Writing – Thoughts From The Passenger Seat

2026, thoughts, Writing

Happy New Year!

Posted on January 1, 2026January 1, 2026 by nancyb422

I started the new year off right by waking up early, enjoying my coffee, and heading off to work out. I always feel a sense of accomplishment!

On and off over the years, my husband and I would head down to the state beach about 40 minutes away. We walk and search for sea glass. Today it’s cold – my watch says 23 degrees and it’s windy. We decided we can find plenty of things to do here at home!

*Our hike to Sleeping Giant State Park last week*

Tuesday we had planned an impromptu trip to New York (well, I did and he’s my willing sidekick). I knew it was going to be cold but I thought it would be okay. Until he told me he was going to wear his lined pants and I thought, “ya know what? This is crazy”. So I decided we weren’t going to go and I think he was happy about it! We’re going in February for a concert and an overnight stay and that will be here in no time.

I’m taking down my decorations, even the tree. I would like to get over to our We-Shed (the second floor of our garage where we workout and I have my ancestry and knitting stuff, and other hobby stuff) and clean that up a little bit. Clean up my desk area and open some mail. It might sound a little routine, but I get satisfaction seeing stuff cleared out. We re-organized the basement the other day! Anywhere I’m organizing is my happy place.

I’m working on being mindful, writing down what I did this day in my planner, otherwise everything is one big blur.

I’ve got some thoughts on posts in the new year, maybe revisit some old ones and see if anything has changed. I’m looking forward to sharing them with you!

2025, Writing

Replay by Ken Grimwood

Posted on November 1, 2025November 1, 2025 by nancyb422

Is there an age or year of your life you would re-live?

I happened upon a book in the late 1980s named, Replay, by Ken Grimwood. It starts out with a middle age may having a heart attack at his desk. When he comes to, he’s 18 years old and in his college dorm room.

Think about that – being able to replay your life. What kind of changes would you make? Would you be kinder? Study harder? Take more changes? Or be less reckless?

As much as I would like to do all of the above, anything I did would change the trajectory of my life. If I don’t date that dolt again, it wouldn’t lead me to the love of my life because how would I know what I shouldn’t put up with? Or would I seek out the love of my life sooner, because I know where he is? But doesn’t he have to go through his own situations to work his way to me?

So I guess if I could replay my 20s with the knowledge of where I need to be at a particular date and time, I’d live them smarter both in brain power and common sense.

2025, life, Writing

Rain Rain Go Away

Posted on June 22, 2025 by nancyb422

This weekend in Connecticut is the SEVENTEENTH consecutive weekend with rain on one or both days. That means, since February we have had “weather” on the weekend. We may have had beautiful weather for 5 or 6 days and then, Boom!, the one day you have off or something planned for outdoors, it can’t be done.

My husband tells me it was predicted and it’s just for the morning which is good because the Travelers Golf Championship final day is happening Cromwell today. It will be hot again after the rain, so hydrate!

2025, family, Home, life, Writing

This Weather!

Posted on June 9, 2025 by nancyb422

Here in Connecticut, it has rained at some point during 15 consecutive weekends. Maybe one day, maybe both days.

When we moved back here in 1995, me, the Connecticut native, told my husband, the California native to expect at least one day on a summer weekend to be rainy. I think I did pretty good with that assessment. Overall, this has been a Really Wet Year and it doesn’t look like much is changing.

Now that we are in “summer”, the humidity rises. And falls. And rises. I can handle it but my poor husband suffers from the Jekyll and Hyde atmospheric pressures. Vertigo, sinus conditions, headache – he’s had them all!

Do you have constantly changing weather where you live?

Books, family, Home, life, Memories, thoughts, Writing

My Road to Motherhood

Posted on May 11, 2025 by nancyb422

It wasn’t a smooth path. There were bumps, and potholes, and, what felt like, a mountain to climb.

But in the end, there he was.

“Motherhood is seeing your heart walking around outside your body and hoping the world is gentle with it” – Elizabeth Stone

I was not prepared for a boy. I thought “ugh, messy, muddy, eating everything in sight”. But he was not.

He was sweet, not messy/muddy, but still had a mind of his own. He would tell me how pretty I looked and ask, “is that a new dress?”

I’m now a mother of a 35 year old married man.

He is still sweet and thoughtful and I’m grateful to be his mother.

2025, life, Memories, Music, thoughts, Writing

Ear Worms

Posted on May 10, 2025 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?

2025, Books, life, thoughts, Writing

Why Write?

Posted on May 4, 2025 by nancyb422

Why Bother
Because right now
there is someone
Out there with
a wound in the exact shape
of your words
— Sean Thomas Dougherty 2018

I heard this poem this past week while attending an author talk by Monica Woods for our town’s “One Book, One Wallingford”. The participants in the program read her book “How To Read A Book”.

She recited this poem when discussing her journey in writing. She had a manuscript for her book “The One-In-A-Million Boy” which was rejected in 2008 (or so). She tossed it in a drawer and her husband kept encouraging her to send it to another publisher. She didn’t, but in the meantime wrote a memoir, “When we were the Kennedys” and a play! Her husband kept encouraging her to re-submit it. But next she wrote “How To Read A Book”. Then, she submitted the cast-away manuscript and it was published.

I have no plan to write a book but her story and the poem she recited really struck me because I alternate between writing, and wondering why I write. Who cares what I have to say or feel? Who am I to feel like anything I say matters?

Reading that poem encourages me to continue to write and hope that someone out there nods in agreement or at least pauses to contemplate my words.

2025, family, Holidays, Home, life, Writing

Waiting for Santa

Posted on May 1, 2025May 1, 2025 by nancyb422

Daily writing prompt

What is your favorite holiday? Why is it your favorite?

View all responses

My favorite holiday is definitely Christmas!

I remember my dad bringing out the movie camera during the 1960s, along with the bank of lights attached to the top, and blinding us as we walked down the stairs to see what Santa brought. We’d view those movies during the summer and watch as he reversed and moved forward the moment when my sister tumbled down the stairs. Down she’d go, only to fly back up the stairs!

Every Christmas, my mother’s family got together at one sibling’s house or my grandmother’s. Presents would get tossed around, and a shaker of Brandy Alexander would be ready to be poured.

The family celebration has migrated to a weekend before Christmas, so families traveling from out of state can attend and then have their holiday at home.

My husband and I host it every year, and we have had anywhere from 15 (2021 after COVID) to 30 people with us. Before our family room addition, it was a tight squeeze – we even had people sitting in the front hallway and on the stairs to the second floor! But now with the extra space and the open floor plan, no one is without a seat.

I’m not big on decorating, and shopping for gifts is stress-inducing, but I really like getting everyone together!

2025, Goals, Healthy Living, hobbies, leisure time, life, Writing

Make it – Check it

Posted on April 28, 2025 by nancyb422

When do you feel most productive?

I always think I will be so productive because I get out of bed by 6am every morning. But that really has nothing to do with productivity because I’ve perfected the art of taking my time.

I feel the most productive when I make a list of what I want to do and what I have to do.

I find it amazing that I have so many “things” I want to do, yet I never work on them, because I don’t remember them in the moment. If I have a list, I can look and say “oh, I’ll do a little work on this”.

I guess it’s time to take own advice!

2025, family, Home, life, Memories, thoughts, Writing

Desserts

Posted on April 9, 2025April 8, 2025 by nancyb422

Tonight on Spring Baking Championship on HGTV, one of the challenges was for the bakers to elevate one of their favorite childhood desserts. That got me thinking about MY favorite childhood desserts.

My uncle on my mother’s side was a baker. I don’t know if he learned his trade in the army or by osmosis from my grandmother. He owned his own bakery for a few years and, after closing it, worked first at the local prep school, until finally settling in as the baker at Masonic Home and Hospital, a rehabilitation hospital and nursing home for people who were members of the Masonic Temple Association.

This man made the most INCREDIBLE baked goods. It’s amazing that he could make hundreds of desserts for the people at Masonic using these huge tubs for the dough and ovens to bake in and each one tasted as delicious as if it was one of only a dozen.

My favorites were his chocolate eclairs. They were all one piece filled with cream and delicious chocolate on top.

His cream puffs! Oh my word! Filled with delightful air pockets stuffed with cream.

He also made something called a Hermit Cookie. I found it quickly online. They were square bar cookies with ginger and molasses and raisins. One version I found is called New England Hermit Cookie Bar with the story that they date back to the Pilgrims and they were good for travel because they were dense and stayed moist for up to two weeks! Maybe his mother, my grandmother, brought the recipe with her when she immigrated from the Galician area of Poland in the early 1900s!

I do remember my uncle’s Hermit cookies being overall dark like the inside of this one.

In addition to his job and making desserts for family events, he made the wedding cakes for my mother, and for my cousin.

We did not have homemade desserts in our house. They were store bought cookies and pastries. My mother worked full time and she wasn’t really a baker, with the exception of the four layer chocolate cake with whipped cream filling and chocolate frosting we requested for our family birthday parties! She never said no! There would always be cake left over and we would eat that until there wasn’t a crumb left anywhere.

I do love my desserts!

What’s your favorite childhood dessert? Tell me!