We end the week with Beorn pretty much exactly the same as he was last week. He has not lost weight, but he isn’t eating a lot. I think the antibiotics are killing his appetite, so I’m eager to see if he bounces back next week because the antibiotics will be complete. In the meantime, it’s Critical Care three times per day.

Another bummer: spring break wraps up, and the twins go back to school. Trying to enjoy the weekend, but it’s kind of a teary mess coupled with the drippy stench of Critical Care. Cheers?

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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.

And now the blogs…

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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:

• Nothing… sniff.

Okay, now my choices this week.

No Kidding in NZ highlights things she is thinking about as she ages without children. While she talks and writes about it, she also acknowledges that she needs to take action, and she has rounded up various tasks she needs to do. She writes: “Please forgive the repetition. I think I use these posts as motivation to actually get things done! Let’s hope it works.” I think it’s a good reminder for everyone.

Lastly, Finding a Different Path writes about her husband’s birthday celebration. She makes this point: “We are a family of two (plus cats), and we do everything we can to squeeze as much love and joy out of our time as possible. We have fun and, in a way, treat ourselves as our own kids.” I love that idea — to treat yourself to fun and celebration. Happy birthday, Bryce!

The roundup to the Roundup: A non-update update about Beorn. 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 March 14 – 21) 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 found a lifehack list that is actually full of helpful advice. So many of these lists are full of statements vs. concrete things you can try to improve life. But this list contains helpful steps to take or ideological shifts that actually may make life… better.

Things I loved:

“If you want to get better at anything, do it for ​30 minutes per day for 30 straight days​. It’s easy to over-engineer progress—a bit of dedicated effort each day is all you need.”

So true — it’s better to do something daily for a short period of time than try to carve out large blocks of time in your week. That usually only works for a week or two before you stop doing the task.

“Make a rule to never think twice about investments in yourself. Books, quality food, fitness, and personal development all fit into this bucket. These investments pay dividends for a long time.”

Again, it was just an ideological shift, but I was thinking about how you won’t regret taking the time to cook a healthy meal because you know that investment helps you in the long run.

“In the short run, it is much harder to be exceptional than it is to be reliable, and in the long run, being consistently reliable makes you exceptional.”

What did you find on the list that spoke to you?

Beorn seemed to be getting better, but when I went to clean his cage on Sunday night, I realized that the bedding was dry and there were very few poops. At the same time, he looked healthy and had stopped Blair Witching it in the corner of the cage.

I gave him a bath, hoping the fresh bedding and clean fur would reset him, but he still refused to eat hay or pellets or drink water. He would nibble on vegetables and was happy to consume the Critical Care. Again, he looked happy and healthy despite the lack of food.

I kept Googling, and I decided that he was impacted. This meant that I would need to clear his intestines. (I’m aware that probably everyone just threw up in their mouth. I wanted to throw up in the moment, and I had nightmares about it all night.) I watched a YouTube video to learn how to do it — A YOUTUBE VIDEO (seriously, what is the world coming to?) — and played amateur vet. It was revolting, but I thought I had solved the problem and would wake up to a cage full of poop and an empty hay bowl.

That isn’t what happened. I woke up to him pretty much exactly the same. Happy, healthy-looking, and not eating.

Redditors told me to fill a paper bag with hay and let him play in it because he’ll eat some of it, too. He may have, but you wouldn’t know. Mostly, he hopped around inside the bag, loving the crinkling sound, and finally flopped down and took a nap.

So we are still on Critical Care and still trying to find a solution to his totally weird behaviour.

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

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I saw this and thought it was the coolest thing in the world. The person mapped their life out week by week, so you could hover on any block and see what they were doing that week of their life. Their map isn’t super detailed. Big moments get their own square (but it is cool to see them visually placed on the map in this way so you can see how long you have to go before you hit the next big square), but most of the small squares simply state where they are working or living.

Along with looking at what has happened, you can look at the map and see what milestones are still ahead of them. I would love to make something like this, though it would take a lot of time to go back through files and figure out what I was doing at any given time. I’ve been bullet journalling for many years, so I have a sentence for each day, but that is different from seeing it all on one screen; able to scan to see the time between events.

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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.

The good news: There is likely nothing seriously wrong with Beorn. The vet checked everything he could check without resorting to equipment like an MRI and said everything checked out fine.

It is likely an infection. The vet prescribed antibiotics (which Beorn loves because it’s in sugar syrup), eye drops (which Beorn hated when the vet put them in but silently endures it when I do), and Critical Care (which is an enormous mess — he likes to dribbled it out of his mouth). I wrestle with him three times per day to get him to take everything, and then give him slices of apple because I feel guilty.

He is still Blair-Witching it, where he goes into the corner of his cage and stares at the wall. If I call his name, he’ll half turn around, glare at me, and then turn back to looking at the wall.

But hopefully at the end of this upcoming week, he will be back to his normal self. And I can stop obsessing about his weird behaviour.