Eighteen years ago, I set up a cloud-based email account.  My boyfriend at the time talked me into it, saying we could use these cloud-based accounts to keep in touch while I was on a research trip.  Up until that point, all of my email was downloaded to an email client on my computer.

I kept using the account after I got back; in fact, I used it until the day the kids started school.

I recently had to go back into that old account to search for an old email, and while I was there, I decided to download all of the emails and save them to my computer.  I spent an hour clicking around, re-reading old notes that I had either sent or received.  There were emails back and forth with friends overseas after the Bush-Gore election as we were all trying to figure out who was president.  There were all of the emails I sent on September 11th when we were trying to account for everyone who worked in the Pentagon.  And then there were the personal moments; birth announcements for kids who are now in high school, telling people about our engagement, my own failed cycles, and finally the birth of the twins.

But my favourite emails to revisit were the first few emails I sent back and forth with Josh.  Yes, I have the first emails that we sent each other as well as the ones I sent my friends dissecting every early date, phone call, and interaction with Mr. Ford.  I was so nervous!  Rightfully so since I only know that everything worked out in retrospect, but still, so nervous and excited.  I loved getting to revisit those moments.

I downloaded over 12,000 emails, so I’ve only scratched the surface, returning to dates that bubbled up to the top of my mind.  I set the emails aside as a good snow day activity, delving into the past and seeing who I was back then.  Ready for the next blizzard.

Do you still have access to your old emails?  How far back can you go accessing messages?

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

*******

The twins and I still read aloud every night.  Once upon a time, I worried that they would outgrow it, but we still like to sit down together at 8:30 pm.  I read aloud a chapter and we discuss it in real time, even though they read books on their own the rest of the day.

We’re currently reading Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One.  I didn’t know if they would get into it, so I was holding another book in reserve, but they have been rabid about this story.

It’s interesting.  I don’t think it has anything to do with the games or movies listed in the book, though they have  certainly played almost all of the games and like a lot of the movies.  I think it’s more that the Wolvog relates to Wade.  He’ll point out similarities between them.  It’s almost as if, by reading the story, he’s understanding himself.

Have you ever found yourself in a story or related to a character in such a way that you understood yourself better?

Mine?  Arthur Dent.  I often feel like a female Arthur Dent.

*******

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 have a deep, abiding love for BBC programming, so when an email arrived from a producer with the subject line “BBC request,” my first thought was, “Oh my G-d, they totally know how I feel about them and it’s muuuuuutuuuuuual.”  Like we were middle schoolers and the BBC had asked me out and I had said yes so now we were going steady.

Except being their one and only was not the request.  The producer just needed me to be on a panel.  Oh.  Yeah.  No, I get it.  This love is one-sided.

Story of my life, BBC, story of my life.

The producer, who had the greatest accent of all time (I know because we ended up jumping on the phone), asked me to be on a panel for The Food Chain, to speak about being a lifelong vegetarian raising meat eaters.  He found me due to an old blog post about explaining my vegetarianism to the kids.

So I went down to a nearby iHeartRadio station and they patched me into London.  It was my first time being in a recording studio, and the kind man at iHeartRadio had a lot of misplaced faith in my ability to choose the correct buttons on the enormous computer board.  But I got through it and hopefully said smart-sounding things.

Afterward, the guy at iHeartRadio gave me a tour of the station, which was a lot of fun because they have a ton of machines with colourful cords and flashing lights.  It was just cool to see the space where shows are being produced and then drive home listening to said shows.

If you would like to listen to the episode, it was released yesterday so you can grab it on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts (the episode is called “Vegan Babies: Should You Restrict Your Child’s Diet?”), or you can listen on the BBC site.  You know, the BBC (my boyfriend).

I am pro-third party candidates.  More choices mean more viewpoints, and frankly, there are a lot of ways we could positively run this country.  Democrats and Republicans don’t have a monopoly on good ideas.

But this election is different, and I’m going to ask you not to vote for a third party candidate when it comes to the presidency.  I know there is a feeling of “if not now, when,” but I repeat that it’s this election: It’s different.  Please hear me out.

Imagine your teacher says that your class can have an ice cream party, but you need to vote and decide on a single flavour of ice cream.  The choices are chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry.

Image: Joy via Flickr via Creative Commons license

4 kids vote for chocolate, 4 kids vote for vanilla, and 1 kid votes for strawberry, which is what you really want.  Maybe you think, “Well, I don’t mind chocolate, though I really want strawberry.  I will vote for strawberry to show them that I really want strawberry and that will affect the next time we get ice cream.”  Or maybe you think, “I don’t like chocolate or vanilla, so I will vote for strawberry because that’s what I like and eat whichever one wins because who really cares if it can’t be strawberry.”

If we were voting between chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry, I would not be writing this.  But we’re not talking about three equal but different ice cream flavours.

This is what this election is like: 4 kids vote for chocolate, 4 kids vote for salmonella-poisoned ice cream, and 1 kid votes for strawberry.  You may not like chocolate, but I think we can all agree that voting for salmonella-laced ice cream is not a healthy decision.  It has the potential to make the class very ill, and if nothing else, the class will be filled with dread while they wait to find out if the ice cream they knowingly consumed is going to harm them.

While that strawberry ice cream looks really good, and it’s what you actually want, your vote will not get the class that desired strawberry treat but could get the class the salmonella-laced ice cream.

So I’m going to ask you a favour to keep America healthy, and I ask this knowing full well that there will be a time when you will ask me to help you get strawberry as the flavour winner: Please vote for Hillary Clinton.

There will be future elections where we’re not fighting to keep bacteria out of our ice cream bowls, and there are many other positions of power in which to elect third party candidates this November.

Please make your vote count this election, and stand together with reason and capability.  It’s a huge ask, and I know that it is not easy to cast a vote for a candidate that doesn’t match your ideology.  But the only way to keep bacteria from spreading is to wash our hands of it.

We love watching @Midnight, but we tape it, so the news is often old by the time we get around to watching the episode.  A case in point: on Tuesday night, we watched an episode from October 3rd.  The first segment was called “Donald Trump’s Worst Week Ever.”

The irony, of course, is that this was days before the tape was released.  So we were watching it, not only cognizant of what would go down a few days later, but cringing as the comics tried to imagine a worse week.  We commented that night that things couldn’t get any worse, but now, after the debate, we know that Trump sums up our future president as a nasty woman AND has already let us know in no uncertain terms that he isn’t going concede and let the nation come together and heal from this election.  So there’s that.

*******

I was asked to speak at a Career Day, and I told the twins at breakfast.  “What’s your career?” the ChickieNob asked.

“Well, I like to think my full-time job is annoying you, but I suppose your school would like me to talk about being a writer.”

One point for mum.  Or, as the kids say these days, GET REKT.  That’s how cool I am — I know that it makes you ultra hip to point out that these are the sorts of things the kids say.

*******

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:

• “Blue Blanket” (Anne Heffron)
• “To Live in This World” (By the Brooke)
• “Lest We Forget?  Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness” (Spiritbabycomehome)
• “Four Words” (Middle Girl)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Slaying, Blogging, Whatever’s daughter asks an excellent question: “Can you go through your whole life without being bitten by leeches or having poison ivy or getting hurt, etc.”  Her daughter gets her answer a little while later when she gets locked out of the house; a small moment for an adult but a huge deal for a child.  She captured the moment very well.

A Half-Baked Life has finally settled into her new home, and she writes about finding herself again and that moment that comes when you’re finally settled after a big upheaval.  She writes: “There is something about the light, the space, the countertop filled with apples and flour and cinnamon and sugar, that makes me feel like yes, this is home.  And I am me again.  Not that I’d lost myself, exactly, but that a part of me had been missing.”  I’m glad you’re back.

Lastly, Lavender Luz has a post about listening and adoption up on Adoptimist.  She explains: “Anyone who tells you adoption is wonderful! is just as misguided as someone who tells you adoption is horrible! In both cases, they have filtered out all but a fraction of a sliver of the whole to reach their conclusion.”  I love her third option of listening instead of fighting back or walking away.

The roundup to the Roundup: Poor @Midnight: You couldn’t have known how the rest of the month would unfold.  I delivered a sick burn (which is more teen-speak).  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 October 14th and 21st) 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.