Daily Life

This & That

/ Ally Bean / 23 Comments

{april – monday – morning}

√  I told you something hinky was going on.  If you follow me on Twitter you might remember that last Thursday I tweeted: “There’s a sheriff’s helicopter circling the ravine behind our house & 2 police cars racing up/down the street. This is not normal.”  Over the weekend I found out what had happened right here… in the ravine behind our house… in the middle of the day.

A police officer noticed a car without license plates driving through town.  It was a stolen car.  So, the police chased the four men in the stolen car into a cul-de-sac in our subdivision where the driver of the car crashed the car into a tree.  The police immediately apprehended one man, but the other three men escaped on foot and headed into the ravine that runs throughout this subdivision.

That’s when the helicopter started circling our house.  Eventually, [about 10 minutes I’d estimate] thanks to the helicopter overhead the police caught the other three miscreants without any shots fired or destruction of personal property.  Good job, eh?

√  We planted the pots by our front door with coleus this year.  We chose Mosaic, Jazz Rose + Black Dragon with a spike in the middle for height.  The colors should coordinate nicely with the green pot itself and the surrounding red barberry bushes.  [For an abstract rendering of the colors we’re working with go here to this cool blog called Field Trips in Fiber.]

√  I tried a new recipe.  On Friday I found this recipe, Homemade Chocolate Pudding with Baileys, in a blog called My Baking Addiction.  I realized that I had almost the correct ingredients in our pantry, so I decided to make the pudding with what I had on hand.

Because I used fat-free half & half (instead of heavy cream) + 10 bite-size pieces of dark chocolate candy (instead of semi-sweet chocolate) what I made was more of a sauce than a pudding.  Which does not matter because this was the most delicious tasting almost-pudding I’ve ever had.  I’ll make this recipe again with [or without] the correct ingredients to eat as pudding– or to put on toasted pound cake + vanilla ice cream.

√  As some of you know, I collect Le Creuset coffee mugs.  I have one of each color.  This weekend I got a mug in the newest color, Marseille.  I’d describe it as robin egg blue-ish [peacock blue-ish?].  Alone it is a lovely shade, but in our house it truly goes with nothing.  Zilch.

All of our blues are cobalt, or denim, or rather grayed– and this new color with a touch of green in it looks very out-of-place.  Still, it makes my collection complete, so it can stay.  But nothing else of this color will be entering my house if I can help it.

Yes, Yes, But NO!

/ Ally Bean / 19 Comments

THE RANT

•  Yes, it is wonderful that the home accessories & furniture that we purchased from Pottery Barn & L.L.Bean arrived on time or 4 days early.  And that all items were packed PERFECTLY… allowing for the inexplicable delivery incompetence that followed.

•  Yes, it is wonderful to know that $800.00 worth of merchandise can sit in our driveway in front of our garage door ALL NIGHT IN THE POURING RAIN without anyone or anything in our neighborhood stealing or destroying it.

•  But NO!, it is not wonderful to find out that UPS thought it was acceptable to leave said merchandise in our driveway without telling us that it was there.

THE EXPLANATION

In what is yet another example of the subtle irony that infuses my life, confuses my mind and exasperates my soul, Zen-Den got home from work some time before 6:00 p.m. last night.  [Rather unusual, but he knew that I was making scallops + orzo for dinner– and that boy is a nut for scallops.]  If he had come home later, as is his wont, then he would have stumbled over the boxes in front of the garage.  But, of course, that is not what happened.

I’ve had merchandise left in the driveway before, but in those situations the delivery person: 1) rang the bell;  2) knocked on the door;  &/or 3) left a post-it note attached to the sidelights around the front door so that it would be noticed from inside the house.  NONE of those things happened last night.

Instead, here’s what happened.  UPS delivered the merchandise some time after Z-D got home.  We know not when.  Both of us can testify that no one came to the door to alert us to the fact that our stuff was here.  Plus, being the reasonably prudent people that we are, we even opened the front door before going to bed to make sure that our new stuff wasn’t sitting on our front stoop or that there was a note stuck to our front door.

THE CONCLUSION

We were lucky that when we found the water-drenched corrugated cardboard boxes this morning at 7:00 a.m., they had held tight so that our two lamps + lamp shades AND three side tables DIDN’T suffer any irreparable damage.  However, I’m NOT HAPPY that my stuff was left out in the rain all night.  Would you be?

All of which brings me to the point of this rant.  UPS CAN DO BETTER.

And that, my friends, is all I have to say.  Thank you for listening.

###

[Photo on the left from Pottery Barn: Sutter Adjustable Lever Lamp + Linen Tapered Drum Lamp Shade]

[Photo on the right from L.L.Bean: Black Painted Cottage 2 Shelf Side Table]

[Well hello there FTC!  Very long time no see.  I haven’t been specific in my posts of late so there’s been no need for me to add this sort of disclaimer.  But today’s post is different, so let me assure you that I was in no way compensated for my opinions about the above items & situation.  We good?  Take care then.  See you later, no doubt.]

This & That

/ Ally Bean / 18 Comments

{march – monday – morning}

√  How great is this unprecedented warm midwest winter weather?  It’s so great that I wore shorts, a long sleeve t-shirt and birks this weekend– and I was too warm.  I needed to stop for an icy cold bottle of water from the vending machine outside of Kroger before we did the shopping.  Never in my life here have I seen winter shift directly into summer– skipping over spring entirely.

Me likey this year’s revised winter.

√  Well, if it’s going to be summer then I’m thinking that it’s time for me to make some The Pioneer Woman’s Perfect Iced Coffee.  I tried her method last summer and enjoyed the results;  the effort was worth it.  I don’t have to have a pot of hot coffee each morning [did I really just say that?] when I can have a refreshing glass of pre-made iced coffee with a teaspoon of sweetened condensed milk instead.

Try it… you’ll like it!  🙂

√  We planted a few pots with some pansies that we bought at Lowe’s.  They had the prettiest/healthiest/cheapest selection anywhere, so I am happy.  Of course, I’m always happy when I see pansies.  Did you know that in the language of flowers pansies represent thinking?

And with those cute little smiling faces and those bright cheerful colors– what’s not to like?

√  I went to the doctor late Friday afternoon.  My stomach has not been right for months now, so I finally decided to go see what the doc had to say.  Bottom line: I’m middle-aged + probably nothing really wrong with me so no tests + take some OTC meds in the way he prescribes = feel better.  I like this guy’s down-to-earth approach to practicing medicine.

Having followed his advice for 2 days I like how much better I feel already.

√  A bit of self-awareness never hurt a soul, now did it?  I’ve been thinking about my use of the internet.  How often I go online, what I do, what I expect to happen when I’m online.  I realized that I’m spending less time surfing the web than I used to do, but more time connecting with people via comments or tweets or pins.  I realized that for me technology is a tool, and will never be a lifestyle.  I realized that while I adore the immediacy of the internet, I also take pride in the fact that I can walk away from it without any sense of anxiety when I so chose.

Yep, I like this newfangled thing called the world-wide web— as long as I use it on my terms.  😉

Later, kids.  The out-of-doors beckons to me.