More odds & ends

• Mel at Stirrup Queens just marked her 16th (!!) blogoversary!  Go congratulate her on this amazing milestone!  
• Bloglovin' was back up on Wednesday! -- but then out again before the end of the day (grrrrr....). Back up this (Thursday) morning.  (Fingers crossed & knocking wood...!) It's been more or less down (particularly on my laptop) since June 11th -- almost two full weeks.  :p   
• The second Childless Collective Summit is back next month (July 14-17) with four jam-packed days of FREE programming with 40 amazing speakers from our community! Once again, it's being organized by Katy of Chasing Creation. Details & registration here. If you don't think you'll be able to attend all the events live (and/or if you want to help support the event and more events like it), you may want to investigate a Pace Yourself Pass, which comes with some additional perqs. (I got one last year and it came in very handy!) 
• My post about last year's summit. 
• World Childless Week 2022 is also coming up, Sept. 12 to 18! Topics are being announced this week (a new one every day), and submissions are now being accepted. The deadline is Aug. 28th.  
• I couldn't have agreed more with this piece I saw on Medium this past week:  "I Don’t Think You Understand How Creepy It Is When You Ask Little Girls If They Have Boyfriends." I HATED it when people (mostly men) did this to me when I was growing up (and I had one uncle in particular who ALWAYS asked whenever he saw me). 
• What I hated most, of course, was the reminder (especially once I got to be an age where my peers were starting to have boyfriends) that I didn't have one -- never really did, all through high school -- which reinforced my own feelings of self-loathing, insecurity and undesirability.  :(  
• I also resented the message that my good grades and other accomplishments and interests were nowhere near as interesting to people as the subject of whether I had a boyfriend -- because THAT's what REALLY matters, right?? (Hmmm, why is this starting to sound familiar??) 
• Someone in the comments pointed out that women shouldn't be asked this question at ANY age. Very true! If I have a boyfriend (and want to talk about him), you'll hear about him sooner or later, right? 
• The same goes for the "so, do you have kids?" questions (and the ever-popular follow-up, "why not??") we know and love (NOT) so well!   
• I've been watching (most of) the January 6th hearings in the U.S. on TV.  The hearing on Monday that focused on how election officials and workers were targeted and harassed was particularly personal for me: my grandmother worked at many elections in my mother's hometown in Minnesota. The thought of her enduring even a fraction of what some of these people went through makes me furious. Not for the first time, I am glad she and my grandfather are not around to see this. :(