Sunshine, Paperweights & The Magic Of Perspective

June 10, 2014January 28, 2021 / Ally Bean / 16 Comments

I noticed that in the late afternoon the sun shines into our dining room through the French doors. I have a paperweight collection on a table that happens to be in the path of the sunshine.

When the light passes through the paperweights it makes beautiful patterns on the wall. The patterns are easy to see, weirdly shaped and fun to capture with my camera.

On a whim I adjusted my camera focus to distort the sunshine as it went through the paperweights and I found something different to see. Something vaguely familiar, yet unique. Proving once again, that what you see is all in how you go about looking at things.

The Fine Art Of Decorating With Booze

January 16, 2014January 28, 2021 / Ally Bean / 22 Comments

It’s good to have friends.

It’s good to be up for doing something that your friend, who may or may not be a bit of a decorating nut, wants to do.

It’s good to keep an open mind while doing that which your friend, who is on to a good idea even if it is a bit whacked, decides that she needs help doing.

So with the foregoing in mind, here’s what my friend and I did.

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We went to the region’s largest liquor store [an acre+] and we window-shopped for bottles of booze that would look good in my friend’s house on a silver tray placed on a dark wooden table, by the brick fireplace in the living room, with the walls painted dark barn red.

Keep in mind that even though we were in the store for an hour, we did not buy any liquor. Instead, we picked up pretty bottles of booze*, put them in our cart, and then occasionally stopped to create a pretend display of the various bottles so that we could see how they looked grouped together.

• • •

From the above experience I can confirm for you that if you are in a liquor store and want the employee’s to pay attention to you, do what we did. They were attentive to our every move; asking us frequently if we needed some help. Eyeballing us like we were inept shoplifters in training.

Not that I blame the employees: who in their right mind goes window shopping for booze? Answer: two middle-aged woman with a penchant for decorating and the desire to make things look hospitable.

Who else would?

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* In case you were wondering, pretty bottles included:

distinct graphics [Knob Creek Bourbon];
traditional bottle shapes [Grey Goose Vodka];
this color of blue [Bombay Sapphire Gin];
this reddish, not blackish, color of brown [Woodford Reserve Bourbon, not Kahlua]; and
these gold, not red, bottle tops [Chambord, not Maker’s Mark Bourbon].

Turkeys Before Trees: In Theory, A Good Idea

November 27, 2013November 27, 2013 / Ally Bean / 28 Comments

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I hesitate to even bring this topic up because…

Someone, somewhere is going to read what I’m going to say here– and that somewhere someone is going to start judging me. I just know it.

However, a bit of negative energy directed my way is not going to stop me from sharing with you, my gentle readers, the fact that:

Our home is already decorated for Christmas.

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I know that it’s early. In fact, I think that the #turkeysbeforetrees idea is a good one. Timely. Putting the emphasis on what is important. But here’s the thing, and there’s always a thing when it comes to Christmas, we are having a large house party the first weekend in December.

How large you ask? Well, at last count, 50 people have RSVPed “yes.” And this means, in practical terms, that the sooner we get the house decorated and organized, the sooner we can start fussing around with the food and drink.

So despite being a person who doesn’t like the idea of forcing Christmas, this year I am a person who, for once, is ahead of the curve on this Christmas thing.

I justify this by remembering three things:

the more organized I am about this party, the calmer I will be prior to it;
the calmer I am prior to it, the better the food and drink will be during it; &
the better the food and drink are during the party, the happier our guests will be.

And who among you, I ask, doesn’t want happy guests at his or her party? Hmmm? ‘Nuff said.

Something Different This Way Comes

August 27, 2013August 29, 2018 / Ally Bean / 19 Comments

“It looks like the repo man has been here.”

~ Zen-Den, looking at the mess in our home office

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Over the weekend we decided to start the process of updating our home office. It’s where I write this blog and I’ve never been happy with the furniture arrangement and accessories in here. Too dark. Too orange-y. Too blah.

So we ordered a real desk. Then in anticipation of its arrival we dismantled the computer system that sits on/around/near the horizontal surfaces that I’ve spent the last few years pretending are a desk. And finally, we dragged all this old, orange-y, non-desk furniture into the basement.

Bottom line? Cora, my trusty desktop computer that I use to write this blog, is now sitting on a little table that is scrunched into a dusty corner of the deconstructed home office. Consequently, this means that for the next few weeks until the desk is here and the computer system is back in place, I’m going to be away from the my favorite keyboard.

Considering that Late Summer morphing into Autumn is a beautiful and mellow time of year, I’ve decided that while everything is in flux I’m taking a proper blogging hiatus during the month of September. Might even extend it into October. We’ll see.

So with that being said, I’m stepping away from the computer and taking a bit of time off to enjoy my life without the need to write about it. Shocking idea, I know.

I’ll catch up with you later, kids. Be safe. Be happy. Be.