Last year, we visited the kids four times: drop-off, mid-fall, mid-spring, and pack-up. It worked well, and we decided to do this again. Except this time, it worked better with my work schedule to go at the end of September. It wasn’t ideal — drop off at the beginning of September and visit at the end of September. It left us with a big gaping calendar hole between the end of September and Thanksgiving.

But what could we do? It also needed to work with work.

We had perfect weather for our trip. We went to an orchard and ate apple cider donuts. We helped them fill out their mail-in ballots over coffee. We went on a Trader Joe’s run, ate sushi, and visited a landmark that I thought I had never seen and then realized that I had been there years ago. Mostly, we just sat around and talked, and the Wolvog taught me how to play Balatro. It was a fantastic weekend.

But I ended up having the emptiness of drop-off twice. The first time when we actually dropped them off for the year and I had to return to the quiet house, and the second time when we returned from the visit last weekend to the long stretch until Thanksgiving.

We all agreed that we should push the visit to October next year to break things up, but it doesn’t change this year, dealing with the same emotions a second time.

P.S. No Microblog Monday tomorrow. See you on Tuesday.

This weekend begins apple season. Apple season is a tradition with Beorn, where we get fancy apples on Fridays and then share them with Beorn on Saturday mornings while we read. He runs around and loops back occasionally for a chunk of apple, and I like to think that his wheeks are sharing his thoughts on my TBR list.

A local farm has two walls of apples so you can mix and match. Everything along one wall is one price per pound, and everything along the other wall is a different price per pound. So we never think of writing down the types of apples we like. We just play roulette with the apples, trying a bunch of different types each weekend.

Happy apple season.

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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.

Infertile Phoenix writes about the concept of “getting over” childlessness. She explains: “Once you’re a mom, you’re a mom. It doesn’t change. Why do I feel like some people want me to ‘get over’ my childlessness? It’s a part of me. It’s who I am.” Not having kids impacts life just as much as having kids.

Lastly, The Road Less Travelled has a recurring post that I wish I had started many years ago, too, because her archive is wonderful. She recaps how life is right now; what is happening, what she is reading, how she spends her time. They’re all labeled with Right Now if you want to peruse history.

The roundup to the Roundup: Happy apple season. 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 September 27 – October 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.

I loved The Atlantic’s ode to the Apple Note, mostly because I use the notes app in the same way:

Unlike Evernote or Notion, it’s not necessarily organized for the user’s future self. It is essentially built-in scratch paper on a phone, and it reveals a person’s digital subconscious.

I have a few notes organized around a theme, such as ideas for future meals. Whenever we’re meal planning, I’ll return to that note and see if I’m still in the mood for whatever idea bubbled up in my head while we were watching television. But most notes are just running snippets of quotes from books or funny things the kids said or random things I suddenly remember and want to capture.

Whenever a note gets ridiculously long, I’ll start another one. So, looking back at old notes takes me back to a stage in my life in the same way that looking back at open tabs in Safari also reveals what I was thinking about years ago. I have tabs that have been open since 2017. Maybe earlier.

In mid-September, medical waste washed up on East Coast beaches, leaving behind syringes and vials. Josh and I had plans to go to the beach that weekend, and we talked about the intelligence of this plan. The beach was closed for swimming or wading, and the forecast called for rain throughout the visit.

But I mentally needed a trip to the beach, so I spoke to a park ranger who told me that walking on the beach in shoes was fine and a clean-up was underway. We decided to go ahead and park, facing the ocean, and read in the car if it was too rainy.

The rain never materialized, and I threw on a pair of bright red rain boots and set up my chair away from the water line. It was sunny and windy, perfect reading on the beach weather, and we ate chips and watched the waves and read books. We never saw a syringe, and the beach re-opened while we were there for swimming. We left on our boots because we didn’t want to chance it.

The beach was mostly empty.

Many people must have canceled because when we checked into the hotel, they gave us a free weeknight to use any time we wanted this year to thank us for our business. We probably would have canceled, too, if this had happened when the kids were little. But we’re in the red-rain-boots-on-the-beach-eating-chips stage of life.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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I found the Rabbit Hole Detectives podcast because the three podcasters have a book coming out in October that we’re ordering from Blackwell’s. I am not a podcast person and only listen to The Handsome Podcast, but I downloaded a few episodes and am completely hooked.

It’s Reverend Richard Coles (I adore his mystery books, too), Dr Cat Jarman, and Charles Spencer (as in Princess Diana’s brother). Each week, they go down the rabbit hole on three different topics and present their best fun fact for a competition. They make the most random topics super interesting.

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts connected to businesses or sponsored posts.