868th Friday Blog Roundup

I posted a story about Beorn on Facebook and the loveliest thing happened:

I need to kvell about my pig. Beorn went over to his empty hay ball, tapped it with his nose, and looked at me. THAT IS COMMUNICATION, PEOPLE. I filled his hay ball while he popcorned around me, clearly happy that I had understood him. There may not be an honour roll for guinea pigs, but if there was, my pig would be at the head of the class. #proudpigmum

(Whatever. People kvell about their kids and no one bats an eye. I’m going to kvell about my pig. My pig is amazing and pure love.)

People started chiming in with times their cats or dogs or chickens communicated with them. Like chickens who say, “good night” and cats that let you know the water dish is empty. I love these stories about animals.

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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.

In Quest of a Binky Moongee gives life to a maternity dress she didn’t get to wear. When a friend gets pregnant, she realizes she can give her the dress to wear. She writes, “It almost feels like she is not only going to wear this dress for herself, but for me and for her other friends who didn’t/don’t ever get to carry our own babies.” I love this. It’s a beautiful dress and a beautiful story.

Not a Wasted Word perfectly sums up the feeling that accompanies an abnormal cycle or perimenopause: destabilizing. She explains: “I’m hoping that tomorrow my period will just come already and I’ll feel better. But maybe it won’t. The truth is, I have no idea what to expect anymore, physically or emotionally, and it’s incredibly destabilizing.” Cycles can be hard enough. Having them unpredictable takes it to another level.

Lastly, The Road Less Travelled just celebrated her 40th anniversary! It’s such a huge milestone (and it comes with a great story and picture) that you have to go over and celebrate with them.

The roundup to the Roundup: Beorn communicates with me. 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 October 22 – October 29) 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.