792nd Friday Blog Roundup

We’ve been watching cooking videos from Da Mario’s, a favourite restaurant in London. The chef is posting recipes from the menu and explaining why he does things. Like did you know that if you add vegetable stock to a cream sauce, it won’t clump up? So once or twice a week, we schedule in Da Mario nights, pretending that we’re at the restaurant and our substitutions are close enough to the real deal.

Plus he made me cry when he got choked up during his first video.

What are you eating?

*******

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:

• “When Our World Shifts Beneath Us” (No Kidding in NZ)
• “Jealous of Fiction” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you, Jess!
• “Die Kinder anderer” (Elaine ohne Kind)
• “The ‘Have Children or Do Something Big’ Dilemma” (Different Shores)
• “Life at a Different Altitude” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you, KatherineA

Okay, now my choices this week.

Infertile Phoenix received the perfect understanding of her own heart via a response to a comment. She explains, “I wanted children because I wanted to love them. I have a lot of love to give.” You’ll need to read the whole post (and Elaine’s post, too) to follow the thought, but it gets to the core of why infertility and loss hurts so deeply.

By the Brooke wonders how the current situation will remain with her kids into the future. She writes: “I keep thinking of ways that this experience is shaping my children’s lives in ways that might have real and lasting impacts. Like, hopefully they’ll be very good handwashers. But also, they might never touch people.” The post is an unpacking of a lot of thoughts that are in my head, too, of what life will be like down the road.

Res Cogitatae has dusted off her blog (welcome back!) to ask why she is angry all the time if things are generally okay? The two voices in her head are also the ones in mine: “The voice that says (truthfully) that in the grand scheme of things EVERYTHING IS FINE and the voice that says (also truthfully) that THIS IS TERRIBLE AND I HATE IT.” Read through the twists and turns in her brain; there is probably something in there (or many things) that you will have you saying, “me too.”

Finally, My Path to Mommyhood writes about the draining quality of quarantine stress. Even though things are going well with work, days of screens becomes evenings of screens. She is helping her students tremendously, but it takes something out of each teacher who is spending the day online, reaching out to their students. She writes about comparative suffering (akin but not exactly the Pain Olympics): “It’s basically feeling like empathy is a pie and I can’t feel exhausted for myself while there are healthcare workers out there who are working endless 12 hour shifts, so my frustration and exhaustion isn’t as bad as theirs. She said you have to have empathy for yourself and realize that everyone has the right to their suffering without comparing to others.” So, yes, let it out. And be kind to yourself.

The roundup to the Roundup: What are you eating? 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 24 – May 1) 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.