A few weeks ago, I was the only one awake, and I started Googling Canadian cities with good waterfronts. Why? I’m not sure. It just felt like a good idea at the time. I discovered that Toronto had a great waterfront, AND we could drive there in about 8 hours. That was good because it was way too late to purchase plane tickets.

Josh woke up, and I asked him if he wanted to drive to Toronto.

Then the kids got up and started making a list of things we could do in the city.

And finally, I wrote the Road Less Travelled to see if I could meet her because I knew she lived in Ontario. I then looked up which British books on my TBR were already in Canadian bookstores, even though they haven’t been released yet in the US. (There were two!) Priorities.

A few days later, we jumped in the car and drove 8 hours to Toronto, stopping in Niagara to show the kids the falls. We spent 6 days walking around the city, photographing the architecture, eating vegan food, peeking into museums, meeting Lori, and buying matching t-shirts at Roots.

Highlights:

Bata Shoe Museum: We swapped in for a different museum at the last minute, and it was fantastic.

Art Gallery of Toronto: It felt similar to Rijkmuseum, trading Dutch artists for Canadian ones.

Toronto Islands: We got there early and were still inundated with little kids, but the islands are beautiful, and the water is crystal clear.

Fresh Kitchen: We had two great meals at this low-key vegan restaurant and bought one of the cookbooks so we could recreate it at home.

Dinner with Lori: Meeting someone I have been reading for 17 years was amazing.

University of Toronto: We had a lot of fun walking around the campus.

Lowlights:

Casa Loma: It was fine. I had a good time being there with the kids and Josh, but we also could have been happy dropping it.

Kensington Market: This neighbourhood kept popping up on lists as a must-see. It might have been better if we had been there for a meal, but as it was, it was hot, crowded, and loud.

Distillery District: This felt like it was designed for Instagram posts.

Our final takeaway:

Toronto seems like a great place to live, but it’s less great to visit if you’re already from a large city. We missed the unique history and culture of a place like Montreal. Toronto felt like a blend of New York and Chicago. I’m not sure we would return, even though we had a good time while we were there.

Summer is wrapping up. We just got back from a trip (more on that soon). The twins are preparing to return to college. Two weeks before they came home, I woke up feeling like I was awakening from hibernation. I had so much energy. And now we’re winding down, and I’m returning to that quiet space.

I told myself all summer that I couldn’t be sad until August. But once August hit, I could feel whatever I needed to feel. I’ve been feeling all of the feelings this month.

A little bit comes from not knowing if I’ll have everyone home next summer or if they’ll be away on internships or jobs. I just have to live in the waiting zone until I know. So the second year is the same but different: I know more about how it will feel to be far away from them, which is a good thing (knowledge is power?) and a bad thing (now I know how much my heart will hurt).

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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.

Finding a Different Path and I read the same book and went through the same emotions about the infertility subplot. She writes: “It’s funny how time changes you as a reader. This is a book that, had I brought it on vacation even 5 years ago, I would have DEFINITELY thrown across the room and then put on indefinite pause within the first 25 pages.” I highlighted many of the same quotes (and many others), and I started plotting out a trip to Newport, RI because I was so moved by the story.

The Road Less Travelled will be presenting a webinar on September 16th for World Childless Week. It’s a beautiful tribute to the purpose of genealogy and why we should be interested in our family tree. She writes: “Hearing my parents talk about their own extended family members and what they’ve learned from them gives me hope that perhaps someday our nephews and great-niblings will remember us and tell stories about us to their own kids in the same way.” Lori helped me get started with researching my family tree years ago.

Lastly, Jewish IVF is on the 7th day of a mock transfer cycle, on the 315th day of an enormously upsetting time. She gets mixed up with the office location, and she ends up needing to reschedule the appointment. She wonders, “Why am I pushing it? I’m not sure. I recognize that doing this now doesn’t mean we’ve decided we’re transferring the last embryo. I want to believe that we’ll get there, and soon, but know it’s not just up to me.” I wanted to give her a hug through the screen.

The roundup to the Roundup: The kids go back soon. 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 16 – 23) 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.

The dek read: “What inspires someone to write more than 1,200 Yelp reviews in a year? For Robert Siu, it’s a labor of love.” I was curious — I think a lot of people write reviews because they have a very negative or very positive experience, but few people write reviews simply to pass along knowledge to people who come after you to a business or place.

Even though that would be one of the best ways to use the internet. I love it when we leave behind information for other people to use as they’re doing research and making decisions.

I love this thought: “Over the years, Siu has perfected his version of the ideal Yelp review, where brevity is paramount and anything can be deserving of feedback.”

That’s exactly it: I want to hear about someone else’s experience with everything and want it to be quick and to the point. What do I need to know so I can have a positive experience? What do I need a heads up about so I’m not disappointed because I’ve assumed something?

I especially love that this person adds businesses to Yelp: “Places that I think people would like to know about … I add the address, I add the hours they are open and information about it, and then I write a review.”

Helpful Yelp reviews (vs. the ones that you know are just people venting) are one of the nicest ways to use the internet.

The Atlantic had an article about the things lost when people give up their landline, and one of them is that we now go directly to the person we want to speak to by calling their line instead of making small talk with whoever picks up the phone.

It seems like such a small thing, but it’s true — needing to navigate parents and siblings to get to my friends gave me conversational practice that some kids could benefit from today. I say “some” because some kids pick up small talk even without the telephone situation, but others could have benefited from having to speak to random adults at a young age.

But even if it’s not small talk, kids will never get the excitement of having the family phone ring and wondering if it’s for them, or getting to talk to an older sibling on the way to a friend, or even waiting their turn for the line.

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

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We’ve labeled this frozen fruit summer. It started when Josh wanted chocolate-covered bananas. We bought a box from the freezer section but quickly moved to making them ourselves after we added up the cost of said box of frozen bananas. We ended each dinner for most of the summer with a chocolate-covered banana slice — perfection.

But then we expanded into frozen grapes due to an episode of The Handsome Podcast. Fortune Feimster mentioned frozen grapes, and I realized I had no clue how a frozen grape tasted. I don’t love regular grapes, but frozen grapes are one of the best things I’ve ever had.

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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.