Bored

Bomb Diggity: Staying In Your Good Books By Sharing Memes About Books + A Very Special Reader Comments

/ Ally Bean / 203 Comments

Yesterday I learned a new-to-me idiom. It is “in someone’s good books” and is defined by The Idioms as:

If you are in somebody’s good books, it means you have done something good that has delighted them, and if you are in their bad books, you have annoyed them, and they are now angry with you.

Granted over the years I’ve said something similar [to be “in someone’s good graces”] but now I have another respectable idiom to add to my personal lexicon.

Also, I have what will be the catalyst for this blog post: BOOKS.

You see, my little popsicles of profundity, I’m currently at loose ends, a blogging wordsmith with time on my hands because somehow or another IT IS STILL FEBRUARY and not much is going on in my life.

Thus with the aforementioned catalyst in mind I perused my folders and files that are in order for once because I’ve used this winter to get my little bloggy organized for the first time in years.

[To wit please note, there’s a revised About Ally Bean tab; a new Best Of The Bean tab; an updated Blogroll 2.0 tab + a new Header image.]

Getting back to the issue at hand, after looking into my recently organized folders and files I found the following which I present without any personal commentary. Yes, this is unusual for me but I’ll admit that at this point in February my bomb is less diggity than usual.

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AND FINALLY A VERY SPECIAL READER COMMENTS…

After writing the above I realized the following bloggers who comment here regularly are also authors of published books. Seems like a good time to mention them. Click on a name and go say “HI!” Tell ’em Ally Bean sent you.

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📚 Now it’s your turn to stay in my good books, and I know you want to delight me, so leave a comment below! 📚

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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.

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SO WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

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

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Trashapalooza: Living Large With Two Paper Shredders

/ Ally Bean / 111 Comments
Stop calling, we have a winner for the most boring Project ever.

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Welp, I’m back.

And living in a house that has not one, but two, electric paper shredders in it.

Try not to be jealous.

You see, last week when the ungodly hot and humid heat wave hit our region, I was in need of a project to keep me entertained + cool.  Zen-Den had the week off so he was wandering around the house, in need of something to do.

Hence it came to be that we decided to go into our unfinished, but cold, basement and start doing something we should have done years decades ago. Yes, we bravely opened the drawers in the many filing cabinets down there and sorted through the documents contained therein.

Meaning that we found: bills and checks and insurance documents and warranty information and furniture sales receipts dating back to the early ’90s and… in what was the biggest surprise to me… all of my late mother’s federal and state income tax filings going back to 1984.

[She’s been gone 22 years.  I was executrix of her estate.  I thought I’d destroyed all of her documents before we moved here in ’99, but obviously I had not.]

Anyhoo, in the process of going through all of these documents we decided to invest in a second shredder so that Zen-Den could sort through files while I shredded the paper, feeding both shredders simultaneously like a champ, to keep things moving along at a fast pace.

And to keep life interesting.

Or as interesting as it can be, under the circumstances, while sitting in a dusty basement being responsible adults, shredding our past, for hours on end.

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Question of the Day

What’s your most boring project ever? Did you put it off for decades? Were you compelled to do it because of lousy weather?

Because It’s Still February & I’m Bored: 10 Trivia Facts I Know

/ Ally Bean / 113 Comments
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{ photo by Alice Donovan Rouse via Unsplash }

I don’t know if the following list is an example of useful information OR humblebragging.

I mean on the one hand, knowing some trivia can be fun and fill-in those awkward pauses in social conversations.

But on the other hand creating a list like the one that follows is a bit egotistical.  I mean in essence I’m saying to you, here are things that I know and you probably don’t.  Woo-hoo!

However, I have nothing else to write about today because February, the longest short month on the calendar, is never going to end and I am bored with it.  So why not share some trivia?

Ten Trivia Facts That I Know
  1. I know that on the Jetsons, Astro’s name before he came to live with the Jetsons was Tralfaz.
  2. I know that Cosmic Latte is the name of the color of the universe.
  3. I know that at one time Jell-O came in a Celery flavor.
  4. I know that shoes used to be made with buttons on them, no laces or velcro;  and that you needed a button hook to get the button-hole over the button on your shoe, so it would stay on your foot.
  5. I know that a stoat is a kind of weasel that according to folklore, upon seeing one a person must say “hello” to it– or risk bad luck.
  6. I know that coffee, not tired eyeballs, is an ingredient in red-eye gravy.
  7. I know that baby squirrels in the nest chirp like baby birds.
  8. I know that at one time in the English language you put a backward question mark at the end of a sentence when the question in the sentence was rhetorical.
  9. I know that chromophobia is the word for the fear of color.
  10. I know that you can make a passable martini using chardonnay instead of vermouth.

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NOW IT’S YOUR TURN TO SHARE, MY GENTLE READERS. TELL ME SOMETHING TRIVIAL THAT YOU KNOW!

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