TGIF: I Answer Jill’s Questions Over There While Announcing Summer Hours Here

June 12, 2020November 7, 2023 / Ally Bean / 145 Comments

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THE JILL’S QUESTIONS OVER THERE PART

Jill Weatherholt asks questions, oh yes she does.

In fact she asked me to answer her questions, so I did.

Should you care to read my answers to her questions then click on I WANT TO READ ALLY BEAN’S ANSWERS TO JILL’S QUESTIONS and you’ll be magically taken over there to her blog.

Forsooth.

THE SUMMER HOURS HERE PART

Wanna know a secret, my gentle readers? Yes? Well then lean in closer and I’ll tell you one.

When I chose SIMPLIFY as my word of the year I planned on taking this summer off from blogging. Just bug out completely. Detach entirely.

However plans change. Perhaps you, too, live in a state where you are still being asked to stay at home? Well, we do and we are.

This is the end of Week 13, by the way.

Now clearly I have the time to post to this blog, but summer [in the northern hemisphere] is when I’ve found that personal blogging slows down to a dribble. Plus I’m in a blogging rut, in the mood for a change, a simplification as it were.

Thus I’ve decided to adopt what I’m calling SUMMER HOURS. To wit:

I’ll be posting my usual flapdoodle and twaddle here every other week instead of weekly.
I’ll be posting mid-morning, probably on Tuesdays, thereby allowing me to have a relaxed morning in keeping with summer’s mellow vibe.
I’ll be commenting less frequently on your blogs, keeping up weekly with the cool kids who keep up with me.

And with that I wish y’all a groovy weekend and a happy summer. I’ll be here when I’m here.

LOVE ‘YA. Mean it.

While Spring Rain Falls, Musing On How I Feel Now

May 20, 2020 / Ally Bean / 164 Comments

A prismatic spectrum of colors resulting from last weekend’s sun shining through beveled glass onto neutral chair fabric. Cool huh?

What a wet week it has been so far.

After a lovely sunny weekend that suggested Summer was here, we’ve been inundated with rain. Constantly. The kind of rain that brings flash floods.

Spring is back and says *HA!* fooled you, sucker.

My gardening projects are on hold because I don’t do mud.

Plus I’m a mellow woman so I’ll get to weeding + planting + trimming in due time. It’s not like the flower beds are going anywhere. Even with the threat of flash floods I think our yard is safe. It won’t be washed away.

Thus instead of being outside in the garden I’ve been sitting inside our screened-in porch observing the weather, watching the gray sky above, noticing the monotony of falling rain. This has put me into a contemplative mood about these last few months.

The great pause, as many are calling it.

These long days during which many of us are not doing what we thought we would be doing this Spring.

I find it trippy to realize that everything in society is being transformed around me while I sit at home waiting to see how these changes will affect me and my relationships and my lifestyle.

This colorful and smart graphic clearly demonstrates all the feelings I’ve gone through in these last few months. You too? [Click on graphic to go to source.]

On the one hand I feel completely insignificant. Passive, even. Just waiting, twiddling my thumbs.

However on the other hand I feel *hell to the yes* I’m doing something. I’m actively holding it together in the middle of a pandemic. I’m demonstrating a bit of grace + tact + cooperation while feeling wistful about, but not dwelling on, what was normal.

A normal we’ll never see again.

I accept that life is different now, but what I think it means for me, how I feel about it? Well, my feelings are all over the place while the hours pass and I muse a little more.

Waiting to get into the garden, and my life, again.

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QUESTIONS OF THE DAY

How are you feeling about these last few months?

Do you find yourself going back and forth, up and down, hither and yon with your feelings?

How do you hope to feel in the future?

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Rejoicing With A Glass Of Wine: Cheers To Tenacity & Typos

May 15, 2020May 6, 2021 / Ally Bean / 143 Comments

TENACITY, I GOT IT

AFTER TRYING UNSUCCESSFULLY for three weeks to get wine in our weekly grocery order for curbside pickup, we finally got some wine in the house.

How did we do this, you ask?

We joined an online wine club wherein you pick from their selection of wines and your wine is then delivered, a few weeks later, to your doorstep. All that is required of you, beyond deciding which bottles of wine you want and having a valid credit card, is to have an adult sign for the wine when it is delivered to your doorstep at an assigned time.

I am an adult, with time on her hands, thus I was more than willing to sign for the wine. Which I did by standing in my jammies, shamelessly, on our front stoop a week ago Thursday morning at 10:00 a.m.

And by having gray frizzy hair.

The friendly UPS man sized me up from afar as he walked across the lawn carrying the box of wine. He didn’t bother having me physically sign for the wine, instead he scribbled something on the electronic form and went on his way.

That worked for me, buddy. No need to be uptight about the signing part of the blessed wine delivery. 😇

Hallelujah!

FUN WITH TYPOS

LAST TUESDAY NIGHT I opened the first bottle of the wine we ordered. We were having salmon and mashed potatoes and spinach, thus I reasoned a chilled bottle of Sauvignon Blanc would be lovely.

[Truthfully I almost always think a chilled bottle of Sauvignon Blanc would be lovely, but I digress.]

As I was sipping the first glass of wine to cross my lips in quite some time, I decided to read the back label on the bottle of wine. I like to know what I’m supposed to be tasting according to the vineyard. Plus I’m into marketing, so I do like well-written copy.

When I can find it.

And even when I can’t…

Below is a photograph of the back label on the bottle of wine. Can you see the typo? The numerical one that made me smile?

And with that I’ll end this post by telling you we enjoyed this bottle of wine. Perhaps it was because of all the effort it took to get it. Or, perhaps it was because it taught me a profound lesson: YOU CAN’T JUDGE A WINE BY ITS TYPO. 😉

Happy Weekend, everyone.

May 2020: As We Continue To Stay At Home I’m Getting Silly

May 5, 2020 / Ally Bean / 209 Comments

As a longtime blogger and a person who attempts to arrive pre-amused to life, I’ve come to realize that I’m at my blogging best when I ramble a bit about whatever is bouncing around in my mind then write about it here.

I tend to naturally process my life in a way that allows me to be entertained… inspired… often educated… sometimes baffled… by what I see going on around me and within me. Once I’ve done that I babble about it.

No pre-planned editorial calendar for me.

That being said, here is a blog post written today, the 972 gazillionth day of staying at home. I am, of course, not alone in my home because my Sweet Babboo, who will continue to work from home all this month, is in the next room.

[Pretty pink tulip to any commenter who knows that reference… without Googling it.]

I’ve got big plans for the day, NOT.

Oh sure I may crochet a little bit, I have a wacko project in mind. I’m not good at crocheting, but I am good at dreaming up pointless projects for snorts and giggles. More on that as it takes shape. [Pun intended.]

Who knows, I may attempt to read a novel, something I’ve been unable to do since we all started to stay at home. Apparently when I’m frazzled by a world gone topsy-turvy I’m unable to focus on reading a book. This makes me sad, but self-awareness is good, so now I know.

Finally I’ll be fussing around with the annual flowers that I bought last week when I went inside a store, my one adventure in the world during the month of April. Stay-at-home-ness, I gots it 99% of the time, but pretty posies for the month of May are a siren song to me.

Thus having shared with you how I’ll be fiddle-farting my day away, I’ll ask you: