I’m Polar Vortexing Here

January 28, 2014January 28, 2014 / Ally Bean / 19 Comments

AS YOU PROBABLY ALREADY KNOW… this part of the USA, the midwest, is experiencing arctic temperatures. Records are being broken. Schools are being closed. Furnaces are being taxed. Prayers are being said. Et cetera, et cetera.

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BECAUSE I’VE DECIDED TO STAY AT HOME DURING THIS WEATHER EVENT… I am now in charge of:

running water through all sink/shower/tub faucets so that the pipes don’t freeze;
opening and closing blinds/curtains to allow sunshine + warmth, when available, to come into the house; and
monitoring the thermostat, so that I can fret over the furnace’s every clink and whoosh and thunk as it continues to heat the house.

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NOW THAT I HAVE A BIT OF UNEXPECTED TIME ON MY HANDS… I’ve started reading three books:

The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance, by Edmund de Waal. After inheriting from an uncle a collection of Japanese netsuke, the author researches his ancestors and their involvement with these objects. Fascinating.
One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd, by Jim Fergus. Using a few pieces of real history, the author creates a novel about a white pioneer woman who, courtesy of the U. S. government, goes to live among the Cheyenne, with the express purpose of helping the Cheyenne assimilate into white culture. Compelling.
Cold Tangerines: Celebrating the Extraordinary Nature of Everyday Life, by Shauna Niequist. By examining the details of her days, the author writes a charming personal memoir filled with gentle guidance for living a better life. Uplifting.

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OF COURSE LIFE ISN’T JUST SERIOUS PURSUITS… which means that I’m playing Candy Crush Saga as often as the game will let me play. By using this cheat, I reigned victorious over a particularly difficult level 77 in Easter Bunny Hills, but now I’m unable to progress past level 80, waiting to complete my 3 quests so that I can move across the lake to level 81 and the next episode. Stuck in the game, stuck in the house. 😉

Of Blogs, Beans & Bears

January 24, 2014August 29, 2018 / Ally Bean / 16 Comments

All the cool kids are telling their stories about how & why they chose the names that they did for their blogs. Read this.

Naturally, I want to be a cool kid, too. So here’s my story of how this blog came to be named, The Spectacled Bean.

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SHORT VERSION: I am nearsighted and wear eye glasses (aka spectacles) all the time. My blogging nom de plume is Ally Bean. Ergo, I am The Spectacled Bean.

LONG VERSION: I knew that I wanted to start a blog, but was dithering around about the whole thing. I kept thinking that if I could figure out the perfect name for a blog, then I’d do it.

Well, one sunny winter’s day Z-D & I went to the zoo. Many of the animals were at their best, loving the coldness. As a result of this, we stopped to watch some animals that until now I’d never paid much attention to.

One of said animals was the spectacled bear. He was moseying around his enclosure and looked rather dapper. Reading the information* about him I knew that he was just the sort of animal that had the right attitude.

I was smitten– and in a moment of divine inspiration I realized that by using a modified version of his name for my blog’s name, I could describe myself. Hence, this blog is called The Spectacled Bean.

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{ source }

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* Often described as small, adaptable and elusive, spectacled bears can “… while away the hours in treetops, occasionally feeling the urge to become productive when they build huge platforms out of broken branches, to help them get at out of reach fruit.”

Winter Beauty: A Simple Lesson In Perspective

January 23, 2014January 23, 2014 / Ally Bean / 10 Comments

Yesterday as I was going through some photos of winter scenes that I shot a few weeks ago, I was taken with the following simple lesson in perspective.

It’s a lesson that applies to photography as well as problems.

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Sometimes the simplest things look complex & confusing when you see them up close. For instance, here is a tangle of brown tree branches covered in white snow.

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Step back, add a bit of a blue sky and the snow-covered brown tree branches begin to look less chaotic. In fact, from this angle the tree branches appear more organized & interconnected.

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Expand your perspective again and the snow-covered brown tree branches in the foreground become incidental to the clear blue sky that forms the background.

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The simple lesson here?

By putting a little distance between you and whatever, you’ll see the big picture. And from that vantage point, we can only hope, you’ll understand what’s really going on.

I Know What They Mean, But Don’t Ask Me To Spell ‘Em

January 21, 2014May 6, 2021 / Ally Bean / 19 Comments

Here’s a vocabulary test that I took. It told me that…

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√ To me, this seems like a heck of a lot of words for one person to know. The information about the test said that: “Most native English adult speakers who have taken the test fall in the range 20,000–35,000 words.” So I’m well within the bounds of normal.

√ On this test there were words that I’ve never seen before. This made me happy. I enjoy the idea that even at my advanced age there are new words to learn. Once a geek, always a geek.

√ I was never a good speller and this test brought home that fact to me. I knew the words when I saw them but realized that without my spellchecker this blog would be filled with more ~~little~~ monosyllabic words than ~~big~~ polysyllabic words.