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.

Beorn has been off all week, not acting like himself, which means that I have been off all week, not feeling like myself. I feel such a deep responsibility for this guinea pig and the fact that he depends on me to figure out what is wrong and address it.

The two main issues are that (1) he isn’t consistent. One day, he’ll barely eat things he normally loves, such as lettuce, but he’ll chow down on an apple slice, and he never fails to beg for his vitamin. The pig LOVES his vitamin more than anything else in the world. So he eats, but he’s eating strangely. And (2) we no longer have a vet specializing in exotics. We now have a general vet who normally focuses on cats and dogs but will care for our guinea pig when needed. So, taking Beorn to the vet is a little different than taking a dog because it’s outside his focus. The only vet we know in the area who treats exotics wasn’t taking new patients the last time we called, and we don’t have an emergency situation where our vet could call in a favour for her expertise.

We’re going to our vet, but I wish Beorn could tell me whether to chill or whether something is wrong.

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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.

In Search of Motherhood gives an update after a long time away. I liked the title because it’s no small thing to continue moving forward during an impossibly difficult time: In Which Our Heroine Is… Still Standing. Sending a hug because the pain comes through her words.

Lastly, Hopelessly Infertile and Surrounded by Fertiles closes out a hard month by reflecting on a difficult situation and the need for transparency and honesty when giving disappointing news. She admits: “I don’t know what to do with these feelings. They go away most of the time, but in this season, they come back. How happy I was to be there for them then. And how sad it makes me now that I was ever happy for someone who treated me so shabbily.” It’s a hard situation without an easy answer.

The roundup to the Roundup: Not sure what is up with 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 7 – 14) 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.

As I say every month, I’m shamelessly stealing this idea from Jessica Lahey. She has a recurring monthly date where she reviews all the books she reads that month. Book reviews are important for authors, and I want to get better at doing this.

So. I’m going to review them here and also online, but I’m going to do it a little differently. I’m only going to review the stuff I really liked. I don’t see a reason to spend my time writing about something I didn’t love; it’s just using up more of my energy. So only positive reviews.

These are the books I liked (or mostly liked) from February.

The Proof of My Innocence (Jonathan Coe): This is up there as one of the best books I’ve ever read. Coe is always reliably good, but this book is incredible. Sort of a mystery. Sort of not. Thought-provoking, mind-bending. Wow. I’m just blown away by this one. It will leave you thinking about it for weeks afterward.

Big Swiss (Jen Beagin): A friend recommended it, and I put off reading it because I wasn’t sure I would like it. Big mistake. It’s a great story with great characters – every one of them. Except one, but he’s terrible so it’s okay not to like him. It’s being turned into a television show with Jodie Comer as Flavia. I think it will be fantastic.

The Potting Shed Murder (Paula Sutton): This is the sweetest book – the perfect book to read when overwhelmed by the world. I passed it along to ChickieNob the moment I was finished because everyone needs a chance to spend time with kind characters in a beautiful space. I love Pudding Corner. I loved that I guessed every piece of this mystery. It was the least stressful and loveliest read. I am pre-ordering the next book in the series.

What did you read last month?

Who knows when to mark the five-year anniversary of COVID? I looked back at four updates, each a week apart (1, 2, 3, 4), and marveled at how little I knew. And how I would still be masking five years later. Still dealing with it five years later.

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I started a folder called The Price of Things where I take a screenshot of the cost of maple syrup and avocados at the grocery store. I’m not sure what watching the price of maple syrup go up accomplishes except to stoke my rage.

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If you haven’t watched Severance, I recommend watching Severance. It’s really good. But if you are going to watch Severance, know that the Chikhai Bardo episode is one of the most moving, accurate depictions of infertility. Ever. They captured the highs and the lows of five years of trying to build a family.