life – Page 9 – Thoughts From The Passenger Seat

2024, life, Memories

My Resume

Posted on May 29, 2024May 29, 2024 by nancyb422

What jobs have you had?

Best Job: Programming Assistant at WTNH-8 in New Haven Connecticut. I was involved with every department at the station. I was there for almost two years until I moved to California.

Worst Fast Food Job: McDonalds. It was also my first job. I hated it. I couldn’t add up the orders in my head. I lasted 6 months.

Best Fast Food Job: Wendy’s. We had registers that we punched the orders in and it would tell you how much change to give back! I worked with a lot of great people and the food was so much better than McDonalds!

First Career Job: I started as a receptionist for the American Cancer Society and over five years moved to different positions with more responsibility and money.

Least Understood Job: Executive assistant in the Municipal Bonds Department at Goldman Sachs in San Francisco. Beautiful view of the city from the windows but a very boring job. I lasted there 8 months and thankfully moved north.

Fun Job: Working in the strawberry fields for two summers. In the spring we worked to get the field ready and during picking season we directed people where to pick and weighed and rang up the pickings.

Like a Family/Second Chance Job: I applied for a job as an office assistant for an insurance company when we moved north. I didn’t get the job but they called a few days later offering another one because someone gave their 2 week notice! There were 4 or 5 of us all close in age and we all had our children at the same time! We were all transplants to California and the office manager was like a mother to us all. I was there for about five years until we moved back to Connecticut.

Most Educational Job: I worked part time in an elementary school library for five years. I loved getting to know the kids and reading the books! I left when the remodeling business picked up and I needed to put a full day in the office. Runner up: I went back to the same school a few years later and worked in the cafeteria for a year and a half. That was tough and I finally gave up working part time for good.

Longest Job: 25 years with my husband in our remodeling business. I’ve gone from doing all the office work myself to having a fabulous office person who takes care of all the clients leaving me with the bookkeeping and social media.

Rewarding Job: Raising our son!

2024, life, Religion, thoughts

Religion

Posted on May 28, 2024May 28, 2024 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.

2024, family, Goals, life, thoughts, Writing

Can We Have It All?

Posted on May 25, 2024May 25, 2024 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.

2024, life, Memories, thoughts, Writing

Items Always With Me

Posted on May 23, 2024May 23, 2024 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.

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!

2024, life, relaxing, Writing

Brrrrrr

Posted on May 20, 2024May 20, 2024 by nancyb422

How do you feel about cold weather?

I am cold if it’s 90 degrees and a cloud passes over the sun.

I always wear a coat or sweater out the door in the morning and usually keep it on most of the day because the air conditioning is blowing on me, or if the heat is on it’s still not warm enough.

Does that give you an idea of how I feel about cold weather?

As long as I am prepared for it, I can be ok about it. But I will always turn off the ceiling fan when I sit in the living room to watch tv because it’s blowing on me!

2024, family, life, Memories, Writing

Ruining My Sister’s Birthday

Posted on May 19, 2024May 19, 2024 by nancyb422

Have you ever broken a bone?

It was a sunny Saturday in September of 1972 and I was 12 years old.

One of my sisters and a friend or two were performing flips in the front year. We would start from the steps and head towards the flag pole.

I completed a few flips, but on the last attempt I ran, flipped, and landed on the top of my right foot. There was intense pain and I couldn’t walk. We all shouted for my mother. She came out and off the two of us went to the emergency room. We waited for a few hours for X-rays that confirmed I broke a little bone in the back of my ankle. I came home in a cast to my knee and crutches.

It was a miserable 8 weeks. First with the crutches, and then with a “walking cast” which back then was a rubber block they attached to the bottom of the cast. In my case even with my highest heel on the other side, I was still lopsided, walking like Peg-Leg Pete! I would have been better off with crutches. What a relief it was when the cast finally came off but how weird my leg looked!

But I wasn’t the only one who suffered that weekend….

The incident happened on Saturday, September 9, 1972. My older sister’s 14th birthday and the family party was scheduled for the next day. My mother was in the process of baking her delicious 4 layer chocolate cake with whipped cream between layers and covered with chocolate frosting. She was likely making whatever meal we would be eating beforehand.

*Aha! proof that I didn’t spoil the party, just “her day”!*

She was pretty annoyed with me, but she did get to enjoy her party on Sunday! I was probably very happy I didn’t have to go to church!

2024, leisure time, life, relaxing, Writing

Balancing Work and Home

Posted on May 18, 2024May 18, 2024 by nancyb422

How do you balance work and home life?

For the past 25 years, it has been a tightrope walk between work and home because my husband and I run a business together. Some of that balancing act involved the two of us but a lot of it, was my balancing.

Our remodeling company started in our basement, an unfinished, low ceiling space with a concrete floor and painted stone foundation walls. I faced crumbling painted walls at the bottom of the stairs and when my husband came home at 4 p.m. to start his estimates, he faced the oil tank.

Having a fledging business at home made both the work and home balance tough. Being home, I would realize there was laundry to do, or something needed cleaning, so I’d get immersed in that. On the weekends, I’d go to the basement to do/finish the laundry and remember a proposal to type or phone call to make and get caught up in that!

After the basement we moved the office to space above our newly built garage and then almost 20 years in, we purchased office space about 10 minutes away. Each step away, made the physical work/life balance easier. However, I found myself determined to put in as many hours a day as possible because once I left for the day, that was it. My husband put in his 7:30 to 4 and I would try to get in at 8 a.m. every day and usually stayed until 5 our shortly past. Now, mentally it was very taxing knowing there were things I was leaving behind but definitely couldn’t sneak into the office to take care of. I found myself bringing files home but letting them sit there and never touching them all weekend!

As far as my husband and I balancing business and home life together, we made a decision early on that work stayed at work. It hasn’t always been easy but if I was mad at “my boss”, I didn’t want to bring it home to my husband and vice versa! It was sort of weird and definitely an act of compartmentalizing but it has worked for us. After a few years, we also decided that our company wouldn’t physically work on the weekends or go to any estimating appointments. People found that strange but we told them, “everyone needs their weekend”.

My husband has now retired, but is still available when my son, who took his place, needs him. I am still working, but now that we have a very capable Client Manager and I have been able to pass all client work on to her, I am able to come in later, leave earlier and take some time off and I finally feel like there is a good and healthy balance for me both physically and mentally.

2024, life, The Soul Search

Signs

Posted on May 8, 2024July 22, 2026 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 6th was our 36th wedding anniversary. What popped up in the Connections game? COUPLE and LOVERS.

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!

2024, Goals, life, thoughts

Balance in the Coming Year

Posted on May 1, 2024May 1, 2024 by nancyb422

It’s the end of my Birthday Month and my march towards 65. I don’t mean that in a bad way, more of a contemplative one.

My husband has retired and I can now find him most days out in his garden preparing for the season.

I’m looking for balance in my work and home life. My three office responsibilities have been pared down to two thanks to our incredible Client Manager who has successfully taken over those reins (and it is sometimes like trying to rein in wild horses).

I have projects at home to work on – organizing 35,000 pictures on my devices, family stories or family history research.

Honestly, I enjoy what I do in the office. I feel like now I can organize and set up the business in the best way possible moving forward – and get that Succession Plan, aka “If Something Happens To Me” plan in place.

My goal is to consider Wednesdays and Fridays each week and schedule something, whether full day, half day, by myself, with my husband, or with a friend.

I see the possibility now whereas a year ago, I don’t think I saw it.

A little bit of this contemplation comes from the fact that my mother died the day before her 65th birthday. If you’ve been over to It’s All About Family you’ll know her story. It was 9 weeks sudden, but sudden enough so she never got to experience that retirement.

I think about what her and my dad’s life might have been like if she didn’t get sick and it makes me want to honor and appreciate each day.

*An early morning on the Seine river 2022*

2024, life, Memories, This Old House

This Old House

Posted on March 20, 2024March 22, 2024 by nancyb422

I’ve written about my home before but now I’m exploring the house, the area surrounding it, and the family who built it.

My family and I moved into this home I now own on Memorial Day weekend in 1961.

My parents had previously been renting a home 2 blocks from my maternal grandmother for a few years.

They found this gem of a home – Dutch colonial, 4 bedrooms, eat in kitchen and dining room, living room with a fireplace, and a beautiful covered side porch. It was just under a half acre and had a 1 car (maybe 2) garage and old chicken coop. It had a walk up attic and a walk out basement.

Picture taken from area currently Lincoln Drive by future neighbor

The previous owners, the Atkinsons, built the house sometime in the mid-20s. He was the personnel manager at H.L. Judd until his 1949 retirement but was also a “gentleman farmer” and sold baby chicks! Mr. Atkinson passed away in March of 1960 and a year later, Mrs. Atkinson was ready to sell.

The cost of the house was $25,000. My maternal grandmother gave them the $5,000 and they took out a mortgage for the rest. In a sweet coincidence, my paternal great grandmother gave my grandparents the down payment for their house in 1925.

The yard still contained what we called the chicken coop which my father took down and left the foundation. This brought years of fun playing on it because it was level from one part of the yard and “so high!” from another side and the back. We raced around on the edge for years.

I’m not sure where he was breeding his chicks for 15 years, prior to this 1927 ad but he appears to be quite well known. This will require some more research!

There was also a cherry trees, apple trees, a grape arbor, rhubarb, and asparagus that continued to grow for years in “the way back”. Brambles of raspberries, and a mulberry tree rounded out the fruit.

There are only 2 remaining apple trees just off our property with only one producing any apples. I determined it was a Wealthy apple from the advertisement and googling the apple. “Wealthy apple trees bear heavily and is very cold hearty, but also fruits in low chill locations. It’s a favorite for home orchards in Minnesota and the East.

Stick with me for the journey!