2026 – Thoughts From The Passenger Seat

2026, Writing

Writing

Posted on February 25, 2026February 24, 2026 by nancyb422

I wrote about being on time last month . It happened at the first meeting of a Writers Guild at our public library. So now I’ll tell you about the guild –

I was excited to see it listed in the newsletter events. There had been a similar program, but I never attended. Now it is back and I put it in my calendar as soon as I saw it.

It is being led by a woman who is a “cultural anthropologist”, writer, and writers workshop teacher. I like her style.

There were about 25 other people in the first session. 2 men and the rest women in the range of late 20s to early 70s by my estimation. All with some degree of writing experience.

I write regularly between here, my family stories, and my journal, but this program is a lot different.

After sharing names and our writing practices, we had a “muscle-building writing spring”. We had to write a motivational speech for a group of animals outside our house. My mind went right to the birds, squirrels and rabbits in my backyard and it was off to the races! It was fun to write something different.

We meet the last Wednesday of the month and our task for tomorrow was to write a very short piece, 500 words or less. A few people will read their stories and the rest of us will say how the piece affects them. No criticism.

I wrote my piece, almost 500 words, no surprise there, but this was tough to do. I knew I wanted to turn a story about my paternal grandmother into a story. I went at it from a few different angles, then picked one. I typed it up, printed it out, let it sit, and then made the edits. I’m hoping it doesn’t sound too smaltzy, and if given the chance, I will read it out loud. And maybe post it here!

Wish me luck!

2026, life

Always Our Baby

Posted on February 8, 2026February 8, 2026 by nancyb422

As a parent, will we ever NOT worry about our children?

Our 35 year old son, married, business owner, and dog father to two cocker spaniels, borrowed my car so he and his wife could go to Foxwoods Casino for a concert. The casino is about an hour and a half away by way of 95 North to 395 North.

Of course I said yes, so he left his truck in our driveway and said, even though it would be late, he would come and swap vehicles. Which was good because I didn’t want to drive our truck to church!

Our New England weather this weekend includes temperatures of single digits, blowing winds, and snow squalls. Brrrr.

I went to bed and didn’t put in my earplugs thinking I would possibly hear him pull in later that night. Of course, I couldn’t, so I slept fitfully wondering if they had come back yet.

Every time I woke up, I wondered. But I didn’t want to get out of bed to check because if his truck was still there, I’d worry more!

I woke up at 6 and went downstairs where my husband was drinking his coffee. He said on one of his trips to the bathroom, when he saw the truck was gone, he was able to sleep better.

Now, if they had gone in their own vehicle and we didn’t know their coming and going, we’d have slept blissfully through the night!

2026, life, Memories

Love Is Blind – The Show

Posted on February 7, 2026February 7, 2026 by nancyb422

I saw on Netflix that Season 11 of Love Is Blind will be starting soon. I’m not big on manufactured drama like The Bachelor and Bachelorette, but I’ve been searching for a binge show and with 11 seasons, I might be able to make it through 5 and call it good.

This is the show where there are a bunch, 10 or 12 each, of men and women. Women in one side, men the other, and they enter pods and talk without seeing each other. Once a couple decides this is it, he proposes, they meet, they’ll go on a trip, meet family and friends, and then get married. Maybe. I’m curious to see how many get to the alter.

Last night was my first episode. There’s a man by the name of Barnett and I had his number the minute he opened his mouth. Mind you, I’m coming from a 65 year old perspective but it took my mother’s death and a rescheduled trip to Jamaica to find the man of my dreams, so I’ve seen many types of men.

Back to Barnett (I keep thinking Bennett), quick with a joke, that way of saying something, making you think it’s true, and then giving it a “nah, I’m just kidding.” The guy incapable of making a decision, has 3 girls on a hook right now but with a different relationship with each. Remember, they are in pods so are talking and don’t know what the other looks like. But the women and men talk to each other about the people they are connecting with so that can get a little dicey.

One woman, Jessica, is convinced they are a match made in heaven. LC and Barnett are “exactly alike” he says. To that I say “RUN”, you’ll never make it. The third, Amber, who I thought was a little annoying, is the one he has had the deepest conversations with.

Jessica also made a connection with Mark who is 10 years younger than her. She is 34, he is 24. But would he be there if he wasn’t mature and grounded? He’s more grounded than Barnett. Well, Jessica, casts aside Mark because she is convinced she’s going to be Mrs. Barnett. Don’t you know, Barnett turns around and says, “mmm yeah, I don’t know, I’m feeling a connection with others.”

Now Jessica lost my vote when she proclaims that she has met a million Barnetts and she’s NOT playing that game. Honey, your spidey senses should have told you to run. Nice backtrack.

In the first two episodes, there has been 3 “engagements” and one in progress at the end of the episode. Between a man and a woman who just previously said to this man she tends to self-sabotage. By the look on her face, she might be planning just that, or maybe it’s to throw us off. I will have to wait and see.

In the meantime, here is a picture of my husband and I during the week after we met at the Montego Bay, Jamaica airport.

2026, life

A Mantra for Monday

Posted on February 2, 2026February 2, 2026 by nancyb422

This morning in my dark workout room, the soothing voice of Chelsea Jackson Roberts flowed around me. “I Will Do My Best”.

10 minutes to repeat that thought to carry it with me throughout my day.

What is my best? For today it is:

Ignore social media not relevant to my work
Start with the hard things or “swallow my frog” first thing
Be present – which is another one of her mantras!

Being present can sometimes be more difficult than doing difficult things or ignoring social media. I look too far forward, or try to solve this problem or that before it even arises. Wasting my present time over the future.

Will I succeed? I don’t know but,

I will do my best.

2026, life, Memories

Bad at Math

Posted on February 1, 2026February 1, 2026 by nancyb422

I was in third grade when I realized I was bad at Math. I made my way through adding, subtracting, simple multiplication and division, but long division tripped me up and revealed what would be a life long problem.

The complexity of carrying numbers made my head ache and I just couldn’t “see” how to do it. Especially under pressure in class!

My mother spent time with me at night working on it. She would take paper headed for the trash at work and use the backs of them to make up problems for me to work on. Did it help? Perhaps, but I from that point forward I labeled myself, “Bad At Math”.

I struggled through Algebra, Geometry, and Review Math in High School. But not Accounting. Accounting had a black and white to it. It all had to add up in the end. I had two semesters of Accounting in high school and 2 in college. If my college hadn’t closed the year I graduated with my Associate’s Degree, I would have continued on for another two years to get my degree in Accounting. But, with three grades of students needing to transfer, I thought let me take my degree and go.

Now for over 25 years, I’ve worked in our remodeling business as the bookkeeper using QuickBooks. Thank Heavens, because I’m still bad at math!

2026, Writing

On Time

Posted on January 29, 2026January 29, 2026 by nancyb422

My husband says “if you’re not five minutes early to an appointment, you’re late”. Mind you, he was talking about appointments with homeowners, not doctors’ appointments.

I try to live by that rule, but I’m not always successful especially when I’m getting ready to go somewhere – but it doesn’t impact the “somewhere”, only my husband who is waiting for me!

But if I’m going to a program or a class (even on Zoom), I’m going to be there and ready 15 minutes before it starts. Which leads me to last night.

Last night was the first night of a monthly program on writing. A Writers Guild. It was held in the past as I remember seeing the notices, it disappeared (covid?), and now has been resurrected. I’m very excited about it!

I arrived 10 minutes early and there were already about 10 people seated. I settled in, the teacher waited until 6:30, and then began talking about the group, introduced herself, and we began our introductions.

For the next 10 minutes, 5 or 6 people dribbled through the door. The last person walked through the door 20 minutes late.

I hope the annoyance didn’t show on my face while I was trying to pay attention! I will try and give grace to anyone arriving late next month. Perhaps they have a family or parents to take care of or a job they are clocking out of that prevents them from arriving with enough time to settle in before class.

Timeliness. How important is it to you? Does a particular situation make a difference? I’m all for 10 minutes early to class but I’ll be flying through the door of the doctor’s office on the dot because I know I’ll be waiting 15!

2026, Business, life

Reports and More Reports

Posted on January 23, 2026January 23, 2026 by nancyb422

I handle the accounting and payroll for a company, which means governmental reports, and lots of them.

The quarterly ones are not so bad because at least I do them four times a year. However, there is usually a notification to change my password. 15 characters! One capital letter! One Number! One symbol but only #@& or *! You cannot use any part of your previous five passwords! Get the picture?

I can do the majority of quarterly reports through Quickbooks, but my state decided that SOME reports, you have to go through their website. Notice I said SOME.

But don’t worry, I have a checklist for every report with the website I need to process the report correctly. I’ve been doing this too long to not have step by step instructions!

Now, let’s talk about the annual reports. Once a year. I’m talking specifically about the ACA Proof of Health Insurance or 1065-B report. Wait, I stand corrected. Per the IRS it’s a “1065-B document”. This is something I have to do because we are a self-funded small business but I don’t have to do any of the “funding” like a typical self-funded group. I pay a flat monthly rate for each employee and based on the medical expenses for the year, sometimes I get money back after the year end, and sometimes I don’t. I’m fortunate that the majority of the work is done by my carrier to Mineral that sends on the reports to the IRS. I just print them and give them to my employees on the plan. The problem is, in the email Mineral sends to tell me about it, they don’t say, “go here, here and here”. No, I go to the website, to the ACA Hub, and am confronted with a list of “resources”. Do I need to upload my employees information to this excel spreadsheet? I thought I did….

After a short time of frustration, I called the Help Center. The person took all my information to pass me on to another person. That person was very helpful. “No, you don’t have to upload the information, you click here, instead of here (right next to the first “here”). I made her stay on the line until I was 95% completed. She showed me where the step by step instructions were (why wasn’t that in an email to ALL self-funded small businesses?). She told me I could take a training class and my reply was, “I do this once a year for six employees”. I was polite, I promise! Her parting words were, “all that will be left is closing out the tax year”. Hmmm, what does that mean? I go through the report, and there is “close out the tax year”. I click on it, click on finish, nothing, nothing, nothing. I go back through the step by step, oh, I have to wait until it’s accepted….

The report is done (notice I refuse to say “document), and I will have weekly notices to remind myself to go back into the report, and through the steps to get to the last bit to “close out the tax year”. I could have typed the information into a template six times, checked, printed them, and mailed them off to the IRS and my employees faster than it took me to do the report. I will print out that resource for next year.

The report isn’t due until somewhere around the end of February so I am grateful I didn’t wait until the last week to start the report!

Now, on to the 1099s and more of the same!

2026, life

Bless the Caregivers

Posted on January 20, 2026January 19, 2026 by nancyb422

I have caregivers on my mind after writing about my grandmother over on It’s All About Family.

While driving home from church yesterday (maybe it was because of church?), I said a prayer for the CT Transit bus driver waiting to take a right turn with his bus at a very annoying corner. There he was on a Sunday morning, probably already out for a few hours, and who knows how many more to go.

Today, I stopped at Walmart on my way home and I saw a young man hoisting a folder up wheelchair to put in the back of his car. I looked to the interior and there was an elderly man waiting for him. Grandfather? Paying customer? Later, when leaving the store an older woman was pushing a carriage with a toddler and telling her husband with a can in his carriage to wait and she’d get the car to pick him up. Was the young child her granddaughter?

These caregivers, people taking care of family members, neighbors, or even strangers have my deepest admiration. It is not easy.

Caregiving for my mother when I was 27 was short and there was no traveling involved. Years after that was caring for my dad. It was helpful that his primary care doctor was at the assisted living facility. He was in a wheelchair and it was easier to get him up into my SUV than it was to lower him into a car! After he passed away, I took on the grocery trips and doctor’s appointments for my aunt, my dad’s sister. That started when I got a call from the school she worked. She became ill and was being taken to the hospital and I was her emergency contact! All of that involved a change to my routine, fitting something in, taking time off from work, or having my family fend for themselves while I was caregiving.

I don’t say all that for any pats on the back but I’m realizing how important it is to have “people”.

2026, life

Cable Cutting Update

Posted on January 17, 2026January 17, 2026 by nancyb422

Last Friday, I wrote about how I cancelled our cable service and my husband was pretty concerned.

Last Saturday, we signed up for a free one week trial of FUBO so he could watch the NFL football games on Saturday and Sunday. That was good.

Although we have a Vizio smart tv and it has our live local news, he couldn’t watch CBS Sunday Morning live. He would be able to watch it at 11am or live from his IPad at cbsnews.com but that was not the same. He was a little sulky about it. But the live football revived him.

Here we are, another weekend, another round of football. What to do what to do. We reviewed the information I took out of my Cutting the Cord class at the library and we decided rather than trying to do a patchwork of streaming channels, we’d just go with Hulu Live TV because they do carry all the major networks.

I’m grateful that it’s so easy to sign up. If I had to talk to people to set it up, we’d be installing an antenna on our roof.

Our UConn men’s basketball game is on the tv now and all’s right with the world!

2026, thoughts

Keep It Simple

Posted on January 16, 2026January 16, 2026 by nancyb422

On my other blog, It’s All About Family, I’m once again following Amy Crow Johnson’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks.

I was successful with Week 1 but am already a week behind because I struggle with trying to just tell the story of the prompt. I feel like I need to fill the reader in on the backstory before I get to the topic at hand.

A beginning sentence will pop into my head as I’m doing something else and I try to keep it there until I type it but then it doesn’t sound right. So I think about it some more. I might have an entire post typed up, but then I second guess myself. In fact, I have two posts in drafts for this one subject!

My library has a Writing Guild which is starting back this month after a hiatus and it’s in my calendar. My hope is to get some guidance in my writing of those posts.