Category: thoughts

Posted in 2024, life, Memories, thoughts, Writing

Fall In Love With Fall

Posted on by nancyb422

What is your favorite season of year? Why?

Fall in New England is the most glorious season of the year.

A Weekend in Vermont

I catch a hint of its arrival in mid-August. I can see it in the angle of the sunrise through the leaves in the morning. If I stop and let the air wash over me, I can feel the slight chill under the heat. It’s brief, but it’s a taste of what’s to come.

My neighborhood park
The maple tree in my yard

Skip to mid September and I feel the cold within the heat and the heat within the cold. If I close my eyes I can imagine both a fall day and winter is coming or a spring day and summer is around the corner!

Vermont steel bridge

October. Now October is the Gem of the season! That’s when we have glorious colors and bright blue skies. Every tree I see, I want to take a picture of it! I’ve been on many motorcycle trips during “leaf peeping” season and my head is on a swivel looking at the beautiful scenery and enjoying the wonderful weather.

Morris Rock, Wallingford
Posted in 2024, life, thoughts

Butterfingers Rule!

Posted on by nancyb422

Describe your dream chocolate bar.

My dream chocolate bar is a Butterfinger bar.

I like to nibble all the chocolate off the sides and top first. Then I start on the peanut butter layers inside. I work all around the bar until it’s gone. It gets messy!

I haven’t had a butterfinger bar in a very long time.

Posted in 2024, life, thoughts

Finding joy

Posted on by nancyb422

I’ve been taking a 5 minute meditation in the morning after my Peloton workout.

In the early part of the class she says “what we look for we have a tendency to find”. Now I know this, but to hear it as I’m mediating was like a lightbulb moment.

I run a business. Most mornings I would wake up with the thought, “oh boy what’s going to happen to day”, and it was never in a “yay! Can’t wait to start my day!”

But over time I decided to try and be grateful. I wake up and thank God for this day and what it will bring me – without the negativity! Some days are better than others, because that’s life. But if I look for the rainbow instead of the thunderclouds, things will be alot brighter right?

Posted in 2024, life, Religion, thoughts

Religion

Posted on by nancyb422

Do you practice religion?

Religion: “the service and worship of God or the supernatural” or “a particular system of faith and worship”.

I attended Holy Trinity School from first to eighth grade. Every Sunday we attended 9:15 mass at Holy Trinity Church.

I made my first communion in third grade, and my confirmation in sixth grade, and our eighth grade graduation was at the church.

Through high school, college, and until my mother passed away when I was 27, when I was home, I attended church with my family.

During that phase of my life my religion fell into the “a particular system of faith and worship” category. I felt like I was always being talked at.

About 10 years ago, I began exploring other options of religion. I tried the episcopal church, the baptist church, the local non-denominational church, and even met with the Jehovah Witness ladies who knocked on my door!

I found that I really enjoyed the non-denominational church because it felt like everyone was involved in the ceremony. I read and learned more about the Bible than I did in my years at school. I loved the music too!

This began my “service and worship of God (or the supernatural)” phase. Although I don’t attend the church anymore, I feel closer to God than I ever did before.

Posted in 2024, family, Goals, life, thoughts, Writing

Can We Have It All?

Posted on by nancyb422

What does “having it all” mean to you? Is it attainable?

Today’s prompt is a good one!

Can we have it all? Does the pursuit of something you want – money, a home, a family, a high paying job, better health – cause the scale to tip towards that and create an imbalance of “everything else” you want? Or is the thing you are pursuing going to lead to being able to “have it all”?

I think it’s a really big juggling act to be able to get to the point where you can say “YES, I finally have it all!”. And do we even want to utter those words because you know, that’s exactly when the other shoe will drop and then you will say you jinxed yourself. Oh, is that only me who would do that?

Looking back on the past 44 years, I had a career that I backburnered for family, but I became my own boss. I have a home that I love, but it took a circuitous route to get there. I have a family that I love, that had complications both in meeting my husband, and having our son. I have my health which I am faithful to maintain. I have money in the bank but it came at the expense of the death of a loved one.

I don’t want to jinx myself so I will say – I am happy at this point in my life. Is that Having It All? Maybe the answer to the question is another question – Are You Happy?, and my answer would be Yes, I am Happy.

Posted in 2024, life, Memories, thoughts, Writing

Items Always With Me

Posted on by nancyb422

What personal belongings do you hold most dear?

I guess if I didn’t think they were “dear”, I wouldn’t wear these same four rings every day.

rings I wear every day

The thick band with the diamond – the band was my mother in law’s wedding band. We had a new diamond put in for our 30th wedding anniversary.

The thin band is my original wedding band.

The silver ring holds a Danburite crystal. I found it in an antique store in Sonora California while visiting my father in law in 2022. It was meant to be – I was getting ready to leave but decided to look at the jewelry and this stuck out. The crystal takes its name from Danbury Connecticut (I’m born and raised in Connecticut), and it fit perfectly!

The bottom ring is a worry band I bought while visiting with friends in Los Cabos Mexico. It was a splurge and I have worn it since early 2020.

I have a lot of other rings, but these 4 just feel so right together!

Posted in 2024, hobbies, leisure time, life, thoughts, Writing

What I Can’t Get Rid Of

Posted on by nancyb422
Daily writing prompt
Do you have any collections?

I don’t have collections in the true sense of the word like Beanie Babies, salt and pepper shakers, or baseball cards.

My collections are:

My vast amount of family photos dating back to the late 1800s, and early 1900s on both parents’ sides of the family. Many formal portraits including families, first communions, and wedding parties. Informal photos are in photo albums and labeled with dates and locations!

My mother’s postcard collection. She had a big album with all the cards categorized by location. I hung onto it and finally took them out of the album. Someday I will write some stories about some of them.

My yarn, knitting needles, and knitting books. I have baskets of yarn and a slew of knitting books! I kept the yarns by weight in file cabinet drawers until I repurposed the file cabinet for my ancestry work. I was going to get rid of a lot of the yarn but never got around to it. I guess it’s time to put the yarn away again before any moths get to it!

Do books count? I have a lot of those and I keep buying more!

But if you’re thinking my house must be filled to the rafters, you’d be wrong! All of my “collections” are in a very large room over our garage that serves as our workout room in two-thirds of the room and my “she-space” in the remaining part. We’re lucky to have such a wonderful space!

The garage/workout/she-space built 2006
My She-Space
Posted in 2024, life, thoughts, Writing

I Can Lead and I Can Follow

Posted on by nancyb422

Are you a leader or a follower?

I am very comfortable leading a conversation, a discussion, or directionally around a location.

For some people, it’s their tendency to take over because they were a leader in their profession. I admire people who don’t do that. I like watching everyone have the chance to lead if they want.

But if I’m leading people around a location and lose my sense of direction, I get flustered and someone else has to take over! This happened to me in Vienna Austria with friends we met on a river cruise. One of the men stepped in to help me because I had us hopelessly lost!

I am also able to follow in those situations. When I don’t know the subject well, I listen to what other people say. If someone knows exactly where we are headed, I say “Just tell me where to go!”

Posted in 2024, life, Memories, thoughts, Writing

Signs

Posted on by nancyb422

Do you believe is signs from loved ones who have passed? I do!
May 2nd was our 37th anniversary of meeting. One of the words in the NYT Connections game was SOULMATES – it jumped out at me as soon as I opened the game.

May 1987


May 6th was our 36th wedding anniversary. What popped up in the Connections game? COUPLE and LOVERS.

March 2024


Coincidence? No, I think my mother is sending her love to the two people she set up to meet in 1987. I’ve told this story so many times, you might already know it….I was scheduled for a vacation on March 24th because she was sick and she died on April 4th. I ended up taking the trip on May 2nd and my future husband was a last minute addition to his friend’s trip. Through a medium I went to in 2013, she confirmed she set us up.

I wrote most of the above for my facebook page on Monday the 6th but I was thinking some more about that time and coincidences. You see just before I moved out to California, someone I worked with paid for me to hand a hand analysis with her sister. Although 37 years have gone by, I still had the cassette tape of the reading and a few years ago transcribed it. I think through it my mother was trying to give me motherly advice — and I did NOT listen to it. Literally, I did not listen to that tape again for 35 years. There was actually some advice I could have used. Oh well! They say the other side will give you signs but you have the free will to listen to it or not. Sorry Ma! I’m listening now!