Category — Friday Blog Roundup

The symphony sent an empty booklet with instructions. Every time you hear the symphony perform, bring the booklet and get it stamped at the front desk like a passport. Then, at the end of the season, you have the booklet as a reminder for all of the performances you attended.

Isn’t that a brilliant idea?

We’ve been tearing out the page in the program, jotting down our thoughts on the pieces in a few words, and then storing them in my notebook. Not as pretty, but it allows us to look back and download music we enjoyed.

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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.

Scientist on the Roof gives 10 things she doesn’t like right now, including a bit of jealousy about the way the cat spends their day. In a world that pushes positivity, it’s nice to see a calm, collected list of dislikes.

Lastly, No Kidding in NZ celebrates connections forged online. As she states: “Connection – however we find it – is so valuable to our sense of value, our feelings of belonging, and worth, to finding wisdom, and to feeling okay about ourselves.” Three cheers to this.

The roundup to the Roundup: A creative idea. 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 November 8 – 15) 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.

Still processing election feelings and don’t have a lot to say.

*******

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.

The Barreness captures the quiet before the results. We now know how things turned out, and while her statement worked during election day, it’s working in the aftermath, too: “I feel too many feels, thinking too many thoughts.”

The Next 15000 Days received a compliment, which she recounts after a thoughtless comment from another person, and it sums up a life well-lived: “I would like to be like Klara. She doesn’t wait for anyone – she just does things and knows how to actively enjoy her free time.”

Lastly, Finding a Different Path celebrated her Halloween anniversary, and I love their tradition of filling their yard with fake tombstones — a new one every year. And we get to enjoy pictures from some of their other traditions. Seeing this post was a sweet moment in a hard week.

The roundup to the Roundup: Post-election quiet. 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 November 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.

After many years of talking about getting a symphony membership, Josh and I got ourselves a symphony membership. It came with 28 concerts, which may be too many concerts. We’ve narrowed it down to 14 that fit our schedule, and we can always add in more on a whim if we have time. It gives us a discount for popular performances that are not part of the package, and we have three that we’ll purchase separately for the spring.

It feels super grown-up to have a symphony membership. Who are these adult people living in our house with a symphony membership? Oh, they’re just us.

I like being a member somewhere again. We now have to talk friends into getting their own membership so we can have a group that goes together and nerds out on Chopin.

*******

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:

• “Fractured Internet” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you, Phoenix!

Okay, now my choices this week.

I have never prepped for election results, but there are things in Swistle’s election prep piece that I’ve decided to do, too, after reading her post. Anything that doesn’t go out of my way to get anything or do anything I wouldn’t normally do, at least. If I end up going out next week, I’m two steps ahead of where I need to be. If I don’t, I’ll be happy I prepared.

Lastly, No Kidding in NZ talks about the misogyny of ignoring women without children, especially in dismissing another person’s emotions. She writes: “By dismissing our emotions and feelings of loss over infertility and the life we now have, we are being told our feelings are not important … it reinforces that feeling of invisibility, of worthlessness, that so many childless women have to battle against.” Don’t want to harm women? Give space for women to feel what they are feeling without shame or dismissal.

The roundup to the Roundup: Feeling massively grown-up. 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 October 25 – November 1) 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.

A final update (I hope) of our scaredy pig situation: Beorn is pretty much back to normal and walking into all areas of his cage. It started when he was playing with his treat ball, and he accidentally pushed it with his nose across the invisible line in his cage that he wouldn’t cross. He followed it to get the treat, realized nothing was scary about the other half of his cage, and started going in there to get food or hang out.

He went back to sleeping in his house. And eating food from his green food bowl, no matter where it was placed. And not trembling in fear. The only thing he still won’t do is drink from his water bottle. He’s not scared of it — he’ll walk over to it but won’t take a drink. I’ve tried rubbing cucumber slices on it, which he thinks is a game, and he tries to snatch the slices from our fingers (giving a proud little wiggle jump when he succeeds). But he won’t drink from it, no matter how much I try to cajole him to take a sip. He’s getting water from vegetables, so it’s technically fine. I’d just like him to also drink water from the bottle.

Happy that he’s in a better emotional space.

*******

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.

The Road Less Travelled writes about an opportunity in Ontario for bereaved parents. They can finally apply for and receive a free certificate of stillbirth for this child. She explains: “I have a little certificate that the nurses gave us at the hospital, with Katie’s tiny hand & footprints on it — but something from the government seems so much more ‘official,’ if you know what I mean, even if it’s only ceremonial.” It’s a small thing for government to do that has a big emotional impact for families.

Lastly, Finding a Different Path has an amusing exchange with a parent — well, amusing in retrospect. But it’s kind of an awesome general follow-up question for all questions in life: Do you have cats?

The roundup to the Roundup: Pig is back to normal. 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 October 18 – 25) 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.

Last week, for several reasons, we decided to watch services online rather than go in-person for the holiday. There’s a moment in the service where they blow a horn called the shofar, and it’s a mitzvah — one of the commandments — to hear it.

As the rabbi talked about the shofar (they always give people time to get back into the sanctuary so they can hear it), a family of five deer stepped into our yard. They were eating the grass a few feet away from the window.

When the man blew the shofar, the deer looked up and stared in one direction, twisting their ears. Another blast from the shofar, and they looked in a different direction, twisting their ears again. Each time the shofar sounded, the deer looked around, trying to locate the sound.

I’m not sure if it meant anything, but it felt like a sign of something.

*******

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 has a beautiful post about staying in touch with people, and the difference between the letter-writing years and the instant communication made possible by the internet. She writes, “I think I’ve lived in the best of times. I had amazing formative experiences in independence. Then the internet arrived in my 30s, when I could and did easily adapt to these new technologies, using them daily for work. But I wasn’t reliant on them.”

Lastly, Infertile Phoenix has a thought that I sat with for a long time. She writes about attending weddings alone now vs. before infertility/divorce. She writes: “Interestingly, I don’t think divorce changed weddings too much for me. I loved being married. And I love being divorced … But still, my experience with marriage and divorce doesn’t change my feelings about weddings.” It made me think about attending baby-centered events without children. While I don’t think weddings have changed a lot for me — I like a wedding and don’t think about the baby stuff connected to weddings while I’m there — I feel differently about attending baby-centered events, such as showers, after infertility vs. before.

The roundup to the Roundup: Signs abound. 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 October 4 – 11) 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.