757th Friday Blog Roundup

We just got back from a quick trip to the beach. The skies were more grey than blue and the water tumultuous due to storms coming up from the Caribbean. But we could still sit outside and read, so I’d call that a win.

What wasn’t a win––and was more striking than usual––was beach erosion. The twins only have memories of the place from the last twelve or so years, but even they could remember the multiple rows of car spots in the parking lot, which are down to a single row in some spaces, and the long walk from the car to the water. They have no clue how enormous that beach was when I was their age thirty years ago. There is now only a sliver left of the sand.

The town has been talking for years about moving the beach. It would require setting up an off-site parking lot and using a shuttle service to take people to the new beach. It makes me sad to think about the beach changing.

There are only so many times we can apologize to the younger generations for messing up their world.

On a side note, we stopped in a nature center to talk to the rangers about a birding program we’re planning to attend this winter. I asked if there were more than four or five types of birds we’d be able to see, and the ranger made a small face of disbelief at me. I wasn’t joking––I didn’t know that not all seagulls are the same.

Josh pointed out a bird list by the door of birds seen in the vicinity that week that was about one hundred names long. “Plus they all have awesome names that I can start calling you,” he whispered gleefully. So… yeah… we’ve nailed down our first new hobby.

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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:

• “MicroblogMondays: Tips for Better Reading” (The Road Less Travelled)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Empty Arms, Broken Heart has a post about invisible grief and the tendency (or expectation) that people continue on with life as normal while miscarrying or not being able to conceive. She writes, “It did not make the grief process easier to keep it to myself … In trying to keep my grief to myself, I found it poured out in ways I didn’t intend.” Her point about the damage we do when we try to make our grief invisible is thought-provoking.

Dreaming of Diapers returns with bad news from her final FET. I realized I was holding my breath as I read the first part. It is about trying to process the end while you’re still in the throes of the end. It’s a heartbreaking post, but I wanted to highlight it so everyone could surround her with love.

Finally, RisaKerslake writes about a comment she received on a recent post: “it can still be a jab to read something where you’ve just poured your heart out and someone thinks you’re basically an awful human being.” She wrote about how she felt parenting after infertility, and she was told that she should “learn to appreciate what [she has].” I’m not sure why anyone thinks they need to negate someone else’s expressed feelings. But I love Risa’s thoughts on how processing the feelings from infertility aren’t one-size-fits-all.

The roundup to the Roundup: The beach has changed. 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 23rd and August 30th) 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.