Category: 2026

Posted in 2026, Writing

The Family Stories

Posted on by nancyb422

What is the legacy you want to leave behind?

Legacy: anything handed down from the past.

I became my family’s historian in the early 2000s while sitting with my aunt and the family portraits, listening to her stories of the people in them. They were her legacy to me.

The Posluszny Family abt. 1908

For the past 25 years, I’ve collected information, discovered new family members and brought my ancestors to life. I discovered facts that may never have been uncovered without DNA and research.

I created a blog and have written about their lives, loves and losses, accomplishments and failures for ten years.

One hundred and thirty posts on people, places, occupations, and stories collected from when they were alive to share them with me.

This will be my legacy, sharing the voices of the past with future generations.

Posted in 2026, Writing

Validation

Posted on by nancyb422

If you saw my story from yesterday (probably not, I can’t seem to get any traction here LOL), I talked about whether I should go to an event with a medium last night because I was recovering from bronchitis and have this icky cough. My husband said “No”, but my Tea Party chairperson, a former infectious disease person, said, “go, you’re not contagious”, so off I went loaded with cough drops and water.

The woman is pretty popular here in New England and aside from John Edwards in the mid-90s in a ballroom space in Providence, Rhode Island, I’d never been to a group type medium event like this. This one had about 40 people. I went with an open mind, more for the experience because I have my own one on one medium connection. I took a seat that had a good view of the whole room so I wouldn’t have to turn around at all.

She explained her process and away she went. She immediately headed in my direction but stopped next to me where two sisters were sitting and she went on for a while, never moving in my direction.

After moving to a side table, she focused on the table in front of me with 10 people who had come together in small groups, and that went on for awhile.

I recognized some things she threw out, but other people were so quick to jump on them that I really didn’t feel like being that person to continually raise my hand. Just here for the experience remember?

And then I received the message that was for me and me alone. She was in the front of the room and she said, “Rocky”.

I raised my hand and said, “That’s my husband’s nickname.” She looked at me as asked “are you writing a book? I’m being shown you as a writer.” I responded, “I write stories about my ancestors and family.” She moved on from that but it was all I needed. Who was it? I don’t know, but the validation that they know I’m writing to share their stories was enough for me.

The Posluszny Family early 1908
Posted in 2026, thoughts

On The Road to Recovery

Posted on by nancyb422

I ended up staying home from the garden event that would have me wandering around in 80+ heat on Sunday and took myself to Urgent Care instead.

There was a long wait even with an appointment but I didn’t really expect much different on a Sunday morning.

Inflammation in the lungs, painful throat, no fever, diagnosis = Bronchitis. By the time I left the building, my prescriptions were ready to pick up down the road. The convenience of medical technology. They put me on 5 day Z-pack, some cough suppressant pills, and an inhaler. The inhaler is a first and I read the instructions obsessively before trying it out. It really does help!

I was feeling decent enough to stop and pick up a grilled cheese sandwich before I headed home. Coincidentally, as I was driving home from the restaurant my husband and friends were texting me to see if I wanted them to pick me up a grilled cheese sandwich! They were heading over to get theirs on the way home!

The medication has definitely kicked in and I went to work on Monday but avoided the fundraiser Tea Party meeting with a group of volunteers. I know when I won’t be wanted!

Today I’m feeling even better but my husband is insisting I can’t go to the event I’ve been planning on for a month – a psychic medium at our local brewery. I told him it will be a Game Time Decision. I really don’t want to miss it, but, in small area…..surround by other people and I’m sniffling from post nasal drip and clearing my throat and coughing?

Can I pass it off as allergies?!? What would you do?

Posted in 2026, life

Current State of Health

Posted on by nancyb422

There is a horrible respiratory “something” going around and I have succumbed to it.

It started with a couple of our employees and their spouses, then traveled to my son and his wife. Sore throat, aches and pains, running nose, heavy chest. Ugh.

I didn’t think much of it, considering it’s also allergy season. Heavy head? Yes. Sneezing? Of course! But then I got the scratchy throat and more frequent sneezing than just allergies.

Thursday I decided to take a sick day from work and just putzed around. I’m not going to lie – it was pretty nice and make me think retirement won’t be so bad.

I woke up Friday feeling okay, so worked out, and went into the office. As the day went on, every nerve ending in my body was alive. My throat went from a little scratchy to “I don’t want to cough because my throat will explode in pain”. I apologized for potentially infecting my son (who probably gave it to me!) and my co-worker and kept my door shut until I couldn’t take it anymore and went home.

Once there, I changed into my pajamas and headed for the couch. Eating dinner was out of the question. I drank tea and hydrated with water. When 8 pm rolled around and my husband headed to bed, I followed. After dosing myself with NyQuil, I couldn’t even focus on reading and just went to sleep.

Nine and a half hours of sleep and a good overnight sweat seems to have helped the situation! My husband bought me two types of fresh chicken soup and I had some for breakfast. Which made me realize, why do we have to have traditional foods for breakfast? What’s wrong with soup or leftover dinner?

Anyway, today I’m laying low again and hope I will be feeling even better tomorrow so I don’t miss the annual Trade Secrets plant and garden accessories event at Lime Rock Park.

My pretty wisteria from years ago
Posted in 2026, life

What’s Love?

Posted on by nancyb422

It’s my husband making hardboiled eggs unprompted so I can have an egg salad sandwich for lunch.

It’s emptying the dishwasher even though I’m short on time so he doesn’t have to come back home to dirty dishes in the sink.

Love. It’s what we do.

Posted in 2026, Travel

Repeating Myself

Posted on by nancyb422

I wrote this great post yesterday about in 2017, I rappelled down a really deep cavern in California. I was reading my journal from the trip and was surprised to see how scared I was.

I scheduled it publish this morning, and it did. I clicked on my notification and read the journal entry. When I got to the end, I saw a picture of me in a previous post. The same picture of me rappelling that I had in the current post.

At that moment, I realized, that I had already wrote about that event! The horror! So I deleted it.

Here is that story from the first time I wrote it.

Heading down….way down
Posted in 2026, Memories

Wedding Day #38

Posted on by nancyb422

Today is my wedding anniversary.

When I walked outside this morning I heard some chirping and looked out to see a mama cardinal.

Hello Mama!

Of course I took a picture of it!

I always think of the male and female cardinals as my parents because they say the male cardinal represents your father, so it’s only right that the female represents your mother.

I was surprised to see her so early in the morning, but it felt meant to be that she would say hello on this day because she set us up from heaven!

She died 4 weeks before I met my husband. I had rescheduled my vacation and he was not scheduled to go on his vacation but joined his friends at the last minute. In 2013 when I met with a medium for the first time, my mother told him she set us up. I have to believe her!

Young and in love
Posted in 2026, Dear Diary

Dear Diary

Posted on by nancyb422

I turned 10 the year my sister gave me a five-year diary for Christmas.

I used it to record my hopes:
January 1, 1971: “I resolve I will try to exercise every day!” That lasted three days because, as i wrote on January 3: “exercise makes me tired”.

My achievements:
March 5, 1975: “I MADE IT” – in all caps – after the phone call from our high school cheerleading coach telling me, and my two sisters, we all made the cheer squad.

And thoughts about boys: April 5, 1972: “I am a failure at everything. I can’t even write good notes to keep a boy interested. He’s slowly beginning to hate me. I am always doing stupid things. No wonder no boys like me. Today was mom’s birthday. She is 50”. Hopefully my mood didn’t put a damper on my mother’s birthday!

Much more than just my boy crazed entries, my diary documents school days, birthdays, family trips, and days spent doing nothing with friends. I wrote annually about our Fourth of July family reunions at the lake house of relatives, and remember so clearly the foods, swimming, and cousins I would see once a year.

Haircuts, clothes shopping, McDonalds, Friendly’s and pizza. Page after page, a catalog of ordinary days.

As I read it now, I’m reminded of the carefree times of my childhood and the freedom my sisters and I were given to roam as long as we were home by 5 pm.

My five-year diary is a time capsule I didn’t know I was building.

**This was the story I wrote for my last Writers Guild class at my public library. We’re done for now and will reconvene at the end of September.

Posted in 2026, thoughts

Therapy Session

Posted on by nancyb422

Today I had an impromptu therapy session in my hair stylist’s chair.

Only one in the salon first thing this morning, and we just started talking and one story leads to another story leads to another! I didn’t realize I felt such a need to unburden myself but I know she is a great listener. We live in the same town, and know some of the same players and so share our opinions or fill in the gaps of knowledge.

If there had been another stylist and customer in the next chair, we would have all been chatting superficially, but because we were alone, we could talk as much and as loud (over the hair dryer) as we needed to.

I can be a clam, never wanting to reveal too much, or any, of my emotions because I’ll obsess about whether I “said too much”. Always measuring my words. It felt good to just talk.

Posted in 2026, thoughts

A New Year

Posted on by nancyb422

My birthday was yesterday and with that always comes my thoughts for my “new year”. It’s a nice little reset four months into the actual new year.

A couple of things I’ve noticed. I spend too much time reading other people’s blogs instead of writing on my own TWO blogs. This one and my family one.

I spend too much time, again reading, trying to “figure myself out” through astrology. It has given me an understanding of myself but I want to make sure I don’t lean too hard into it. What happens when I finally figure it out? Like the dog who catches the car. Will I be any happier? Not likely, so maybe I’ll try to keep some of that mystery alive.

I continue to work out every day but it’s only been since last week that I am coming to grips with my diet. What’s the old saying? It’s 10% exercise, 90% diet. I reinstalled the My Fitness Pal app and have been tracking my food. Keeping it realistic to lose a 1/2 pound a week and that appears to put me at the healthy part of my diet overall. Of course, with my first weekly weigh in, I gained 2/10th of a pound but I’m blaming it on the soy sauce with the sushi for my birthday dinner. I just have to stay realistic. Overall though, I feel great!

We haven’t started any biking yet this year and I’m looking forward to riding on my Specialized that I bought last September. I managed to sell my first bike, the Salsa, last week and I’m glad that someone starting out will get to enjoy it. With that said, I’m going to take each opportunity that comes up to ride without thinking about what’s on my desk or that “I need to be there”, when it’s likely I don’t really need to be there.

Overall, I’m pretty pleased with the first four months but I always appreciate that birthday reset!