Writing – Page 2 – Thoughts From The Passenger Seat

2025, leisure time

Saturday Morning

Posted on October 25, 2025 by nancyb422

I love sitting in my comfy family room chair on Saturday mornings drinking my two medium sized cups of coffee reading emails and watching the crazy birds at the window feeder. Today, they are particularly out of control –

Usually the birds sit on the roof above, but we’ve added a little “eyebrow” over the window which initially confused the birds but now they wait their turn on the side supports or the roof of the pergola. Or float in mid-air waiting their turn.

We have all the common birds of Connecticut: the house finch, tufted titmouse, northern cardinal, blue jay, mourning dove, field sparrow, and probably more. The cardinal family is particularly bossy, the mourning dove barely fits but can’t resist, and the blue jay is messy, and sometimes will allow smaller birds to share their space.

When it gets quiet at the feeder it’s usually because of this –

We’ve seen feathers around once or twice but I do love cats so it’s hard to hate him! When he’s elsewhere in the yard, he will give you that cat stare but meet up with him in the road and he will happily lay down and give you his belly to pet!

2025, life

Fri-yay!

Posted on September 19, 2025September 19, 2025 by nancyb422

I was so happy when I heard our weather forecaster mention the moon and Venus so close together this morning. I made sure to look up when I went outside.

I’ve been so good about NOT documenting my every trip outside but this morning brought me such joy

I love to capture the brilliance of the sunrise but the sun through the trees as it comes up is so special too. Many trees in our neighborhood are HUGE because they’ve been there in the 64 years I’ve been here.

I’m grateful for the trees and my neighborhood. It’s such a special place!

2025, life

Never Say Can’t

Posted on September 18, 2025 by nancyb422

The ant and the rubber tree plant, the flower (or weed?) growing out from the crack in the sidewalk, and this single lavender bud growing on a plant winding down.

All not taking can’t be done for an answer.

2025, life, thoughts

Curiosity Killed the Cat

Posted on June 21, 2025June 21, 2025 by nancyb422

I’m curious by nature. I ask (a lot of) questions when I meet someone or when I’m talking to a friend because I enjoy a conversation. Sometimes though, it’s because it takes the spotlight off me.

I like to comment and ask questions of the bloggers I read as well and I like when they comment and ask questions of me (hint, hint 😉).

I’ve been following a blogger, I don’t think she follows me and I enjoy what she writes. She’s from a different part of the country, has a different lifestyle, and still raising children while I’ve raised one.

I’ve read back posts and had been trying to follow the threads of her life, and was looking forward to upcoming events.

I made a comment to her latest post, and now she’s gone. Perhaps in saying I’ve known those feelings in the past, I overstepped the bounds she felt were acceptable. I appeared to be the only person commenting so it must have been something I said! In this case, I’ve tried to ask general questions because it’s a public forum and you never know who else is reading.

I read many blogs that I really enjoy for a variety of reasons, and I’m really disappointed that she has disappeared.

Have you ever felt a well-intentioned comment you made caused someone to disappear in real life or online. Notice I said “well-intentioned” because we know how our keyboard fingers can fly when angry!

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, 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, Business, family, life, Memories, thoughts, Writing

Math

Posted on April 2, 2025 by nancyb422

“I expect my mother’s fear of decimal currency was related to her dislike of math, which is a common fear often dating back to a cruel teacher.” – Cherry in Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty.

Oh, that hit me right in the memories!

I don’t think Sister Holly Jean my third grade teacher at Holy Trinity School was intentionally being mean. There were two math groups and two reading groups, and when you’ve already spent 2 years with the same kids, you know which is which.

I bounced back and forth between those two math groups throughout 3rd grade. Long division was my nemesis! Carrying the what because it’s not equal where? My mother brought home waste letter paper from work and filled them with division problems for me to solve.

I survived third grade math but I was never the same afterwards. Math just continued to beat me down year after year. Algebra, Geometry, even review math in 12th grade was a struggle.

Ironically, I really enjoyed Accounting in high school and college and handle the (Quick)books for our company.

Hand me the calculator!

2025, Goals, Healthy Living, hobbies, Home, life, Travel, Writing

More of This More of That

Posted on March 21, 2025 by nancyb422

What do you wish you could do more every day?

By working four days a week, I’m getting glimpses of what retirement will look like.

I have a variety of hobbies that include knitting, ancestry research, writing for this and my family stories blog, puzzles, reading. All my indoor stuff but I also have a new e-gravel bike to ride and a boat that will go in the water next month. And travel!

I wish I had more retirement time every day to find a flow to work on my hobbies and outdoor activities!

Soon. I just have to be patient.