Blogging Tip #88: When Your Writing Mojo Melts Away, Colorful Photos Work

June 1, 2016August 28, 2018 / Ally Bean / 49 Comments

Personal blogging is difficult when your writing mojo melts away.

This problem may, or may not, be a result of your air conditioner breaking as June begins, and the temps + humidity skyrocket.

Said lack of coolness in the air could leave you hot + cranky, without the inclination to sit down, to write something pithy, to fulfill your personal blogging goal to show up to your blog at least once a week.

If that should happen to you may I suggest that fussing around with your words isn’t worth it; instead post a few photos, preferably colorful + pretty.

And then promise your gentle readers, who you hope are an understanding lot, that you’ll be back next week after the AC is fixed– and, we can only hope, your writing mojo returns.

Not Everything Lasts Forever: Chatting About Luggage

May 17, 2016July 1, 2025 / Ally Bean / 45 Comments

Zen-Den travels for work, flying all over the place, using luggage that he’s had for over a decade.

Said luggage, an example of which you see in the photo below, is now held together, much to my amazement, with some lovely medium green patterned duct tape that coordinates with the darker green luggage fabric.

I’ll give it to him, the boy has style. He did this himself.

Lovely, huh?

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I’ve mentioned to him, as has his assistant, that it’s time to get some new luggage, with snazzy little twirly wheels and lots of outside pockets, but he’ll have nothing to do with that crazy idea.

He prefers, instead, to ignore the fact that time has marched on.

I can’t figure if this is an example of him being practical. Or of him being ornery. It could be either.

Or both, I suppose.

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I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but last week 3,000 bags were stranded in the Phoenix Airport after there was a TSA computer glitch. [Story here.]

Now as fate would have it Zen-Den was in Phoenix, where the piece of luggage featured in the above photos was going through the system. But did the TSA and/or United Airlines manage to lose his ratty old bag?

HELL NO!

Zen-Den’s bag made it through the system without a problem.

Which only adds credence to his ~~stubborn~~ belief that there’s nothing wrong with his dilapidated, scuffed-up luggage– that according to him, clearly has good travel karma.

As evidenced by the fact that his bag, when the opportunity presented itself, didn’t get lost in the system.

Dagnabbit.

V Is For Vinegar, Very Much So

April 26, 2016May 6, 2021 / Ally Bean / 27 Comments

Full of spit and vinegar

… is a slang term that implies someone is high-spirited, boisterous, full of vigor.

Noisy, even.

I have no idea when I first heard this innocent version of, shall we say, a classically crude saying, occasionally seen in literature, but rarely said in my world.

This is not because I’m offended by coarse language, but because this saying doesn’t float into my addled brain when I want to tell you that I’m feeling youthful and rowdy.

Too many words. Too idiomatic. Too easy to be misunderstood.

Instead, I’d rather tell you straight up and directly: I’m feeling energetic today. Watch out world.

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{ SOMETHING TO DO FOR FUN }

Here’s a website where you can create your own custom background noise. You can make the noise to help you mellow out OR be productive. It’s up to you. Go try it now.

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T Is For Turnip, Like Totally

April 23, 2016May 6, 2021 / Ally Bean / 46 Comments

Just Fell off the Turnip Truck

… is an idiom meaning that someone is naive or gullible. It refers to the idea that someone riding on top of the produce in the back of a flatbed truck is a country bumpkin who will be taken advantage of in the city by the smooth-talking folk.

I’ve never seen a truckload of turnips, which probably comes as no surprise to you.

What will also come as no surprise to you, my gentle readers, is the fact that I’ve got nothing to talk about on the topic of turnips.

Well, that’s not entirely true.

I could tell you that I have a t-shirt that has a turnip printed on the front of it with the words “turnip the volume.” It’s a dumb pun, but the shirt is comfy.

But do you care about that t-shirt?

Probably not.

So instead of pretending I’ve something to say, allow me to suggest that we once again agree that I showed up here, in good faith, and posted something as per the challenge guidelines.

Thus I hereby declare that I have written about the letter “T.”

And the A To Z Challenge continues on Monday…

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{ SOMETHING TO DO FOR FUN }

Here’s a link to a lovely downloadable “fabric swatch” that features, among many vegetables, ye olde turnip. Very cute.

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