Introspection

Welcome To Jibber Jabber July

/ Ally Bean / 22 Comments
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Scrat, my blogging muse, with acorn.

I STARTED KEEPING A BLOG when the earth was covered in ice.

Really.  It’s true.

Like one of my favorite cartoon characters, Scrat, the Ice Age squirrel, back then I focused on getting readers my acorn.  Keeping readers my acorn.

No matter what.

I posted almost daily.  Sometimes more than once a day even.  Can you imagine?

We all did.  Egos demanded it.

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I ONLY SHARE THIS RETROSPECTIVE with you, my gentle readers, as a way of introducing you to a concept I dreamed up last week while I sat stuck inside my house due to massive amounts of rain.

This has not been the kind of summer to be outside.  Too wet.  Too moldy.  It makes me itch.

So I thought to myself…

Why not return to a modified version of old-time blogging and post here 3 or 4 days a week?  For one month.

Like I used to do when I was new to blogging and commenters were a dime a dozen and there was a sense of community among those of us who were either courageous enough OR crazy enough to share all the details of our lives with virtual strangers.

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WITH THE FOREGOING IN MIND I have taken the liberty of creating my very own unique hashtag: #JibberJabberJuly.  It’s what all the cool kids do now, making hashtags that is.

Although they usually use some sort of acronym, or garbled words, that no one outside of their group understands.  Which I think sort of defeats the purpose of connection among virtual strangers.

But whatever.

To wit, I have used my propensity toward creative alliteration + my love of clear communication to gift the world with my hashtag.  Feel free, gentle readers, to adopt it, or the concept upon which it is based, as your own all month.

Let’s get it started jibber-jabbering in here.  Shall we?

Catching A Train To Nowhere, I Am This Week

/ Ally Bean / 28 Comments

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Some weeks I feel as if I’m getting nowhere.

As if I’m sitting at the station waiting for a train that I hope will go somewhere, but realize may go nowhere.

I know where I want to get to.  I can see what needs to be done.

But because I’m waiting for something outside my control to happen, I’m unable to decide what to do next.

So here I sit. Bored. Impatient.

Thinking that life could be more exciting than this, yet knowing that it often isn’t filled with adventure.

And if I am to be truthful, feeling apprehensive about what’s going to be asked of me next.

When the train gets here.  Where I am.

Eventually.

The One About Kismet & Guidelines For A Contented Life

/ Ally Bean / 16 Comments

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OVER THE YEARS, like most introspective people who I know, I’ve adopted all sorts of different versions of what I call the rules of life.

And sometimes babbled about them on this blog.

WHILE I LIKE my rules of life and feel that they apply in general, I’m self-aware enough to know that I need something visual + succinct to encourage me to face each day with quiet resolve.

That’s where I believe practical guidance comes into the picture. 

LATELY I’VE BEEN following the ideas that you see in the above photo;  I call them guidelines for a contented life.  I don’t know who wrote them, but when I first read them while browsing in T.J. Maxx, a discount store that I rarely go into, I liked them.

Now I ask you, what could be better than stumbling upon inspiration on sale?!

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Of Writing Prompts & Morning Walks

/ Ally Bean / 14 Comments

Here’s a fact about me: I read my horoscope once in a while, but not for the reasons that you might imagine.

No, I read my horoscope to get writing prompts.

On the days when I read my daily horoscope, I save the ones that I think will challenge me to think about my life in a new way.  Then on a future day when I cannot think of what to say, I peruse my horoscopes and use one as a way to start writing.

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To wit, here’s a horoscope from who knows when that got me thinking over the weekend.

Use your energy wisely to work with the natural currents instead of trying to control them. It’s not your job to eliminate the clouds; the sky will clear on its own.

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What did I get thinking?  I decided that even though I’ve almost always been a morning blogger, I’m going to change my posting schedule to the afternoon for the month of March.

You see, I’d like to use my energy in a different way.  I want to go for a walk outside each day, and mornings around here have the least amount of vehicle traffic.  [No sidewalks here.]

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So instead of plopping down in front of my computer, typing my morning away– I’m going to be propelling myself out the front door, trudging my morning away.

Which means that you, my gentle readers, will just have to wait until I’m done being healthy each morning, and [hopefully] regain enough energy thereafter to sit down and pursue my passion for flapdoodle and twaddle write my blog posts.

Guess we’ll see how this all works out together, won’t we?