May 2020: As We Continue To Stay At Home I’m Getting Silly

May 5, 2020 / Ally Bean / 209 Comments

As a longtime blogger and a person who attempts to arrive pre-amused to life, I’ve come to realize that I’m at my blogging best when I ramble a bit about whatever is bouncing around in my mind then write about it here.

I tend to naturally process my life in a way that allows me to be entertained… inspired… often educated… sometimes baffled… by what I see going on around me and within me. Once I’ve done that I babble about it.

No pre-planned editorial calendar for me.

That being said, here is a blog post written today, the 972 gazillionth day of staying at home. I am, of course, not alone in my home because my Sweet Babboo, who will continue to work from home all this month, is in the next room.

[Pretty pink tulip to any commenter who knows that reference… without Googling it.]

I’ve got big plans for the day, NOT.

Oh sure I may crochet a little bit, I have a wacko project in mind. I’m not good at crocheting, but I am good at dreaming up pointless projects for snorts and giggles. More on that as it takes shape. [Pun intended.]

Who knows, I may attempt to read a novel, something I’ve been unable to do since we all started to stay at home. Apparently when I’m frazzled by a world gone topsy-turvy I’m unable to focus on reading a book. This makes me sad, but self-awareness is good, so now I know.

Finally I’ll be fussing around with the annual flowers that I bought last week when I went inside a store, my one adventure in the world during the month of April. Stay-at-home-ness, I gots it 99% of the time, but pretty posies for the month of May are a siren song to me.

Thus having shared with you how I’ll be fiddle-farting my day away, I’ll ask you:

WHAT’S NEW WITH YOU?

Tell me your plans for the day. Or the week. Or the month.

Tell me how you’re feeling about your life as we continue to struggle with COVID-19.

Tell me anything, anything at all. Entertain me. Amaze me. Inform me.

Think of me as your agony aunt and ask me your question.

I am ~~still~~ here at home getting a bit ~~stir crazy~~ silly.

Please talk to me.

A Cautionary Tale About Socks: One Woman’s Experience With KonMari

January 15, 2019 / Ally Bean / 120 Comments

YOU MAY REMEMBER last fall I organized my section of our walk-in closet [discussed here]. What I didn’t tell you, my gentle readers, is that when I did that organization I adopted, sort of, the KonMari approach to tidying up said closet space.

Oh yes I did.

I’ll admit that I’ve never been 100% convinced her approach to organizing stuff is for me, but I’m open-minded so I gave it a go in our closet wherein I have a chest of drawers + a rod for hanging clothes + some shelves on which to put things.

Please note that in keeping with my experimental mindset I went full-out joy-sparking in that closet.

Uh huh.

SO LAST WEEKEND Zen-Den and I were going to dinner with friends at a nice restaurant in a swanky part of town. I was wearing black pants, intending to wear a new pair of black leather + leopard print loafers with socks.

Black socks, obviously. Because winter is finally here and for the first time since last winter I needed to wear dark socks.

All was good in my uber-organized sock drawer, or so I thought, until I realized that during my Marie Kondo organizational purge last fall I’d saved 5 dark socks.

Five. Individual. Socks.

They are: 2 textured brown socks, 1 plain navy blue sock, 1 plain black sock, and 1 tone-on-tone patterned black sock.

APPARENTLY I GOT a little too joyful, and a trifle distracted, when I sorted through my dark socks last fall, giving the ones I didn’t want to the Salvation Army.

I think we can agree on that.

But be that as it may this situation created an interesting problem in the moment for which I had no immediate logical solution. Thus I’ll share with you what turned out to be my four choices– and ask you to contemplate what you’d do in this situation.

My solution is in the comments below.

• • •

HERE IS THE SOCK CONUNDRUM I FACED

1) I could wear the matching brown socks that didn’t go with the black pants and cute black leather + leopard print loafers; or

2) I could be an outlaw a la Agnes and wear many possible mismatched sock combinations; or

3) I could go sockless on a cold winter’s night; or

4) I could give up wearing my cute loafers and wear black boots instead, knowing no one would see my socks that way.

WHAT DO YOU THINK I DID? WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

• • •

On The Cusp Of The Holidays, I Give You Links I Love

November 22, 2016May 6, 2021 / Ally Bean / 36 Comments

It’s Thanksgiving week here in the United States.

Much hustle and bustle. Much family related stress. Much TV watching for the non-shoppers, much discount shopping for the ~~wackos~~ people who like to do that sort of thing.

I thought a few fun links might be appreciated this week while you, my gentle readers, eye-rolled at familial lunacy OR made like a potato on the couch OR foraged in over-heated junked-up stores.

Whatever you decide to do makes no difference to me, but please…

Be safe. Be happy. Be.

~ • ~

A cheery anthem from an unlikely source that gets us where we’re going.

Details about wishbone karma just in time for Thanksgiving.

An easy way to make people more social. Count me in.

Are you a plotter or a pantser?

Spend some quality time with old friends.

Feeling anxious? Relax with these neuroscience-approved songs.

Here are the 200 happiest words. Use them often this holiday season.

~ • ~

My Reflections On The 2016 A To Z Challenge: The Outtakes

May 3, 2016May 6, 2021 / Ally Bean / 69 Comments

• Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit, I finished the 2016 A To Z Challenge. I know a few of you wondered about my ability to do this challenge, and I have to say bless your little pea-pickin’ hearts for being worried about me.

But you see, my gentle readers, this challenge did not, in the end, upset the apple cart for me. I finished this challenge because I used my noodle to make sure that I didn’t end up in a pickle while doing it.

~ ~ • ~ ~

• Sure, some days the constraints of the challenge griped my grits; but even though my writing process is slower than molasses, I did not allow that hard cheese to stop me from publishing each post.

I’ll admit that some of the things I wrote were about as sharp as a wet cornflake, which might have made me appear to be a few fries short of a happy meal.

~ ~ • ~ ~

• However, throughout the challenge, even though I didn’t consider it easy as pie, I remained cool as a cucumber and didn’t stumble ass over teakettle in the process.

While I’d never say that I was a huckleberry above a persimmon, I did finish the challenge, and came to the same conclusion that Snoopy, my spirit animal, observed years ago: “It’s amazing how many friends you have after your waffle iron gets fixed.”

~ ~ • ~ ~

THESE LAST 15 FOOD SAYINGS, THAT DIDN’T MAKE THE CHALLENGE CUT, ARE DEFINED IN THE COMMENTS BELOW.

~ ~ • ~ ~

L Is For Lime, Like It Or Not

April 14, 2016May 6, 2021 / Ally Bean / 30 Comments

Take life with a Grain of salt, a Slice of lime, and a shot of tequila

… is good advice that I’ve never taken literally because I don’t like to drink shots of tequila.

If I might be allowed to combine these ingredients with some simple syrup into a margarita on the rocks, then I’m right there with you chilling out about life, being cool about things.

Which is what I take this slang saying to mean.

~ ~ • ~ ~

OF COURSE if we happen to make it two margaritas, then I’m singing a song about a lime.

~ ~ • ~ ~

AND IF by chance we make it three margaritas? I’m wearing a sombrero because like Hobbes says: “What fun is it being ‘cool’ if you can’t wear a sombrero!”