even if you don’t, it’s a great movie.  I bawled at the wedding.  I laughed with Peik Lin.  And that ending… that ending actually surprised me.

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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:

• “The Lens of Infertility” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you, Cristy and Jess!
• “#Microblog Mondays: Firsts” (My Path to Mommyhood)
• “Into the Breach” (Weathering Storms)
• “Three passions #MicroblogMonday” (Dubliner in Deutschland)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Life As I Know It has a beautiful but sad post that has a line that sat with me all week: “The people I belong to are no longer here.”  It’s about missing the people who would have been invested in our stories.  It’s a brief post that packs a big punch if you’re missing somebody.

Baby Ridley Bump explains why she uses the term “mother” when speaking about her egg donor.  I love this post because it begins with this idea: “There is nothing wrong with respectfully disagreeing with someone, it’s one of the beauties of free thinking. I’m glad that she reached out to me instead of taking offense to what I said and not speaking up about it.”  She then explains her way of thinking and why “mother” fits in her situation.  It’s a great post that will get you thinking about language and relationships.

Lastly, Life Without Baby has a post about owning your childlessness; mentioning it without explaining it.  She talks about a woman telling a story and mentioning that she couldn’t have children.  “She didn’t pause for people to give her sympathetic looks, she didn’t elaborate on why she couldn’t have children, and she didn’t explain that she’d wanted to have them or tried to.”  It was merely a fact and not the defining characteristic of her life.  It’s owning who you are without apologies or explanations.

The roundup to the Roundup: Two thumbs up for Crazy Rich Asians.  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 10th and 17th) 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.

Darius Foroux was asked and answered 10 questions by a reader named Mary.  They’re 3 really good questions (and 7 less interesting questions), and he gives 10 answers.  What makes the 3 really good questions really good are that they spark answers that are useful to other people.  I mean, so much advice is really for ourselves; we give it to others, but it doesn’t really apply to others.  It applies to ourselves and it’s awesome that we know these things about ourselves.

For instance: “What’s the one quality that everyone must have?”  Well, Pascal already decided that earlier this week, but moreover, the answer is so personal and specific.  I mean, let’s say the person says honesty.  What good is honesty without self-restraint and circumspection?  I don’t think we really want everyone going around saying everything they are truthfully thinking at all times.

Foroux himself answers: “Persistence, perseverance, determination, grit—call it whatever you want.”  I can think of many situations where grace and the good thought to stop would serve you better.

But these three may contain an answer that is helpful to someone else:

2. What’s the one book you suggest everyone to read?

This is not a book I think you’ll enjoy; it’s a book I think you should read.  Big difference.  I mean, you may enjoy them, too (I did), but it’s really about recommending a book that will change someone’s life.

The book(s) I always recommend is the Magicians trilogy by Lev Grossman.  It’s not because it’s about magic.  (Though the magic is pretty awesome.)  It’s because it’s about growth.  It’s about facing uncomfortable truths about yourself and others and not looking away.  Or seeing what happens when you look away and then what happens when you don’t look away.  I know a lot of people find Quentin and the other characters annoying, and I think those people probably either (1) stopped after the first book and missed the point of the trilogy or (2) saw too much of themselves in the books and it made them uncomfortable.  Really good books should get under your skin and bother your brain.

To really get everything out of these books, you need to sit with all three books.  And you need to look at yourself closely, too.  I will say that if you get to this line in The Magician King on page 379 –“That was being dead, and this is being alive.  That was death, this is life.  I will never confuse them again.” — and you are not emotionally affected, tossing around that thought about how you have discussed or thought about living before (and maybe taken it for granted), it’s probably not worth it for you to move on to the third book.  But if that scene gives you pause, continue on and you will not regret what you learn about yourself in The Magician’s Land.

P.S. It really helps to have read all seven Narnia books, too, to understand the way Grossman plays with that narrative.  It will double what you get out of the trilogy.

6. What’s one thing that you regret starting late or wished you started earlier?

Learning about financial stuff: savings, investing, etc.  I read books and we’ve spoken with financial planners, but I feel like I’m in a space where I need to take advice rather than know the information myself.  That is the case in a lot of areas of life, but I wish I understood all the rules and regulations better; understood how decisions could impact me in the future.  And I wish I had saved more prior to this point, but I think many people will say that.

7. What’s one thing you learned the hard way?

That your memory is never as good as you think.  When we were going through the baby years, I couldn’t imagine forgetting any facts so I didn’t take the time to write most of them down in a single space.  I couldn’t imagine having tens of thousands of pictures and videos, so I didn’t organize them.  And now I have a big mess of information without any way to easily access it and enjoy it.  I wish I had kept neat photo albums I could slide off a shelf and baby books that contain the date of first words and first steps.

What about you?

I am aware that (1) a beach in the backyard is probably against the homeowner association’s rules, (2) would attract mosquitoes and not sea gulls, (3) would not look like the pictures after about an hour, (4) would require a lot of upkeep, (5) would probably destroy the lawn…

…but I want one.  I want a backyard beach.

I bookmarked this article in USA Today, and keep returning to look at the crystal blue water and white sand.  You can see larger images if you search for the construction company and swimming ponds.

They have filtration systems like a pool, but they look like a beach.  Like your own, private beach.  Like you’re Edward Cullen with his Isle Esme except that your Isle Esme is in an American suburb and not Rio de Janeiro.

I love the ocean.  I’m less of a fan of ponds, lakes, or rivers — and I’m aware this is closer to a pond than Chincoteague — but I love the idea of being able to access something that resembles a beach in my backyard.

I think Josh is going to nix this idea.

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

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Pascal said, “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”  All?  I’d probably argue over the word “all” since it makes a lot of assumptions about humanity’s capacity to create or solve problems.  But it is a value skill: to sit alone with your thoughts and no other distractions.

I am pretty good with this even if I struggle with meditation.  I can sit quietly with my thoughts easier than I can clear my mind of thoughts.

Like I can sit in silence on a bus for hours and stare out the window.  Or in a room; I’m good in a room with complete silence and a good wall to stare at.  No one taught me how to do this; it just naturally occurred.  I remember driving cross-country as a child and staring out the car window for days on end without a need for a Walkman or book.

And the twins are pretty good with this, too — especially the ChickieNob.  I didn’t teach them; they just started doing it.  But as I move through all of these attention-building or bettering exercises this year, I keep wondering if this is something that can be taught.  That should be taught.  Should we teach people how to sit silently without distraction for long periods of time?

Are you good at being alone with your thoughts and no distractions?

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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.