855th Friday Blog Roundup

There has clearly always been a time delay with the Olympics (unless you live in or near the host country), and I’m sure the news released results before the evening television coverage when it lined up time-wise. (Right?) But before social media and the 24-hour news cycle, you needed to watch to know or wait for the newspaper to report the results the next day.

Knowing results hours before the televised highlights makes me feel like… I can watch or not watch, and it’s all okay. It feels weird to sometimes get to the end of the night and think, “Oh! I could have watched Olympic coverage.”

The gematria nerd in me loves the fact that there are 613 American athletes at the games. That number may have changed with people not flying to Japan due to COVID-19 results, but I’m going with the number reported during the opening ceremony. I married the right person because Josh and I looked at each other at the exact same moment and said, “613!”

And, of course, I am in awe of Simone Biles. What an incredible woman in addition to being an incredible athlete.

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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:

• None… sniff…

Okay, now my choices this week.

The Uterus Monologues has a post about pregnancy after a loss. It has taken her a little while to write it, but she explains: “I couldn’t have done it justice back when I was pregnant after loss myself. Back then, I was just existing, really. I had no reliable perspective on what I needed, what was helping, and what wasn’t.” It’s a great list to bookmark for yourself or send along to others.

The Next 15000 Days recalls a strange wish from a co-worker. It may be simply awkward phrasing—if a person wishes you happiness and you reply that you are happy, it’s not technically wrong to wish a person more happiness. But… it is also commentary on the person’s emotional state. She asks: “Am I happy? I am not sure. But what I am sure is that I am content and I love living my quiet peaceful life.”

Lastly, Not a Wasted Word makes a distinction between better and easier. She unpacks a situation that is better but it’s also harder. Plus, I love this analogy: “It’s actually a relief to recognize that all these seemingly disparate freakouts where just offshoots of the same plant of school-starting-panic. The roots of this plant grow strong, and deep and I’m sure I cannot rid myself of them completely.” Yes to this.

The roundup to the Roundup: A different sort of Olympics. 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 July 23 – July 30) 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.