Bfth's Boring Blog

  We don't really go on vacations.  I take vacation days from work, but are they really "vacations"?  So far this year I've taken time off to go the MVC (or for you non-NJ people...DMV).  I've taken time to take my son to the MVC (a different one because the one closest to us didn't have appointments until the end of July/early August).  I've taken time off to pick up my son from college.  I've taken half days for medical appointments.  As a matter of fact, the most vacation time I've taken over the past year has all been geared around "things" that had to be done and couldn't be done on a weekend.  (Or avoiding going back to NJ with the sinkhole issue on Route 80.)  As a matter of fact, the last "real" vacation I took was in September of 2024 (which had been planned in May of 2024) when I met my college friend, MA, in Orlando and we spent just under a week (Saturday-Thursday) at Disney World.  And that was the only time I c...

  I'm getting old...We all are right?  But I THOUGHT I was going to write a blog post and call out something that I wrote 10 years ago.  Only I didn't write a post 10 years ago about what I thought I wrote about.  (Is this making any sense?)   What I was remembering was a social media post I made on this day 10 years ago, which had a ton of photos as was labeled:  We didn't Go ANYWHERE today...I swear!!  Because 10 years ago today was not unlike today.  It was the day BEFORE a big birthday for me.  And I decided to do something fun on that day.   I took the day off of work.  I dropped my son off at school and a couple of hours later, my husband and I got in the car and drove to Skytop  for lunch.  It's a long drive just for lunch, but I wanted to do it.  So we did.  We left our home in NJ and drove to the Poconos.  At the time, the resort was undergoing some work, and you couldn't enter the pr...

  Okay, I don't have a tail, but that's how I feel.  I'm spending more time than I should chasing down companies that I do business with following up on issues that I shouldn't have to.  Or maybe I'm expecting too much?  I'll let you tell me.  Landscaper:  Okay, as a reminder, the person who did the outdoor maintenance in PA (there's no lawn, but bushes and trees grow like crazy) was deployed overseas this year.  So he gave our business to another company, which was fine.  I tried to reach out to them via their website and got no response.  When I called, I did and in March the owner came out to look at the yard (there was still snow at this point).  In April, I called again because it was just about time for a spring clean-up.  He came back, accessed again but no work was done until a couple of weeks later.  It was still early spring, but he and his team came and put out TONS of...

  14 years have gone by.  Although chunks of this day have slightly faded from my memory (I don't know whether that's good or bad), I will never forget that it was a Saturday.  And that the following day I was supposed to sponsor Rayna at her confirmation at church.  (I thought that it was Pentecost, but I Googled it and no... but then Pentecost would have been Memorial Day weekend, so maybe they figured we'd have a better crowd the following week...Maybe they did.  I didn't go.) I wish it hadn't been a month and a half since I'd last seen you.  I wish we'd seen you more. I still can't understand why our having James pulled you and Emma away from family gatherings.  How it bothered her. But she had a son, who we never met.  Who wasn't at your wedding.  But her mother was and that was the first time we met her. File those under things that I will never understand. I wish you were still here.  You SHOULD still be here.  Why, Why, WHY ...

 David died on Sunday. I can't remember when we met.  I know where, but am not sure of the year.  It was at one of the annual Beatles conventions that we used to attend.  A place where you met people and became fast friends, not just because you were a fan, but because you shared a sense of humor and understanding. David had a wicked sense of humor.  He was one of those people who you wouldn't think was funny, but he was.  The fact that you might misjudge him as staid and perhaps "corporate like" made his antics even funnier.  He wasn't the guy that you expected who would do goofy things.  That is until you got to know him. And then... He had two partners in crime.  Or at least two that I know of.  They were Kelley (his amazing wife) and Duncan (his crazy friend...another guy who could look at you with a straight face and then do something so funny you would fall on the floor with laughter.)  When the three of them were togeth...

  To say that it's been an "interesting" week is...well putting it mildly, it’s the kind of week as Alanis Morrissette would say:  "Well, life has a funny way of sneakin' up on you.  When you think everything's okay and everything's goin' right. And life has a funny way of helpin' you out. When you think everything's gone wrong and everything blows up in your face." Let's start with the BIG one:   the plumbing issue in NJ .  I went to work on Tuesday morning (and so did my son, which is another update) leaving the door to the basement unlocked.  The subcontractors (with the camera) and the plumbers were supposed to arrive between 12-2.  They showed up at the front door (not the back) a little before 2.  Thanks to technology (Ring), I was able to tell them to go around back and that Mike (who was not there yet) would explain everything.  Meanwhile, my husband (who was in PA) used Echo Dot technology to listen in and advise once they...