This is a monthly series, published near the end of the month summarizing what I found, ate, watched, googled, and felt this month. New categories added from time to time.

Books Added to My TBR (e.g., books I just learned about that I’m excited to read… maybe)

• May We Feed the King (Rebecca Perry)
• The Rayburn Affair (Laurie Petrou)
• Cash Out (Nick Hornby)
• People in Love (Claire Daverley)
• The Oxford Guide to Scandal and Lies (Kate Westbury)
• How To Write a Murder (Jessica Brody)
• The Things You’ll Never Know (Ashley Audrain)
• Michael (Bob Mortimer)
• A Corner of White (Jaclyn Moriarty)

Notable Meals (new recipes, old favorites, and restaurant items we ate this month)

• Julius Robert’s eggplant parmigiana, taught via an Instagram video where he made us guess the oven temperature and cooking length.
• Matzo ball soup with carrots and egg noodles. Prefer thin egg noodles. Had to go with wide ones. Still great.
• Tofu, peanut-ginger sauce, and asian cabbage grilled sandwich. So good.

Television, Movies, and Music (watching and listening)

• Started the new season of The Paper. We’re just one episode in, but it’s really really funny.
• Love Marble Hall Murders on PBS, based on the Anthony Horowitz book. It’s the third Susan Ryeland book show, and it’s probably my favourite so far.

Added To My Ongoing Mix Tape

• “Travelin’ Thru” (Dolly Parton)
• “Hold On” (Wilson Phillips)
• “Bitter Sweet Symphony” (The Verve)

Tabs I Left Open (things I Googled and left up on the screen)

• A recipe for lemon spinach rice.
• The Dryrobe website. I covet a dryrobe, even though I don’t live in a climate or exist in a lifestyle that requires a dryrobe.

Micro-Joys

• Josh dropping me off and picking me up from the metro so I wouldn’t have to burn through emotional energy driving myself before I went downtown.
• Turning a 5 second clip of the ChickieNob’s favourite quotable tv moment into a GIF and texting it to her.
• Start of a new Premier League season! (This is a true micro joy because we’re currently the bottom of the table.)

Mood

• Trying to side step around the world’s big puddles of tension.

What about you? Let me know what you’re eating, seeing, listening to, googling, feeling this month.

I had a gift certificate, and I decided to order a jar of jelly beans. It was my first time ordering from this site, which shall remain nameless because their name isn’t the point.

I was forced to pay extra for two-day shipping and then was promptly told that my jelly beans would arrive in five days. That was odd because I had just been forced to pay for two-day shipping, but fine. I wasn’t in a rush.

Five days later, the delivery person hands me a rattling box. I set it down slowly, thinking. It sure sounded like someone had filled a cardboard box with jelly beans. And then I opened the box and looked at a cardboard box with jelly beans. To be fair, there was also an empty plastic container (in one piece), and next to it, the plastic top (also in one piece), the safety seal, and a single random square of bubble wrap. Some jelly beans were dry, but most of the jelly beans were wet, and they had clumped together into a massive candy sculpture the size of a human fist.

What had happened here? Who had opened the jar, dumped out the jelly beans into the box, dropped in the lid, safety seal, and one square of bubble wrap, taped up the box, and sent it on its merry way? What did this person do after work? What were their hopes and dreams?

I called customer service. They could help me, no problem. They just needed me to mail back the wet jelly beans and pay for shipping, and then they would send me a new jar.

“Think about that for a second. You want me to mail back a clump of wet jelly beans? What will you do with the jelly beans when you get them back?”

“When you say it aloud, it does sound bizarre. Can you hold on one moment? I’m going to ask my manager why we want the wet jelly beans back.”

It took 20 minutes for her to return, but she told me that I could dump the jelly beans, and they would send me a new jar in another five days. I have low expectations and think my first order may be my last order. But I’m totally curious to see what happens next.

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

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I recently read about dopamine sites, which mimic online shopping, except no actual purchase happens. It’s like window shopping, but you go through the motions of clicking on the product and adding it to a cart and fake checking out. Just nothing actually shows up at your house.

I’ve said the same thing before about the library. I sometimes went when I wanted the high of buying a new book, but I didn’t want to spend money. I would take a stack of books home—for free!—and pretend they were mine for three weeks. Anyway, it’s an interesting article about these sites where you can buy items or order food, spend zero dollars, and feel like you got to choose something.

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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 connected to businesses or sponsored posts.

I know exactly zero about Lavela Health, but I clicked over because I read that it was “expert-led therapy for pregnancy and reproductive loss, and what comes after.” Just as there are doctors who specialize in a certain area of medicine, these are therapists who solely focus on helping people through pregnancy loss and infertility.

I saw an individual practitioner while we were going through treatments, but she also saw people for 3,000 other reasons. She happened to have personal experience and was active in Resolve, so she was a great fit for me. But that wasn’t the focus of her practice. 

I realized that this is the first time I have heard it as the focus of any practice. Isn’t that strange? Such a large percentage of people experience infertility or loss—how is this not a larger area of therapy? Have I just missed this? Are there infertility-focused therapy practices (with multiple practitioners) all over the place?

I am getting my COVID and flu shot together this weekend (along with a blood draw!) because I like to maximize my medical center visits. I’m prepared to not feel great for 24 hours, but that’s what Ted Lasso episodes are for.

Go get your shots.

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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 to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

And now the blogs…

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But first, second, helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week. To read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• None… sniff.

Okay, now my choices this week.

The Road Less Travelled has a link to the truly bizarre CNN piece for World Childless Week. Not the interview itself, but the graphics that run during the voice overs. You can imagine the conversation—Bill: “I don’t know what to show visually for childless women.” Mary: “Hey Bill, just show normal women going about life, looking normal.” Bill: “Nah, I’ll put a bunch of pregnant bellies and babies. That’s how people will know we’re talking about childless women.” Go watch.

Lastly, also rounding out World Childless Week, No Kidding in NZ states 10 things she learned through childlessness. I really love this: “That I would learn many things from adversity; some good, some bad, all useful.” Go read the whole list.

The roundup to the Roundup: Vaccinations… check! 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 18 – September 25) 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.