In Which I Answer Five Brilliant Questions, Outstandingly

I’ve received the Outstanding Blogger Award from Laura Bruno Lilly who asked some great questions. I don’t usually do awards, but like Laura said doing this award is a good way to break out of a blogging rut & I’ve felt like I’ve been in one lately. Thus I’m answering these five brilliant questions to the best of my free-spirited ability.

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LAURA’S QUESTIONS FOR ME

What’s the first thing (or two) you’ll do once you ‘get your shot’ and/or the world otherwise opens back up after the Pandemic?

I have two things. I’m tired of my hippy hair so I’ll get it cut, but I’m keeping it longer than before. Who knew it was easier to have longer layered curly hair than a short stacked bob? The second thing is I want to go to a local restaurant, order a pear martini, crab cakes, and their house salad. Maybe two martinis now that I think about it. 

What makes you break into your ‘happy dance’?

Pots and pots of flowers around the outside of the house. I like geraniums and petunias and coleus and zinnias and dipladenia and impatiens and marigolds and whatever else will grow. I’m not fussy about what’s in the pots, I just want pretty. 

What was your favorite subject when you were in school?

I liked English class. No surprise, huh?

Which of your blog posts is your favorite and why? Please provide a link.

After ten years of blogging I can’t just offer one post so I’m going to answer with three posts. If you like funny, read this: Fun With Pedicures: Conning Mr. Man, If Only For A Moment. If you like melancholy, read this: Strange Days Indeed. If you like badassery, read this: Good Morning To Everyone Except WordPress, My Frenemy.

Coffee, tea or ????

Yes. Coffee, tea, seltzer, beer, wine, aperol & soda, margaritas, vodka martinis, a shot of whiskey even– but never anything with rum in it. *bleech* 

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Now it’s my turn to nominate and to ask questions. Considering everyone who reads this blog is outstanding I nominate anyone who wants to do this. You may do this in the comments below or on your blog.

There’s no obligation to take up the challenge, but if you do then please answer the following questions. If you do this on your blog then you may nominate [5 or however many] other bloggers, and then compile a set of your own 5 questions. 

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MY QUESTIONS FOR YOU

Q1 – What’s your favorite movie?

Q2 – When trying to buy shoes, what’s your biggest problem?

Q3 – Ice cream cone or cupcake?

Q4 – What’s one good thing you have learned about yourself during this pandemic?

Q5 – Any eccentric people in your family? Discuss.

TGIF: 5 Words To Know + A Bit Of Wordsmithery Fun + A Simple Question

Although I keep an ongoing list of words or definitions that are new to me, I haven’t done a wordy post in a while. It’s Friday, so why not?

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WORDS TO KNOW

WHUZZLE WAFFLING is the sound made by a loom as you weave something on it

PROLIXITY means using or containing too many words as in tediously lengthy

TARNATION is an exclamation used to express incredulity; it is a minced oath of the word “damnation”

SOPHISTRY is using false arguments with the intention of deceiving

CONFABULATE in psychiatry means to create imaginary experiences to compensate for the loss of memory; in everyday usage it means to engage in conversation

As always, anyone who can write one sentence using all the words gets a gold star.

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A BIT OF WORDSMITHERY FUN

The above paragraph is my attempt at using THE UP-GOER FIVE TEXT EDITOR.

The editor challenges you to explain something using only the ten hundred most used words in the English language. This is more difficult to do than you may think.

At least it was for me a wordy girl who loves to vary my words, relying on nuance to get my point across, fearlessly using polysyllabic words.

Follow the link shared above and see for yourself, but don’t say I didn’t warn you about how The Up-Goer Five Text Editor will stop you lickety-split if you use a word that is not one of the top ten hundred.

If you choose to mess around with this editor, let me know how it goes for you. Just curious…

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A SIMPLE QUESTION

According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary: “It has been estimated that the vocabulary of English includes roughly 1 million words.” [Read more here.]

Of all the words in the English vocabulary which ONE is your favorite?

I shared mine in the comments below.

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A Bug In My Beer: News & Nonsense From My Staycation

A pretend To-Do List I created on my remember the milk app to see how the app works. My conclusion? It’s easy to use & fun, too.

WE WENT ON vacation, or more accurately staycation, last week.

We stayed at home like we’ve been doing, but we called the week a staycation because Z-D didn’t go to work at the kitchen table, his office for the last 6 months– and probably many more.

Instead we did practical things like getting flu shots, and painting the mailbox post, and venturing into a Honey Baked Ham store to get a hambone with which to make soup, and taking things to Goodwill, and replacing the bedroom ceiling fan with a snazzy chandelier [more on that adventure later].

Good projects to a one, but not what I’d describe as vacation activities per se.  Still, like they say, make hay while the sun shines so we were productive.

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IN MY OPINION the highlight of our time at home was a bug dying in my beer.  I’d made myself a lager & lime with fresh lime juice, putting the beverage into a Pilsner glass because I was on vacation staycation and wanted to be fancy, darn it.

As I’m sure you realize when beer is poured onto lime juice bubbles happen, starting at the bottom of the glass around the lime juice itself then moving upward.  I’d taken my drink onto the deck where I planned to sit at our little table and pretend I was in an outdoor pub in England.

[Because if 2020 had unrolled the way I’d planned it, I’d have been in England at some point during the year.  On a real vacation.  But I digress…]

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HOWEVER FATE INTERVENED in the form of a small bug that flew into my beverage, died, then began to float up and down inside the glass.  While I looked on it rode the bubbles from the bottom on the glass to the top, then sank back down to the bottom of the glass on what can only be described as its very own dead bug rollercoaster inside the glass.

Not pleased.

I tried to get the bug out of the glass with the corner of my paper cocktail napkin but it was too fast for me.

Yes, a dead bug was too fast for me.  

Eventually I went into the kitchen, got an iced tea spoon, and returned to the deck where I was able to scoop the dead bug out of my lager & lime which I then drank refusing to worry about buggy germs.

After all it’s 2020 the time of novel coronavirus– and there are worse things than bug germs attempting to harsh my buzz &/or kill me. ‘Ya know?

Keeping it all in perspective, I am.

[FYI: While I’ve enjoyed my Summer Hours I’ll be back to my regular weekly blogging schedule next week. With cooler autumn days ahead I’m feeling that it’ll be time for me to spill the beans here more often.  

I’ll be attempting to post mid-morning because that seems to work for me now that we’re at home all. the. time.  Plus I promise next week I’ll get back to commenting more often on your blogs. Mea culpa.]

Ally Try Again: Re-evaluating My Rules Of Life, As One Does

As you may recall The Spectacled Bean is on Summer Hours.  

This means I continue to show up here every few weeks. I write about anything that isn’t current events, instead leaning into my penchant for flapdoodle and twaddle.  

Thus I give you the following.  

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Deconstructing What Was

SORTING through old paper files I found the above.  I published it 13 years + 6 months + 21 days ago on January 01, 2007.  I wrote it, complete with disclaimers, in the context of a New Year’s Resolution + my guidelines for how I wanted to live my life.

For many years this is how I approached my life.

However thinking on my rules of life in light of today’s world I find the above useful, but not in step with how I conduct myself now. And that’s where I want to be, not stuck in the past, like some lost soul who longs for what was.

So I sat down with myself and analyzed what I’d written before.  I decided that when it comes to rules of life I liked short action statements that get to the point.

I also decided that I didn’t want my new rules of life to include pithy sayings [like the watermelon seeds one in the example above].  I say pithy things, but those are personal mantras or succinct commentaries on a particular situation rather than actual rules of life.

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Creating What Will Be

PONDERING what my new rules of life might be, I deleted the ones from before that no longer served me.  Then I made the following list of potential rules adding ones that I believe might be helpful now.  In the bracket behind each rule I wrote what core value I was thinking about when I chose this rule.

Do your best [trustworthiness]

Less is more [simplify]

Maximize your options [creativity]

Pay attention, life is in the details [knowledge]

Ditch the mean people [self-respect]

Keep moving forward [growth]

Say thank you often [gratitude]

Follow your muse [authenticity]

Do no harm [kindness]

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Questions Of The Day

Comments, anyone?

Do you have rules of life you follow? If so do you rethink them, then update them from time to time?

This list is not definitive, it’s in process. What am I missing here?