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

*******

I really love this idea: If you can’t coordinate dinner to fall for everyone in your home at the same time, set up a family snack.  Like let’s say your partner always needs to work late.  Have a snack with them when they return home.  Or if you have kids and they’re ensconced in evening activities, don’t stress it.  Just plan a family snack.

I wish I had read this years ago when we couldn’t get family dinners going because of bed times bumping up against work hours.  Instead of feeling like we were failing, we could have shifted the focus to a family snack and accomplished the same thing of talking about our day over food.

Does everyone in your home eat a meal at the same time?

*******

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.

We just started watching Downton Abbey for the first time (sans Wolvog because he didn’t find the idea of a period drama appealing) and… why didn’t any of you tell me how good it was?  You all let me miss its entire run.  We love it so hardcore that we call watching it, “Spending time with our Castle family.”

The ChickieNob and I cannot stop ourselves from looking up spoilers, so we know a large chunk of what will happen in the series, but it doesn’t make it any less enjoyable.  In fact, it’s making me race through the episodes because we’re so eager to see it all play out.

New life goal: visiting Highclere Castle.

*******

I am also beyond excited for the new season of Daredevil.  I love Matt Murdock, and I’m so excited to see that Kingpin is back.  (At least, I’m assuming he’s back since they featured him in the teaser video.). Is anyone else watching?

*******

I posted about this on Facebook, but it sparked a bunch of interesting side conversations.  ChickieNob and I were at a red light and two moths having sex landed on the windshield.  You may be asking me how I know the moths were having sex.  I guess if you have to ask that question, you’ve clearly never see moths making love.

It was like the squirrels all over again.

I ended up squirting the moths with wiper fluid, and they were stunned for a moment but then flew off, still having sex IN THE AIR.  Life goals.

I’m waiting for the voice of reason.  The person who will step over party lines and take a stand and say,

“Wait a second.  We treat women horribly in this country, and this has to end.  We cannot consider a person for the highest court in the land who has been accused by multiple people of aiding or committing sexual assault.  We cannot have someone passing judgments that affect all people if that person is not fair, considerate, and thoughtful.  We don’t want someone on the bench who is not our best and brightest.  We cannot rush a judge on the bench — whose whole job is to listen carefully to facts — who does not want us to carefully consider the facts and take our time to thoughtfully come to a decision.”

But that voice won’t come because we treat women horribly in this country.

Because there are people who elect people even knowing that they’ve aided or committed sexual crimes.

So I’m waiting for this adult to show up among the elected officials and lead the way.  And I don’t think that person is coming.  So the only thing I can do in November is bring in new adults.

There is a long history of bad guys with pets.  The Purple Pieman of Porcupine Peak had Captain Cackle (who was like… head Berry Bird) and Skeletor had Panthor.  So I never gave a lot of thought to Voldemort and Nagini.  They were just two evil beings who loved hanging out with each other as well as killing Muggles and wizards.  But then everything changed with the new Fantastic Beasts movie…

Nagini, it turns out, is actually an Asian woman trapped in the body of a snake.  JK Rowling tweeted that she’s really a maledictus and posted Entertainment Weekly’s big reveal about this.  So… Voldemort kept an Asian woman… as a pet?  How would we feel if we found out the Berry Birds were really former boys who transformed due to a condition?  Would we feel differently about the Purple Pieman if we knew he was keeping all those transformed boys up on Porcupine Peak?

I’m withholding total judgement until I see the finished product and the way it’s presented in the film.  But on social media?  It looks awful.

*******

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.

*******

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:

• None… sniff.

Okay, now my choices this week.

South City Sadie is back with a new post that will resonate with a lot of people about why she stopped blogging after infertility.  Yes, yes, yes to all of it, AND I love this reason for why she has returned: “My blogging was raw, and it was honest, and it was the best writing I have ever done. I don’t want it to be the best that I will ever do.”  Here’s to always having the best yet to come.

Old Lady and No Baby has a none IF-related post that cracked me up because we also had a mouse incident with our twins.  Though mine did not help me go mouse hunting.  Her kids are really funny as well as the retelling of it.

Lastly, Searching for Our Silver Lining has multiple posts this week about an unfolding story at her son’s school.  Another child bit him, and it required a trip to the emergency room.  She writes about parenting after infertility: “One unforeseen side effect of infertility and multiple miscarriages is that I still don’t consider myself a true parent. I adore my kids and would do anything for them, but it doesn’t take much to make me feel like I’m over-reacting or that I don’t have as much authority as someone who could conceive without years of treatment.”  It’s about owning it and feeling like you’re the expert and all of the ways we communicate and make decisions stemming from that feeling.  It’s a thought-provoking post about changing the way you think.

The roundup to the Roundup: Not feeling comfortable with the new Fantastic Beasts movie.  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 September 21st and September 28th) 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.

The title says it all.  Lori was in town because she is a big deal, hot-shot, award-winning lady.  She was being honoured for her work in the adoption world, and she was in town to go to fancy parties and pick up her prize for Angels in Adoption.  I took the Metro into the city and met her at Union Pub.

That picture was taken after a lot of laughing and crying.

I met Lori on May 11, 2007 (I was wrong, Lori — I checked again and it was May 11th!) when she wrote me to join an online book club I was running for Peggy Orenstein’s book.  And then we started talking about non-book things and then met up at a teahouse when she was in town with her family and then went to BlogHer and then endured me while I bothered her through a panel called “What is Twitter” (or something like that).  And the rest is history.

Eleven years.

For eleven years, I’ve gotten to be loved by Lori and love her back.  People who know her know exactly what I’m talking about.  She lives her life with openness — an open heart and open eyes and open mind — and once you enter that circle, you are embraced fiercely and intensely and unconditionally.  She is an amazing person, and I am so lucky to call her a friend.

Old friends are good friends.