881st Friday Blog Roundup

I am happy for the Wordle guy — not just because his desire to entertain his partner brought him over a million dollars but because he sounded overwhelmed by the success of the game, and the purchase means that someone else (or, something else) will take over the maintenance of it. I’m hoping for a smooth transition over to the New York Times, and I trust that they will treat it like their mini — free for anyone to play once a day.

But moreover, it’s nice to hear a happy story right now. The world feels so heavy and overwhelming. I like hearing about a person who made something just because and everyone loved it and they lived happily ever after.

And I’ve gotten 78+ rounds out of it so far. For free. How can I complain?

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Speaking of creating things, Life from Scratch is on sale. Just 99 cents. Tell your friends, tell your family, tell your neighbours. Buy a copy for everyone you know and love.

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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 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. To read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• None… sniff.

Okay, now my choices this week.

A Half Baked Life has a post about friends and health and reaching out. I related to this: “The other morning, seeing a photo post from one of those friends of a group of women eating and being silly and just enjoying each others’ company, I confess I felt sad and lonely. I don’t have a group like this, a group that I hang out with or go on adventures with or even eat a meal with when I’m not with my family.” And I think a lot of people will relate to it because group friendship is a different beast and (likely) not as effortless as people make it seem from the outside.

Res Cogitatae has a post about burnout, and while I was holding her in my heart, I also had to comment on this brilliant analogy about the impulse to stop testing and tracking COVID cases: “E. called the premier’s office to explain to them that stopping testing was ‘just like if you told everyone not to call the fire department. It wouldn’t keep any houses from being on fire, it would just mean that no one would know which ones were burning’.” It is so hard right now. The mental load is too heavy right now. But hang in there and vent it out.

Lastly, Grief Is the Word has a post about waking up to loneliness and fear. She writes, “Sometimes I feel like a different species – my life has veered off course so dramatically. I can’t even imagine what it must be like to have the kind of life most of my friends and family are leading.” Sometimes we need to feel arms around us. Humans need to feel anchored.

The roundup to the Roundup: Good on you, Wordle Guy. Life from Scratch is on sale. 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 January 28 – February 4) 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.