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

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Spend any time on Donald Trump’s Twitterfeed and you’ll see him listing out various people and actions that deserve punishment.  Companies that move jobs out of the US will be punished.  People who burn the flag will be punished.  Reporters who criticize him will be punished, countries that won’t make trade deals he likes will be punished, and politicians who work against him will be punished.  He is really big on talking about punishments.

It’s easy to see the possible outcome of those punishments.  Tax companies that move jobs out of the US?  They can pass along the higher cost to the consumer.  Or they can have massive layoffs in the US in order to keep the remaining jobs on US soil.  Also, if you look at each punishment he lists, it’s rarely the individual or company that bears the brunt of the punishment.  It’s you and you and you (and me) as the side effects of those punishments trickle down to the rest of society.

We parent without punishment.  Josh and I are clearly on the anti-punishment side of the behavioural psychology punishment/rewards argument.  It’s a decision that stems from how I ran my classroom as a teacher: I educated without punishment, too.  To be completely honest, we also parent without rewards, unless you see the natural consequence of being a trustworthy, kind individual resulting in beneficial situations as an incentive.  But if I could only get rid of one option, I’d go with getting rid of punishments.

Based on your life experience, which do you believe works better: Rewards or punishments?

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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.

The twins recently went on outdoor ed.  The sixth grade goes away for three days to a campsite where they do nature-based assignments and team work activities.  They had campfires and night hikes and slept in cabins.  They came home caked with mud, tracking in bits of dried leaves when they pulled off their boots.

Josh and I volunteered both evenings.  It was partly for the twins but it was partly for me.  Thirty years ago, I went to outdoor ed in the exact same place.

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It smelled the same.  If you had asked me prior to walking into the main building what the campsite smelled like, I would have shrugged.  But then I got there and breathed in and was instantly transported back 30 years.  It looked the same, minus the graffiti in our cabin and a missing tetherball set.  Even the fence where I released my pet potato bug* was still there in all of its splinter-giving glory.

I liked outdoor ed — I have fond memories of my week at the campsite. (We got a full week, kids.  Welcome to budget cuts.)  But I didn’t give the experience that much thought until I was sitting near the fireplace, watching the kids enjoying the evening activity, and felt my chest get tight as I realized that I would probably never be back in the space again.  We only get to go full circle once.

One spin through elementary school.  One return to outdoor ed.  One B’nai Mitzvah, one trip to get driver’s licenses, one graduation.

One is definitely more than none, but I am surrounded by people who get to do everything two or three times so it is constantly on my mind.  It’s a testament to no matter how much you promise to be satisfied with what you get, the heart still wants more when the actuality of your family doesn’t match the dream family that popped into your brain when you giddily started down this road.

I am grateful that I get the once.  My heart still longs to do everything two or three times.

* I didn’t have a lot of female friends when I was in sixth grade, and I wasn’t allowed to sleep in the boys’ cabin, but I did find a potato bug on the first day at camp, and I placed him in my empty film container from my camera.  He kept me company for the week, but I sadly let him go on the last day.

While hate crimes are still rocking our area — swastikas drawn on schools, churches, and cars seems to be a daily occurrence — a visual protest is countering the racism, antisemitism, and homophobia.  Mike Pence’s new neighbours are hanging rainbow flags outside their houses.

I love this because it not only shows the spirit of that neighbourhood — which is an expensive but cozy section of the city — but without yelling a single word, it makes a loud statement.  It’s a date-night sort of section to the city, but I want to drive down there with the kids in the next few days so they can see it.  A coward anonymously draws a symbol of hate and runs back to hide.  A brave person hangs a flag of inclusion outside their permanent home and stares hate in the eye.

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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:

• “When Your Loved Ones Just Don’t ‘Get It’” (Dear Sugar Radio)
• “How to Get From Thanksgiving to New Years When You’re Not in the Mood” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you, Jess!
• “The Beasts Who Fought for Fairyland Until the Very End and Further Still” (Catherynne M. Valente)

Okay, now my choices this week.

A+ Effort has a post about the new Texas law that requires fetal tissue to be buried or cremated.  She addresses it from the perspective of someone who had to carry her gestational remains.  She writes: “I rode in the elevator with a happy couple holding their new baby in a carseat while I held mine in a baggie. I will never get over that.”  This new law covers any miscarriages that occur in a medical facility (vs. at home).  And yes, this new law — like the one in Indiana — should concern everyone who cares about reproductive choices and the ability to treat infertility.

Notes from the Ninth Circle has a post about her current cycle and the hard decisions infertile women already face.  The Femara works too well, and she discovers she has four follicles.  She doesn’t know if she should proceed with the cycle or not, and she admits: “I wish G-d gave clear yes/no answers.”  Sending her good thoughts and peace of heart.

Lastly, Res Cogitatae has a gorgeous post about what the mirror both shows and hides.  It is a very realistic description of motherhood — the highs and the lows — and it should be required reading for every teenager; probably more helpful than those exercises where they need to carry a bag of flour around for a week, pretending to “parent” a baby.  Life also plays a role in parenthood.  I cried and nodded reading it.  Thank you for writing this.

The roundup to the Roundup: A rainbow-coloured protest.  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 November 25th and December 2nd) 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.

I spent a chunk of Sunday reading for Relaxation Day.  I have several books going at once: One that lives in my purse, one that I started before two library books became available from my holds list, and the two library books from the waiting list.  Oh, and a cookbook.  I grabbed a vegetarian noodle cookbook from the new arrivals shelf when grabbing the books from the waitlist.

Josh teases me because I always visibly carry at least one book when we leave the house.  He asks me if it’s in case I get bored, and while the answer is sort of yes, it’s also a security blanket.  I like having a book with me.  It makes me feel comfortable.

When I got my phone, I downloaded a bunch of e-books so I could always have books on my phone.  But I also like to carry at least one paper book with me in case the phone stops working.

Imagine if I was out and the battery died or the phone went missing.  I would no longer have access to a book.  Carrying a paper book means I’m always prepared.

It’s good to be prepared.

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I loved Will Schwalbe’s essay in the Wall Street Journal about our need to read.  It begins:

We all ask each other a lot of questions. But we should all ask one question a lot more often: “What are you reading?” It’s a simple question but a powerful one, and it can change lives.

The essay is about how the rhythm of the daily world divides us and drains us, but books have the ability to recharge us.  He writes,

Reading is the best way I know to learn how to examine your life. By comparing what you’ve done to what others have done, and your thoughts and theories and feelings to those of others, you learn about yourself and the world around you. Perhaps that is why reading is one of the few things you do alone that can make you feel less alone. It is a solitary activity that connects you to others.

I love reading alone, though I clearly also read with the twins because I love to read things together and discuss them in real time.

Like the author, I read books to help me understand the world around me.  Dirk Gently wiggled its way back into my purse after the election because I felt like the Electric Monk held the key to understanding how people could elect Trump.  I know — silly — but every time I started panicking about the people around me, I grabbed out the book and re-read a few pages and said, “Oh, yes, people really can believe anything regardless of fact.”

I am currently re-reading Dirk Gently by Douglas Adams.  I’m reading Dark Matter by Blake Crouch and The Thousandth Floor by Katharine McGee.  I’m in the middle of Magician’s Land by Lev Grossman.  I saved the last book in that trilogy for when I needed it, and that time popped up a day or two before those other two books became available at the library.  Do you also save books?  If I see that a book is going to be very special to me, I save it until I am either in the right frame of mind or need a pick-me-up.  This moment was of the pick-me-up variety.

So as Schwalbe says to ask: What are you reading?

I am known for annoying my family by asking them to rank things on a 1 to 10 scale.  What do you think of this new stuffing recipe on a scale from 1 to 10?  How excited are you for the next Dirk Gently episode on a scale from 1 to 10?  How much do you think these shoes are a bad idea?  1 to 10?

So imagine my excitement when Jane McGonigal proposed in her SuperBetter book using that 1 to 10 scale to get people to actually connect rather than give the rote answer of “fine” when asked about their state of being.

How it works: Instead of asking someone, “How are you?” say, “How is your day going on a scale from 1 to 10?”  And then when the person gives you the number, ask them the reason as well as what you can do to bump it up one digit.

For instance, I ask, “How is your day going on a scale from 1 to 10?”

And maybe you answer, “Um… a 2.  I found a $10 bill in my coat pocket this morning, but, you know, Trump is still president-elect.  So maybe not even a 2?”

“What can I do to make it a 3?”

Perhaps there is nothing I can do to bump up life to a 3, but you get the point.  Instead of answering with a quick (and usually fake) “fine,” the person is forced to not only think for a moment about the number, but they usually volunteer their reasoning behind giving the number.  Since putting this into effect, I’ve only run into a few 10s, which unless something really exciting or relaxing or happy has happened that day doesn’t seem entirely truthful, and have mostly heard a range of interesting answers from 1 to 9.

I’ve also had everyone snicker when I ask what I can do to bump it up a notch, and it makes us both realize in the moment how little we can do to remove someone else’s emotional burden beyond holding it for a few seconds at a time.  That moment of recognition isn’t depressing; it’s actually refreshing to simply have the things you’re grappling with acknowledged.  Plus every once in a while, I’ve actually been able to jump in and do something for another person that has made a small difference including connecting them with someone who really can help or retweeting a message they want to get out there.

So… how is your day going from 1 to 10?  And what can I do to bump it up one digit?

I’m writing about SuperBetter the app as well as SuperBetter the book because… well… I learned about them via a podcast and now I want to talk about everything I’m learning on them.  If you want to talk about them, too, join along.  If not, skip the posts marked SuperBetter.