Weekend Roundup

You know, I’m new at this whole blogging thing, but I’m going to steal the idea of having a blog roundup up stuff to read on the weekend. I will of course annotate my suggestions with copious amounts of bloviation, just in case my readers can’t get enough. My links will point toward all that is relevant toward keeping one’s head above water in this rare and wonderful world of… indigestion. (That was an allusion, quite random, to The Sound of Music.) What I really mean is just that I have found truth in the links I am about to relate.

Wealth Pilgrim. Why This Boyfriend Doesn’t Need a Valentine’s Gift Idea. Key quote: “Once we take the bait and start believing that we need to spend in order to prove how we feel about someone, out come the $100,000 weddings and $200,000 undergraduate education tabs.” Dad in the House really likes holidays and kitcsch but the older I get the more I realize that the trappings are only nice if you’ve got a solid foundation. Not just $$, but in every other area.

Parent Hacks. Skyrest Travel Pillow Keeps Kids from Kicking the Seat in Front. OMG if this really works I will do all manner of genuflection and self-flagellation for mocking this thing all of the multitudinous times I have done so. Seriously, having your kid kick the seat in front of you on an airplane is one of the circles of hell. Of course, when you have a toddler, there are 279 of them. Dante = Piker.

Lifehacker. Weatherproofing Your Switchplates. These working parents wouldn’t prioritize something like this, but the instructions are good and clear, and if you’re looking to get your utility bills down, a strategy including this would be in order. I’ll do it next fall.

Discovering Dad. Writer Matt Pfingsten does a great job with How to Deal with Getting Fired. Unfortunately, this is happening a lot and it’s a scary time. I agree with all his advice. My only advice is to pare down, pare down, pare down. I’m going to wax a bit and say that this speech from JK Rowling was an inspiration to me:

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.

Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above the price of rubies.

The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more than any qualification I ever earned.

That’s it. Happy Valentine’s Day!