Every Leaf Is A Flower: 6 Links To Share As Autumn Begins In The Northern Hemisphere

September 23, 2025September 25, 2025 / Ally Bean / 207 Comments

I am nuts. I woke the other morning and the first thought that drifted into my mind was “crisp and clean, and no caffeine.” That’s a 1980s slogan for 7-Up. I haven’t had a 7-Up in years, nor have I seen any ads for it lately. So why was I thinking about it when I woke up? This is worrying me more than it should.

I am amused. I watched the Netflix TV series Nobody Wants This starring Kristen Bell and ~~Aidan~~ Adam Brody. It’s a predictable romantic comedy about an agnostic podcaster [Bell] and single rabbi [Brody] who fall in love despite their differences: families meddle, miscommunication happens, hilarity ensues. It is Bridget Loves Bernie updated for 2025. Funny, yes— but also filled with stereotypes.

Little me not smiling for the camera.

I am vindicated. I’ve never liked having my picture taken. As a child I considered a camera an intrusion into my little world, a way to slow my roll. As an adult in our selfie-obsessed world, I am an outlier who doesn’t take selfies. So imagine my joy when I read about a photographer who doesn’t ask girls to smile in their pictures. Not everyone wants to smile for the camera and don’t I know it.

I am empowered. As a kindhearted person who struggles with how to deal with some [shall we say?] willfully disagreeable people in daily life, I found this short YouTube video, Forgive Assholes | Have a Little Faith, inspiring.

The premise, as explained by Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber, is based on the idea: “What you did is so not okay that I refuse to be connected to it anymore.” After acknowledging this, you get out your metaphorical bolt cutters and intentionally break the chain that tethers you to that person/situation. It’s wisdom with a skoosh of badass attitude.

One orange fish drawn by adult me.

I am tickled. Have you tried this online dealio where you draw a fish then make it swim? Doing so is fun and silly and the perfect diversion when daily news gets to be too much. Some people draw beautiful fish. I am not one of those people.

I am chuffed. In honor of the arrival of autumn I made a pie using this Easy Sweet Potato Pie recipe. It was outstanding, if’n I do say so myself. My change to the recipe: I didn’t use the rum substituting 1 Tablespoon freshly squeezed orange juice + 1/2 teaspoon orange extract. Because Cool Whip is the work of the devil [my hill to die on], I topped the pie with homemade whipped cream.

QUESTIONS OF THE DAY

If you drink soft drinks, which carbonated beverage is your favorite? Do you remember its advertising slogan from the 1980s?

As a child did you like posing for a picture? As an adult do you like having your photo taken, either by yourself or others?

Can you draw a better fish than the one I drew?

Where do you stand on the controversial issue of Whipped Cream versus Cool Whip? [There is a right answer.] What culinary issue is the hill you’re willing to die on?

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Do Tell! Answering Your “Why Do I” Questions + A List Of Fun Friday Bloggers

September 17, 2025 / Ally Bean / 214 Comments

Answering Your “Why Do I” Questions

• WHY DO I rarely shop at Walmart?

While you may assume I don’t shop there for some political reason because many people have strong opinions about Walmart, that is not the case.

The mundane reality is that for me to get to one I have to drive by many other grocery stores: 2 Krogers, 1 Fresh Thyme, 1 meijer, 1 ALDI, 1 Target, 1 Costco, and 1 WHOLE FOODS MARKET before I am there.

This drive takes about 20-25 minutes each way if traffic is with me. Therefore, and I’m sure you’ll understand my reasoning, in order to save time, gas, and swear less about idiot drivers, I avoid going to Walmart.

Makes sense, right?

~ • ~

• WHY DO I keep my blog post photos separate from the photos I share on Instagram?

I do this because I figure that the people who follow my blog do so for the wordy stories I tell, the wordy information I share, the wordy questions I answer. After all my tagline here is: Tales, Thoughts + Tribulations of a Free Spirit in Suburbia.

Meanwhile on Instagram [find me HERE] I have a different bunch of followers, although there is some overlap. I only publish photos there when one fits my stated tagline, my thesis statement so to speak: Life is in the details. Here’s what I spy with my bifocaled eye. Patterns. Colors. Words.

Different accounts, different goals, different followers.

~ • ~

• WHY DO I not write book reviews?

I majored in English Lit in undergrad. I did this because I knew I’d get to study abroad in England. I spent a term at the University of Exeter which means I accomplished my goal.

However, the downside of being an English major was that I had to write book reviews about the books I read. I HATED writing book reviews. Writing them filled me with dread because I didn’t feel like I could trust my own understanding of the book.

Even though I now trust my personal assessment of what I’ve read, I refuse to make the effort to write a book review because it reminds me of my collegiate angst.

So guess what? I don’t.

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A List Of Fun Bloggers Who’ve Made Friday Their Own

What will you do with your one little spark of madness today?

Robin Williams asked that and it might be the best writing prompt ever. It frees you to embrace your own muse by doing your own independent thing, which is what the following bloggers do on Fridays.

Their posts are varied & fun— and I’m there for ’em.

Enjoy!

📌 Friday Fleurday – brought to you by Lynette at In the Net! – Pictures and Stories of Life

📌 Fridays Funnies – brought to you by Linda at Linda Lou’s Life

📌 40 things for Friday – brought to you by Laura at Riddle From The Middle

📌 TGIF – brought to you by Stephany at Stephany WRITES

📌 Happy Things Friday – brought to you by Elisabeth at The Optimistic Musings of a Pessimist

📌 Five for Friday – brought to you by NGS at The Time for Change

📌 Friday Randomness – brought to you by J at Thinking About…

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QUESTIONS OF THE DAY

Where do you primarily shop for groceries?

Do you share the same photos in your blog as you put on Instagram? Why or why not?

If you have a blog do you write book reviews? If you’re on Goodreads do you put them there? On Amazon? Other?

Do you, like me, look forward to posts from bloggers who write using a self-created prompt on a specific day of the week?

Any more questions you’d like to ask me? I’ll probably answer them in the comments below.

~ ~ • ~ ~

Highlights From August: I’m Not A Flower. I’m Not A Fork. I’m Not A Foe.

September 4, 2025 / Ally Bean / 179 Comments

~ • ~

The Flower Part

Late one afternoon while sitting outside on the deck, I was ~~viciously attacked~~ dive-bombed by a hummingbird who mistook me for a flower. Why, you may be wondering, did this little piece of flightiness think I was a flower?

Here’s the scene: I was wearing a pale pink baseball cap [similar here] + a medium pink fleece top [here] + raspberry-colored moccasin slippers [on sale now here] whilst drinking a pink grapefruit Italian soda [from here] that I’d poured into a clear plastic tumbler [here] with a bright red travel lid [here].

My basically pinkish-reddish ensemble + beverage were not intended to attract hummingbirds, but I nailed it. And that little birdie with the fluttering wings couldn’t take his sparkly little eyes off me.

I was startled, but flattered.

The Fork Part

Zen-Den and I finished watching Elementary, a TV series about Sherlock Holmes re-envisioned for modern times starring Jonny Lee Miller as Sherlock and Lucy Liu as Dr. Watson. I enjoyed it and thought the final episode was a good way to end it. Apparently not all fans liked the ending, so I just wrote something potentially controversial here.

Anyhoo, like many TV shows or movies, we sometimes focus on one line that we find absurdly funny and start saying it to each other— like a goofy inside joke. And this show gave us a good one.

In a scene where Sherlock and Marcus, a NYC police detective assigned to work with Sherlock, are kicking back after a difficult day, Sherlock who is often quite full of himself tells Marcus that he knows why Marcus is so taken with him.

It’s a scene of arrogance gone wild.

Sherlock starts babbling on about how his astounding intellect magnetizes people who are then drawn to him. It’s a burden Sherlock must live with.

Marcus, who has the patience of Job when dealing with Sherlock’s ego, replies: “You’re not a magnet. And I sure as hell am not a fork.”

Thus I, too, want to establish the fact that I’m not a fork. You can’t magnetize me. Don’t even try.

The Foe Part

A friend, who seemed sincere when she said this, told me that she wanted to change something about her behavior so that she’d have more free time.

I was surprised BUT I am one to help others when they decide they want to change. To be clear I don’t believe I need to fix people, yet will help you fix yourself when you’re ready to do so. Think of me as your personal cheerleader.

A few weeks later I see this friend and compliment her on how she has changed herself, how she has followed through on doing that which she told me she wanted to do in order to have less stress in her busy life.

Welp, she lays into me for mentioning she was doing things differently now: things she told me she didn’t want to do anymore.

This was her idea, remember?

She got on her high horse and lectured me about how her well established M.O. was what she was known for and no way would she ever change it for fear of not being known for it.

This was slightly unhinged thinking— and a complete 180º from what she’d confided in me a few weeks earlier.

Obviously at this point I had a decision to make: do I remind her of what she told me about how she wanted to change? Or do I let the conversation drop knowing the more I say, the more she’ll think of me as her foe.

Thus I let the conversation drop, realizing that being a cheerleader for some people is a sure way of irritating them.

Go figure, huh?

~ • ~

SO I’M BACK

WHAT’S NEW WITH YOU?

TELL ALL IN THE COMMENTS BELOW

I NEED TO KNOW!

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A Tale In Which The Beans Triumph Over That Which Does Not Belong Inside Their House

July 15, 2025 / Ally Bean / 241 Comments

Here’s a story, a snippet of life, that’s never happened here before. Please join me while I say a quiet prayer that it doesn’t happen again.

Artwork by Prawny via Pixabay

THE BEST WAY TO TELL this tale is to start by telling you that we have a new Oxo food strainer in the kitchen. There’s a reason for this purchase that I will share, BUT first I must explain what was going on at this house a few Saturday mornings ago.

To wit, if you happened to be driving by around 8:00 a.m. and noticed that Zen-Den in his plaid flannel pajama bottoms and white v-neck undershirt was running out the front door holding a food strainer at arm’s length in front of him, you might have been curious.

Further because you’re a person who pays attention you’d have noticed that he was barefoot as he darted through the front yard, making a hasty retreat to the back of the property where there is the big ole forest primeval.

A place where certain critters, alive or dead, belong.

Unlike the place inside our house where he and I found a certain live critter that did not belong.

• • •

YOU SEE WE FOUND a garden snake, about a foot long, slithering around the baseboards in our walk-in closet. I’m not a fan of snakes, albeit I understand they’re useful in the whole scheme of things and I’m cool with that as long as they are nowhere near me.

Or my clothes and shoes.

Particularly the idea of my shoes.

Which this snake may or may not have been in prior to being discovered.

At this point, my gentle readers and kind lurkers, you’re probably asking yourself two things: 1) HOW did this snake get into the house; and 2) WHAT did the Beans do about the situation.

I shall address these questions in the order asked.

• • •

HOW THIS HAPPENED: Because nothing goes smoothly for me, after about two years of dithering around and being indecisive about, we bought a new mattress: a Stearns & Foster Lux Estate with an adjustable base.

It is swanky and ever so comfortable.

However it’s heavy, thus requiring that the front door be open for a long time, many times, while the delivery men carefully carried the new mattress and then the frame into the house. Not to mention that the old mattress + box springs and its frame were taken out of the house through the same open front door.

We think that during the time the door was open, a garden snake who we’d seen living under a bush by the front door, decided to visit. It was hot and humid outside, cool and dark inside, so he decided to go on an adventure.

Which he did by sneaking into our house unnoticed.

Eventually making his way upstairs to our bedroom closet.

[I refuse to entertain the idea that the snake came in with the new mattress and frame. If that is so I’d be too freaked out to sleep on the new bed, so don’t even go there with that idea.]

• • •

WHAT WE DID: Upon discovering the snake in the closet the Beans, who you may remember are no strangers to unwanted critters inside their house, sprung into action. He went to the basement to get a wooden mallet out of his tool bucket while I went into the kitchen to get our food strainer.

His idea, smash it to smush. My idea, capture it in the strainer.

In the end we both prevailed.

Z-D was able to subdue the snake using the mallet to whack it on its head a few times. Then using the strainer I handed to him, he scooped up the probably dazed [but maybe dead] snake. He ran downstairs, out the front door, to the back of the property where he threw it into the woods.

Where I believe snakes belong.

• • •

OF COURSE ALL THAT’S LEFT to tell is the denouement of this tale.

Quite simply, once a snake, alive or dead, touches anything I use in the kitchen, that object is no longer welcome in my kitchen. Or as in this case anywhere inside the house.

Hence we tossed the old food strainer into the recycling bin and promptly bought its replacement.

Lending credence to the wisdom implied in the saying: out with the old, in with the new.