386th Friday Blog Roundup

I got the entire Harry Potter collection on e-book.  Yes, we own them as paper books which means we questioned the sanity of this purchase.  The only reason I know we made the right choice is that once they were in my e-reader, my body immediately relaxed, as if I was clutching a security blanket.  I stress-read Harry Potter books, a nice replacement for when I used to turn to chocolate to fit that need, and now I can have all seven books with me at all times.  Heady.

I would still be floundering if not for the BlogHer post on how to purchase them and get them on your various e-readers.  Getting them on a Kindle and the like is pretty straightforward, but BlogHer had instructions in the comment section on how to get them into places such as iBooks.  This is why I love BlogHer: I asked all my questions (and I had a lot of them) in the comment section and they all were answered.  Sassymonkey rocks.

And now I have a lot of books with me at all times.

Nine-year-old Melissa would have killed to have had the ability to have a tiny iTouch in her pocket filled with books and whip it out during recess rather than lugging a big library hardback on the playground.

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Thank you to everyone who has already submitted, commented, or spread word about The Analogy Project.  I’m really excited about it, and think it has the potential to be a great tool for promoting understanding between communities.  So the gathering is the first part, and the dissemination — getting the posts read — is the second part each month.  I think this is going to rock, and I’m grateful to everyone who is along for the ride.

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The April IComLeavWe list opened this morning.  Hope you join along for the month.

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And now the blogs…

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

• “Yearning, Sorrow, and Sadness and Asking for Help” (The Guild of Knitting Kninjas)
• “Keep ’em Close” (Waiting for Little Feet)
• “There Can Only Be So Many Dates” (Mommy Odyssey)
• “Using Motherhood as an Excuse” (Stumbling Gracefully)
• “S.T. Song # 12 & The Down Side” (MissConception)
• “Babies Love Fat” (InfertilityAwakening)
• “Cycle Day Something” (The Stork Diaries)
• “SPAM – the sub” (Gorillabuns)
• “Tornadoes” (Searching for Our Silver Lining)
• “My Article” (Nurture Your Hopes)

Okay, now my choices this week.

The Road Less Travelled has a post about anniversaries.  For many years, she needed to mark the loss of her daughter Katie by months, circling the important days on each calendar page.  And then time faded the need for the month markers, leaving only the yearly anniversaries to serve as a moment of pause.  It’s a beautiful post about time changing things.

Family Rock: The Life of Peg has a post about kids and sports that struck close to home for me and made me think.  It’s about how we inadvertently reinforce the pressure kids put on themselves to succeed (in this case, it’s swimming but this post could just as easily be about any activity where people are ranked or there are thresholds of achievement).  It’s a unique situation because the author is raising her nieces and could see the outlook build over the years.  It’s an important read with a great perspective.

My Lady of the Lantern has a gorgeous moment captured between mother and daughter.  It is a very brief post; one that defies explanation and is something you need to just experience since the author makes you feel as if you are right there, observing.

IF Crossroads has a post about the extraneous reasons that may come into play in treating infertility, namely, that desire to beat the disease which can be just as powerful as wanting to be a parent.  It can have such a hold over us that we’re willing to continue on a path that isn’t working just for another attempt to prove a point rather than switching to a path out of infertility that fits better.  And it’s also an explanation for why infertility doesn’t end with parenthood.  It’s a great post.

Still Life with Circles has a post about a found note.  As a fellow lover of found items (especially notes tucked in library books), I immediately settled into this post with a cozy smile, which changed to a head cocked to the side movement as I read the meat of the post — this concept of failure.  She tells the chilling story of a friend’s idea of the purpose of his life: “Since he couldn’t live without alcohol, perhaps God’s purpose for him was to be the one who didn’t make it. God wanted him to be the one who failed. That was going to be his success.  He said it comforted him in the darkest points of his life to think that maybe his suffering could alleviate someone else’s suffering.”  The author refocuses the concept of failure and creates a gorgeous, thought-provoking post in the process.

Lastly, Writing for Life has an important post about being focused on individual blog readers.  About both the idea of people in her face-to-face world reading her blog and having it influence how they see her, as well as the idea of strangers coming to the blog to judge when they don’t really know her (or the situation) at all.  Thinking through this anxiety has brought her to a place of clarity: “So who do I write for? Well, honestly, for the first time I now know I write for myself, to sort out my feelings, reflect on what’s been and my thoughts on what’s next. I mean I knew it before but I didn’t really know. The second reason for writing this out on a public platform I realized is for the anonymous reader who are dealing (or have dealt) with a similar situation.”

The roundup to the Roundup: I have all the Harry Potter e-books and I’m in love.  Excited about The Analogy Project.  April IComLeavWe list is open.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between March 23rd and March 30th) 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.