It’s the weekend, and a long weekend at that if you live in the United States.  Monday is a holiday, which means that people generally scatter offline for three days.  They may post an update to Twitter or throw up a picture on Instagram, but my rss reader has been a little thin this weekend.

My rss reader rarely feels emaciated.  This is because I am constantly replenishing it with new blogs.  Sure, bloggers stop writing, but new ones step into their place, and I add them to my reader.  But even so, long weekends mean that tumbleweeds roll through the semi-empty reader; the only posts peeking up are the ones from large sites giving me 10 new uses for popsicles and 5 reasons I should apply extra sunscreen.

Not that there’s anything wrong with good, old-fashioned, informative posts.  I can read them for a bit, but after the third post on the topic du jour (is it something asinine that Trump said or a new meme sweeping the Internet?), I get tired.

I like personal blogs; especially posts that make me think or see the world from a different point of view.  I’m willing to wait until after the weekend to get them again.

I recently read a post on internet overload.  It stems from the fear that you’ll miss out on an important fact if you skip over a story or take a break from Twitter for a few days.  That scrolling past more is better than pausing on a single thought:

A person’s fear of being left behind because he failed to consume enough data may start to outweigh the need to understand exactly why you are consuming this data in the first place. Every minute of the day, Facebook users share 2.5 million pieces of content, Twitter users tweet 300,000 times, YouTube users upload 72 hours of video, and 200 million emails are sent.

That is a lot of content.

Knowing so much exists is somewhat freeing because clearly no person can consume everything being produced.  It’s impossible, so there is no harm in taking a step back and not allowing yourself to be overwhelmed by the deluge of tweets and status updates and photos and videos.  It’s okay to not tap into the zeitgeist for a long weekend because the zeitgeist will still be there on Tuesday, churning out more things to read or gaze at or share.

It’s funny; I get weighed down by tweets.  I get overwhelmed by photos on Facebook.  I get tired of reading article after article about how I’m doing everything wrong, or the latest election news, or how the world is going to hell.

But I never get internet overload from personal blogs.  From hearing people’s stories.

Sometimes the stories are so sad that I need to step back for a moment to catch my breath, but I never walk away from personal blogs feeling as if my brain is buzzing and I can only skim the surface and no longer dive deeply into words.

Hope you come back from the long weekend and write about it.  Or tell us what you’re doing to relax today.

To celebrate 500 Friday Blog Roundups (yes, yes, yes, ignore the fact that we’re currently on the 601st Roundup since numbering got messed up at some point), I returned to the archives and yanked out posts from Roundups past — from the first, 100th, 200th, 300th, 400th, and 500th Roundups.  Or, as close enough as I could get to those dates.

It’s interesting to see the same themes pop up year after year — remember this goes back 10 years — as well as which bloggers are still writing.  I went with posts that are still up on the Internet, as well as my thoughts about the post at the time.

So enjoy looking back at 10 years of the ALI community.

From the first Roundup (and the first post I ever highlighted!):

First off, Dead Bug had a great post on Monday about Beginning Day, the transfer day for her daughter who she conceived on her second IVF. It’s the thin silver lining of IF–the ability to know the conception date of your child. Would I rather not know the date AND not have had to jab myself in my stomach with sub-cue needles? Sure. But I do love having the family holiday of Conception Day (which will, from now on, be known as Beginning Day–I love that).

From the 100th Roundup:

I think when you read this post by Bio Girl it will become incredibly clear why I loved it so much. I agree wholeheartedly with the whole post. And it’s an important thing to note: the cushions that exist all around you to fall against. Lucky indeed. I love our community.

From the 200th Roundup:

My Infertility Woes has a post about how she has returned (after a brief hiatus) to liking kids.  I love the distinction she makes as well as her ability to take care of herself and take the time she needs.  It is not an either/all situation–it is merely a response to the moment.

From the 300th Roundup:

Mrs. Spit has a post of wonders.  It is a heart-stopping post, to read what is traveling through her brain in that moment.  And I couldn’t do it justice to describe it.  You need to click over and read it in full.

From the 400th Roundup:

If You Don’t Stand for Something has a moving post marking the 5th year of trying to build her family.  She writes, “5 years.  It should get easier. Or more tolerable. Or you hope that you just become desensitized to it all.  Anything to help cope with it.  But instead, after five years, I still come home crying and breaking down.”  It’s a raw post that lays bare the reality of infertility.

From the 500th Roundup:

Um… like someone could write about Lord of the Rings and not have me mention it?  I love Inconceivable’s deconstruction of the ending of Return of the King and how that truth applies to our own personal walks through Mordor.  Grief changes us.  Stressful situations change us.  We can never go back and find things exactly the same.  Sometimes we need to keep fighting so our new future fits our needs.  It’s a gorgeous post.

Here’s to 500 more.  I would love it if you’d share a link to a Roundup post from the past that got under your skin.

I read a lot of childfree after infertility blogs; some because they’ve become off-blog friends and I’m reading their space just to keep up with their life, and others because they’re interesting.  But in almost all the cases, I started reading because I think childfree after infertility blogs provide something unique that often gets lost on a difficult family building journey: That we have an entire life.

Meaning that as much as certain aspects of life take over our mental space for certain periods of time, all people are so much more than one aspect of their life.  That we all have hobbies we enjoy or ideas we’re contributing to the world.

The kids are a big part of my life, but they’re not the only thing.  There are books to be written and a husband to connect with and video games to be played and comic books to be read.  A whole life.

Sometimes we forget that.  It’s easy to forget that.  Infertility is huge.  It blots out everything else in the landscape.  It takes over your schedule and forces itself to be reckoned with on a daily basis, either through monitoring with treatments or waiting for an agency phone call or navigating a baby-filled world.  Loss is huge.  It makes you feel like you’re drowning.  There is no protocol for grief, no set of steps you can follow to clear up grief like an ear infection.

Each childfree after infertility blogger is at a different stage in their journey, and beyond time as a factor, view the world in different ways.  But I really appreciate the bloggers who write about the world beyond family building.  They point out that, yes, there is grief from time to time — of course there is — but there is also travel and books and relationships and mentoring and craft projects and cooking and… a life.

Their words force the reader to take a look at their own life and check in on whether they’ve let one aspect of life grow too large and overwhelm the rest.  We all need to do this; it’s not unique to family building or parenting or non-parenting.  We all need to look at our life with a critical eye and ask ourselves,

• Am I doing things that make me happy?
• Am I spending time with people who make me happy?
• Am I living the life I want to be living vs. the one I think looks good to the outside world?
• Have I followed my bliss, or am I living someone else’s expectations?

And if not, why.  Why am I waiting?

Really, why am I waiting?  Because this is it.  This is the only life I’m going to get, and I can either live it apologizing for my likes and dislikes, my interests and wants, my grief and upsets, or I can take the whole of it, even if it’s messy and hard to hold, and throw myself into the things that spark my interest.

So, thank you, childfree after infertility bloggers, for being the voice that reminds us that a life consists of many different interests and important people.  Each life valid and unique.  And rather than try to put someone else’s life down, we should spend our energy nodding at each other’s lives and saying, “Your life looks awesome.  Check out mine, too.  And then once we’re done reading, let’s each go back to enjoying these lives we’ve built.”

Josh and I have been decluttering, in fact we scheduled various decluttering days on the calendar.  For instance, dedicate a day to decluttering clothing.  Get the whole family involved in the process.  Donate the clothing at the end of the day.  Job well done.

Except that when life feels chaotic or unsettled, I have a tendency to hold tighter to things.  I am like the squirrels who have sex in my backyard by the window, by which I mean that I like to store things on the off-chance that life goes to hell and I need them in the future.  Like the aforementioned clothing.  No, I’m not wearing that Nordic-themed sweater anymore, but that doesn’t mean that I won’t in the future if we are struggling to make ends meet and I can’t buy new clothes.  (Who am I kidding?  I never buy new clothes.  I am allergic to clothing shopping; it makes me itchy.  The only clothing item I acquire are t-shirts and a new pair of jeans — always the exact same kind — whenever an old pair of jeans get holes in the knees.)

All I can think is, “It’s mine.”

And then I think about the money wasted by purchasing said clothing and not wearing it enough.

And then I think again about how it’s mine, and somewhere inside me, I turn into Gollum with the Ring, stroking every item in my house while I call it precious.

Still, it needs to get done because we are suffocating in unused stuff taking up way too much space.

I didn’t read Kondo’s book because it doesn’t sound like my thing.  I am not into minimalism; I’m just into organized spaces.  In fact, in Googling things like, “Kondo, sad about giving my stuff away,” I came across the perfect article that helped me feel okay about my decluttering tactics.  It’s what I’ve been using to make decisions, be okay with letting go of certain things, and be okay with keeping stuff that doesn’t spark joy but makes my inner Gollum roar when I think about releasing it from my clutches.  We have space; we just need to use it better.

So, to sum up, my method for decluttering:

1. Take all the stuff out and place it on the bed. (That’s a good idea; thanks, Kondo.)
2. Put back the stuff I know I wore recently.
3. Put back the stuff that I feel very sentimental about.
4. Put back a few things that bring out my inner Gollum and be okay with that.
5. Take a photo of every item we’re donating. (I need to know in the future that something was given away and not misplaced.)
6. Place items in bag.
7. Donate items immediately.

That’s it.

What is your decluttering method?

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

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CNN recently asked me if I was addicted to work.  (I like to think that all headlines that reference the pronoun “you” are speaking solely to me.)  Um… I’m not addicted to work, though I am addicted to staying employed and being paid.

When asked of the general population instead of a specific case, it’s a question rooted in privilege.  Everyone I know who gives extra hours to work are doing so because they feel insecure in their position.  They’ve either been through unemployment and think doing extra work or giving their job extra attention will protect them from a layoff (or, at the very least, it’s the only thing they can control in a situation outside of their hands) or they want to convey how dedicated they are to their work place.  If they could be guaranteed by their employer that they would be retained as long as they did their job well, they would relax and work normal hours.

But no employer makes that guarantee.  And employers benefit from their employees feeling as if they need to go above and beyond for no extra pay.

Sure, there are some who throw themselves into their work to avoid other stressors and many who don’t mind extra hours because they love their position, but I think the vast majority of “addicted to work” employees are more addicted to knowing they have a paycheck coming and they’ve chosen a job they enjoy.

What are your thoughts?

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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.