902nd Friday Blog Roundup
I warned you that it was coming and gave you homework. It’s the 16th anniversary of the Friday Blog Roundup, and to celebrate, I asked you to find two posts: (1) one of yours that I highlighted here that you also love and (2) someone else’s post (from any time period) that you think everyone should read. So drop them in the comment section below. As well as anything else you’ve loved from the last four weeks.
Thank you for being here weekly. This ongoing series has framed my week for 16 years, and I’m grateful for all of your posts.
*******
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.
*******
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:
- “Gone” (The Barreness)
- “Losses and Last Resorts” (No Kidding in NZ)
- “Happy 31st birthday, sLOVEnia!” (The Next 15000 Days)
- “Hello, Summer!” (Finding a Different Path)
Okay, now my choices this week.
A bunch of longtime voices have returned.
Much Ado About Nothing has an update. She left her job for a new one that appreciates what she brings. She writes, “I know what my experience is worth, and I demanded it. I went in like a badass version of myself I haven’t felt like in a long while, and I refused to be nervous and intimidated.” I love that.
Are You Kidding Me is back — same site though the blog has a new name: Dear John. She is writing letters to her husband who died earlier this year. They are raw and moving and her latest one made me sit still for a few minutes after reading. She is selling her husband’s things, and she writes: “It’s so difficult to give up your stuff. I don’t want it here any more, but it feels like letting you go too soon. You don’t need the stuff, and you would definitely be in favor of getting rid of it. But it makes me cry.” Abide with her.
Lastly, My Lady of the Lantern returned to close her blog. She explains: “I have never wanted to abandon a blog without telling that I was going to abandon it. I found it irksome when some of my favourites just stopped posting one day, and then never returned. And I don’t want to do the same. So as of today, I think I can safely say that I no longer feel the urge to blurb here.” I’m grateful for the closure and the final thoughts.
The roundup to the Roundup: It’s the 16th anniversary of the Friday Blog Roundup. 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 June 24 – July 22) 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.
4 comments
Thank you for your blog roundups!! I did my homework. And then some extra credit… Please excuse my lengthy post.
My first mention on your blog, thanks to Mali: https://infertilephoenix.blogspot.com/2017/02/i-do-not-miss-ttc.html
My first recognition from you (thank you!): https://infertilephoenix.blogspot.com/2017/02/my-infertility-is-inconvenient-for-my.html
Some of my favorite posts from others that I think everyone should read: https://nokiddinginnz.blogspot.com/2014/03/infertilitys-waiting-room.html (This post was life changing for me!) https://infertilityhonesty.com/2017/03/08/emotional-labor-misconceptions/ (Yes, yes, yes, Sarah gave me the greatest gift–a language with which to understand my experiences.) http://thenext15000days.blogspot.com/2012/02/master-of-living-in-moment-meet-wolf.html (Klara inspired me to think hard about what kind of life I wanted to create for myself because my life at the time… wasn’t it. It wasn’t the life I wanted. I wanted Klara’s life, lol. I wanted to walk in the beautiful woods.)
https://theroadlesstravelledlb.blogspot.com/2016/02/condo-conundrum-continued.html (Loribeth was packing up the home she bought for her children at the exact same time I was packing up the house I bought for my children. I found comfort in having a friend-I-haven’t-met-yet going through the same process.)
Two of my favorite posts of mine: https://infertilephoenix.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-cost-of-my-freedom.html
https://infertilephoenix.blogspot.com/2022/02/lessons-learned.html
Thank you for letting me share. And, THANK YOU to all of the bloggers.
Happy anniversary to the Roundup! Thank you, Mel, for doing it — I look forward to reading every Friday morning! 🙂
1) You didn’t specify we had to find the first post of ours featured on the Roundup 😉 but since Phoenix found hers, I went looking for mine. I’ve tagged all my posts that you’ve featured so they’re easy to find! 😉 — you’ve featured 97 of my posts over the past almost-15 years I’ve been blogging. 🙂 27 of my posts have been picked for “second helpings,” albeit you didn’t institute that category until some time later, right?
Anyway, my first post featured was written in late November 2007, about a month after I’d started blogging, although it was probably early December by the time it turned up in the Roundup. It was also my first-ever pick for that year’s Creme de la Creme.
https://theroadlesstravelledlb.blogspot.com/2007/11/in-tizzy-about-being-busy.html
2) This 2008 post from Sharah about “Infertility Island” has stuck with me over the years. She did go on to have children, but it’s still a pretty powerful piece.
https://sharah.wordpress.com/2008/05/05/almost-8-months-out/
3) This week, I loved Jess’s post about the secret history of things around her house:
https://findingadifferentpath.blogspot.com/2022/07/things-with-secret-history.html
Happy 16th anniversary to you and the Roundup! I wonder how many people have read it and participated over the years? It’s an amazing accomplishment. And you have my heartfelt thanks for it.
Oops, I completely forgot your homework. But good thing I came in to give you a second helping for next week – Childless by Marriage’s post reminding us all that along with the losses, we are much more than just childless. https://childlessbymarriageblog.com/2022/07/20/with-childlessness-the-related-losses-multiply/
Okay, now to the homework. My favourite post (and one of the most read) that I wrote (and I think was featured on the Roundup?) is probably Infertility’s Waiting Room – https://nokiddinginnz.blogspot.com/2014/03/infertilitys-waiting-room.html
But this one got a great response too: https://nokiddinginnz.blogspot.com/2015/01/pain-and-healing-early-days.html
But it is so hard to choose a favourite post from someone else, over the last eleven plus years of blogging and blog reading. There have been so many wonderful posts by so many, and sadly I don’t have a record of them. I wish now I’d kept a list! All I can say is that although there are some of us who are a bit older, writing about not having kids (Me, Loribeth (https://theroadlesstravelledlb.blogspot.com), Pamela (https://www.blog.silentsorority.com/), Sue Fagalde Lick (https://childlessbymarriageblog.com/). the ones in the last five-ten years who have made an impression on me are Jess at My Path to Mommyhood and then Finding a Different Path, for her honesty and resilience, and Infertile Phoenix (likewise). Klara at The Next 15000 Days (http://thenext15000days.blogspot.com/) and Sarah (https://infertilityhonesty.com/) came slightly before them, and it was wonderful to watch their progression, and these days are so many others, blogging internationally and in different languages. Thanks to Google Translate and other translating sites, I read No Kidding blogs in German (Elaine – https://www.elaineok.com/) and French (Léa- https://desmeandresauxetoiles.com/). Though sadly, much of the discussion seems to have moved to Instagram and other social media platforms, that don’t always give the space for some of the in-depth thinking and work that is done on blogs.
I know that is a long-winded answer that would be a fail for normal homework, but I like to think that choosing one post was a trick question! lol
Okay, I am so relieved to see that others aren’t strictly playing by the rules either. 🙂
My favorite post that you highlighted (only looking at Finding a Different Path) was “Reframing Rainbows” :
https://findingadifferentpath.blogspot.com/2021/04/reframing-rainbows.html
I feel like Mali’s “Infertility’s Waiting Room” is just so good for anyone who is looking at any form of resolution that they are finding difficult, or is afraid of opening that door of resolving without parenting…like Phoenix, it was a lightbulb moment, a light in a very dark place, and one of the first times I thought it would be okay to end our journey:
https://nokiddinginnz.blogspot.com/2014/03/infertilitys-waiting-room.html
I am also horrible at bookmarking, instead leaving open a zillion tabs and then wondering why my laptop shut down, but I did once bookmark this post from Inconceivable! and upon rereading it feel everyone should read it! It was brilliant!
https://inconceivable12.wordpress.com/2018/04/30/flipping-the-script-solidarity-not-pressure/comment-page-1/#comment-3328
And this one from Infertile Phoenix, that everyone should read because it reframes the idea of “left behind:”
https://infertilephoenix.blogspot.com/2022/05/left-behind.html
This last one is from the past month, and I’ve been terrible about adding my roundup to the Roundup, so hopefully it fits the timeline. I didn’t comment on it because I didn’t quite know what to say, but Mel, your post “The End of Eras” really stuck with me. It falls into something that people should read, too, because it speaks to a grief that isn’t recognized, something that maybe is minimized but is very, very real and a product of everything you’ve experienced up until this celebratory but bittersweet time. So it has really stuck with me and is renting significant brain space:
https://www.stirrup-queens.com/2022/06/the-ends-of-eras
Last, thank you so much for compiling the Roundups. It must be a positive butt-ton of work, but it is such a wonderful community-builder and a way to expand your reading and catch what you might otherwise have missed. Thank you thank you thank you.