Bfth's Boring Blog

It's the last day of April. And I'm hoping it's the last day (or nearly the last day) of cold weather.  We keep getting hints of spring and then the temperature goes down and my heating system turns on.  With gas prices being at historic highs (you know why and you know who to thank), every time I hear it click on I start to stress.  (I also stressed when I filled my car's gas tank yesterday, other than after Hurricane Kristina in 2005, I don't think I've ever seen prices quite so high and we all know they aren't going any time soon!) It's also kind of funny that I just scheduled A/C maintenance for next week.  (Don't want a rerun of last year when we turned on the A/C on the first really hot day and nothing happened!)  Also funny is that I also need to schedule a heating tune up for the fall for the NJ house (which has no A/C system).  Yes, they want me to schedule it now...so I will.   This is also the last day of classes for my son.  J...

 Yes she's still as spry as ever.  Clear headed.  Charming.  Eager.  Independent.  And still solving mysteries.  I'm talking about one of my favorite characters in literature (and yes, the books deserve to be called literature):  Nancy Drew. Nancy has been in my life for a LONG time.  (No, I'm not 96...not yet.)  My mother had saved some of the Nancy Drews she had as a girl.  (How I wish there had been more; how I wish she and I took better care of them.)  They were not original editions, but they were original text.  And most of them had their original dust jackets.  (Which is where I really wish I had taken better care of them.  I took them off to keep them "safe' and in hindsight, they would have been safer and in better condition if I just let them stay.)  I don't know what drew (pun intended?) my mother to the series as a girl.  She didn't have them all.  She had 1-3 (which originally were pub...

I am in NJ today (came back over the weekend for a party...which may be a future post) and had to run to the grocery store.  Since things can get a little crazy at the ShopRite later in the day, I decided to go relatively early in the morning.  (But not too early...although I do miss the days when I was in the store by 6 and out by 6:30).  I only needed a few things (sale items that I no will not be available at the ShopRite in PA when I go back) so I was in and back on the road home before 8.  As a result I saw something I haven't seen in a long time; kids walking to school.   All of a sudden I was filled with emotion and taken back to the days when my son was little.  From pre-school on he was a walker to school.  (Okay, when he got to high school it was less so, but I'll get to that.) As my son is about to wrap us his junior year of college (how the hell did that happen?), I couldn't help but re minisce on those days of the past. Walking w...

 ...Happened 20 years ago today. There are many important dates and steps when adopting a baby/child.  I've forgotten too many of them.  The day in April 2005 that my husband called me (and I didn't answer because even though I had 2 cell phones at the time, I was in a business meeting and could get to neither) telling me that a birth mother was interested in us.  The day in May 2005, when we had our first phone call with our birth mother and spent too much time (at least for the lady at the adoption agency) talking about classic rock, Stephen King novels and Spamalot.  The weekend in June (I believe June 11th and 12th...which would have been my father's birthday weekend) when we drove 4+ hours to meet our birth mother, went out to dinner with her family and then had breakfast with her and the birth father (who was no longer in our birth mother's life.)  A day in June when my husband, mother-in-law and father-in-law went shopping for baby supplies and then ...

  Last week was National Library Week and I was thinking about the topic all last week, but only got around to doing something about it until after the fact.  Does that make me like an overdue library book? Sometimes I wonder if I should have been a librarian.  I'm an avid reader.  (I think that much is obvious.)  I love books. We have a "library" in our house in PA...it's pretty much floor to ceiling shelves, purchased from Ikea, FILLED with books and the room's closet is filled with books.  In the living room I have two Barrister bookcases that house my beloved Nancy Drews as well as additional books from my youth.  I am still upset that I lost many of my favorite young adult books to basement mold and dampness.   I can remember books that I took out from my elementary school library (I was particularly fond of  No Flying in the House  by Betty Brock), as well as middle school (I took out Betty Greene's   Morning Is a Lo...

 ...April 25th.  If you don't get the joke, go look it up.  Or better yet, after you do that go watch the movie.  (The original; not the sequel.)  It's not one of my all-time favorites or even a "comfort movie" (For me they are not the same; there are movies that are not favorites, but I watch them because they are comforting and/or calming to me...they include, but are not limited to:   Indiscreet ,  Radio Days ,  Laura ,  Godspell ,  Knives Out ,  Postcards from the Edge ...let's just leave it there for now.) However it IS a fun movie and it IS April 25th so maybe we should all watch it. Of course this perfect date isn't so perfect today.  It's in the 40s, so I don't know if a light jacket would cut it.  Also it's raining.  Because, of course it's raining on a weekend.  You know the time when I CAN go outside (if it's warm enough) and relax.  Don't think that's happening today.  Altho...