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Happy Tuesday: 8 Random Links Presented For Your Eggheaded Enjoyment

/ Ally Bean / 214 Comments

THIS is one of those weird weeks that happens every year.

If you celebrate Easter in a religious way then this is Holy Week and you’re being churchy almost every day. Also Ramadan continues through this week & Passover starts mid-week.

And of course this year we’re adding the political circus that surrounds The Donald.

HOWEVER if these religious holidays are not part of your family traditions and you’re doing your best to not let The Donald live rent-free in your mind, then this week, I’m guessing, is no big deal for you and you’re focused on eating chocolate.

I come to this conclusion having recently shopped at Kroger where chocolate dominates every aisle.

[A digression: Our local store is being remodeled so shopping is like a scavenger hunt. Has been for weeks. It may be that I’m seeing chocolate everywhere because the same displays are being moved around daily.] 

ANYHOW past experience has taught me, the intrepid blogger, that this will be a slow week in blogland. And that’s okay by me.

So instead of my usual flapdoodle and twaddle, I’ll share the following links that I’ve been saving for a week like this one.

Enjoy! Let me know what you think in the comments below.

8 RANDOM LINKS FOR EGGHEADS

• This isn’t how Marie Kondo does things, but I’m here for the magic of knolling.

• Laughed while reading this and refuse to answer these questions dubbed 5 of the worse interview questions.

• There’s more to life than skinny jeans and this quiz will help you determine which cut is your style now.

• Makes good sense to keep your terracotta pots clean.

• Only knew a few of the names for beer can and bottle sizes, but feel better informed even if I’ll stick with a standard can or longneck bottle size.

• Been enjoying Wordiply every morning as a kind of warm-up for using my words elsewhere.

• Who among us hasn’t longed for a medieval mac and cheese recipe and the history associated with it?

• And finally a look at flapper fashion…

~ ~ 💚 ~ ~

In Which I Say Aloha: Metaphysical Motivation + Mango Madness

/ Ally Bean / 254 Comments

Photo by Shutterbug75 on Pixabay

Talking About Metaphysical Motivation Here

Years ago I had a yoga teacher who based each week of her class on one of the Seven Huna Principles. Are you familiar with them?

I’d forgotten about them but I found them lurking in a folder in my desk drawer where I’d tossed the folder in one of my many scattered moments. The folder contained a formal list of the principles attributed to Serge Kahili King and some of my hand-written notes about them.

Allow me to explain.

According to an article HERE at LearnReligions.com*, in the Hawaiian language ‘huna’ means ‘secret’ as in connecting to your highest self. By using the Huna Principles as guides to better personal understanding, you can “bring about healing and harmony through the power of the mind.”

I’ve listed the principles first with the Hawaiian word, then King’s definition of the word. In the brackets that follow I include information from my hand-written notes, the source of which was that yoga teacher years ago.

THE SEVEN HUNA PRINCIPLES

IKE – The world is what you think it is [This is awareness as in SEEING]

KALA – There are no limits, everything is possible [This is freedom as in CLEARING]

MAKIA – Energy flows where attention goes [This is concentration as in FOCUSING]

MANAWA – Now is the moment of power [This is persistence as in PRESENCE]

ALOHA – To love is to be happy with [This is joy as in BLESSING]

MANA – All power comes from within [This is confidence as in EMPOWERING]

PONO – Effectiveness is the measure of truth [This is wisdom as in DREAM-WEAVING]

Bingo Bango That’s Our Mango

For me this year March Madness has been Mango-centric.

My infatuation with mangoes started years ago when we visited Hawaii. Sure, when you think of that state pineapple gets top billing, but Hawaii also grows the yummiest mangoes that ever were.

I’m always on the lookout for recipes that involve fruit mangoes**.

Thus when I saw a recipe in The Washington Post’s Voraciously food section, I was intrigued. The recipe was for Mango Pudding [available HERE on the other side of a paywall that just goes to prove that Mr. Bezos is mean & greedy]. I tried it and it’s easy to make because you use a blender. I’ve made it a few times now, tweaking it each time to add a bit more flavor.

Then while researching something else I stumbled over a recipe for Mango Pie not hidden behind a paywall, available HERE on THE WOKS OF LIFE.  It’s like a peach pie with similar spices and a top crust. It looks and tastes yummy with whipped cream on it, of course.

And finally last week I found a food network recipe, available HERE sans paywall, for a Mango Bellini. This seemed like a no-brainer. I can’t figure why it never occurred to me to make one before, so I rectified that situation and made one. Then another one. Quite tasty, say the residents of Casa Bean.

* This article has what it calls a Reference Library section at the end so if you want to learn more about Huna go there.

** Should you want to know a little more about why I refer to them as “fruit mangoes” read my answer to Cee’s 2017 Share Your World question: What quirky things do people do where you are from?

Questions of the Day

What do you think of the Huna Principles? Does the wisdom contained within them ring true with you? If so, which one or ones resonate with you?

Referring back to the question I shared in the footnote above, I’ll ask you: What quirky things do people do where you are from?

Do you like mangoes? If you don’t, what’s wrong with you?

~ • 🥭 • ~

A 5-Question Multiple-choice Pop Quiz About A Power Outage That Rankled Ms. Bean

/ Ally Bean / 203 Comments

Yes, my little huckleberries, today I have a pop quiz for you. Anyone who answers all 5 questions correctly will receive a gold star ⭐️ which, I think we can agree, is quite nice. What more could you want? 

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Q1: What was Ms. Bean doing when the power went out at 6:00 p.m. on Friday?

A. Editing a new blog post about the meaning of life.

B. Playing an old-time word game, UpWords, with her sweet patootie whilst enjoying Classic Vinyl on SiriusXM.

C. Making a chocolate soufflé to celebrate the weekend.

D. Writing a strongly worded tweet criticizing Space Karen for ruining Twitter.

Q2: What caused the power to start flickering and turn off in a dramatic ending to a long week?

A. A roofing shingle on our house came loose, crashed down onto a utility line, and *bam* no power.

B. A crazed squirrel a few blocks over ate through an electrical line and *shazam* no power.

C. Torrential rain and high winds knocked over an old tree onto an electric substation and *kapow* no power.

D. Thor the God of Thunder, son of Odin and Freya and source of the name for Thursday, had a hissy fit and *poof* no power.

Q3: What did Ms. Bean mutter when she saw realized what had happened?

A. Now what?!!

B. Where is that damned squirrel!

C. The end is nigh, repent ye sinners while ye may.

D. Holy Fricking Mole-y! I’M. NOT. HAPPY.

Q4: How long did the power outage last and what was the temperature inside the house when it came back on?

A. A few minutes then all was well again; temperature remained at 68ºF.

B. A few hours just long enough for Ms. Bean to fret about the food in the refrigerator going bad; temperature went down to 65ºF.

C. 16 hours meaning that Ms. Bean slept fitfully knowing the food in the refrigerator had gone bad, but not the freezer… yet; temperature plummeted to 56ºF.

D. over 24 hours thereby causing the food in the refrigerator and the freezer to go bad; temperature bottomed out at 54ºF.

Q5: Did Ms. Bean and Zen-Den go to the grocery store on Saturday and spend mucho dinero to buy food to replace what was in the refrigerator when the power went out?

A. Yes, of course they did.

B. Nope, the power outage was just a blip.

C. Maybe, but first they went to buy a lottery ticket feeling it’d be the best way to finance the unanticipated expense of buying food for the refrigerator again having been grocery shopping on Friday afternoon.

D. What makes you think they went grocery shopping on a Saturday?

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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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