I was recently reading a piece by Andrew Sullivan in New York magazine about his overuse of the Internet. He used a turn of phrase that caught my eye: living-in-the-web.

In other words, he didn’t use the Internet, partaking in it as a tool.  He lived in it, spending more conscious hours connected to the Internet than not connected to the Internet.  His primary mode of communication was writing or sharing on the Internet.  In his heyday, he posted every half hour or so.

And then he stopped.

I guess it struck me because I am always mindful of how much time I spend online, creating or consuming, and I try to set a lot of personal limits so I don’t feel as if I’m living in the web.  I like to visit, sure, but not live here.  Yet I do feel pressure to go online daily, and maybe I’m worried (and why I read an article that he wrote in the first place) that believing that I must go online is the first step to living in the web.

Maybe some of it comes down to that idea that if you use a smartphone, you’re taking the Internet with you:

At your desk at work, or at home on your laptop, you disappeared down a rabbit hole of links and resurfaced minutes (or hours) later to reencounter the world. But the smartphone then went and made the rabbit hole portable, inviting us to get lost in it anywhere, at any time, whatever else we might be doing.

It is convenient, of course, but it’s more than that.  There is something comforting about carrying all of you in my pocket.  There is something empowering to knowing the answer to many questions that pop up during the day is in my hand.  I agree with him that the distractions that come from being plugged in often feel pleasant and not annoying because it’s usually people or information I want to hear from or about.

He writes,

We all understand the joys of our always-wired world — the connections, the validations, the laughs, the porn, the info. I don’t want to deny any of them here. But we are only beginning to get our minds around the costs, if we are even prepared to accept that there are costs.

It’s a long piece, but I recommend reading it if you’re interested in this topic.  I’ve been chewing it over in my mind for a few days.

I think I am doing a decent job of just visiting the web and not living here, but doing so means constantly looking at the way I use my time online.  Where are you living?

I tried something new this week, something that promises to change my life.  I baked my challah early.

I knew I wouldn’t have time to make the challah for Rosh HaShanah and cook everything else, so I went online to see if other people had solutions.  I found a board of rebbetzins and learned that people who bake their challah every week are chumps.  These women churn out dozens of challot at a time, baking once a month and having bread for weeks on end.

They were arguing over whether it’s better to freeze the dough or freeze the baked challah, and they seemed to be split 50/50.  I went with the bake-entirely-and-freeze-immediately idea.  You take it out in the morning, and it comes to room temperature during the day.  You can throw it into the oven after your meal is done for a few minutes if you want to serve it warm.

We’ll see how it goes.  Perhaps this will change my life.  Or perhaps our challah will suck on Rosh HaShanah.

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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:

• None… sniff.

Okay, now my choices this week.

Non Sequitur Chica has a very honest post about parenting a second child.  I love it when women state their truth and open the door for others to say, “me, too” vs. to sit silently with the thought that they are the only one struggling.  She writes: “But man that guilt is tough. Guilt for not wanting to be on maternity leave anymore. Guilt from wanting to get away from your son (even for a few minutes) to get a break. Seeing other new moms on FB isn’t helping because they seem to have their shit together way more than me.”   Thank you for putting this out there.

The Empress and the Fool has a post about a Real Housewives message board and the divisive way the women on the board process one reality star’s IVF experience, an observation she came to after watching the actual episode.  She asks, “Why are we – as women, as human beings – so inclined to divide, categorize, measure and rank, organize experiences and their validity into a hierarchy?”  She admits that the situation left her with more questions than answers, but they’re really important questions that warrant a deep discussion.

A+ Effort is also tackling the idea of another child from a different angle, looking at the facts and adding them up to find what is best for her family.  It is a system that has clearly worked well over the years, and her family is thriving thanks to decisions they have made along the way.  But it’s also a post about the heart and the brain fighting each other since they rarely get along and agree to a single plan.

Notes from the Ninth Circle has a post about taking Clomid for the first time despite being in the infertility world for a long time.  She writes, “Papa Bear asked me how I felt after taking the first pill yesterday.  I didn’t really know what to say.  I didn’t feel bad, but I was afraid to feel good.  The best description we could come up with between us for how I felt was ‘guarded’.”  It’s a post about trying to figure out a path forward.

Lastly, Baby With a Twist has a post on reading about transgender parenting from her vantage point as a mother after surrogacy.  She admits to her own feelings about how the world processes motherhood and states, “If I – a cisgender woman – feel like this, I can imagine how my trans sisters feel.”  It’s a great post about how various groups can work together to create a new vocabulary.

The roundup to the Roundup: Changing how I bake bread. 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 23rd and 30th) 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 read something l loved this week starting with the title: “It’s not your job to tell yourself ‘no’.”

Write that above your workspace.  Now.

The world is full of no’s.  People are going to say that word to you all the time.  So it’s ridiculous to also stand in line and be one more no in your day.

I loved the whole article, but this was the part that I feel I should read every single morning before I start working and telling myself no:

It’s not your job to tell yourself no. It’s not your job to deny yourself opportunities. It’s not your job to prevent your own progress. There are enough people in the world who will do those things for you.

Your job is to embrace rather than ignore. Your job is to pursue rather than prevent. Your job is to tell yourself “yes” instead of “no.”

That’s your job.

That is your job, too.

What are you saying “yes” to today?

Thank you for the kind words about work.  I’m not good with change in general, and I’m especially not fond of endings.  There’s nothing after an ending, you know.  It’s like a period at the end of a sentence.

I finished The Hopefuls by Jennifer Close, and there was one paragraph I really liked that came to me at the right time:

Here’s what I still hate about DC: the way that nothing is permanent, the feeling that everything and everyone you know, could (and does) wash away every four or eight years.  All of these important people, so ingrained in the city — you can’t imagine that this place could exist without them.  But one day they’re gone and everything keeps moving just the same.  Who can get their footing in a place like this?  It feels like quicksand to me (page 299).

That is a decent summary of what makes DC different from other cities.  Things change here, often.  There were classmates who were with me from Kindergarten through senior year, but there was always a chunk that would move here because their parents got a government job and move out by the next administration.  That is the story of a lot of our friends from early in our marriage.

Sometimes a friend will move to a new place, and they’ll tell me how hard it is to break into the community.  How most of the people have lived there their whole lives.  That is not DC.  It is fairly easy to slip into this city, and it’s fairly easy to slip out.

There are people who are fantastic with transitions.  They love starting new jobs or moving to a new place.  Or, if they don’t love it, they are at least fine with the idea.  They see the positives in change, and they get itchy when they need to stay tied down to one thing for too long.

That is not me.

I am incredibly loyal and long-lasting and unchanging.  I don’t like moving or switching jobs or even ending finite projects, like books.  (I cry at the end of every book.  With the last one, ChickieNob walked into the room while I was lying on Josh’s chest, sobbing, and she sighed, “Mummy must have put the book to bed.”)  I like eating the same foods for the same meals, day after day after day.  I shop at the same stores, buying the same products, even if it is less expensive at a different place.  I even like to drive in the same lane on the road every time I am traveling to a local spot.  Same same same same same.

Sameness is what makes me happy, and maybe it’s because I come from a place where change is part of the atmosphere.

Do you think the place where you grow up shapes how you deal with the world as an adult?

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

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Today is my last day at job, and I am the last person on the editorial team.  It’s been a little like the Martian for the last few weeks.  I’m just planting potatoes by myself, and it’s a little lonely.

I love the site so much, and I feel lucky that I got closure and featured great content right up to the end.  Before you ask, I have no clue what will happen to the site after this point, but I believe it will continue as informational support for the conference.  Anyway, if we worked there together, thank you.  I love working with writers, talking about writing, and learning something new every single day on the job.

I don’t want to talk about my next step right now; I want to say goodbye to a place that meant a lot to me.  I think we’re conditioned to always look ahead, but I really need to look behind for a moment as I gently close the door.  I am really proud of the work I did over there — that we all did over there.  I will always be grateful to Denise for bringing me onto the team.  I still have the original email from 2007 inviting me to work there.  Denise, it was everything you promised in that original exchange.

I’m not good with goodbyes, especially to inanimate entities like websites.  But I feel like I need to say goodbye to this one.

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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 posts.