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

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There have been a lot of posts written in the past week or so about deleting your Facebook account; the pros and cons of doing so after the emergence of the Cambridge Analytica disaster.

My favourite was one in Quartz that referred to Facebook as “the emotional LinkedIn.”  What LinkedIn is to career networking and the unemotional side of connections, Facebook is to keeping every era of our life close.  Even if you cull your list, shedding people as you age, it is still a place to emotionally network.  It is where I go to connect with all the IF bloggers who have left infertility blogging.

The other headers resonated, too: Online Memory Lane or Your Digital Identity.  It is those things as well.

I check Facebook once or twice a day, scrolling for a few minutes each time.  Maybe if I used it more or used it differently, I would have other feelings towards the site.  But as is, the amount and way I personally use it leaves mostly warm-to-neutral feelings despite the frustration that every time I log in, I feel like I’m being used as much (or really, more, since my information isn’t being used by Facebook but instead passed along to others) as I’m using.

Where are you right now with Facebook?

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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.

Last week was Infertility Awareness Shabbat.  I didn’t know until after it happened, so I’m not sure if my shul did anything.  We were in Philadelphia, having a different sort of religious experience at the Leonard Bernstein exhibit followed by a performance of Swan Lake.

It’s a wonderful idea in any case, and one that can be repeated at any time, in any congregation, in any religion:

We are asking synagogues to partner with Yesh Tikva and share a message or Dvar Torah to increase sensitivity toward all who have not yet been blessed with children or struggle to expand their families.

So many services across religious lines have to do with asking people to be fruitful and multiply, so balancing that with a message of comfort for all the people who haven’t been able to build their family (or build it the way/size they would like) would go a long way in assuaging raw feelings.

I only found out about Infertility Awareness Shabbat because Josh sent me an article from the Forward about a guide being distributed through shuls about infertility and the mikveh.  I’ve written about the mikveh before — it’s a ritual bath that you take a week after your period ends.

I opt not to go once a month, though I did go after one miscarriage.  It is sobering to think about how many tears are in that water; that statistically 12.5% of women entering that pool are doing so with a heavy heart.  So the fact that it is being recognized and that ritual is being created to acknowledge infertility and loss is a step in the right direction.

I really loved this:

We have to recognize that pain as a community, and the booklet is really trying to give a framework for recognizing, mourning, finding closure, and also just to say we’re with you.

That something that could be isolating can be reclaimed through the simple act of acknowledgment.  Of letting people know that they’re not alone; not forgotten.

The twins had a snow day on Wednesday, which I suspect means that we’re going to lose a day of spring break.  But I’m not going to focus on that right now.  Instead I’m going to focus on the fact that I got an extra hour of sleep.

They took the day to organize themselves for the Penny War.  This just may be the most brilliant fundraising game.  Each kid brings in all of their pennies for Pennies for Patients.  You get one point for each penny, and 1000 points for each dollar.  (I guess you get extra points because no one needs to count out 100 coins.)  You dump all of your pennies into your grade’s bucket.  BUT you can also bring in nickels, dimes, and quarters and REMOVE points from another team’s bucket.  So if I put a nickel into another grade’s bucket, they lose five points.

The grades have been sabotaging each other’s buckets, which amuses me to no end, so they gathered in the Wolvog’s room to count out coins, sorting them into their penny boxes and sabotage bags.  Go forth and conquer, kids.

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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:

• “Update from Yesterday” (Countingpinklines)
• “She Will Not Have My Eyes” (The OCD Infertile)

Okay, now my choices this week.

My Path to Mommyhood has a post about PCOS and about how taking care of one aspect of her health may be creating issues in another area.  She writes, “That was when I couldn’t stop crying. I mean, PCOS is one of many pieces that robbed me of having children, but it couldn’t stop there, apparently. And I received very little counseling about how it would affect me longterm. Only how it affected my reproductive life.”  It’s about the “ever after” that sometimes comes with what contributes to infertility.

Lavender Luz expands your definition of openness with a new way of looking at open adoption.  In her definition, the openness is on the part of each individual in the triad vs. only looping in the concept of contact.  It’s not the first time she has talked about this, but it’s such an important point to drive home for everyone involved with adoption AND the advice is really applicable outside of adoption, too, since openness helps in any relationship.

Lastly, In Quest of a Binky Moongee has a post about surrogacy; namely, the legal stuff other parents don’t have to think about.  She explains stuff that still needs to be done now that the twins are here and why she has waited on certain tasks.  The bureaucracy hoops she needs to jump through will make you start hyperventilating.  It all works out in the end, but it’s an eye-opening post.

The roundup to the Roundup: Dispatches from the Penny War.  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 March 16th and 23rd) 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.

Did you know that Oprah has an app?  I mean, she has many apps, but that she has a game?  It’s called Bold Moves, and it’s a match-3 AND word game at the same time.  I linked to that tutorial on the Oprah site so you can see that it’s so pretty.  Plus, you get inspirational quotes to boot.  I am in love.

I’ve been trying to make an effort to judge every new app I download and then delete or keep depending on whether it’s making me happy after three days.  Bold Moves stays; it’s making me happy.  Unfortunately, a certain brain training app (starts with an L…) got the boot because it wasn’t doing anything good for my brain or mood.

The Center for Humane Technology did a survey of popular apps to determine the ones that consistently make people happy or unhappy.  Calm wins “happiest app.”  I agree.  I like Calm very much.  I use 9 out of the top 15, and I wholeheartedly agree that many remain on my phone because they bring happy into my life.

But then I went to the other side of the list — the unhappy side — and I was astonished.  Candy Crush makes people unhappy?  I love Candy Crush.  Facebook?  I mean… yeah… I could see Facebook making people unhappy but… MyFitnessPal makes people happy but Facebook makes people unhappy?  MyFitnessPal makes me feel guilty.

The study is really interesting because it breaks down the amount of time you can spend on an app to move from happy to unhappy.  Like people who use Netflix for 40 minutes (about one show) are happy.  People who use Netflix for 80+ minutes (multiple shows) are unhappy.

My happiest apps?  Smiling Mind, Desert Golfing, Solitaire, New York Times mini crossword, and Farm Heroes.  But there are like a dozen others that would make me really unhappy to lose.

What are your happiest apps?

I spent about eight minutes of my life reading a post that promised me that I’m not lazy.  It claimed to be the last motivational blog post I’ll ever need.  I am pretty certain that I AM lazy, but I was willing to suspend disbelief and let someone tell me that I’m not lazy.  I mean, I’m not thrilled with the fact that I’m lazy, so if there’s another reason for why I do what I do, I’m all ears.

In the first part he spends paragraphs… many paragraphs… reiterating this idea: “There’s a reason why there’s literally trillions of words out there on the Internet designed to help you live your very best life possible and yet very few of us are.”

I stayed with him because I literally read an article about how sugar causes inflammation and leads to all these crazy health issues WHILE I ATE A KIT KAT.  I am not a stupid person.  I have read countless books about processed food.  I knew better before I started that sugar article.  But reader, I still ate it.  (That was my best Jane Austen, and it really wasn’t very good.)

So I got through the reiterations of that idea to finally get to his thesis: That we all just need to do it.  Like the Nike slogan.  Whatever “it” is, do that.

And I was pissed.  Because not only was it not helpful, but neither was the rest of the idea that my inaction is due to fear.  No.  Actually, my inaction is due to laziness.  It is easier to grab the Kit Kat than to convince myself that I don’t want the Kit Kat.  (I want the Kit Kat.  I always want the Kit Kat.)  It is easier to surf the web and read blogs than it is to come up with my own words.  It is easier to play match-3 games than it is to crunch numbers.  It is easier to sleep than to do yoga.

Really.  It’s not fear.  It’s laziness.

I’m lazy.  And I shouldn’t keep Kit Kats in the house, knowing that fact.