631st Friday Blog Roundup

I’m going to find out tomorrow if we get to bring home the baby guinea pig or not.  I checked in with the woman mid-week, and she promised to send me a message the moment she heard from the other person.  So you’ll either get a picture of a really cute guinea pig on Sunday, or you’ll get a weepy post from me about how we didn’t bring home said guinea pig.  Either way, at least I’ll know in a few days.

I bought a new carrier, feeling hopeful.  We’ll use it at some point, and it’s better to be ready than scrambling.  We have a Plan B and C and D in case this particular pig doesn’t work out.

I’m getting all my guinea pig names lined up.  ChickieNob named Cozy.  Josh mostly named Truman.  I have already been told that while the first name I’m offering up will be under consideration, the middle name I paired with it is off the table because it’s “awful.” (No, it’s not, ChickieNob.)  We’ll see.  I plan to fight hard for naming rights.

*******

The house has been very quiet without Truman.  It is weird to chop vegetables and not hear him begging for a few pieces of carrot.  It is weird to leave the house and not say goodbye to him.  It is weird to enter the house and not call out hello.

We talk about him as if he is still here.

*******

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.

*******

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:

• “Nothing Shameful to See Here” (Alaskan Blueberry)
• “Inauguration 2017” (Family Building with a Twist)
• “Why We Chose Agency Adoption, and Not Private” (My Path to Mommyhood)
• “About Those Shoes We’ve All Been In” (My Path to Mommyhood)
• “Five Years After My Daughter’s Death…” (Inkling Post)
• “Writing About Those with Different Outcomes” (No Kidding in NZ)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Bent Not Broken has a post about privilege, recognizing your own, and the recent marches.  She writes: “I know what it is like to struggle every single day.  I vow never to forget this.  I also know privilege. I vow to not use my position of privilege to judge others, and instead to use my voice to advocate for them.”  I got chills reading down her refrain of “The march was important to me.”

A+ Effort has an eye-opening list on her blog about representation — from the first female senator to the first Native American Supreme Court Justice.  If you’re wondering about that last one, click over to read the whole list.

Anabegins has a sweet post about belonging.  Okay, so it’s also about not belonging, but the sweet part comes near the end when she talks about three fictional fish.  “The other day I was telling him one in which the 3 were hanging out together on a holiday. He looked up at me and said, ‘I wish I had friends like that, that I could see everyday, and do things with,’ and I said, ‘I know buddy, it seems like it’d be really cool, huh’.”  It’s about the difference between having friends and being part of a group.

Lastly, A Half Baked Life also has thoughts on the women’s march.  It was inspiring, but there were also things she noticed that stuck with her long after she got home.  “The march was an unprecedented crowd of people with no arrests, kindness and civility.  It was incredibly diverse, but it was largely white. Imagine what would have happened if that many Black women showed up in one space?  The police would have come in riot gear, not in yellow vests.”  She verbalizes the things that gave her pause as well as the things that lifted her up.  It’s a great, well-rounded post about her experience.

The roundup to the Roundup: Update about the new guinea pig coming Sunday.  I miss Truman.  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 January 20th and January 27th) 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.