Category: Music

Posted in 2025, life, Memories, Music, thoughts, Writing

Ear Worms

Posted on by nancyb422

I know that ear worms are usually associated with songs but I have an ear worm of a poem running through my head:

Summer breezes softly blow
Memories of long ago
Happy places
Smiling faces
Loving you

It is from SO long ago, and from a random place that I’m not sure it’s exact so maybe I’ve made some parts my own over the years.

I started enjoying poems when I was in my early teens. In our local newspaper was a weekly section of reader submitted poems. Being a love obsessed teen, the poems of that type were right up my alley! I was also in the early stages of typing so I would sit on the floor of my room with my aunt’s portable typewriter and type out the poems I liked. It was a great way to practice, progressing from “hunt and peck” to “not hunting but still pecking” to straight up “no look typing”.

I kept them all in a small book of sayings (about love, of course) that I hung onto for years, moving it with me in my “box of treasures” where ever we lived. Unfortunately, in the course of “simplifying”, the box with this book and some other items got thrown out with the rest. I feel a little heartbroken about it and feel like it’s going to magically appear one day!

Are your ear worms mostly music or do you have a favorite poem that pops into your head too?

Posted in 2024, life, Memories, Music, Writing

A Thoughtful Christmas Gift

Posted on by nancyb422

Share one of the best gifts you’ve ever received.

For Christmas quite a few years ago, my husband gave me (and him) tickets to Wicked on Broadway. He pulled them out of the tree at the end of the gift giving and handed them to me.

I started crying because I was so happy but also because I felt like he really understood what I would like.

He talked to a friend about different plays and she told him she thought I would like that best. The biggest gift was that he was going with me, even though he doesn’t like to go to plays!

It was a Wednesday matinee, we took the train in from Connecticut and we both had a great time.

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, 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.

Posted in 2023, Music

My Work Moods

Posted on by nancyb422

What do you listen to while you work?

If you came into my office you might here the same Spotify playlist playing for a month and then never hear it again!

Other times it will be an artist that popped into my head or I heard on the radio on the way into work. I’ll go to their page on Spotify and play their “this is…” playlist.

Currently it’s “this is Dua Lipa”.

What do you listen to?