Pondering A Quandary: Is The Goal Of Setting Goals A Good Goal?

/ Ally Bean / 139 Comments

from Gretchen Rubin

Welcome to my quandary of the month.

I took Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies Quiz [HERE] to learn what my personality tendency is. I am a QUESTIONER.

As much as I enjoy irony and want to say I question that result, I don’t. It sounds right to me. And it explains, at least to me, why lately I’ve been having a difficult time deciding what to write about here.

Does this happen to you, too?

It’s not like I’m not writing, totally bereft of words, wondering where Muse is hiding.  Nope, I’m writing oodles but I’m never satisfied with what I write. I have an idea, write a post, edit it into perfection, then question whether I want, or need, to talk about whatever I wrote.

Thus I delete many a post and try writing another one, hoping I’ll stumble on a different idea or point of view that seems worthy of publishing here.

Blogging has become one big old game of Ally Try Again.

And the thing is that after all these years of writing a personal blog my hesitation seems odd to me. I’m a free spirit [read my tagline] so wouldn’t it follow that I should just know | intuit | reason what to write about?

In the past that’s been the case.

However lately, much to my consternation, I’ve been floundering confounded by a strange tension in my mind about what to do next. And I don’t like feeling like this, it doesn’t seem like proactive me, yet here we are.

from Witchy Moms

So in an attempt to make sense of my behavior I decided to explore the concept of setting goals. Perhaps I need some? Could that be my issue?

I do tend to fly by the seat of my pants here.

Have you noticed?

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary a GOAL is: “the end toward which effort is directed : AIM.” Going a bit further, the dictionary suggests synonyms include but are not limited to: objective, intent, purpose.

In addition to the basic dictionary definition there’s always that business dude, Peter Drucker, and his old chestnut S.M.A.R.T.  This acronym stands for: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time bound.

It’s trite, but utilizing it could help me reverse my recent descent into indecision, I guess.

The thing is that the goals I’m contemplating, ones that’d resonate with me, wouldn’t be based on numbers because that’d be silly. I don’t need to focus on word count or publishing deadlines or reader engagement stats to feel like I have it going on here.

Instead I’m thinking about goals based on a personal sense of purpose. Something like a manifesto, but not so intense. It’d be a declaration of my raison d’être stated in the simplest way possible, perhaps embodied in a few NUDGE WORDS, maybe from the Growth or Adventure categories as explained HERE?

My mythical set of goals would be something I could use as motivation, a kind of thesis statement meant to keep me on the right track so that I’d not waste time pussyfooting around in my mind trying to decide what to write about.

Or maybe I’m overthinking this? That’s a possibility too. Following that line of reasoning I have to wonder if I should get over myself and simply show up, then write something, anything even.

Perhaps THAT is the goal after all– and I already know it.

Thoughts, anyone?

from Disappointing Affirmations

QUESTIONS OF THE DAY

If you write a personal blog do you find yourself confused about what to write about next? Never? Sometimes? Always? How do you handle that?

Do you tend to set goals for everything you do? Some things you do? None of the things you do? How has that worked out for you?

Do you agree or disagree with the statement: a good enough something, whatever it might be, is better than waiting for a perfect nothing?

In Which I Admit To Joyfully Thwarting Some Youthful Shenanigans + Reader Comments

/ Ally Bean / 190 Comments

 Joyfully Thwarting Youthful Shenanigans

Remember Muttley, Dick Dastardly’s sidekick?

It’s good to be an adult.

[Bwha-ha-ha!]

A few weeks ago we had an unusually warm day. The temps were in the 70s and it was dry and sunny outside. Around 4:00 p.m. I went into the living room to read.

Before I plopped down on the loveseat I decided to open the window just a little bit, about 2″, to take advantage of the pleasant fresh air. As I began to read I heard rustling sounds outside the window. That’s not unusual when you live on a wooded lot, so I didn’t think much about it.

It wasn’t until I heard voices that I became interested in what was happening outside the window.

“So you gonna do it?”

[Do what, thought I?]

I got up from the loveseat and walked over to look out the window.  Immediately below me were two neighbor boys, about 10 years old, who were scrunched down hiding in our bushes while having a serious conversation about what one was going to do.

“Maybe.”

The gist of their conversation, that I could clearly overhear through the open window, was that one boy had challenged the other to run up onto our stoop, ring the doorbell, then run back into the bushes to hide.

A classic prank, no?

They figured, correctly, that from their vantage point crouched down in our bushes they’d be able to see whoever opened the door and watch that person look confused.

IT WAS GOING TO BE HILARIOUS.

They just knew it.

So I waited patiently at the window. Eventually one kid found the gumption he needed to be a prankster. He ran up onto the stoop, rang the bell, then darted into the bushes.

THERE WAS SNICKERING.

Lots of it.

I did nothing except stand quietly at the window looking down on the youth below, waiting to see what they were going to do when no one came to the door.

[Truth bomb, I may have been smiling a bit too much.]

As you can imagine when no one came to the door these two boys were defeated. Their classical prank had failed. Their shoulders sagged, they stood up in the bushes, and muttered. Then the one who’d rang the bell stepped out of the bushes and started to walk across our lawn to his house.

“Dude not that way they’ll see ‘ya.”

To which the first one looked exasperated as he shouted back to his friend still in the bushes, “THEY’RE NOT HOME, haven’t you been paying attention?”

“Oh yah…”

And with that the boys walked slowly across our yard in plain sight, looking dejected, in a way that only failed pranksters can look.

And me, what did I do? I started laughing and am still smiling when I think about how I thwarted this prank. There are moments when being an adult is SO FUN!

Then, of course, who could forget Huckleberry Hound?

~ ~ • ~ ~

AND FINALLY FOUR READER COMMENTS…

About your take on the word Matriarch:

“I am the matriarch in my family, now that my mom is gone…and I don’t have a problem with that word. Or crone or even sea hag. So long as it is said to me with love, respect and good humour. No one laughs harder at me than myself 😂.”

~ Deb

“Call me any name you want to as long as I think ‘the shoe fits’…. ‘Elderly’ is a tough one, though. Some day, many years down the road, I may earn that particular stripe but only because of the eighty or ninety wonderful years leading up to it.”

~ Dave

“Matriarch is a word that means she is the head of her tribe, in my case, that would be my mother. My turn will come. Interpretation is a funny thing. Words are used in various ways and transform over the years, their original meaning becoming muddled.”

~ Dale

“Wow. I grew up in a matriarchal family so I see it as a compliment! Isn’t it funny how we all have our own perceptions based on our experience? Sea hag would raise my hackles!”

~ Kay

A 5-Question Multiple-choice Pop Quiz About A Power Outage That Rankled Ms. Bean

/ Ally Bean / 203 Comments

Yes, my little huckleberries, today I have a pop quiz for you. Anyone who answers all 5 questions correctly will receive a gold star ⭐️ which, I think we can agree, is quite nice. What more could you want? 

– – 🔻- –

Q1: What was Ms. Bean doing when the power went out at 6:00 p.m. on Friday?

A. Editing a new blog post about the meaning of life.

B. Playing an old-time word game, UpWords, with her sweet patootie whilst enjoying Classic Vinyl on SiriusXM.

C. Making a chocolate soufflé to celebrate the weekend.

D. Writing a strongly worded tweet criticizing Space Karen for ruining Twitter.

Q2: What caused the power to start flickering and turn off in a dramatic ending to a long week?

A. A roofing shingle on our house came loose, crashed down onto a utility line, and *bam* no power.

B. A crazed squirrel a few blocks over ate through an electrical line and *shazam* no power.

C. Torrential rain and high winds knocked over an old tree onto an electric substation and *kapow* no power.

D. Thor the God of Thunder, son of Odin and Freya and source of the name for Thursday, had a hissy fit and *poof* no power.

Q3: What did Ms. Bean mutter when she saw realized what had happened?

A. Now what?!!

B. Where is that damned squirrel!

C. The end is nigh, repent ye sinners while ye may.

D. Holy Fricking Mole-y! I’M. NOT. HAPPY.

Q4: How long did the power outage last and what was the temperature inside the house when it came back on?

A. A few minutes then all was well again; temperature remained at 68ºF.

B. A few hours just long enough for Ms. Bean to fret about the food in the refrigerator going bad; temperature went down to 65ºF.

C. 16 hours meaning that Ms. Bean slept fitfully knowing the food in the refrigerator had gone bad, but not the freezer… yet; temperature plummeted to 56ºF.

D. over 24 hours thereby causing the food in the refrigerator and the freezer to go bad; temperature bottomed out at 54ºF.

Q5: Did Ms. Bean and Zen-Den go to the grocery store on Saturday and spend mucho dinero to buy food to replace what was in the refrigerator when the power went out?

A. Yes, of course they did.

B. Nope, the power outage was just a blip.

C. Maybe, but first they went to buy a lottery ticket feeling it’d be the best way to finance the unanticipated expense of buying food for the refrigerator again having been grocery shopping on Friday afternoon.

D. What makes you think they went grocery shopping on a Saturday?

– – 🔺 – –

A Thursday Thirteen List: Stuff & Things I’m Waiting For, Late Winter Edition

/ Ally Bean / 256 Comments

Carpe diem? If only…

1. the kitchen table is in need of repainting [the pedestal part] and refinishing [the top part]. waiting for a bunch of sunny days in a row to do that.

2. an old diary written by my great-grandfather sits in a box in a closet in a spare bedroom. waiting to have the time to approach the historical society about it, hoping to donate it [and a bit more of his stuff] to them.

3. the last birch tree in the front yard has died and needs to be removed, stump included. waiting for dryer weather so the tree company can do that.

4. my desk is piled high with books, papers, stuff plus my normal pens, pencils, notepads. waiting for the muse of organization to move me to sort through the mess so I might feel less scattered.

5. the railing on the stairs between the first and second floors needs to be repainted. waiting for the gumption to do this tedious project whilst trying to decide which color to paint it this time.

6. the granite counters in the kitchen and laundry room are due for their annual sealing. waiting for a convenient time when we won’t need to use the kitchen for a few days to do that.

7. a few restaurant gift cards for places with lovely outdoor patios are taking up space in my wallet. waiting for the weather to get clear and warm, like into the 70s, so we can dine al fresco.

8. the posts that support the deck are going to be encased in the same Trex fascia that we used when we had the deck built. waiting for the product to come in and the exterior home improvement company to have the time to install it.

9. many old mirrors + framed art are sitting in the basement ready to go to Goodwill. waiting for the local donation center to reopen after its renovation is finished mid-March.

10. the husband is not really as unemployed as one might think he’d be after retiring. waiting until he gets his side hustles up and running to his satisfaction so that we might talk about going on vacation.

11. an ancient laptop sits uncharged in a guest bedroom that I hope to turn into my exercise | meditation | reading room. waiting to figure out the lighting in that room so that I can see the screen and start doing yoga daily in my own space.

12. our lumpy bed needs to be replaced. waiting to do a deep dive into information about and the expense involved in buying a new bed: mattress & frame + pillows & linens.

13. many paperback books that we read years ago are in need of being re-homed. waiting for sunny days so we can go for walks in city/county parks with little free libraries where I plan on leaving the aforementioned books, one at a time.

• 🤎 •

SO WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

[Also any words of wisdom about any of my Thursday Thirteen items?]

• 🤎 •

Learn Something, Make Food: My Report On Granola & My Recipe For It

/ Ally Bean / 226 Comments

Be forewarned, I wondered about the origin of granola and ended up going down a heck of a rabbit hole…

MY REPORT ON GRANOLA

Our story of granola starts in prehistoric times

The history of granola is intertwined with oats, a wild grain that was probably first cultivated by the prehistoric inhabitants of Central Europe.

No one is certain about the origins of oats but all agree that once milled the resulting oatmeal, when cooked, is easy to digest, healthy, and economical. It is the basis for many breakfast dishes, then and now, most notably porridge.

Granola owes a debt of gratitude to oats.

Fast forward to the 19th century

In the late 1800s as the US population became more health conscious, Dr. James Caleb Jackson of the Our Home on the Hillside health spa of Danville, NY, developed a dry cereal that he called “granula.” It was the first processed breakfast cereal in the US.

Granula involved oatmeal and twice-baked zwieback mixed together. It was disparaging referred to as “wheat rocks” and was intended to be a healthy grain-based alternative to a breakfast of bacon and eggs.

At about the same time Dr. John Harvey Kellogg of the Battlecreek Sanitarium of Battlecreek, MI, learned about Dr. Jackson’s granula and stole the idea of it. Kellogg, more businessman than doctor from what I can tell, renamed his product “granola” to avoid a lawsuit by Dr. Jackson.

Continuing into the early 20th century

Even though recipes for granula existed, like the popular one by The Sisters of the Brethren Church, Kellogg’s name for the cereal became associated with the product.

Ironically one of Kellogg’s patients at his sanitarium, a Mr. Charles William Post, stole the idea of Kellogg’s granula/granola and created his own version if it called Grape-Nuts.

Meanwhile in Europe in the early 1900s a Swiss nutritionist Dr. Maximilian Bircher-Benner of a sanitarium in Zurich created a dry grain-based cereal [because apparently who wasn’t?].  He called it “muesli” and his recipe involved oats, nuts, and dried fruit.

Fast forward to the 1960s

Because of the hippie movement granola made a comeback in popularity. Cups of it were popular at Woodstock in 1969.

Sometimes referred to as Sunshine Happy Hippie Granola, this homemade granola was made from a recipe that in essence combined Jackson/Kellogg’s idea of “granula/granola” with Bircher-Benner’s idea of “muesli.”

The new hippie granola hit mainstream America in the early 70s. This reinvented crunchy granola was much sweeter than earlier recipes of granola. It was manufactured by many large food companies, advertised on TV, and became associated with healthy eating despite its high sugar content.

Sources

BREAKFAST DISHES Granula, a recipe by Sister Amanda Witmore, of McPherson, KS, found in The Inglenook Cookbook by The Sisters of the Brethren Church [1906]

Chapter 2, BREAKFAST A History by Heather Arndt Anderson

Charles William Post, Wikipedia

Granola, wordnik

Granola Girl, THE NIBBLE, The Webzine of Food Adventures

Granula, Wikipedia

Jackson Sanitarium, Dansville NY, via #ArtofAbandonment on YouTube

James Caleb Jackson, Inventor of Dry Breakfast Cereal, MENTAL FLOSS

John Harvey Kellogg, Britannica

Maximilian Bircher-Benner, History of the Bircher-Benner Clinik in Le Pont

Peace, Love And Granola: The Untold Story Of The Food Shortage At Woodstock, HUFFPOST

Sunshine Happy Hippie Granola, a recipe by Donna found in Woodstock- Preservation Archives [1969]

THE CEREALS, OR GRAINS., Science in the Kitchen: a scientific treatise by Ella Ervilla Kellogg [1893]

The Origin and History of Granola, CULINARY LORE, Food Science, History and much More!

The Process of How Oatmeal is Made, The Clinton Courier of Clinton, MS

THE SUGAR CONTENT OF GRANOLAS Jane Brody’s Nutrition Book [1980]

MY RECIPE FOR GRANOLA

2 Cups Old-Fashioned rolled oats

1/3 Cup olive oil

1/3 Cup maple syrup

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 Cup coarsely chopped blanched slivered almonds

1 Tablespoon sesame seeds

1/2 Cup dried cranberries &/or dried apricots

1/2 Cup flaked sweetened coconut

Preheat oven to 300ºF.

Scatter oats over a large rimmed greased baking sheet and toast for ten minutes, stirring frequently. Remove from oven.

In a saucepan on the stove top, combine oil and maple syrup then bring to a boil – cook for one minute. Remove from heat and add cinnamon, mixing throughly.

In a large bowl, combine almonds and sesame seeds, add toasted oats, then mix together. Pour the oil/syrup mixture into the bowl and mix thoroughly.

Spread mixture in a thin layer on the baking sheet and return to oven. Toast for 20 minutes, stirring often, until light brown.

Pour into a bowl, add coconut and cranberries &/or apricots, then mix.

Store in the refrigerator. Freezes well.

~ ~ ☮️ ~ ~