Category — Friday Blog Roundup

I survived my first colonoscopy and do not have to return for another for 10 years. There are a few things that made prep easier, and I pass them along in case they help you, too. You can have dye-free lemon or lime Italian ice or popsicles. I bought both and ate them through the day, and I never got too hungry. In fact, I worked up until I started drinking the prep in the evening.

I added lemon Crystal Light to the gallon of prep before adding water (skipping the provided packet), but I only used half the amount of flavouring for the amount of water. I worried a stronger flavour would be harder to get down. Not sure if this theory was correct, but I had zero issues chugging a 12-ounce glass every 10 minutes for 2/3rds of the bottle. It tasted like salty lemonade. I had a harder time with the final third and had to sip it, but got all of it down without issue.

So I pass along these tips to you in case they help you make your appointment. Glad to have it behind me, no pun intended.

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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:

• “Talking About My Freedom” (No Kidding in NZ)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Dear John took a road trip with her daughter and unfortunately ended their journey with the big Delta flight cancelation situation. But in between, it sounded lovely, with unexpected detours and beautiful sights. There is an ache behind the words, missing her husband while appreciating the time with her daughter.

Lastly, The Next 15000 Days has a post about hanging up a child’s art. A new friend comments they couldn’t hang up a child’s drawing in their house because “seeing them would break her heart every time. I told her I understood – that 15 years ago, I could never have had the drawings there either. But now I can.” It’s a lovely post about where life is now.

The roundup to the Roundup: Colonoscopy tips. 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 August 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.

Francine Pascal died this week. Like most girls my age, I was obsessed with Sweet Valley High books. I bought them the day they came out, immediately read them, and then felt an empty, aching feeling waiting for the next installment. I wrote my own Sweet Valley High fan fiction, typing it up on my word processor, and circulating it among the other girls in my elementary school. Let’s just say that Bruce Patman had a very spicy life in my version.

I joined the school newspaper in high school so I could be like Elizabeth Wakefield. I never tried cocaine because I didn’t want to die like Regina Morrow. And you better believe I’ve never flown in a tiny plane because of Enid Rollins.

I still collect Sweet Valley High books when I see them at a used bookstore, and we have a bunch of them on the shelf. They’re fairly ridiculous but still hold a special place in my heart.

Rest easy, Ms. Pascal.

*******

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.

Finding a Different Path thought commentary about JD Vance’s words missed the mark. She writes: “It just felt like a missed opportunity to fight the pronatalist status quo and point out that not having children doesn’t make you an oblivious, selfish, uninvested stain on humanity.” I wish the article had gone further, too, though I liked that the writer pointed out how harmful these words are and that he is putting them out there in the universe.

Lastly, The Road Less Travelled also wrote about Vance, this time touching on another aspect of the conversation around it. Namely, people who now declare themselves childless because their children are no longer in the house. She explains why this is offensive: “Your life is different from mine/ours because of the simple fact that you got to be parents and we didn’t. Just because you don’t have kids in the house now doesn’t mean that your life is now like ours. It’s not.” So true.

The roundup to the Roundup: Goodbye, Francine Pascal. 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 July 26 – August 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.

There may be an impulse to turn “Childless Cat Ladies” into the “Binders Full of Women” of this election, but I thought this take in WashPo (gift link) summed up why we shouldn’t keep repeating a repulsive message we don’t want to be reinforced in people’s heads:

Blackstone adds that her reaction has nothing to do with Vance’s or Harris’s politics: “I don’t make judgments on people’s political decisions, as far as who I’m going to vote for, or who they’re going to vote for,” she says. “But the family system is changing, and to make a comment like that … it’s just not helpful to society. We don’t need people to say, like, ‘You aren’t qualified to be president because you don’t have children.’ I want bonus parents to be respected as a parental figure.”

Years from now, people will hopefully forget Vance’s name and he will go down as the VP candidate from the losing party in the election, but what I don’t want to have happen is have his hateful thoughts lingering in people’s heads. Every human has a direct stake in the country’s future. Don’t forget that at the polls.

*******

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.

Scientist on the Roof has a post about that feeling you get when too many stressful things are happening at once, all depending your energy. She admits: “I was unable to sleep last night – just thinking, thinking, thinking about all the things that I am responsible for, all the tasks I need to be on top of. I was just lying awake and feeling like everything was spinning out of control.” Sending peace of heart.

Lastly, No Kidding in NZ has a post about the concept of “happily ever after” as it exists in romance books. She points out the thing people like about romance books is that the ending must contain a happily ever after moment, but that moment is usually summed up as a traditional marriage and kids. She writes: “Happily Ever After. It looks different for everyone. It’s about time society figured that out.” Three cheers to that.

The roundup to the Roundup: All of us have a stake in the future. 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 July 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.

Sunday (in two days) is the actual 18th anniversary of the Friday Blog Roundup, though this is the closest Roundup to the anniversary. 18 years ago, I wrote a post to share a few things I read that week that stuck with me. And over the years, I’ve written 896 of these (they were misnumbered at some point), which comes out to 49.7 Roundups per year, accounting for the times when I skipped a week.

I used to read hundreds of bloggers, spending an enormous chunk of my day reading blogs, but now it’s down to a handful of people who post. Many old bloggers post on social media, but I can’t share what they write because you need to be friends with them to see it.

I’ve been debating what to do with the Roundup. For now, it continues, hopefully toward its 20th birthday.

*******

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.

As a fellow non-Uber user, I liked The Road Less Travelled’s post about the service. “Also, as many people in the story comments pointed out, if you don’t rate your driver five stars AND give a good tip, you may be more likely to find yourself without a ride in the future. Sounds vaguely blackmail-ish to me.” There’s also the point that you usually aren’t tracked in cabs — when I enter a cab, the cab driver doesn’t know anything about my other cab rides, but that’s not the case with Uber. Just not a fan of the concept, though I know other people love it and use it daily.

Lastly, Finding a Different Path has a post about pronatalism and schools. A conversation about declining enrollment led to offensive discussion, and she writes: “It makes sense that schools are family-centric. We need children and families, because no students = no schools. But we also need to acknowledge that not everyone who works in schools is a parent, and the community members who are not currently rearing the next generation have value.” Go read the whole post.

The roundup to the Roundup: 18 years of the Roundup. 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 July 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.

We just finished four seasons of Breeders, a show that I probably would have avoided if I hadn’t seen a scene from it before I read what it was about because the description made it sound kid-heavy. And it’s not really about parenting (a little bit, but not completely); it is all the stuff that happens in adulthood. It’s about a couple in their late 40s/early 50s, living in London, raising two kids, and seeing their parents, and it is really, really, really funny. Laugh aloud funny. And it gets pretty dark sometimes, too.

It was a bummer to get to the last episode, but ChickieNob and I have decided to rewatch from the beginning to spend time with our fictional London friends.

That’s my recommendation of the week. First episode is a little wobbly. Gets much better from the second episode and on.

*******

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:

• “Parenting Ourselves” (No Kidding in NZ)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Grumpy Rumblings has a post about dyeing their hair, which I think about a lot. (My hair, not their hair.) What they did feels like something I could do. I know I wouldn’t have the patience to sit in the salon for hours, and I wouldn’t go back every few months, but if I could do it at home, I could see myself trying this. Plus, I loved reading all of the comments and seeing what other people did about dyeing.

Lastly, No Kidding in NZ has a post about the book, The Otherhood (such a great name), and an interview about it. But I love this point: “Because whether we wanted children or not, whether it was a deliberate choice or not, we are all affected by pronatalism, by judgement, and by condescension.” No one is immune, regardless of your situation.

The roundup to the Roundup: Loved the show, Breeders. 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 July 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.