I’m spending Black Friday avoiding all commercial spaces.  I’m avoiding stores, the streets near stores, or places where people have once considered placing a store but didn’t.  I don’t like shopping when all is calm.  Retail spaces on Black Friday is how I imagine Hell.

That said, I have a friend who live-Facebooks (like live-Tweeting, but on Facebook) her Black Friday adventures.  And I totally love following along from home.  It’s like the Santa tracker: no one wants to actually be Santa, flying around in the cold, schlepping heavy boxes.  But seeing where Santa is while you relax with your hot chocolate = totally cool.

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So I went to the food store on Tuesday, which was a huge mistake.  It was pre-Thankgiving chaos coupled with first-snowstorm-of-the-season chaos.  But I needed ingredients for dinner, so I braved the lot, parked, and went inside.

I was standing in the yogurt aisle, looking for Fage, when a man (who works in the dairy section) came up to me and said, “looking for something?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“The Fage?” the man asked.  He was unpacking boxes, so I thought he was offering to go out of order and jump to the Fages.  But he shook his head.  “There’s no Fage left in the state.  It’s all gone.”

“What do you mean that it’s gone?  I just bought some three days ago,” I told him.

“Nope.  There’s no Fage left in the country.  Go anywhere.  You won’t find it.  They’ve discontinued it.  Won’t return my calls.  Every day I place an order and every day I get a response from the system that there is no Fage to be found.  There is no Fage anywhere in the world.”

I walked away, but not before insisting that Fage didn’t go out of business and being told that nowhere in the entire universe was this brand of Greek yogurt.

To be on the safe side (and to get yogurt), I decided to brave a second store.  Sure enough, the shelves in this store were lined heavily with Fage.  In fact, it was on sale.  4 for $5.  I guess when he says there is no more left in the entire universe, he means that 45,000 square foot universe cordoned off by the outer limits of the parking lot.

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We are about 2 weeks away from the Creme de la Creme list CLOSING.

The 2014 Creme de la Creme list is open for entries until December 15th.  No one will be added after December 15th.  Read the post to see how to be a part of the Creme de la Creme, which is open to every member of the ALI (adoption/loss/infertility) community.

Consider that your weekly reminder.

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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:

• “Do You Need to Plot Out a Novel Before You Start Writing It?” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you, Lori!
• “Our Surrogacy Journey, Part 1” (Oh Baby, Baby)
• “If you wouldn’t say it to a pregnant woman, don’t say it to a bereaved one” (The Lewis Note)
• “Snippets” (A Half-Baked Life)
• “Birth Plan Schmurf Plan” (The Long and Winding Road… to Parenthood)

Okay, now my choices this week.

A Little Pregnant has a post about the aftermath of infertility and taking her child back to the IVF clinic.  She writes: “It’s not like you forget it, the grind of infertility, once you’ve had children and distance. The best way I can describe it is that it’s no longer who I am, but it’s still who I have been. (It will never be who I was. I wonder if that’s true for anyone.)”  But it’s the tattoo that got me.

Charlotte in Our Hearts has a beautiful post talking about observing that commonly used crumpled paper analogy and realizing how it related to her crumpled heart.  She writes: “We taught my second graders that words crumple hearts, and I realized that death crumpled mine. It’s a hard pill to swallow knowing that I carry a crumpled heart, but I am slowly learning to accept it.”  Go over and read the whole post.

Lastly, Kveller has a moving post about a couple gaining a child and losing their faith.  It leaves them feeling unmoored.  What was the point to all of this?  The most sobering line was “For our one daughter, we’ve had to say goodbye to 10 other babies.”  It’s a really moving post, applicable beyond Judaism or Christianity (or choose your religion).  How do we find meaning in the meaningless when someone (a child) is going to one day want an answer?

The roundup to the Roundup: Uh… happy Black Friday?  There actually is Fage.  Your friendly Creme de la Creme reminder.  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 21st and 28th) 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.

The twins are getting their B’nai Mitzvah date soon.  They’ll have their Bar Mitzvah and Bat Mitzvah together, which is pluralized to B’nai Mitzvah.  Our shul allows the parents to have some input on the date as long as it falls within some guidelines, so we picked a bunch of days that had emotional significance.  Or really, not the date itself but more the section of the Torah that will be read on that date.  We chose moments from the Torah that we thought tied in to who they are and avoided any mention of the matriarch’s wonky uteruses.

There are two ways to look at this.  One is with mind-blowing but ultimately ecstatic wonder: “How could it be that we finally reached this point!  What a wonderful thing to now have B’nai Mitzvah-aged kids!”  The other is with mind-blowing but ultimately morbid wonder: “How could it be that we’re this old?  That they’re this old?  Time is rushing by too quickly, and there is no way to slow it down.”  It’s probably not a surprise that I fit more in the latter category, though I’m busying myself so it appears more like the former one.  I’ll be the one helping them learn their Torah portion and the requisite prayers, partly for their sake and partly to keep myself focused vs. wallowing in that morbidness.

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I think the same thing every Thanksgiving.  Really, every holiday, but I’m listing Thanksgiving because today is Thanksgiving.  I’ll think to myself, “well, Mel, you probably only have 40 more Thanksgivings.  That’s if you’re lucky and live that long.  Maybe you only have 20 left.  Or 10.  Or… gulp… 1.”  Even 40 itself doesn’t sound like a big number.  Maybe I’m just greedy, but 40 M&Ms?  That’s not a lot of M&Ms.  40 pennies?  What can you buy with that?  I know how fast a year goes.  40 doesn’t sound like a lot.

I go through stages where I am aging gracefully and realistically.  But right now I’m in that valley between those stages where I devolve into anxiety about growing old.  About everyone I love growing old, too.

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It’s terrible to put so much pressure on this one day.  I remember the first Thanksgiving we had with the twins.  They were only 4 months old.  Still on heart monitors, howling their way through the meal.  We finally gave up and took them home early, and I sat in our kitchen and cried because it was 365 more days until the next Thanksgiving, and we had just wasted one.

There was another way to look at it.  I could have shrugged and said, “well luckily we get to try that again in 365 days, and I’m sure it will go better.”  But I didn’t.  I just cried about it.

I guess I’m trying to be more like that person who recognizes that Thanksgiving rolls around every year, so if we don’t get it right one year, we get another shot 365 days later.  I’m not denying who I am; I think I have this trait as part of my personality.  It’s just usually swallowed by the much louder, pushier, siren-like side of my personality that is always thinking: danger danger danger.

So I’m pushing some food into that side of myself and gently saying, “Be quiet for once.”  Just for once.  Not forever.  I just don’t want the whole day to get away from me, coloured by worry.  No gloominess for 24 hours.  At least.

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If you’re celebrating Thanksgiving today, I hope that the day matches the image inside your heart.  I hope that even if it isn’t perfect that it comes close to what you want it to be.  And barring that, I wish you the perfect cup of tea to get through the day.  I would have wished you alcohol, but somehow this day feels more like it needs the comfort of tea.

Welcome back to IComLeavWe. It stands for International Comment Leaving Week, but if you say it aloud, doesn’t it sounds like “I come; [but] leave [as a] we”? And that’s sort of the point. Blogging is a conversation and comments should be honoured and encouraged. I like to say that comments are the new hug–a way of saying hello, giving comfort, leaving congratulations. Here is the vital information, pure and simple (a more detailed set of rules follows below the list):

• The list opens the 1st of every month. It remains open until the 21st. You can add yourself at any point. The list is open to everyone in the blogosphere–blog writers and/or blog readers.
• Add yourself to the list by filling out this form after adding the icon below: The December list is now closed.  The January list will open on 12/27.
  
• Click here to cut-and-paste this bit of code to add to your sidebar (if you have the old code from another month, remove it and replace it with this one). You need to add the icon or a link to the current list on your blog (see below) and will not be added until it’s up.
• Commenting kicks off every month on the 21st. Please mark it somewhere (calendar, post-it note taped to your computer…), though I will be sending out an email reminder on the 20th. Commenting week runs from the 21st to the 28th. Every day, leave 5 comments and return 1 comment for a total of 6 comments. You are highly encouraged to choose the blogs you comment on from the participants list below, but this is not required.
• I will send a second email on the 28th to remind you to remove the icon from your blog.
• Read below if you want to find out about Iron Commenters.
• The commenting ends on the 28th. We catch our breath and the whole thing starts again the next month on the 1st. Drop in and out according to what is happening in your life between the 21st and the 28th.

The December 2014 List

1. Stirrup Queens (twins, books, writing)
2. In Due Time (faith, waiting, natural approach)
3. Breathe Gently (IVF, miscarriage, toddler-mum)
4. Project Easier (crafts, dogs, life)
5. Amateur Nester (infertility, faith, encouragement)
6. The Courage In Me (losses, life-lessons, love)
7. A Little Bit More (life, ttc, pcos)
8. Moving Mountains Motivation (faith, fitness, PCOS)
9. Life of an Army Wife (army wife, parenting, endometriosis)
10. Four Years Later (TTC, stillborn, pre-school mom)
11. At least I still have humor (infertility, pcos, humor)
12. Journaling Through Infertility (pcos, infertility, my story)
13. Ready Now to see it Your Way (fertility, life, love)
14. Comatised (love, life, survival)
15. Recovering Beauty (love, life, survival)
16. A Virtual Hobby Store and Coffee Haus (books, news, life)
17. The December list is now closed.  The January list will open on 12/27.

Q: What if I miss a day?

A: Catch up the next day by doubling your comments–12 comments instead of 6.

Q: What if I have two blogs? Can I sign up twice, listing both blogs?

A: Yes, but you also need to double your comments. If you have two blogs listed, you should be leaving 12 comments per day.

Q: What is an Iron Commenter?

A: Not for the faint-of-heart. People who wish to be an Iron Commenter and be entered on the Iron Commenter honour roll need to leave a comment on every blog on the participants list (exceptions are blogs that require you to have a special log-in, such as some LiveJournal accounts or other similar situations). You can spread out this commenting any way you wish over the whole week, but the final comment needs to be left by midnight on the 28th (EST). Reaching Iron Commenter status is done on an honour system. Please email me if you earn Iron Commenter status so I can add you to the wall of honour.

Q: Why do I have to add that bit of code to my sidebar?

A: The code is the latest icon (the icon changes colour every month so you know that you’re on the right list). This month, the icon is red, the next month it will be silver, etc. The reason is two-fold: (1) it enables more people to find out about IComLeavWe and (2) it gives you easy access to the current list once the commenting week actually begins and better ensures that you’ll use it. Too many times, people sign up and forget to actually do IComLeavWe and this icon gives you a daily reminder (with the dates on it) every time you open your own blog. The icon is linked back to the current list. On the 28th, remove the icon from your blog. A new one will be created for the next month.

Q: It’s the 23rd and I just saw this for the first time on my friend’s blog! I want to join the list–why can’t I?

A: Because IComLeavWe happens every month, once the list is closed, it’s closed. If you’re finding out about this on the 23rd, you can’t join the current month. But leave yourself a note to check back in a week on the 1st and you can sign up for the next month.

Q: You said the list closes on the 21st. Well, it’s still the 21st where I am. Why aren’t you moving my information onto the list?

A: All dates and times are U.S. Eastern Standard Time (UTC/GMT -5 hours). The list closes around 11 p.m. EST on the 21st.

Q: What if no one comments on my blog and I have no comments to return?

A: Well, that really doesn’t happen for the most part, but in that case, simply choose another blog and add an additional comment. The goal is to hit 6 comments daily as a minimum. Going over that is fantastic and encouraged.

Q: Mel, my question wasn’t covered at all. What do I do?

A: Email me; I’m quite friendly. It helps to place “IComLeavWe” in the subject line. You could also check this post which contains the history of IComLeavWe and see if you can glean anything there.

Looking for the comment section? It has been closed on this post. Use the form in the directions to add yourself to the list.

[Melissa stands up, taps her fork against her glass, and clears her throat.  The conversation around the table dies down, and she suddenly knows how Dumbledore feels as he delivers his Welcome-Back-to-Hogwarts speech.  She considers growing a long white beard before next year’s meal.]

Welcome, everyone, to our annual pre-Thanksgiving online meal.  Let’s just put it out there bluntly: sometimes the holidays are great, and sometimes they suck, but everyone deserves to have a nice meal around a table (even if it’s only a virtual one) where they feel comfortable and know that the other inhabitants at the table have their back.

For some people, this pre-meal is what gets them through their real meal later in the week.  People have written that they’ve printed out this yearly post and comments and left the paper in their purse because it helped to have a tangible reminder that there were people out there who got it.  Who weren’t going to ask them when they were going to hurry up and have children.  Who weren’t going to cringe when someone spoke the name of a child they lost.

We are all so different.  All of us.  Around this table.  But we have this one facet of our lives — and yes, even though it may be a big, overpowering one for you right now, it is only one facet of who you are — where we overlap: infertility or adoption or loss.  And I am so thankful, so grateful, that I found all of you.  Everyone needs a You-shaped space where they can be themselves.  And that’s what I have here.

So every year, I ask people to bring a virtual dish to our meal.  Place it in the comment section, explaining what you brought and why.  And say anything else you need to say before sitting back down to enjoy the company.  Update about where you are; your emotional state.  We’re an international group, hailing from countries all around the world.  So while Thanksgiving is an American tradition, I hope that everyone around the world feels as if they can participate.  (Especially our Canadian neighbours who celebrated Thanksgiving weeks ago.)  I’d love for your dish to come from your culture or country.  Don’t worry about the contents on the table clashing.

So I am bringing Mary McCartney’s English pea soup.  I know, not exactly traditional Thanksgiving fare, but it’s warm and filling and it makes me happy.  Plus I can make it ahead of time because it freezes beautifully.  In the summer, I like salads.  But cold weather calls for vegetable-based soups.

So what did you bring and what do you want to say to the community?

And please, start eating as everyone is introducing their dish.  We don’t want the food to get cold and there are so many of us at this table.  Thank you so much for coming, and I’m going to carry the warmth of this meal with me for the rest of this week.

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

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Lifehacker had a timely (for me) article on how to decide whether to keep or part with sentimental items.  You ask yourself whether you’d buy it again at full price, if the object has happy memories associated with it, of if you’d still want it if someone you disliked gave it to you.  All fine questions, though I’d personally never use them to cull out the mess in my storage room.

It was timely because I had reason to go through three boxes of old papers this week — stuff from high school until graduate school.  Old stories, autograph pages that were supposed to go in yearbooks, letters, notes that friends passed me in the hall, photographs.  None of Lifehacker’s questions obviously applied to those papers.

If Lifehacker showed up at my house and told me I could only keep ten things, those three boxes of paper would make the cut.  As would photographs of the twins.  The family tree.  The most important things to me seem to be made out of paper.  What tangible objects would you save if Lifehacker told you that you had to clean up your storage spaces?

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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.