Jottings: A Thursday Morning Change Of Heart + Discerning The BS In Your Writing

March 7, 2024March 7, 2024 / Ally Bean / 241 Comments

Is this not true?

I WAS GOING TO WRITE ABOUT something different today, something that had to do with people on social media, but I got up this morning, read what I wrote, and decided that while the words flowed I don’t want to talk about people.

As in how oddly many of them are behaving lately. As in desperate to get attention by any means, often dipping into the realm of contrived moral outrage.

As in mentally unwell.

And tedious.

Crazy and unhinged even.

And here’s the thing, because I usually have a thing when I make a snap decision, I’m aware that crazy stays the course unless there’s some medical intervention. And while I’m a problem solver at heart, I am not anyone’s psychologist, thus these people and how they behave aren’t truly of interest to me.

So why talk about ’em?

As the saying goes, energy flows where attention goes.

Thus I shall put my energy and attention, and by default your energy and attention, elsewhere, laughing together as we talk about the following fun thing rather than focusing on the dubious conduct of some people.

Yes I’m rising above the hoi polloi, avoiding that which might be considered gossip, leaning into my better nature.

You with me?

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IN ALL HONESTY I DON’T KNOW how I came to be aware of the BlaBlaMeter, a bullshit detection tool, but I’m glad I did.

It’s fun, in a snorts and giggles kind of way.

Here’s what you do: the website asks you to input at least five sentences of your writing as a sample, then it determines the percentage of bologna sandwich in your writing style.

Based on my five sentences taken from HERE, you can see that my writing style scores extremely low on the BS scale. I was told, and am taking pride in knowing that, my score was a mere 0.09% and that my “text shows no or marginal indications of ‘bullshit’-English.”

[An aside: Interestingly enough when I input five sentences from the one time I used ChatGPT to write THIS, the BlahBlahMeter judged that story to be 0.19% and to show a few indications of ‘bullshit’-English.]

Thus I’ll end this post by suggesting that if you are so moved, give the BlahBlahMeter a whirl using your own writing to see what happens.

Make of it what you will.

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A Sweet Story About A Stroller, A Stumble, And A Stranger

February 13, 2024 / Ally Bean / 245 Comments

I’ve no particular reason to write about this other than to confirm that things can go sideways quickly and that random acts of kindness still happen, sometimes right in front of your eyes.

I WAS WAITING FOR the mail to arrive. We live on the curve on this suburban street so I can see the USPS mail truck coming from a long way off.

I realized the mail would be here in a minute or two so I sat down in the living room and stared out the window. It was mid afternoon when there are few vehicles driving around. The day was clear and sunny, in the 50s F so a beautiful day for everything.

I saw a young mom and dad out running while pushing a stroller with a small baby in it as they jogged along the street in the direction that slopes gently downhill toward a gully.

I watched as the dad nodded to the mom then took off downhill at a faster speed while she pushed the stroller at a decent pace, stepping like a metronome to her own beat. All was good until the mom tripped, lost her balance, and tried to catch herself on our neighbor’s mailbox post.

As she fell to her knees, hanging onto the mailbox post, she lost control of the stroller and inadvertently gave the stroller with the baby in it a huge push that caused it to roll quickly down the middle of the street.

Unattended.

Rolling along like nobody’s business.

She screamed to her husband for help but he had earbuds in and didn’t hear her.

HOWEVER AN OLDER MAN, probably in his mid-70s who I see walking slowly up this street every afternoon, saw what happened and, I kid you not, sprinted up the middle of the street toward the stroller.

He was flailing his arms and yelling at the dad who eventually turned around to see a stranger running to stop his baby’s stroller as it gained momentum rolling down the hill and his wife on her knees a few houses back while shouting at him to get. the. baby.

At this point the dad, who clearly didn’t know how this could have happened so quickly, looked so gobsmacked that I couldn’t help but smile at the dude.

Well the older man pushed the stroller back up the slight hill to the mother and went back to walking. The dad came back to the mailbox post and hugged the mom who’d gotten to her feet.

And while the mother was a heap of nerves, shaking, crying, grabbing for the baby, it’ll come as no surprise to you to learn that the baby and the dad and the older man were fine.

However after a minute, having regained her composure while wiggling her ankle around in small circles, the young couple with the baby turned around and walked back up the slight hill in the direction they’d come from both holding onto the stroller.

NOTHING TERRIBLE HAPPENED YET it was one of those moments in time, that transpired in a snap, when I realized again that we all depend, in some way or another, on strangers to help us get by.

Plus, being a pragmatic soul, I also realized that I do hope this young couple invests in a stroller wrist strap. Seems like it might be a good idea, all things considered.

‘Ya know?

QUESTIONS OF THE DAY

Have you ever see something happen so quickly in front of your eyes that all you can do is watch it unfold?

Have you seen anyone do a random act of kindness lately?

If you walk or run outside on sidewalks or streets, have you ever stumbled like this mother did? If so, what happened next?

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Repurposing Can Spark Joy: My New Standing Desk + 3 Nosy Blogging Questions For You

January 30, 2024 / Ally Bean / 258 Comments

With a hat tip to Marie Kondo who probably wouldn’t approve of my approach to clutter but would be kind about not saying so, this post goes out to procrastinators and frugalistas everywhere.

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Last week when I said nothing was going on here, I lied. In fact the story was staring me straight in the face, but I didn’t see it at the time.

You see, and the photos below will confirm, the story is that I’ve created a new better version of my homemade standing desk. The one on which my computer, Keyzia, sits while I write my posts.

In an effort to make my back love me again in the fall of 2022 I gave up sitting at a desk and thus began my quest to figure out a way to make my favorite current desk, a sturdy Pottery Barn number, into a modern-ish standing desk.

Granted I could buy an official real deal standing desk but I am frugal. And creative. And never sure how much longer I’ll be writing this blog, meaning that at some point I’ll no longer need a standing desk so why spend the money?

I got the idea for what you’ll see below from an Ikea hack website where someone had bought a small Ikea bench that they put on top of their Ikea desk to create a standing desk.

That is practical and cute as can be, thought I.

Then in a flash of money-saving insight I realized two things:

We had a wooden bench [from Ballard Design] sitting in the garage waiting for me to get around to phoning St. Vincent de Paul for pickup [with other furniture of course]; and
I’d kept that wooden bench stored in the basement for years, even though it never sparked joy within me, because it was sturdy and I bought it at the outlet store for a decent price.

Therefore instead of buying anything new, like from Ikea, I used what we already had here, repurposing the Ballard Design wooden bench by placing it on the sturdy Pottery Barn desk to make the perfect riser for my sweet Keyzia.

Thus Keyzia no longer rocks down to Electric Avenue while sitting precariously on a pile of World Book Encyclopedias covered in a tablecloth. We’re both happy about this improvement.

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BEFORE: my messy desk-type situation

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BEFORE: close up of where Keyzia sat

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BEFORE: the stack of World Books hidden under the tablecloth

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AFTER: a wooden bench soon to be turned into a standing desk component

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AFTER: bench on top of desk elevating Keyzia to a comfortable height

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AFTER: a standing desk with a tidy desktop because baskets sitting on lower shelf of bench encourage me to put my paper notes in one place

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3 NOSY BLOGGING QUESTIONS

When it comes to writing blog posts do you use a desktop computer like I do? OR, more likely, do you use a laptop or a tablet or a phone? OR, quite possibly, a combination of all of the aforementioned?

When you’re at home working on your blog where do you write? Like at a desk? At a table? Plopped down on a comfy chair or bed? Standing at the kitchen counter? Other spot?

Thinking ahead, how much longer will you be writing your current blog? When you end it will you walk away from blogging entirely OR start a new blog, maybe on a different platform?

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Show And Tell: Where I’ve Been In My Lifetime & Where I Won’t Be This December

November 29, 2023December 13, 2023 / Ally Bean / 280 Comments

WHERE I’VE BEEN:

Who doesn’t like a visual representation about some aspect of their life?

To wit, in my online gadding about I came across a way to easily make a snazzy map of where you’ve travelled and/or lived in the US and territories. Thus I applied myself to the task, did as instructed, and created the above image.

As you can see I’ve been to 35 states + DC. Based on the points tallied, I am on Level 137. How that compares to anyone else I cannot say because I have no frame of reference, I just know that’s my level.

Go HERE to make your own personalized map of your experiences traveling &/or living in the US and territories. Please note there are a few different background colors for your map so if you’re saving yours, mess around until you find the perfect color for you.

WHERE I WON’T BE THIS DECEMBER:

I’m bugging out of blogland for the month of December.

It’s been a busy year for me here at The Spectacled Bean, writing longer than usual posts and managing, what I think of as, comment-palooza. I figure there’s no need to force myself to do something that is, for the most part, fun and is completely voluntary.

So I’m taking a break.

I will be popping into Instagram [HERE] and Threads [HERE] so I’ll be around social media a little bit, not entirely off the grid, but for the most part I’ll be laying low like the introvert I am during a hectic time of year.

You understand.

QUESTIONS OF THE DAY:

• So, my little gallivanters, how many US states and territories have you visited or lived in? If you made your own snazzy map using the link, what is your level?

• Having blogged since the days of dinosaurs, I know that it’s easy to find reasons to not keep a blog, BUT it is more difficult to find a reason to put yourself out there and keep a blog going. If you have a personal blog, what is your reason for writing it?