Summertime And The Blogging Is Easy

/ Ally Bean / 14 Comments

I’ve decided that it’s time to shake-up things here on my sweet little bloggy.  I wanna do something light & fun & whatever-ish.  Something more spontaneous than recording the details of my life.

So this summer instead of my usual blah, blah, blah, I’m going to post once a week about something that interests me.   A topic that I’ve always been curious about, perhaps.  Or some photos taken during my week, maybe.  Or a things-that-I’ve-learned sort of post.

I’m sure that given the freedom to do whatever I want, I’ll dream up something each week.  Then I’ll write about it here on The Spectacled Bean every Tuesday or Wednesday.

Sound like a plan?  Sure hope so ’cause that’s what I’m going to do from Memorial Day [May 28] to Labor Day [September 3].

I’ll talk at ‘ya later everyone.  Summer is calling to me.

We Caved

/ Ally Bean / 22 Comments

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Remember two weeks ago when I told you that I had absolutely nothing planned for the week?  That I was going to spend my days in quiet contemplation with a book or writing or just being?  I was in a very good mood when I wrote that.  Possibility awaited me.

Well, that didn’t happen.  Practicality showed up instead.

You see, without any advanced warning, workers from the sprinkler installation company arrived– and began installing a sprinkler system in our front  & back yards.  A sprinkler system that we’ve tried to do without for all 13 years that we’ve lived here.  A sprinkler system that we reluctantly decided to buy.

A sprinkler system that says to the world: yes, we’ve been assimilated.  We are… suburban.

I remember when we first moved to this area we surprised our friends & relatives by voluntarily living like this.  Suburban, that is.  We’d always lived within walking distances of restaurants and grocery stores and parks.  We’d been in high-rise apartment buildings and historic preservation districts and old-fashioned city suburbs.  But never in exurbia, outside the ebb & flow of a city.

However, be that as it may, for the most part this has been a good way to live.  I’ll admit that.  Having space within your home and quiet outside your house is delightful.  And Z-D loves to come back home from his workplace in the city to an area that is nothing like the city.

So if having a sprinkler system is part and parcel of this choice, then I guess I need to accept that caving on this subject might not be the worst idea ever.  In fact, I suspect that come mid-August I’m going to think that a sprinkler system is the most brilliant thing that we’ve ever done around here.

Having come to the mature realization that: Resistance was futile.

My Weekend Summarized Into Two Sentences

/ Ally Bean / 18 Comments

√  When asked what color they stained their deck, she replied:

“It’s a color called– NOT THE ONE I PICKED OUT.”

√  While in the process of staining the deck when asked by her husband where she was going, she replied:

“I’ll be back.  I just need to change my clothes– BECAUSE I HAVE TOO MANY SPLINTERS IN MY BUTT.” 

… So how was everyone else’s weekend.  Did we have fun?

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{Photos added 05.22.12 for Margaret… because she asked.}

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{Please Note: the deck color that you see here is a warm pearl gray instead of a light golden oak as originally planned.  Fortunately our bricks have a gray undertone in them + our siding is SW Agreeable Gray so this “NOT THE ONE I PICKED OUT” color coordinates just fine.  No harm done, really.  In fact, Z-D really likes it so maybe it was meant to be.}

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Confirming Your Worst Fear About FB

/ Ally Bean / 10 Comments

The stock market certainly didn’t take kindly to Facebook.  I’m not entirely surprised.  In fact, I’m rather pleased to see that enough people in this world are aware enough to not waste their money on a company that uses other people’s information somehow to make money.

That being said I’ve spent a good part of the last couple days reading about/listening to friends & acquaintances talk about leaving FB now that we’re all learning more about FB’s business model.  And because I’ve left Facebook not once, but three times, I have become a voice on this topic.

Just call me a Facebook Rejection Early Adopter.

[FYI- I joined FB first in 2006.  I lasted a few weeks, decided there was nothing there & left– as did all my friends at the time.  Next, I joined FB again in 2009 because two friends, who I later realized were very lonely people, prodded me into trying it again.  I lasted 6 months before I decided that FB was too much of a time suck for me.  So I deleted my account again.  Again, I joined Facebook in 2011 when I decided to create a FB account for this blog.  I maintained the account for about 5 months, but realized that I was dividing my time between something of value (writing on the blog) & something of marginal value (interacting via FB).  Seeing the writing on the wall {pun intended} I closed that account.]

So here is the one thing that I really want to say today.  It is the one question that everyone I know who is still on Facebook wants answered.  It is, I believe, the real reason disgruntled Facebookians hesitate about deleting their accounts– because they know deep down they are not going to like the answer.   Which is…

Yes, once you leave Facebook you will find out for certain who is your real friend and who isn’t.  There will be no doubt about this because the real friends will stay in touch with you via non-FB ways while you will never hear from the faux friends again.

And some of the people who turn out to be faux friends will shock you.  Leaving you by yourself to wonder how you ever could have been fooled by them to begin with.

It’s not a pretty thing to find out– but as they say, the truth will set you free.  And free I am out here in the world detached from FB.