590th Friday Blog Roundup

I went to the White House Media and Toy Summit this week, and I’m still trying to process all of the statistics and discussion I heard from the excellent panels.  Some of it will make you shudder and want to take immediate action, some of it will make you hopeful for the future.

In the meantime, while I didn’t take many photos from the day, I did take this one of a slide from a panel.  It’s from Meredith Walker of Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls.

“Change the world by being yourself.”  Isn’t that a great sentiment?  I mean, everyone can do it, since the only thing you need to do is be yourself vs. trying to be someone else.  It’s so simple but brilliant: For kids, certainly, but also for every adult.

I posted this on Facebook, but I also wanted to post this here.  I was feeling a little out-of-sorts at the beginning of the summit.  I don’t often venture out of my comfortable little bubble of home and yoga pants.  At the first break, I was standing by myself, staring off into the middle distance while I ate a bag of Cheerios, when LISA FREAKIN’ STONE walked up to me.  She was at the summit, too.

And suddenly I felt so grounded.  It was the best hug ever.

It made me realize I go through the same thing every single time I go to the annual BlogHer conference.  I feel so nervous going, and then I either see someone from the community in the lobby of the hotel or get to the opening keynote and see people like Elisa, Jory, and Lisa on stage, and I suddenly remember: “This is where I am supposed to be.”  This is home, too; albeit without yoga pants.  But those people are home, and those ideas are home, and being part of a supportive site that nurtures writers is home.

I’m so grateful Lisa was there because it brought me out of my shell, and I ended up meeting so many cool people during the day.  I’m so grateful that Lisa, Elisa, and Jory started BlogHer and that Denise brought me to the site to write.  Because it is such an awesome space, and whenever I’m feeling a touch lost, it guides me back and reminds me that I have a voice and I should use it.

A side note: If you haven’t been to the annual conference and wonder if you should go, the answer is yes.

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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:

• “Karma” (A Half-Baked Life)
• “Why I Won’t Rate My Hotel” (Illustr8d)
• “Airbrushed” (Saltwater and Honey)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Res Cogitatae has a moving post about life forcing you to your knees.  She has a particularly moving part about her stillbirth fears, pointing out that, “The odds of stillbirth are 1 in 100. The odds of being born with one kidney are 1 in around 1,000. I don’t know what the odds are of having colon cancer that doesn’t behave like colon cancer, but I imagine they’re pretty high. And my father’s accident defies belief.  So why wouldn’t the baby die? It would actually be a more likely outcome than anything else that’s happened in the last couple of months.”  Yes, but is all I can manage as a response.  Because I don’t want it to be true?  Because it is easier for outsiders to hold your hope?  It is a very moving post.

Wild and Precious Life has an update about living as a family of five when others see you as a family of three.  It is about the exhaustion and elation of early days, and she explains: “Perhaps it’s obvious from this rambling post, I am so in love, exhausted, filled with wonder, worried about being the best parent I can be, and keeping him safe that I feel like a jumble. A fortunate jumble.”  I smiled through the whole post.

Lastly, Page, Stages, and Rages has a post to her mother to mark the two year anniversary of her death.  She writes, “I’m getting along — like you told me to, but you never taught me how to get along without you so I’m winging it most of the time.”  It is such a bittersweet post, and I sobbed heavily reading it.

The roundup to the Roundup: A really good quote to live by and seeing Lisa Stone at the White House Toy Summit.  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 April 1st and April 8th) 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.