Category — Friday Blog Roundup

The Wolvog updated us all day Wednesday and Thursday on the air quality index. It wasn’t as bad down here as it was in New York, but it still looked odd outside. It’s bizarre to think that the fires were a 10 – 12 hour drive away from D.C. That the smoke drifted all the way down the coast. And truly terrifying.

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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:

• “An Unexpected Conversation” (Infertile Phoenix)
• “Life Makes My Life Meaningful” (No Kidding in NZ)
• “The Early Days of the IF Blogosphere” (Stirrup Queens) — thanks, Jess!

Okay, now my choices this week.

The Road Less Travelled has a post about the wildfires. She writes, “It was supposed to be a sunny day — but when I look outside, all I see is a hazy grey sky.” It is scary to watch destructive events intensifying — the frequency and scope picking up year after year. What will the earth look like — feel like — twenty years from now?

Lastly, No Kidding NZ is back from a month-long trip to southern Africa, and she writes about traveling without kids. I love the story about the other couple they met on the road. “I said to my husband after a couple of days that I was sure they didn’t have children either. It hadn’t been mentioned, almost pointedly, by either of us. In fact, it actually took me a day or two to realise that neither of us had brought it up.” I love the exchange they had and look forward to more stories about the trip.

The roundup to the Roundup: Wildfires. 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 June 2 – 9) 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.

In a little while, we will leave for graduation. I still haven’t figured out how I will cry wearing a mask, but I guess that will be a problem solved in the moment. Because I will cry. I cry just thinking about graduation, so I am sure hearing Pomp and Circumstance will send me over the edge.

I am so proud of the twins — they worked so hard and accomplished so much. I know they are ready for the next step. I’m not ready, but that doesn’t mean they are not ready.

Wish me luck that I get through this day. Everything feels so enormous, including the weight of my love squeezing all the tears out of my face.

*******

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…

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.

A Separate Life unpacks the fine line bloggers walk between saying what they want to say and being mindful of what the audience would want to hear. She explains: “But I know that the reach of the internet is vast, and it is easy to unwittingly offend or annoy.” Things live forever on the web, and you never know how someone else is taking your words on the other side of the screen.

Lastly, The Barreness started HRT. She writes about the appointment: “I asked my questions and voiced concerns about my endo, and fibroids and cysts; which he answered and then I left with a prescription and knowledge in what I was choosing. I sat in the car and felt… SEEN, HEARD, and scared but EXCITED. A new milestone.” That sounds like the best kind of appointment: Solutions and empowerment.

The roundup to the Roundup: Graduation. 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 26 – June 2) 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.

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.

*******

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…

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.

I received a note from my doctor to schedule an appointment. So I scheduled an appointment and shaved my legs. The last time I saw her, I hadn’t shaved my legs because I didn’t think anyone would see my legs. So I was going to be careful this time. You never know when you’re going to be asked to disrobe.

I jumped in the car at the crack of dawn. (Oh, did I mention that I snagged the first appointment of the day?) It was so early that the office wasn’t actually open yet, but she took me (bleary eyes and all) five minutes early.

“Why are you here?” she asked.

“I’m here because you sent me a note to make an appointment. Why did you want me here?”

“Um… I don’t send notes to people to tell them to make appointments. Why would I want to create more work for myself? I only see people if they need to see me.”

It turned out that there was a glitch in some centralized system that sent that note out without her knowledge — as in, the algorithm decided that I needed an appointment and signed her name. She told me in the future to always check with her office if I received something weird like that. A co-pay and messed-up morning later, the end of the story is that I didn’t need to be there at all.

Awesome.

*******

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…

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.

Heather Armstrong was still on a lot of people’s minds. The Road Less Travelled created one of my favourites, asking a thought-provoking question as she unpacks the legacy of “mommy blogging.” She writes, “And without ‘mommy blogs’ like ‘Dooce,’ I wonder, would childless women like me have felt the need to respond by writing about their/our much-different experiences in the same, highly personal way?” See, thought-provoking.

Lastly, Edenland returns to her site to process her thoughts about Heather’s death, and writes as only Edenland can. An example: “Told her I didn’t go so she sent me a single question mark. I followed with the laugh-cry emoji and ‘Mate I was too depressed to go.’ Then we just kept exchanging the death skull emoji in increasing increments until one of us gave up. One of us gave up.” Go read the whole thing.

The roundup to the Roundup: Pointless appointments. 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 12 – 19) 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.

Each time I opened up Facebook on Wednesday, my entire feed — ten or more posts in a row each time — was about Heather Armstrong. Either posts about mental health in general (and open offers of support) or Heather and her impact on the blogging world. Really, the writing world. Would blogging have curved along the same road without her? Maybe not. At least, I think she changed the blogosphere for women, if not all writers.

I have nothing profound to say. Just a quiet sadness for a voice missing from the world.

*******

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…

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:

• “That Day Again: 20 Coping Tips” (No Kidding in NZ)

Okay, now my choices this week.

I had No Kidding in NZ’s post about Mother’s Day for this week. The day is charged for lots of people and lots of reasons. It is fantastic advice and perspective for anyone struggling to get through Sunday.

Lastly, Infertile Phoenix gives another update about reconnecting with an old friend. She explains how infertility impacted her and writes, “She said she couldn’t be there for me because she didn’t know what was going on. I told her that, in retrospect, I don’t think anyone could have been there for me at the time. Even if they knew everything.” I don’t think people can truly fathom the emotional pain accompanying infertility and pregnancy loss. I think Phoenix captured that depth well in this post.

The roundup to the Roundup: Dooce. 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 5 – 12) 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.