945th Friday Blog Roundup

Remember those bottle-drinking babies from the beginning of this blog? Today is their last day of high school. They’ve had their last exams, their last award ceremony, and their final moments inside the school building. Graduation is next week.

The Wolvog asked me this week if we wanted to drive them to school on the last full day, for old times’ sake. I always loved pickup, so I burst into tears. Happy tears but also very sad tears that this would be the final time. I put on Tina Turner* to steel myself in the afternoon and drove to our pickup spot. I watched the tops of their heads bobbing down the street, underneath the hill that blocks my view of the road like they’ve done hundreds of times before. But this time was the last time.

I am so grateful they gave me that moment.

* I usually play Tina to steel myself for things, though this week, it was clearly bittersweet.

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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:

• “Choose Your Life” (No Kidding in NZ)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Dubliner in Deutschland recounts a hurtful comment. A stranger keeps questioning why she doesn’t want to have another child, pushing the subject. It’s a fine line between just wanting to be done with the person and driving home the hurtfulness of the conversation so she doesn’t do it again to someone else. She writes, “Emotionally, physically and mentally, I don’t want to put myself through all that again. We have made peace with the fact that we are a family of three and love our little unit.” Amen.

Lastly, Finding a Different Path says farewell to her old knee to get a super new bionic knee. Prepping for the surgery hurt her existing knee, but there’s a metaphor somewhere in this: “It is so, so very angry today. Which I think is good, because it reminds me how much I need this and how the pain will be worth it short-term to have amazing outcomes long-term.” Glad she is now on the other side with a fancy new knee.

The roundup to the Roundup: Last pickup. 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 May 19 – 26) 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.