Games

One-Liner Wednesday: A Memorable Piece Of Marital Advice From Aunt Ann

/ Ally Bean / 169 Comments

This is one of those you-can’t-make-it-up stories.

Z-D says considering all the bad advice that is on social media lately I need to share this here. It’s a story from my past that imparts some memorable advice.  

Kind of weird advice.

I swear to you that his Aunt Ann said this to me years ago. And I’ll also tell you up front that I can honestly say I took her advice to heart.

But I’m getting ahead of myself here…

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Many years ago I went to a bridal shower held for moi.  It was ostensibly for me to meet about 20 of Zen-Den’s older female relatives, but was in fact a way for them to size me up.

They were not a friendly crowd.

It was an awkward uncomfortable event for me, an introvert, a sweet little lambie tossed in among the wolves, but I did my best to be likable because back then I cared about such things.

At this shower we played a game in which all the women at the shower were to write their best piece of marital advice on a 3×5″ index card.

While they got snacks I was to read all the cards to myself, picking the card with what I believed to be the best advice.  The person who wrote this card then got the door prize.  I can’t remember what it was, but these women wanted that prize.

There was a competitive spirit amongst them.

That I do remember.

I realized immediately that this game was a trap, the Kobayashi Maru of bridal shower games.  No matter whose advice I picked I’d tick off someone and there’d be repercussions, perhaps for decades.  These were women with a penchant for holding onto resentments.

Grudges were their lifeblood.

I did not like this game, but miracle of miracles I read Aunt Ann’s piece of advice and I instantly knew that I liked it the best PLUS I realized that no one there would ever resent me for picking it.

Yes, that’s how timeless and profound it was.

Aunt Ann told me: Never start ironing your rags, because once you do, you won’t be able to stop. 

Is this not so? And was I not fortunate to have Aunt Ann point this out to me, thereby setting me on the course to a life of freedom that comes from having wrinkled rag?

Huzzah!

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To learn more about Linda G. Hill’s One-Liner Wednesday click HERE.

In Which I Answer 20 Questions Because It’s Something Fun To Do

/ Ally Bean / 165 Comments

I haven’t done anything like this in a long time, so why not change it up? After all, variety is the spice of life blogging. Therefore today I’m answering 20 questions I found on View from the Back who got them from The Life And Travels Of Mrs Suvi. 

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Your most memorable fancy dress costume?

• A few years ago I wore a purple cocktail dress with silver sparkly trim to a black-tie business event that was a horrible affair. I was physically and emotionally uncomfortable the whole evening: my dress was tight & my feet hurt while I was standing in a room filled with status-seeking people cursed with negative energy. I vowed to never do anything like it again– and I haven’t.

Which social media platform do you use the most?

• WordPress

Favourite season?

• Autumn

If you had to choose the beach or mountains, which would it be?

• I’d choose the beach because I like walking on sand, looking at the waves, searching for shells or driftwood, BUT I choose this with the proviso that I can visit the mountains whenever I want to.

What can you play very well?

• Candy Crush Soda Saga

What kind of cheese do you like?

• All non-stinky kinds

Life goal?

• To put things or ideas or people together. Metaphorically speaking I see puzzle pieces everywhere and want to make the picture whole. Or maybe I see tesserae everywhere and want to make my own mosaic. In either case I put things together.

How many cities have you lived in?

• I’ll answer this by defining cities as metropolitan regions, thus my answer is 8.

What language do you wish you could speak?

• Spanish

What can’t you stand?

• A mocking tone of voice. The idea that education is of no value. Green peppers.

If you have an hour to kill on your hands, what would you do?

• Depending on the situation I’d: go for a walk;  read a book &/or some blogs;  play a game on my phone;  or become a lounge lizard watching the people go by.

Your favorite routine?

• I’d say it’s showing up to my blog at least once a week, usually on Tuesday, and talking with everyone in the comments. Like I’m doing now. *Hi!*

When do you become hyperactive?

• When I’m forced to travel by plane, often leaving the house before the break of day, I become hyperactive with worry about locking the house and all things related to the hassle at the airport. It makes me crazy until I’m sitting at my gate.

Text message or phone call?

• Text message

Your most precious treasure?

• I like things, but as for precious treasure I’m not sure any one thing would rate that designation. I mean, any thing I have can be replaced so how precious is it really?

Your latest foreign language mistake?

• I probably mispronounced some French word. The few I know trip me up when I try to say them.

What’s the best therapy for you?

• A glass of chilled dry white wine sipped while gazing into nature

If you could be a fictional character, who would you be?

• I rather liked Piper in Charmed. She could make a great meal, stop time in order to decide what to do next, and vanquish evil when necessary. Plus she married her true love. All-in-all, she’s my kind of badass.

Where would you like to travel?

• Dreaming big here: UK. Ireland. Italy. Hawaii. Australia. NZ. Vietnam. South Africa. Argentina.

Where did you meet your spouse/partner?

• We met in college. In fact, this past Valentine’s Day we received a card from our alma mater telling us that we are among about 2,000 couples who met on campus. Of course the Valentine’s Day card was also a solicitation for monies making the card less lovable, but the factoid was interesting.

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If you decide to do this on your own blog please link back to this post so I can go read what you wrote. Deal?

The One In Which I Talk To Myself While Buying Beer & Am Overheard

/ Ally Bean / 142 Comments

This post has been published in black and white so that I won’t be accused of trying to influence your answer to the poll question below by using particular colors in this post. Nope, not doing that here.

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I know that Super Bowl Sunday is a big day for gambling, but I know from experience that Super Bowl Sunday is a busy shopping day in grocery stores.

Keeping that in mind while I was at the grocery store yesterday, I decided to go ahead and buy food & drink for what will be our Super Bowl Sunday junk food feast.  It’ll be just the two of us so our snacking will lean toward healthy, but we gotta have something special.

It’s a law.

While in the store I decided to buy a six-pack of fancy beers, one of those create your own dealios, you know?  That’s when the store has a refrigerated section that offers a wide assortment [maybe 75?] of individual bottles of beer/ale/cider.  You pick the 6 you want, placing them in a generic cardboard carrier that when taken to the register rings a set price.

$9.99 to be exact.

Welp, I got totally swept away with the variety in front of me and found myself contemplating each bottle as if I’d never seen beer before.  I was smitten with the idea of having choices, and went with two local ales, two regional beers, and one national-brand ginger beer.  But I couldn’t decide about the last one bottle so I carefully reviewed all my choices, finally adding a bottle of international beer to the cardboard carrier.

As I did so, with a real sense of personal accomplishment, I said out loud: “And it’s Heineken for the win.”

At which point I heard a man, who I didn’t realize was standing behind me waiting for me to choose my bottles, say: “Yes it is, always.”

Of course I jumped about a foot in the air and started laughing, apologizing for taking so long– because really I’d been dawdling more than deciding— but this kind man just grinned and said: “No problem.”

Which in this situation was an appropriate response, so all’s well that end’s well.  Including, I do hope, football season this Sunday evening.

No Stories Here, Only The Remains Of My Inspiration File

/ Ally Bean / 68 Comments

It’s spring and you are on a tear to clean out your inspiration file. You have a vague idea about writing something about four cute images but you can’t get your head together to write anything.   

WHAT’S A BLOGGER TO DO?

Well, kids, may I suggest that you put together a post about the stories that you couldn’t figure out how to write, add the cute images– and call it a Tuesday. 

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One

I took this quiz and got 11 out of 12.  

NO STORY HERE… just something fun that you, too, might want to do if you’re curious about how much you remember about baseball in the TV shows you watched as a kid.

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Two

This is the color that Zen-Den painted our home office walls– and ceiling.

NO STORY HERE… other than to say that this a lovely warm gray color that when natural light reflects off the golden oak floor the walls look gray with a slight aqua cast to them.  Me likey.

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Three

I did a screen save of the emojis that I use the most.

NO STORY HERE… except that it seems like there should be a story here in which my inner-most self is revealed through my use of emojis.  But, alas and alack, my inner-most self remains a mystery.

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Four

This is a tweet in which I shared how to kill a scorpion.

NO STORY HERE… because I’ve only seen a scorpion in the zoo– and even though the zoo sells alcoholic beverages, those zoo people are fussy about visitors not murdering the zoo residents.  Go figure.

In Which I Explain That I’m Not A Cornflake

/ Ally Bean / 59 Comments

I like Janet. She knows things. She is encouraging. She is her own style muse. And her name? So easy to remember. { image source }

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Having reached Level 1000 in Candy Crush Soda Saga, I decided to give it up and download a new game onto my smart phone.  To play the new game I had to create a user name, a nickname as the game called it.

Anyone who knows me knows that wordsmith-ery and problem-solving are my strengths in life.  Thus, you’d think that I’d be a wiz at creating nicknames, wouldn’t you?

But in this case I became frustrated because I couldn’t find one that was not already in use.  I mean I tried basic ones, then I tried what I thought were unique names for moi and to a one, these names were all were taken.

Teal Flower? GONE.

BeeBeeBee? GONE.

One Fine Gamegirl? GONE.

So eventually, being a woman with a large vocabulary who prides herself on perseverance & perspicacity, I decided to turn this problem on its head and do the opposite of what I thought made sense. Hence, instead of describing myself as I am, I chose to describe myself as I am not.

And guess what?  Using this shrewd reverse-thinking approach I found a nickname that wasn’t taken.

Yes, my gentle readers, please share in my amazement that NOT A CORNFLAKE was an available nickname, that is now mine.

So on that rather absurd note, with joy in my heart about life’s funny moments, I’m back to blogging.

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How ‘ya been? What’s new with you? Got a nickname that you care to share? 

Just say something in the comments below. Talk to me.

I missed all of you. 

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