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Voting With The Presbyterians: A Conversation About How To Get There

/ Ally Bean / 144 Comments

IN THE PAST

ONCE AGAIN OUR VOTING PRECINCT has been assigned to a different polling place. In the 20+ years we’ve lived in this community we’ve voted at:

  • the VFW Hall [smoke-filled with parking in a field used for their monthly turkey shoot];
  • the Country Club [time-consuming with parking at nearby Methodist Church, involved a shuttle bus taking us to the country club’s front door and then back to our cars];
  • the Elementary School [smelled like chicken sandwiches, had limited parking but nice landscaping to look at while waiting for a space];
  • the Non-denominational Christian Church [easy ingress and egress, adequate flat parking, short walk to front doors, only there one year];
  • the Greek Orthodox Church [difficult ingress and egress, limited parking on uneven sloped lot, many shiny gilded-gold objects inside building];  and
  • the Presbyterian Church [no deets yet].

BUT FOR TODAY

HIM: Where am I voting today?

ME: With the Presbyterians.

HIM: Which Presbyterians? The ones near us or the other ones?

ME: The ones near us. The ones who were hidden down the lane.

HIM: They’re not on the lane anymore?

ME: No, they’re in the same place on the lane but they’ve built a big driveway to the road, so that’s how you get to them now. They have a big welcome sign on the road.

HIM: How do I get there?

ME: Go down the road past the street that takes you to the United Methodists, but not so far as to make that sharp right turn into the Roman Catholics. And for goodness sake don’t go around the curve and make a right into the Bible Believers Baptist Church compound. Who knows what weirdness is behind the bunker they’ve built around that building.

HIM: OK. So where do I turn to get to the Presbyterians?

ME: It’s easy. When you see the big welcome sign on the left, turn left, and you’ll be in the right place.

HIM: Are you telling me directions to the polling place or voting advice?

ME: Both, I guess. Get on the road, go left, and you won’t go wrong! 😉

HAPPY ELECTION DAY

May you find your polling place without trouble. May you say *yes* to the school levies and mental health issues and support for the less fortunate. And for the love of all that is good and holy, I beg of you, may you dump the Trumpian chumps.

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This Is How I Make 2 Types Of Images For My Blog

/ Ally Bean / 98 Comments

Have you ever heard someone say that their mantra is to always be recommending?  I love that idea.  Information is part of what makes the world go round.  

To wit, here’s what I use to make 2 types of unique images that I share on The Spectacled Bean. I’m often asked about where I get my images, so here you go.  

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WHEN I TURN PERSONAL PHOTOS INTO ART I use a free app called Waterlogue.  It’s on my phone, ezpz to use, and offers a variety of looks.  Here’s an example of a before and after image.

First I took a photo with my phone.  This is that photo.

Then I used the app choosing one of their filters, in this case the Illustrator, to make my photo look snazzy.  This is the after.

As you can see the app has taken a so-so photo and turned it into a bombdiggity blog-worthy picture.

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WHEN I CREATE IMAGES WITH TEXT I use Canva on my desktop computer [or here for your phone].  It’s a graphic design website [or an app for your phone] featuring a variety of free templates, many pre-sized for any social media you might use.

First I picked a template.  This is the before.

Then I did a fast little rewrite using the first movie quote that came to mind, thus creating something clever and unique.  This is the after.

In this example I did a color change & resized the font but there were many free and $$$ options I could have used to make this image even more amazeballs.

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I hope that this information is of some value to you.  

If you know of other ways to create blog post images [preferably free] please recommend them in the comments below.

And on that note, with nothing more to say here, I shall wish all of you Happy Blogging.

Plugging In: A Short Story Of Computer Angst & Good Intentions Gone Bad

/ Ally Bean / 86 Comments

AS YOU MAY RECALL when last we met I was distraught about what I believed to be the demise of my precious desktop computer, Cora.

However, I was wrong about Cora.  Allow me to explain.

You see, Zen-Den decided to help me by unplugging my phone charger from my computer and instead plugging it into the surge protector strip that is on the floor behind the desk on which Cora sits.

He did this so that the round phone charger could sit on the desktop farther away from the round stone coaster on which I put my beverage whilst typing on Cora. There was concern, well-founded, that I’d accidentally, absent-mindedly use the round phone charger as my coaster, thereby ruining the charger.

Nice thought, good intentions.

• • •

THEN Z-D AMSCRAYED OFF to Colorado where he did Important Work Things leaving me with what seemed to be a dead computer sitting on the top of my desk.  I, of course, did all the requisite things one does when one’s computer appears to have given up the ghost.

I double-checked that everything was plugged in.  I banged on the keyboard.  I checked the mouse battery.  I turned the surge protector strip on and off.

I swore. I begged. I prayed.

And I texted Zen-Den who told me to do that which I’d already done, and that he’d look at Cora when he got back home at the end of the week.

Which he did.

But here’s the thing, when Z-D had added the phone charger plug to the surge protector strip, he moved all the plugs around on the strip to make them fit, not knowing there was a defective outlet on the strip.

Thus he inadvertently plugged Cora into an outlet that sent no electricity to her, so she did not work for me.  However, when he repositioned her plug on the surge protector strip, she came to life.  Like a miracle.

And there was joy in the land.

Huzzah, huzzah.

All of which brings me to the fact that I’m back to blogging, properly plugged in, happily engaging with Cora, and ready to share my own brand of flapdoodle & twaddle here.

Again.

Unexpected Rudeness: She Tried To Yuck On My Yum

/ Ally Bean / 144 Comments

A short story from real life. Mine.

Wherein, while at lunch, an aquaintance, who I shall call Grumbly Gertrude, was rude to me for no discernible reason.

I don’t know why what I do makes Grumbly Gertrude unhappy, but it does.  I barely know the woman however I’m guessing I bring out her inner demons.

As they say.

Anyhoo here’s what happened: at lunch with many people sitting around a table Sam the Sincere asked me politely about how my blog was going.  I answered in a few sentences saying, in essence, it was going well.

Sam the Sincere turned to Grumbly Gertrude and asked her politely if she had a blog?

Sam the Sincere, for some reason, was under the impression that because Grumbly Gertrude and I were English majors in college at about the same time, that it’d follow that we both wrote personal blogs.

He was being a kind guy keeping the conversation going, you know?

Welp, Grumbly Gertrude seemed annoyed with Sam the Sincere’s question, choosing to glare at me while she answered the question by saying that she did not have time to have a blog because SHE. HAD. THINGS. TO. DO.

Unequivocalness? She had it. Politeness? Not so much.  A blog? No way.

Of course everyone at the table started looking at me, waiting to see what I’d say back to Grumbly Gertrude and her odd passive-aggressive response to Sam the Sincere’s innocent chit-chat question.

And do you, my gentle readers, know what I did? You’d be so proud of me.

I smiled. Like Mona Lisa.

A smile inscrutable in its meaning, polite, but hiding my real thoughts about what the heck is wrong with Grumbly Gertrude and her snarly answer.

And about how a delightful blog post story had just been handed to me while I did the things I had to do– in addition to writing my blog.  🙄