507th Friday Blog Roundup
I want a secret treasure room.
It doesn’t even need to be a secret.
It could be a completely-out-in-the-open treasure room.
I loved the story this week about the couple who kept the door to a crawlspace hidden from their child for four years, and then turned it into his own secret hideout. The finished product may be a little claustrophobic for my taste, but this is my fantasy:
Somehow we find a hidden, unused room in our house. (Not in the basement. There could be a cricket in the basement. So any floor but the basement.). It’s fairly large. We fashion a speakeasy-like hidden entrance by placing a bookshelf door in front of it. You pull a certain book off the bookshelf, and the door swings open to reveal my hideout.
The hideout has blue walls. A muted, grey-ish blue. And cinnamon-y orange, cozy chairs. Maybe two of them? And a little wooden table to rest your drink. There is a computer on a desk in the corner. This fantasy space could double as my workspace, I don’t mind. There are bookshelves where I’ve culled out my favourite books such as Harry Potter or Hitchhiker’s Guide or anything Jasper Fforde. (I still haven’t had his love-child… crap.) And there would be one extra hour built into the day — an extra 25th hour — to spend in the room, reading and playing games on the iPad or watching a movie. It would be completely silent in the room except when I turned on the sound on the iPad.
I want my treasure room.
What would be in your treasure room?
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Yes, this is your weekly reminder to back up your blog, social media accounts, and email.
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.
I started using BackWPup, a plugin on WordPress, this week. So far it’s a bit confusing. I’ll let you know if I figure it out.
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:
- “In the Depths of Hell That is Depression” (Real Life & Thereafter)
Okay, now my choices this week.
Serenity Now has a post about opening yourself up to love. It makes you vulnerable, letting someone into your heart. They could always leave or treat your heart poorly. Or they could stay and cherish you right back. My favourite part of the post came at the end: “When I find myself getting stressed or anxious, I’m going to stop what I’m doing and hug someone.” What a perfect solution to a temporary moment of panic.
Kmina’s Blog has a post about her son turning four. It’s a tiny slice of a life, and I love this line: “They know not to touch things that we do not buy, for example, like fruit or bakery products, or bottles, that can break, yet sometimes it is such a fun thing to run in the booze aisle, open arms.” She thinks she has nothing to blog about, but obviously, she does. Sometimes life in general makes the most interesting post.
It’s not an IF post, but… it feels like she’s part of the community? I loved Jodifur’s final post on her blog, enough that I’m quoting from it twice in one week. She writes, “People stopped commenting, and maybe stopping reading, so she stopping writing. Sometimes fairy tales don’t end the way you want them to, but they end anyway.” Replace blogging with any other endeavour you attempt in life and it is the perfect way to sum up life: how other people’s actions matter as well as finding your own ending.
The death of Robin Williams brought out a lot of people in the community writing about mental illness. I want to highlight three posts: “Why Suicide Isn’t Selfish” (No Way to Say It), “Robin Williams, Death, Life, and Freeing the Genie” (BioGirl), and “The Thing You Never Knew” (The Kir Corner). All three posts were beyond moving.
The roundup to the Roundup: What would your secret treasure room look like? 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 August 8th and August 15th) 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.
8 comments
Thank you for the mention, Mel.
Your treasure room sounds lovely. My treasure room would be in plain sight. It would be small and cozy. Three of the walls would be a light gray and lined with white bookcases, all filled with my favorite novels and historical artifacts. The fourth wall would be made of floor to ceiling glass doors which lead out to a small deck that looks out to the ocean. The only piece of furniture inside would be a big, comfy dark gray couch with light yellow throw pillows — but outside on the deck would be a couple of light yellow adirondack chairs. I can almost picture myself sitting there, listening to the waves crash in.
Sigh. Someday. If I win the lottery. For now, it’s back to work. 🙂
I can’t figure out how to get a secret room…with windows. We had a great secret room location, although it is in our basement. There has been a cricket down there once, but mostly we only have spiders (you actually have to let the crickets in – they don’t find their way by themselves). We made the secret room location into a bar and a bathroom, though.
But back to the crickets – might I suggest that you get yourself a lizard to patrol any potential cricket-invaded area? We have a nuisance lizard in our garage, but we don’t have crickets any more!
Here’s my pick of the week:
http://www.chookooloonks.com/blog/affected
i’d love a secret room but now way no how it can be behind a bookcase. It reminds me too much of Anne Franks secret rooms. Now I come to think of it all secretrooms do make me think of ‘onderduikers’places.
I like the idea of a secret room, and I like the sound of yours. I’d have a perfect reading chair, a small wine fridge, tea/coffee making facilities, my piano, and an iPod and speakers. It would be light and sunny, but with a perfect spot (with the perfect reading chair) where I can read without pulling the shades. And a daybed for indulgent afternoon naps during that extra hour in the 24. (I’m assuming that if we get an extra hour, we can choose to use it at any time of the day. It’s a magic hour, and we get to disappear into it any time we want. Time stops for everyone else.)
I was going to mention Nicole’s post, so glad someone else did over this last week. It was very honest and powerful.
Thank you for the mention, Mel. I always (the two times) feel so ridiculously proud when I make it on the Roundup list! I went to my husband all hyped up “Mel included my post in the Roundup!”, and he looked at me, confused, “Roundup?!”, “Yes, Roundup, silly!”, and the boys were by now all fired up, running in circles in the living room shouting “Wondup, wondup”, having no idea what they were saying, but excited that mummy was so bouncing happy. 🙂
Now, blogs. I read ANDMom’s posts about ASL challenge and Robin Williams’ death and immediately thought that they should make the next Roundup. I have only recently found out about ASL challenge, since it made its way to the celebrities’ level. I liked Bill Gates’ video, nice product placement, and smart-ishly done. The rest of them I find rather silly, to be honest. But apparently, regardless of its silliness, this challenge does raise awareness. What I do not understand is if these celebrities do donate some of their money as well, or is it just hopping on to ride the wave of temporary fame? Because many of them do not actually talk about ASL and why awareness should be raised, they just say who dared them pour water on themselves and then they challenge three more to do the same. How are these viral water pouring videos helping ASL? I admit, I am not exactly following the event, I found out about it from Cathy, and I tend to agree with her. The Reaching Out post is one of the most touching and personal posts I have read in a long while.
http://andmom.wordpress.com/2014/08/09/why-i-hate-the-als-bucket-challenge/
http://andmom.wordpress.com/2014/08/13/reaching-out/
Thank you for including my post. xo
The 2 houses so grew up in has/have treasure rooms. My parents are talking about restoring the one in their current house from storage to a revamped playroom for the grandkids.
Thought I had commented on this already. This post reminded me of a favourite (Canadian) children’s book from when I was growing up: “Samantha’s Secret Room” by Lyn Cooke. One of dh’s cousins named his daughter Samantha, & I ordered a copy of the book online & gave it to her for her first birthday. 🙂