We own a paper copy of Jenny Mustard’s Okay Days that we ordered from Blackwell’s in the UK two summers ago. It’s one of ChickieNob’s favourite books, and she re-reads it (sometimes several times) when she’s home. Once a week, I would check to see if they released it as a US version in the iBooks store. Once a week, I would see versions in many other languages, but the English version was only available in the UK.

But one day… when I went to do my weekly check for her… THE BOOK WAS THERE. In English. For only 99 cents. I normally check that she’s not in class before texting, but I didn’t pause, certain that it would disappear if I waited even one minute. Her reply came back instantaneously — buy it!

We are now the happy owners of Okay Days in paper and ebook.

If you haven’t read this book, go sample the first few chapters. It will remind you of being young and just starting out with plenty of wisdom still applicable in middle age.

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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.

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And now the blogs…

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.

No Kidding in NZ kicks off World Childless Week with a post introducing the topics. She writes: “Our voices are so often forgotten, ignored, or dismissed, how fabulous is it that we have a week heralding our stories, talking about our lives? It is there to help us all feel less alone, and more understood.” So many people are posting on the topics this week — Google and you can find them — and it’s not just for the community to come together and support one another; it’s for everyone to read and understand.

Lastly, Finding a Different Path gets a time reminder when the children of a friend from her infertility support group end up in her school. It’s not sad; it’s just surreal. She explains, “ It’s so weird to think that I could have had a 7th grader had that pregnancy been viable, or a 6th grader had I not miscarried my second ill-fated pregnancy the following summer.”

The roundup to the Roundup: Worth the wait. 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 13 – 20) 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.

We’ve returned to our every other meal system, which is that I cook a meal on Monday (for example), and we split it in half and eat the other half on Wednesday. In between, on Tuesday and Thursday, is another dish, divided in half. And so on. So, instead of cooking every night, I’m now on for two nights and then off for two nights.

Dinner is the only meal I sit down and eat without distraction. I work as I eat breakfast and lunch, though Josh and I sit down and talk through dinner. So it’s kind of special in that way, and it’s obviously a longer meal to create and consume.

I think I would miss it if we switched to six snacks per day instead of three meals. I’m not sure how the kitchen math would work with that. Would each recipe yield 4 – 6 snacks? Would I only cook every third day? I’m not sure what is defined as a snack or a meal, only that people always want to get together for dinner, and no one ever asks us to get together for fifth snack.

But I think I may like having four small snack breaks per day and one leisurely dinner. I think I may be more of a snack person at heart. Are you?

I keep a very detailed TBR list with multiple tabs, and one of those tabs is dedicated to books printed outside the US that may or may not come to the US in the future. Every Saturday morning, I read Blackwell’s newsletter and add books I want to that list, and then I go through the Waterstones app and see which books they’re promoting. Every few months, I do a Blackwell’s shipment for UK books, using that list to choose what I want to order.

A few weeks ago, I saw that Janice Hallett would have two books coming out in 2025. One was called A Box Full of Murders. It would come out on February 6, 2025. The other was called The Killer Question, and it only listed the year — 2025. I typed them both into the spreadsheet with her last name and moved on.

This week, I was looking at the spreadsheet and decided to check whether the publisher had updated the listing with a concrete publication date. But when I searched for the title, it had disappeared. It was no longer on the Blackwell’s site. I couldn’t find it listed… anywhere. It vanished from book sites. I can’t find it on the Wayback Machine. My only note is the mysterious title in my spreadsheet added on August 12 at 7:44 am.

It’s a mystery about the queen of mysteries.

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

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I’ve seen a lot of people post this, so I finally tried it, and it was a fun exercise to discover if what you think is blue is the same as what other people think of as blue.

My result was 183, which will make more sense once you do the exercise and open the explanation in the About section. How blue is your blue?

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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.

We are back from college drop-off. The twins have settled into new routines and new classes with old friends. And we have returned to our old routines, which are the same as last year but, in some ways, harder.

Last year, I was off-kilter because I didn’t know what to expect, and this year, I’m off-kilter because I know what to expect. It’s a different kind of off-kilter, where I can’t seem to settle down and find my rhythm, and I can’t let myself off the hook and allow myself to feel everything I’m feeling. A part of me (probably like you) wants to shake myself and say, “This is it. Accept it.”

So that’s where I am. Back. Sad. A little lost.