966th Friday Blog Roundup

Chanukkah started last night. We have a cabinet with a random assortment of unused candles from Chanukkahs past. I would enter the holiday with good intentions: I’ll light the chanukkiah all eight nights.

To prove my commitment, I would light it the first night. And maybe I would light it the second night. But I would forget by the third. And I’d remember but decide I didn’t feel like cleaning the chanukkiah of the fourth. So on and so forth until the seventh night when I would remember once again and say something like, “I stick the landing with Pesach.”

The boxes generally contain the exact number of candles — 44 — you need for the holiday. So, each box in the cabinet has a jumble of leftover candles.

But I told Josh to buy me a new box this year, AND I had the brilliant idea to write the task into my daily to-do list. Anything written on the to-do list gets done. So tonight, we will light for the second night, and I will remember to do it the third night and beyond.

Thanks, to-do list. You’re the gift that keeps giving.

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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:

• “We Are Trying” (The Antidote)

Okay, now my choices this week.

No Kidding in NZ has a post about when holiday expectations go awry. She was set to have one kind of holiday (food, wine, adult time), and now she’s having another (three-year-old child), and while she would have ended up in the same hosting space, the situation happened without the ability to process it with a deep breath. She explains: “But as a childless person who has been through the painful process of learning to embrace the joys of an adult Christmas, and for years has successfully done this, I’m now going to be reminded, closely and intently, of what I will have missed.” Figuratively, I’ll be in your pocket while you’re hosting, so know that there are people out here who have your back.

Lastly, Infertile Phoenix unpacks the two future choices highlighted for young girls — mom or career woman — but I love this nugget of truth: “Some things in life are going really well and some things are not. And, well, that’s because that’s how life goes.” That is life. Things are rarely all good or all bad. It’s a mix.

The roundup to the Roundup: To-do lists work. 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 December 1 – 8) 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.