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

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A few years back, Lifehacker had an article about letting your friends order for you.  This idea not only horrified me enough to bookmark the post, but it has stuck with me since then, turning around in my brain every time I meet a friend at a restaurant.

Are you kidding?  Order for me?  I barely know what I want, and I have full access to my tastebuds and brain.  How can someone who isn’t me know what I want to eat?

And I would never want to order for someone else.  How could I possibly know what they’re in the mood to eat unless they tell me?  And if they’re telling me, they can order for themselves.

Would you ever let someone choose what you’re going to eat at a restaurant?

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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.

I loved this post on Lifehacker about looking at your life as a video game.  It’s a fitness post, but it’s applicable to everything in life and I also think it speaks volumes for why people grow bored or feel bewildered with the happily ever after.

I love level 4 of every video game.  The first 3 levels, you’re finding your footing, but by level 4, the game gets serious and drops the hand-holding, expecting you to apply what you know to solving the puzzle or moving ahead.  Level 4 feels amazing, and that is the point where I make declarations like, “I love this game!  I am going to play this game forever!”

And then I invariably hit a difficult level that makes me frustrated, or I realize that I have to wait a long time for a task to be completed in the game.  I experience a dip that I eventually get through, solidifying my determination with the game.  I am all-in.  I am going to level up and up and up.

And then I hit the game’s level 50 — not the actual level 50 but that level the author discusses in the Lifehacker article.  That point that you’re working towards.  I reach that point and while it feels amazing to be there, it also feels a little… I don’t know.  Not empty.  Not a let-down.  There isn’t a word for it, but I think you all know exactly what I mean.  That moment where you’re not working towards anything because you’ve gotten there.  And suddenly you’re like, “Wait, what is my focus?  I’ve been so busy trying to reach here, and now I’m here.  Where do I go?”

You don’t go anywhere.  You stay there.  You enjoy your hard work.

That is life.  Life is about being happy in the Level 50.  Life is about finding small quests that you can do in Level 50 that keep you interested and engaged.  Life isn’t about restarting the game and trying to get to Level 50 again.  It isn’t about chasing the next great life or scanning the app store for recently released challenges.  It’s about being happy with the life you downloaded and worked hard to build.

I was thinking about this recently because I was playing A Dark Room.  At first, it occupied every waking moment because getting wood, getting scales, getting fur — it was all such a struggle.  It took so long.  But then I got to a point where every point on the map was open and I had a shitload of steel swords and so many teeth that I could build a small castle out of discarded animal fangs.  When I got to that point, I started putting off playing because there were so many games where I was still working to level up.  But I didn’t want to close the game either.  I left it open, clicking over from time to time, but my heart wasn’t in it.

I struggling with this less with life: I like my Level 50.  This is where I am and I assume that it’s where I need to be.  I’m okay with only working the small quests now and not dealing with the excitement that comes from leveling up.  Because… you know… leveling up is a struggle, too.

Maybe that is why I like leveling up in games.  Whether I play or don’t play… it doesn’t really impact anything.  But not hitting the levels I wanted to in life?  That hurt.  That knocked me to the ground.

I don’t know.  It was food for thought.

I did not put on real pants from Thursday to Thursday.  That probably wasn’t necessary, but how often in life are you healthy but get to wear pyjamas for 7 straight days?  I mean, I changed them each day.  I showered.  But then I’d slip into a fresh pair of pyjamas and start anew.

It felt really odd to put on real pants on Thursday and leave the house.  I’m not really a fan of leaving the house on a normal day, but when you’ve been inside for 7 straight days, it makes everything sound too loud and look too bright.  On the other hand, I got confirmation that if we had to live underground, we could totally manage.  We’d even thrive.  The twins and I are indoor door kids.  We’re stay-at-home kids.  We’re don’t go anywhere for many days or breathe fresh air kids.

We had a good time being off of school this week.  It was like summer.  Except it was winter.  So not really like summer at all.

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If you haven’t yet signed up for the Random Act of Kindness Day, it’s creeping up on March 9th.  You can head over and sign up on Facebook.  Last year over 11,000 joined along, many of them fellow bloggers from the ALI community.  It would rock to do this together again.

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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:

• “Blogging Affects My Mood” (Stirrup Queens) — Thank you, Catwoman73
• “Peace in the Storms” (In Due Time)
• “People, on MLK Day” (A Half Baked Life)
• “Our Great Financial Sin” (Not a Wasted Word)
• “On Pandering” (Tin House)
• “On ‘the Terrible Efficiency of Gaslighting’” (Brevity)
• “I Like Mondays” (Infertilityhonesty)

Okay, now my choices this week.

I usually shy away from featuring huge sites, but Huffington Post had a beautiful piece about infertility this week.  Colleen Berge writes, “What have we really lost? What words can we use to do justice to this thing that knocks the air from our lungs?”  I love her unpacking of the “at leasts.”  It’s a really good read.

The Road Less Travelled has a post about suddenly realizing a connection between Katie and Malia Obama within the timing of the two daughters.  It’s a beautiful piece about two families in two different places feeling two huge waves of emotion as a milestone is reached and unreached at the same time.

Searching for Our Silver Lining realizes that she often waits for other bloggers to say what she is thinking, and decided this time to step forward with an article she read and express her feelings.  It’s a brief post, just introducing an idea tied to an article, but the post itself speaks volumes: do you wait for other people to say things, or do you start typing your thoughts as they come into your brain?

Lastly, Anabegins has a post about turning 40 that spoke to me.  If you remember that I was dragged kicking and screaming into my 40s, you will understand why I loved this line so much: “A birthday is just a date, not a magic gateway into a more enlightened state.”  I love the energy she is putting into getting over her can’ts.  And I’m cheering her on as she meets the milestone and sprints past it, changing her life and becoming better and better.

The roundup to the Roundup: We had a snow week instead of a snow day.  Do a random act of kindness?  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 January 22nd and 29th) 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’m going to cry foul on a recent Cafemom article about how to know whether your child is happy.  I was a fairly happy child, so I’m going to use myself as an example.

I didn’t have good friends.  Or, I didn’t when I was in elementary school.  I spent many a recess by myself, and I usually brought a book outside with me so I could look engaged instead of staring at the other kids with longing.  Did I have kids at my birthday party?  Sure.  Did I have some playdates?  Sure.  But I would never describe myself as having good friends.  Until middle school, I didn’t have dependable, strong, lasting friendships.

And I would still describe myself as happy.  Maybe not at school, which was a pretty stressful space that I had to spend about 7 hours of my day, but definitely at home.  Definitely a happy kid, overall.

I didn’t know how to look on the bright side.  Have you met me?  I have been a pessimist from Day 1.  I have never spent a moment thinking how great it is that my block tower has been knocked down so I can build something new.  Since birth, I have been much more likely to curl up in a small ball and sob inconsolably when shit happens.  So no, I can’t say that I have spent a single second of my life looking at the bright side of things.  But I would still describe myself as a happy kid.

Was I grateful?  Of course I wasn’t grateful.  Kids are rarely truly grateful because they have no concept of the enormity of other people’s actions.  The Wolvog thanks me for every tiny thing including making pancakes in normal circles.  Do I think he really understands what saying “thank you” means?  No — he says it because it’s polite and he’s trying to butter me up so I will let him stay up later.

Until you become an adult, you have no clue how hard it is to be an adult.  Therefore, your gratitude is tempered by the fact that it comes from a place of not understanding the sacrifice or extension that the other person made on your behalf.  Still, look at me: happy kid.

Okay, I was pretty comfortable expressing my emotions.  Um… that one I can’t really argue about.

Lastly, plenty of time for play.  That’s a hard one because I was never the type of kid who did well with unstructured time.  I didn’t like summer, for instance, unless summer had a rigid schedule.  I am still terrible with the concept of unstructured time.  I even write down to-do lists for having fun during free time.

A lot of kids are the same way.  They derive joy from knowing their schedule is filled and feel uneasy when the day is amorphous.  Was I overscheduled?  I don’t think so, but I certainly had a lot of activities after school including Hebrew school, art classes, and dance lessons.  Plus my version of “play” was mostly reading books OR writing down all the facts I could find in the World Book Encyclopedia on a given topic.  Usually human hearts or exotic fish.  I was equally in love with reading about ventricles and viperfish.  So, yes, happy, even with a lack of unstructured play time since I structured all my unstructured time.

I don’t know.  I can’t help but feel that it may be more useful to spend time with the kid and gauge his or her mood rather than trying to guess at it with an article.  Plus, I don’t think that one-size-fits-all when it comes to happy people.  I’m proof that you can be happy off the beaten happiness track.

I think I just fell a little bit in love with Toronto.  They set up a scavenger hunt to take people through all 100 branches of the library system.  First of all, 100 branches?  Love.  Second of all, scavenger hunt?  Double love.  Third of all, mini passport book?  Heart explosion.

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A super deep trench has been found in Loch Ness.  Josh is sneering at this story because the person who found the trench happens to be a tourist boat captain or something like that.  But that’s not the point, science is science!  A trench — deep enough for a monster — has been found.  I told you Nessie was real!

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Am I the only person who feels as if this election has become a giant game of Gotcha!  Instead of listening to candidates, carefully weighing their worth or what they would bring to office, it feels as if both sides are more focused on catching inconsistencies, combing through personal history to find any transgression, or being offended.

Take for instance, the recent State of the Union.  I loved Obama’s speech.  He felt like a human Sorting Hat, reminding us that we don’t have to live our lives in fear, and that working together will actually get us farther than tearing each other apart.  Like the Sorting Hat, he never named Voldemort, but we all knew he was speaking about Voldemort while we had our pudding.  Amiright?

I hated all the commentary on both sides during and after the speech.  I went offline and begged Josh to turn off the television.  It was a little disheartening to hear someone saying, “Let’s not pick on each other,” while reading someone making fun of the First Lady’s dress choice or commenting on Paul Ryan’s expression.

Seriously, we have about 10 more months of this.

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Mental Floss reported on a new Fitbit-like contraption that tracks your emotions.  Do I really need a wrist band to tell me that I’m cranky?  Uh… yes.

What I think would be interesting is to have it tell me at the end of the day the break down of my moods.  Before I looked at the facts, I would write down how I thought I felt during the day.  It would be interesting to see if it matched up.  I’m going to guess that it wouldn’t.  I think we’re terrible at actually knowing our emotions on a day-to-day basis.