921st Friday Blog Roundup

Josh and I have a hot date planned in December to renew my library cards. Plural. Because that’s how I roll. I belong to more libraries than you have fingers to count them, and they all have different renewal dates. Some are indefinite — set 100 years in the future. Others need to be renewed every two years.

So off we go, driving to all the libraries with cards that expire in December and renewing them at the desk because it’s impossible to renew over the phone.

Pre-COVID, I had big plans to collect cards from all of my reciprocity libraries and then get a portrait done surrounded by my cards. (Dream big.) But that plan fizzled during the lockdown. Maybe returning to the buildings to renew will spark it again because one of my big retirement plans is fundraising for the various libraries in my stuffed wallet.

Just kidding: I crocheted a special bag to hold all of my library cards.

And that sums up December.

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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:

• “Another Take – Why I Don’t Have a Gratitude Practice” (Afterward Honesty)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Infertile Phoenix is happy and sad at the same time. Holidays have a way of doing that. She writes: “As resolved as I am about my CNBC situation and as happy as I am in the awesome life I’ve created for myself, it still hurt to see proclamations of gratitude for what I will never have: a family of my own.” Sending a hug.

Grief Is the Word writes about a grief hierarchy; a branch of the Pain Olympics. She explains: “ I’ve often felt a sense of being a fraud while speaking of my own losses, my own grief, particularly when in the company of someone who has suffered miscarriages or been through the trauma of IVF. All I have to offer as my story is emptiness.” She has a powerful final line, and I hope she reaches that day.

Lastly, The Uterus Monologues unpacks a recent study about conceiving after a miscarriage. This is so true: It’s mind-boggling “how much high-stakes decision-making we’re expected to do – as people going through pregnancy loss or infertility, but also as women more generally – without adequate information about the ways our bodies do and don’t work.” Research matters.

The roundup to the Roundup: I learned a lot about websites this week. 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 November 18 – 25) 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.