Quotes + Sayings

Married Life: Of Wordplay And Lettuce

/ Ally Bean / 23 Comments

In case you were thinking I was just another blogging floozy, let me share with you, my gentle readers, the following conversation in which my wordsmith-y skills came in pretty darned handy.  Score one point for Team Wife.

# # #

HUSBAND, aka chubby hubby, getting up off sofa, declaring loudly on his way to bed: BE A SHARK, NEVER STOP MOVING.

ME, laughing: You look nothing like a shark.  There’s no sharkness about you.  I think you should say…

HUSBAND, trying to look stern: DON’T YOU DARE SAY IT.

ME, coyly: Say what?

HUSBAND, grumpy: Beached whale.  Don’t tell me I look like a BEACHED WHALE.  Or Santa Claus.

ME, sincerely: That’s not what I was going to say.  You don’t look anything like Santa, you don’t have a white beard… yet.

HUSBAND, irritated, but curious: What were you going to say?

ME, smiling: I was going to say: BE A MANATEE, NEVER STOP GROOVING.

HUSBAND, sighing: Huh?  I don’t want to be a manatee.

ME, cheerful: Why?  They’re cute.  And groovy.

HUSBAND, defeated: Because all they eat is lettuce.  I DON’T WANNA ALWAYS EAT LETTUCE.  Forever.

ME, attempting to be empathetic but failing miserably due to a fit of giggles: Yes, I can see that’s true already.

# # #

Our conversation, more or less about lettuce, reminded me of this, my favorite Simpsons quote, which seems like the perfect way to end this rather ridiculous blog post about, of all things, lettuce.

Yoga Lessons Revisited: She Like To Move It, Move It

/ Ally Bean / 59 Comments

I’ve stretched my body more lately.  To make my joints more flexible, my alignment more comfortable, my muscles more toned.  Doing yoga asanas, that is.  Or my middle-aged out-of-shape reinterpretation of them.

It’s been a little over 10 years since I stopped going to yoga classes on a regular basis.

• • •

LESSON #1

“Keep on meeting the edge.”

~ said Kathy, who moved away from the city to live on an organic farm

• • •

I had always enjoyed taking yoga classes, but my favorite instructors, who each had her own way of explaining life on and off the mat, stopped teaching.

The only woman I could find who did not do hot yoga, which I think is nuts, was more about selling her book and CDs than teaching yoga.  She was quite the personality kid, which annoyed me.

So I stopped attending her classes, thinking I’d continue my practice on my own.

• • •

LESSON #2

“When in doubt, don’t.”

~ said Donna, who got a newspaper byline and is living her dream of being a writer

• • •

But you know how things like that go.  Procrastination + laziness took over– and eventually the idea of daily yoga practice floated out of my monkey mind.

However, this fall I acknowledged that I’m getting older and that I’m beginning to walk more THUNK * THUNK * THUNK than flow * flow * flow.  Which is to say my daily walks are morphing into daily moseys because I’m going slower and slower.

Re-enter daily yoga practice.

• • •

LESSON #3

“Well isn’t that interesting?”

~ said Cathy, who had a hip replacement then decided to retire with her husband to somewhere warm

• • •

I’ve yet to commit to a specific time and place for my stretching, but if memory serves, back years ago when I was really into yoga, I used the late afternoon as my practice time… which I suppose I could do again.

And that, my gentle readers, is what’s up with me today in my quest to age gracefully + not keel over by the side of the road.

Ever onward, I say.  Each of us moving forward in our own way.

• • •

“Fizz-a-cally-fit, Fizz-a-cally-fit…”

• • •

Of Wise Women, Broken Dishwashers & Lost Earrings

/ Ally Bean / 36 Comments

“You can put lipstick and earrings on a hog and call it Monique, but it’s still a pig.”

~Ann Richards, former governor of Texas and wise woman

HERE IS A TALE TOLD WITH A SINKFUL OF DIRTY DISHES…

About two years ago our dishwasher started leaking water and making odd sounds as it attempted to clean our dishes.

I was sad because even though I didn’t grow up with a dishwasher in the house, unless you consider me to have been the dishwasher, as a homeowner I have come to like dishwashers.

Dandy machines.  When they work.

Being us, we ignored the dishwasher and rarely used it.  But last year when a plumber was here for a different reason, we had him replace the leaky hose under the machine and the dripping stopped.

However, the noise within the dishwasher continued, and even got louder as the days went on.  So we stopped using the dishwasher entirely and resorted to *gasp* washing dishes by hand.

[Oh the inhumanity of it all!]

Fast forward to last week when the appliance repair guy came to the house to fix the recently broken clothes dryer– and to take a look at our sad, almost useless, dishwasher while he was here.

Whereupon, after taking the dishwasher apart to the tune of $99.00, he found an earring in the dishwasher that had caused the motor to stop motoring smoothly– and subsequently ruined the motor.

Not so dandy.

As you, gentle readers, can readily understand from the above quote, I’ve now taken to calling the sad, officially broken, dishwasher: Monique.

She still looks good, and matches all the other appliances in our kitchen, which makes me happy because for the first time in my life our kitchen, remodeled seven years ago, has had the same brand and style of appliances in it.

Pretty, pretty. 

But Monique is a useless trophy appliance now.  So, with a heavy heart, but a practical mind, we’re going to buy a new dishwasher.

Which I shall love, regardless of how she looks.  And promise that I will, to the best of my ability, keep earrings away from her.

Meaning the only question left is: what shall we name her?

As Pumpkins As My Witness, I’ll Never Be Cluttered Again

/ Ally Bean / 25 Comments

DSCN6129

• • •

Good Morning!

I’m pulling together a post today, the first full day of Daylight Savings Time, by using this delightful Halloween photo, taken yesterday, and by re-wording a famous quote.

After all, what is a blog but a place to let your freak flag fly?

Especially on a Monday morning after a lazy Sunday in which I never got out of my jammies, but did manage to photograph our jack-o-lanterns.

Oh happy day!

• • •

But now that it’s Monday morning I’m feeling the need to accomplish something.

The muse of productivity, and my inner Katie Scarlett O’Hara, are telling me to apply myself to what is directly in front of me, take control of the situation, and get on with life.

That is, in a word, DECLUTTER.

Meaning that today I’ll be putting things away in the places where they belong. Sorting through piles of magazines + catalogues + recipes. Reviewing and filing important scribbled notes for future decorating and writing projects.

• • •

So with a hat tip to GWTW I’ve begun to chant to myself: “they’re not going to lick me. I’m going to live through this and when it’s all over, I’ll never be disorganized again.”

To me, this chant seems motivational.  To you, it might seem nuts, but if I end up with a tidy house and know where things are, who’ll be laughing then?

Hmmm?!

• • •

• • •

[ALSO:  I know how you people think.  So let me say right here that if you, gentle readers, go all Rhett Butler and say you don’t give a damn, I wouldn’t believe you.  

Why?  Because if you’ve read this far down you do care about me!  So say something nice.  I need all the encouragement I can get and it’ll be good karma for you.]