708th Friday Blog Roundup

Okay, Riddle me this, Batpeople.  We were driving over a bridge on the way to the Kennedy Center, and I saw the sparkly lights of a restaurant on the water in the distance.

“What was the name of that restaurant we loved in Georgetown?” I asked.  “It was on the waterfront.”

“You must have gone there with your other boyfriend,” Josh commented.

“No, it was you.  I mean, we haven’t been in years, but it was very early on in our relationship… it was on the water and it had sparkle lights… We also went there after a graduation or something like that…”

“Now you’re really talking about another boyfriend,” Josh repeated.

That was all that we said about the restaurant.  That it was in Georgetown, on the waterfront, and had sparkle lights.  Plus Josh insisted that we’ve never eaten there together, so he had zero clue what this restaurant was called.

The next day, Josh was scrolling through Facebook and his face changed.  “Melissa… Is this the restaurant you were thinking about yesterday?”  He flipped his phone around, and it was an ad for Sequoia — THE RESTAURANT I DIDN’T KNOW THE NAME OF.

If you Google “waterfront, Georgetown, restaurant,” it pops up as the second hit.  So if we had ever bothered Googling it, we would have had our answer but

1. No one Googled it.
2. No one said the name.
3. Microphone access is off for Facebook.

So either (1) Facebook is telling the truth — when you deny it access to your microphone, it cannot listen — or (2) Facebook is lying and it absolutely listened and the algorithm spat out the most likely option, or (3) it is just the most amazing coincidence in the world.

Which option do you think is correct?  I’m going with door #2…

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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:

• “Pan.dora’s Box” (An Engineer Becomes a Mom)
• “Day 12 – The Best $150ish I Ever Spent” (Anne Heffron)
• “#Microblog Mondays: How We Take Pictures” (My Path to Mommyhood)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Life Without Baby has a post about letting go of the life you wanted when the road that leads there is an unhappy, stressful path.  In other words, it’s not just about the destination.  It’s about being okay with the road to get there, and when you’re not okay with it, having the ability to remove yourself from that path, even if you really really really want the final destination.  It’s such a good post about how it’s not all about the ending.  It’s about the beginning and the middle, too.

Much Ado About Nothing has a post about grief.  It is a post about how her grief about her own father’s death mixed with her sister’s father’s death this summer (same mother, different fathers).  She writes about the loss: “I held up my nieces and nephews and sister, all while feeling these huge waves of grief for the loss I knew and was now watching someone I loved deeply feel. I didn’t have any words other than ‘I am so sorry.’ But I guess that is the truest life lesson… love hard and show up for the people you love when they need you.”  Such a simple and true life rule.  It’s a gorgeous, heartbreaking post with a beautiful ending: “My grief allowed her to be more loving in her father’s last months.”  Go read the whole thing.

Risakerslake has the ability to make me crack up about the beginning of a cycle.  From quietly plotting her day 3 monitoring from a coffee shop to the goat rodeo that comes from coordinating care between clinics, she makes you laugh as often as she makes you groan in sympathy.  And I love what she writes about returning to the clinic: “Some women experience PTSD going back to the fertility clinic. For me, I don’t know. I didn’t feel any of that. It was more like coming home.”  Sending really good thoughts for this go-around on baby making.

Lastly, My Path to Mommyhood explains why inspirational messages sometimes aren’t so… inspirational.  In fact, they can be downright unhelpful.  My personal pet peeve is “quitters never win and winner never quit.”  But she points out how with just a little more explanation, these quotes CAN get someone started on something difficult.  Though… it’s sort of as if we need to sweep the truth under the rug sometimes to get people to try.  I don’t know.  That feels wrong, too.  As she points out, this is kinda sorta complicated when what you need to convey can be twisted and simplified.  And I love how she ties in the frustration and accomplishment pieces.

The roundup to the Roundup: Facebook is the creepiest kid on the block.  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 August 24th and 31st) 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.