Oh Well. Whatever.

/ Ally Bean / 10 Comments

[This is my second attempt to publish this post.  How appropriate that my week should end with me unable to get one simple post to show up on my blog.]

It’s Friday and I’ve not accomplished one thing that I set out to do this week.  Nary a one. There would have been a time when this would have made me very upset with myself. Surly, even.

But not any more.

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven”  (Bible.  King Jame Version.  Ecclesiastes 3:1)

Good advice.  I figure that as long as I’m accomplishing something positive each day– even if it’s not what I set out to do— I’m doing okay.  I trust the process more now than I used to, and I don’t confuse my self-worth with the results.

Not that I don’t like results.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m very fond of accomplishing things. It’s just that I’ve come to understand that I can control only so much of anything, everything– and the best that I can do is to make a go of what’s right in front of me.

“You adapt. You overcome. You improvise.”  (Heartbreak Ridge.  Clint Eastwood as Gunnery Sergeant Thomas Highway)

So that’s what I’ve done this week.  Spent more time online than I would have liked. Spent more time researching future projects than I wanted to. Spent more time goofing around in the kitchen and in the garden.  All the while not finishing that which I wanted to finish.  That which I’d planned on finishing this week.

Don’t know what it all means.  Don’t know that it matters.  This is just where I find myself on a Friday afternoon.  Nowhere near where I thought I’d be on Monday morning.

Again.

Me, Myself & Why Not?

/ Ally Bean / 8 Comments

:: Me ::

“How many hours have you wasted trying to think of something suitably witty, funny and original for your status on Facebook or Twitter?” ~ Generatus  I found this site as I was surfing along, so naturally I had to try it.  My status update, in the purple box above, is delightfully accurate.

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:: Myself ::

“What’s happening?” ~ Twitter As some of you know already, I was not immediately taken with Twitter.  But instead of giving up I asked for some guidance, and many blogger/tweeters came forward to help me understand the medium.  Thank you.  Now I’m on Twitter just about every day tweeting along with the rest of them.  Learning lots.  Laughing often.  Loving much.  You can find me @spectacledbean.

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:: Why Not? ::

“Yikes  Something went wrong! But don’t worry, we’re on it — and we’ll try to get it fixed as soon as we can.” ~ Pinterest  I’m enjoying my Pinterest account when it works.  Have you started one yet?  It’s addictive;  I was warned, but I jumped in any way.  Click here to see what I’ve accumulated so far.

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So this is what I’ve been up to lately while online. How about you?  What cool things are you doing? 

Ignored At The Zoo

/ Ally Bean / 9 Comments

Yesterday afternoon Z-D and I went to the zoo.  It was hot and humid outside, but there was a light breeze.  I thought that I might be able to get some fun shots of the animals.  I was wrong.

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We were ignored by a little brown wild bird, even though I was standing about 18″ away from him when I took this photo.

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We were ignored by many turtles who ducked under the water the nanosecond before I clicked this photo.

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We were given the cold shoulder by the okapi…  

… who then wandered to the back of her enclosure, just to make sure that we got the message that we weren’t wanted there.

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We were warned off by this less than friendly sign posted by the gorillas.

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And finally we were ignored by this hippopotamus who had better things to do than pose for the camera.

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It’s a good thing that I have a quite a bit of experience with being ignored– and surviving the emotional shock of such indifference.  Heck, I’m a free spirit in suburbia, remember. Still, I have to admit that I thought that at the zoo, at least, something might pay attention to me, and help me achieve my goal.

But no such luck.  *sigh*

A Garden Wall Worthy Of Fred & Wilma

/ Ally Bean / 2 Comments

[Sub-titled: So You’re Really Going To Do This, Huh?]

Last week while the stock market was on the roller coaster ride of our lifetimes, we decided to do something a little bit different with our money.  Why not invest in something stable, said we.  How about finally getting the back of our property to look like something resembling a backyard, said we.  So…

We had this concrete wall built.  It’s very Flintstone-esque, don’t you think?

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What I Learned About Having A Garden Wall Built

√  Unlike the land excavating guy who said that he’d be at our house at 8:00 a.m. on Monday and arrived at 3:15 p.m. on Wednesday, when the concrete guy said that he and his crew would there at 5:30 a.m. on Thursday, they were.  With lots of battery-powered lights.  Trying to work quietly, not succeeding.

√  It took 5 hours to create the 2.5′ x 4′ footers.  Two of those hours involved the crew sitting around on the ground, listening to music, laughing among themselves, eating snacks– waiting for the footers to become solid enough to continue on with the wall.  We paid for them to do this, of course.

√  It took about 3 hours for 9 men to build this 30′ x 4′ free-form concrete wall.  A truck in front of the house pumped a foamy kind of concrete through a 90′ hose to the backyard. Two men positioned the concrete, which looked like toothpaste being squeezed out of a tube, along the wall line by slowly walking back and forth; they stopped when the concrete was 4′ high. Then the rest of the men, each holding a trowel in one hand and a paintbrush in the other, shaped the wall.  It was the darndest thing to watch.

√  After the wall was stable and had air-dried for about an hour, a man stained it to look like naturally formed rock.  He used two different colors of paint in sprayers, a water sprayer, and a paint brush dipped in stain.  It took him maybe 45 minutes to do this.  He told me that he wanted the wall to look like “God had put it there.”

√  It takes about a week for this concrete to cure.  So until that happens, the land excavator guy can’t fill behind our wall with dirt to create our yard.  Meaning… there will be more to this story.

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[Please note: This is Phase Two of a three-part project.  Phase One is here.  Phase Three is here.]