573rd Friday Blog Roundup

Chanukkah begins this weekend.  The ChickieNob mentioned before school one day this week that I hadn’t put up any decorations, and she would really like me to put up the fabric menorah — the sole decoration that I schlep out year after year.

I’m not really a decorating sort; in daily life or for any holiday.  But this is the one decoration I own for what may be my least favourite holiday.  It’s not even a holiday — it’s not like you would ever take off work to celebrate it.  But since the kids were born, I’ve put up this fabric menorah, and I promised I would take care of it while she was at school.

I went in the cabinet to grab it out, and my heart stopped.  The decoration wasn’t there.  The chanukkiahs were there, a few dreidels were there, but no fabric decoration.  I opened up a few other cabinets, wondering if the fabric menorah survived the purge last spring when I gutted the cabinet.  I knew the Purim decorations were recycled, but did I get rid of the ChickieNob’s fabric menorah, too?

20 minutes of frantic searching and a false alarm text message to Josh led me to what I had affectionately dubbed the Jew drawer, a drawer in a dresser that I tucked all the random kipot from weddings.  Apparently I had also thrown the fabric menorah AND a handful of challah covers in there (so that’s where the challah covers went…) last spring when I set up the drawer.  Chanukkah saved.

It made me rethink the holiday a bit.  I didn’t want to celebrate it when I thought I could celebrate it, but I sure as hell wanted to celebrate when I thought the Chanukkah decoration was missing and the holiday was going to pass without it.  So, yeah, though I sometimes slack on it, I’ll light the candles this year.  I promise.

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The BlogHer Writing Lab launched this week, which is like all of the good parts of NaBloPoMo (community, support, advice, prompts, information, accountability), without the drawbacks of NaBloPoMo (month-long commitment, guilt, stress), plus a lot of extra stuff as we spread the focus to all types of writing: blogging, social media, books, scripts, poems, etc.

The nicest thing is you tailor it to your needs.  Hang out in the Facebook group 24/7, commit to a weekly challenge, only blog on Tuesdays — it’s up to you.

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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:

• “Pilgrimage” (Infertilityhonesty)
• “Rent-a-Mum” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you, Raven!
• “Sometimes We Have to Talk About the Hard Things on Social Media” (BlogHer)
• “Heart-Sore, Heart-Sick, Heart-Broken- Levels of Grief” (Catch, Neuter & Release)
• “Thanksgiving Thoughts” (My Path to Mommyhood)
• “Nurture Yourself” (No Kidding in NZ)
• “Bookapalooza” (Lavender Luz)
• “Island Farewell” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you, Jess!
• “Thanksgiving Weekend Recap” (Bent Not Broken)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Thanksgiving obviously featured prominently on blogs this week.  Neither Here Nor There has a post about the holiday from the perspective of an adult adoptee, balancing her full family.  I thought it was a lovely and insightful post about reunion, but moreover, I loved this thought: “Finally walking through the pain of grief unlocked my ability to feel and embrace the love that my family(ies) were trying to show. The love I so wanted to be able to feel and embrace and return.”

A Little Bit More is looking for a word that describes her role in life.  She explains: “There should be a name for an aunt like me, who is a second mother to their nephews/nieces…who is caught in this delightful and dreadful in-between place where I am partially a mother, but not quite one.”  I suggested More-Than Aunt (MTA), but surely someone else could come up with a better term?

Makingbabiesishard writes about how infertility affects the whole family as she navigates everyone else’s excitement and expectations as she tries to build her family.  She writes, “Desperation to make all these wonderful people in my lives grandparents, aunts, uncles and grand-aunts and grand-uncles. Such longing to make my wonderful husband a father.”  I think this post will resonate with a lot of people.

Lastly, A+ Effort has a post that stuck with me a long time after reading it.  I kept turning over the incident in my mind.  I don’t want to summarize it because I think it would ruin the impact of the story (and the assumptions people make about what they think they see), so please just go over and read it.

The roundup to the Roundup: Going to celebrate Chanukkah this year.  BlogHer Writing Lab.  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 27th and December 4th) 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.