Month: August 2023

Posted in 2023, life, Writing

More like – “What Haven’t You Searched For On The Internet?”

Posted on by nancyb422

What was the last thing you searched for online? Why were you looking for it?

I currently have 107 tabs open on my iPhone’s Safari browser. I’m in constant search mode!

Last night I searched for were walking/running shoes. Thanks for reminding me!

I was out walking this weekend and noticed the support in the shoes I was wearing was not as comfortable as usual. They are little old because I wear them forever. I’m the “hey but there’s no holes in them yet!” wear them til they disintegrate type of person. I probably have the receipt – no, maybe not but I do know I bought them over a Labor Day weekend one year!

Anyway, I found a brand called Altra and the style is Solstice XT 2 and they’re sold at a running store about 20 minutes away. The reviews said they were a good walking and running shoe and they looked good. I always agonize between a 6.5 and 7 so I’ll probably take a trip to try them on.

If you know anything about them, tell me in the comments!

Posted in 2023, life, Memories, Writing

TeenyBopper Shows and More!

Posted on by nancyb422

What TV shows did you watch as a kid?

In the mid 1960s through the early to mid 1970s, my sisters and I loved to watch, The Monkees, The Brady Bunch, Here Come the Brides, and The Partridge Family. All these shows had cute guys in them and we were Boy Crazy!

It’s weird to google and see the years that these shows aired. The Monkees was on from 1965 to 1968 when I was between 5 and 8 years old. We were crazy for Davy Jones. How odd to be mooning over this 20+ year old man when we were that age. Right?

We watched variety of other shows, never missing the Wonderful World of Disney on Sunday nights. We even watched Lawrence Welk and the Jackie Gleason show together as a family.

Obviously, we didn’t have the channels we have today (but I bet you still watch about 4 of them right?)! Channel 5 out of New York gave us I Love Lucy, and The Bowery Boys movies. And how could I forget the original Little Rascals!

That definitely brought back some memories!

Posted in 2023, life, thoughts, Writing

The Early Bird Catches The Worm

Posted on by nancyb422

What’s your favorite time of day?

I love early morning seven days a week.

It started when my son was born. He woke up at 7am every morning on the dot so if I wanted to work out or be showered and dressed before he woke up, I had to get up, I had to have a plan.

I started waking up at 5am and working out to exercise tapes for 45 minutes to an hour. I knew the routines by heart so I didn’t need too much volume. After my workout, I’d take a shower and be dressed before he woke up.

Was it my FAVORITE time back then? Probably not, but it started the day off right and this habit was born. 33 years later I have the alarm set Monday through Friday for 5:15. I have my coffee and then go and work out. On weekends, if I’m feeling awake, I’ll get up and just drink coffee and relax and read.

It’s quiet, it’s peaceful. When I walk outside to go to my workout next door, I see the moon or the sky getting lighter. I look at my flowers or just admire the yard. No one’s around, no lights are on and it’s just me.

Posted in 2023, life, Music, thoughts

A Sunday Rage

Posted on by nancyb422

Yesterday was a strange, strange day.

Was it because I was worried about my niece? Did the Barbie movie I went to on Saturday fire me up? Or, was it the movie bag of Ike & Mikes I ate while watching the movie?

Whatever the case, it was fortunate for us both that my husband went for a motorcycle ride because while I was home alone, I was just in such a mood. Little things set me off like, “I CAN’T BELIEVE HE THREW OUT THE WATER BOTTLE THAT GOES WITH THIS HIKING FANNY PACK THAT I HAVEN’T USED IN FIVE YEARS AND I HAVE A CAMEL BAK THAT HE BOUGHT ME ANYWAY” or “I CAN’T BELIEVE THERE IS NO GROCERY MONEY LEFT IN THE DRAWER WE KEEP THE EXTRA IN BECAUSE I HAVE TO BUY SOME THINGS HE WON’T GO TO WALMART FOR!”

It was insane. Our poor dog who was already roaming the house looking for my husband as he always does, was looking at me like I had lost my mind.

So I took myself out for a nice long walk. I set my Peloton app to record it, I found a Spotify walking playlist (remembering to download it first), put on my work out clothes and just walked for and our on a simple route around town. Boy, did that help!

It cleared my mind, and maybe it got the rest of that sugar from the Ike & Mike’s out of my body. Whatever the case, by the time he got home from his ride, I was feeling like my better self again.

Posted in 2023, family, Memories

Painful Memories

Posted on by nancyb422

Something that happened to my niece recently who lives two time zones away, brought up some emotions in me that have been long buried.

I moved from Connecticut to California in 1987 when I was 27 and five months after my mother died from brain cancer.

In November of 1989, on a Saturday afternoon, I had intense pain in my side and my husband rushed me to the local hospital. It was discovered I was pregnant but bleeding internally somewhere. After an inconclusive ultrasound, I had exploratory surgery and they found it was a ruptured cyst. They stopped the bleeding, said hello to my little fetus, and closed me back up.

All of this was long before the days of cell phones, zoom, FaceTime, social media. And three hours time difference from my family.

I remember my husband calling my father to tell him. I remember asking him to call my boss to tell her I wouldn’t be at work on Monday. I remember talking to my sisters from the hospital.

I don’t know if I wished for my mother at the time but resurrecting these memories, I wish I had her then, even from a distance like my niece has my sister now.

Posted in 2023, family, life, Writing

Family Folklore

Posted on by nancyb422

Where did your name come from?

I have a twin sister and our dad always joked that he wanted to name us Gretchen and Gwendolyn but our mother refused because they were the names of two dogs in the neighborhood!?! We would argue over who might have received which name. Since I’m older and Gretchen was always said first, i claimed that would have been mine. I’m hindsight, Gwendolyn could have been shortened to Gwen and “Gretch”=nope.

So we became Nancy (me) and Gail. It was 1960 and I think mine was a popular name because of Nancy Sinatra. I don’t know where Gail’s name was plucked from. My older sister is Janice. I don’t know where that came from either.

It’s funny because of all our generation of cousins, we are the only three who don’t have a “family name”. No Julia, Elizabeth, etc. and certainly no “catholic/saint names”!

Also, none of us were given middle names. One name was enough we were told. What the heck?

Nancy is ok but for some reason people call me Cathy by mistake. I tell them, “call me whatever you want, just don’t call me late for dinner”. Hahaha

Posted in 2023, life, Writing

It’s A Good Place To Live

Posted on by nancyb422

What do you love about where you live?

I live in a 40,000+ town in Connecticut that was incorporated in 1670. My family has lived here since the mid 1920s. It is very conveniently located between the two major highways running north and south in the state and close to two major cities.

It is a decent sized town (all 169 locations in Connecticut are called towns, and we have counties but we don’t use them like many other states do). Because it is so old (353 years old!), there were many farms that had animals, fruits, and vegetables growing in them and a few still remain.

Ok, I love my town because it is large enough to have box stores, but they don’t dominate the area. We have a great “center of town” with good restaurants, a classic town hall, and new coffee shops, a couple of spas, and a good selection of hair salons.

My town has many activities to gather people together. It has a great Farmers Market in the summer, a weekend festival in October to celebrate the town, and a holiday stroll in early December.

Our town is involved with preserving open space and we have trails for hiking, mountain biking, and fields for soccer, baseball, softball, and courts for tennis and pickleball.

Our public library is one of the best in the state! When I was young it was in a beautiful building built in the early 1900s. When they ran out of room, they built another one a short distance away. When they needed more room in recent years, they added on again! It’s a beautiful, welcoming place with wonderful programs.

The more I talk about my town, the more I realize how much I love it. I left in 1988 to live in California with my new husband. We moved back in 1995 to buy the house I grew up in, to be close to family, and to raise our son in a great environment. I’m so happy we came back!

Posted in 2023, life, Writing

I Am Content

Posted on by nancyb422

What positive emotion do you feel most often?

I had to think about what emotion I feel the most these days and it would have to be contentment. I usually relate everything to our business and my work there and this is no exception! For many years our remodeling business has been consuming because I oversee the operation of it. Clients, financials, and social media – three jobs that can be full time on their own.

Our office assistant of the last 1-1/2 years has taken over all of our customer service from the start of the project pricing phase, right on through to completion and that has given me the chance to BREATHE and really do what I want to do which is social media. Of course, I still have to do the financials and I can’t say I’m 100% gone from the customer aspect but 95% of it. I can now focus on setting up the path for success for our son as he takes over.

That has also given me the opportunity to leave the office before 5, go in after 8:30, take an afternoon off for some spa time and boy, when you can start thinking about yourself – what a world of difference it makes.

It feels good and I am content.

Posted in 2023, Goals, Music, Travel

Renewed Inspiration

Posted on by nancyb422

A conversation with a taxi driver in Lake George NY has prompted me to sit down at my piano and start playing again. Sounds strange right? Here’s how it happened….

We needed a ride from Bolton Landing back to our resort cabin on Friday after we dropped our truck and trailer at the marina. We would spend the day on the lake and then take the boat out of the water to head home on Saturday. We were going to wait for the trolley but given the “well, yeah the schedule says 9am, but you never know”, we got from the gatekeeper at the Sagamore Hotel, we decided to pay the $45 one way. Not the end of the world. It is about a 20 mile ride after all. Next time we’ll definitely find a place to stay that either has a launch or is very close to a marina!

So anyway, we got into the cab, me in the front because my husband wouldn’t be able to hear him anyway (left ear has less hearing than the right!). We started talking, “where you from, trolleys, subways, NYC, travel, California, East Bay and finally, Tower of Power! Evidently he lived in California and saw then in their heyday as did my husband.

We started talking music and instruments and he is a guitar player. He and his friend enjoy playing along to music and recording themselves. He asked if we played any instruments and I said I played the piano but after 5 years of lessons I stopped and I haven’t really found myself playing very much.

He talked about how much he enjoyed playing and how the time went by when he did and how relaxing it was. I realized he was absolutely right! When I sat at the piano, working out a song, or even a section, everything else fell away. I didn’t think of anything going on around me.

When we reached our resort, I thanked him for the conversation and told him he inspired me to start playing the piano again. When I took it up in 2017, it was never to become perfect at it, but to enjoy learning and hearing what I could accomplish. I needed to be reminded and I have a Lake George cab driver to thank for that.