Posts

Earth Day 2026

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  It's Earth Day.  What have you done for our planet? Now in its 56th year, what are we doing to promote conservation, and encourage action against pollution, deforestation, and climate change? While we've made several strides forward since its inception in 1970, it seems, at least to me, that in recent years, we've been going backwards.  There is too much focus on the now and not on the future.   Why should we care?  Why should I care?  After all I'm reaching old age and who cares what happens after I am gone. Well, I care.  I care about the consequences that my actions (and the actions of others) will have on the planet that my son and his friends will live on long after I am going.  I care about their children and their children's child....And yes, I'm being a sap here. As (supposed) intelligent human beings, we don't seem to take the care of earth very seriously.  Or at least some do not as we drill and fight for more oil. ...

Yesterday's News

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 Spending time in the Poconos and NJ means that we watch local news in both places.  Thanks to technology (and my husband), we can watch the local NY/NJ newscasts, but we also watch local PA news.   Saturday morning, I had WNEP (for Northeast PA) on as I wanted to catch the local weather. We regularly watch this station on the app on our TV.   Local PA news is SO different than the tristate area.  I like to watch both because why not? The newscast wrapped up around 8:00. The anchor said that  Good Morning America  would follow. However, my husband said that since we were watching on the app that probably wouldn't happen. He said most likely what would happen is that the news would cycle back to when it started broadcasting that morning. So, I was guessing we'd either start at 5:00, 6:00, or 7:00 a.m. . . . We decided to keep the TV on to see what would happen.  Imagine our surprise when after the break the local news did return, however ...

Cold? Cold!

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It's Monday, April 20th.   I woke up to temperatures in the upper 20s!   I also woke up feeling rotten.   I'm cold and I have a cold!   Ugh.   None of this makes sense.   (Does it ever?)   Where did I pick up this darned cold?   (And it's just a cold...not awful, but not great.)   Incubation for the common cold is 1-3 days.   I started to feel crappy when I woke up on Sunday...which also happens to be the day when the temperature started to plummet.   I was fine Thursday, Friday and Saturday. I was in the office and on public transportation) on Tuesday and Wednesday, where I didn't always wear my mask because there weren't that many people.   (Wear the GD mask Bfth!)   I was also in ShopRite on Wednesday night.   Thursday and Friday I didn't really leave the house. Saturday...   Well Saturday was a beautiful day.   I (we) had to drive down to the clock repair shop (https://bfthsboringblog.blogspot.com/...

The Secret of the Old Clock

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 Okay, there's no real secret, (Or maybe there is.) I just wanted to use the title of one of my favorite Nancy Drew stories in my blog post.  (It's the first in the series...and definitely one of the best, especially if you are reading the original text which was 25 chapters versus the revised "updated" text that was only 20 chapters.) When we bought the Poconos house, I brought with us the mantel clock from our house.  It was originally from my parent's house next door.  (Although there was another one there before it and now I'm obsessing over what happened to it.)  I can't remember if it followed them to the shore or not.  I'm thinking it did not, as a photo that I found shows it on my mantle in 2019, which was the year they permanently moved to the shore and in years before there was nothing there.  (My God I am getting old if I can't remember and am obsessing about a clock).  If I recall correctly, they purchased it in Bermuda (they used to...

WTF: An Iced Tea Story

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With the warm weather, my brain is telling me that it's iced tea season. Let me be frank, I am very particular about my iced tea. I don't drink hot tea at all. I don't like it and I've tried numerous times and numerous ways.   I am an iced tea drinker, but during the warmer months. Usually I drink iced tea only from Memorial Day through Labor Day. However, I will bend those rules if it gets hot early and if it stays warm longer.  When it comes to iced tea, if I'm in the mood for something very sweet (and I usually am), I will drink a very cold Arizona sweet tea. No other brand of sweet tea will cut it for me. (Unless you're talking about the Millburn Diner 's homemade sweet tea; that's another story but not easily accessible.)   To avoid the calories, I usually drink diet iced tea. I am a huge fan of Wawa's diet peach iced tea as well as their diet raspberry iced tea. However, it has been difficult to find in recent years. Furthermore, I no longe...

Meddling Mom

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 I'd much have rather titled this "Networking Nana", but wouldn't that indicate that I'm a grandmother?  And I'm NOT a grandmother!  (Not that I'm against it, but my son isn't 21 yet and honestly, I'd really rather him and whoever he might settle down with [when he does; I hope he does] do this after they both have settled into adult life proper, with jobs, maturity and such...although that seems to indicate that my son isn't mature and he SO is, but now I'm really rambling...) Okay, so here's the deal.  My son, who means the world to me (if you hadn't already guessed that from all my posts over the years), is wrapping up his junior year.  For his senior year he needs an internship (and then after that a job, but I'm not going to jump ahead yet) and it's been problematic.  As I said, he is mature and has been working on finding something since the fall, but...  It's a tough world out there, even when it comes to unpaid w...

Water! Part 2!

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  Before you read today's post, it might be helpful if you've read last week's post:   https://bfthsboringblog.blogspot.com/2026/04/water.html .  It's not essential (maybe it is?), but it will be helpful (definitely helpful). So what has happened since last week?  Well my initial post DID get some viewing.  It might have helped that I found the email address of the president of Aqua  and got an email response from her which told me I should expect a call from someone in her office.  Of course this was AFTER I had gotten voice mail from that person in corporate (L) as well as a local customer service rep (R).  Both of whom I called back and told the WHOLE story to voicing my concerns.  And THEN I emailed the president again and she replied:  " I agree that the customer communication needs to improve and am glad you brought to my attention.  I can assure you that Aqua PA leadership is aware and has already jumped on evaluating ou...