684th Friday Blog Roundup

Today is Random Act of Kindness Day. It was started years ago by an IF blogger to mark her son’s birthday.  He died one day after his birth, and since he was not going to be able to do all the random acts of kindness he would have completed if he had lived, his parents set up this day for people to do kindness in his name.  So today I will do kind acts and I will let the person know that it was done on Thomas’s behalf.

I found out about this day over 10 years ago, and I’ve participated every year.  It’s for Thomas, but it’s really to tether all of our kids who aren’t here to do their own great acts.  And I love this sentiment: “finding ways to make the world a little nicer, a little sweeter, and a little happier on his birthday. Ripples into eternity, as they say.”  We all could benefit from a nicer, sweeter, happier world.

So in honour of Thomas, please go put something good into the world.

And let his parents know what you’ve done today in his name.

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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:

• “Finding Asa Gray” (Searching for Our Silver Lining)
• “Having it All” (Countingpinklines)
• “That Damned Uterus” (Silent Sorority)
• “I’m Not Special.  I Feel Stupid” (Delayed But Not Denied)
• “Part of the Problem” (Not a Wasted Word)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Inexplicably Missing has a post about bumper stickers for infertiles.  Snickering and cringing over the thought of 70 embryo stickers on the back window.  I love this post for the last line: that idea of making things less invisible.  It’s easy to see what is there; much harder to see the things that are not there.

Pages, Stages, and Rages has a moving post about being out with her friend who learned that her father had been in an accident and had died.  This line gutted me: “This wasn’t the first time we’ve cried together, it won’t be the last.”  The post is an important reminder that it’s okay to not say anything.  To just sit with someone and let them know that they’re not alone.

Lastly, Res Cogitatae has a post about mentally traveling back to the clinic when she tastes a breakfast sandwich she’d get herself years ago on IUI days.  She explains, “They’ll never be ‘just’ breakfast sandwiches for me … Those sandwiches for me will always taste of the waiting room, the early mornings, and our quiet, mounting despair that we might not ever get to be parents.” For me, it’s the scent of a certain soap.  It’s amazing how our senses can emotionally bring us right back into a moment.

The roundup to the Roundup: It’s Random Act of Kindness Day.  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 March 2nd and 9th) 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.