Link Love: Women With Smarts Edition

August 6, 2015May 6, 2021 / Ally Bean / 18 Comments

Lecturers in the first winter course in 1906, Cornell University.

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“For ducks, other people’s emotions roll right off them… Not so for sponges. Highly intuitive types often soak up other people’s feelings…” ~ Anne at Modern Mrs. Darcy

• What Your Favorite Summer Cocktail Says About You

“No matter where you go, you have an uncanny knack for getting everyone to tell you their life story.”

• 10 Words Every Girl Should Learn

“After I wrote about the gender confidence gap recently, of the 10 items on a list, the one that resonated the most was the issue of whose speech is considered important.” ~ Soraya Chemaly

• Ship Your Enemies Glitter

“Prank your Friends and Enemies. Let us send them some stupid glitter that is guaranteed to go everywhere. You don’t have to move a muscle.”

• Why You Should Kick Your Bucket List

“Well I propose that if you truly want to up your happiness factor, you need to kick that bucket list and make a f@ck it list.” ~ Elena at Fabulously 50 & Living With Batman

• Everything Was New And Pretty Wondrous

“A long time ago (last week) in a city far, far away (Baltimore), Alice Bowman guided the most ambitious space mission in a generation. Here, she explains what it’s like to glimpse the edge of the solar system.” ~ Rachel Morris

• The Cake Is A Lie

“The Cake is a Lie is a catchphrase… and is often used to convey the message that a promised gift is being used to motivate without any intent of delivering.”

A Soggy Summer: How Bored Can A Bean Get?

July 13, 2015 / Ally Bean / 28 Comments

Things I have done in the past week to try to entertain myself while it rains almost non-stop outside during July, a month when accomplishing things on my “Save It For Summer” To Do List is a top priority.

1) I rooted for Zen-Den to burn up a waffle while he was making some for breakfast yesterday morning. I thought that the smoke might add a little excitement to the day.

He, however, didn’t burn anything, made delicious waffles, and even cleaned up the kitchen afterward, thereby depriving me of things to complain about here in a blog post.

Yes, I’m bored enough to feel defeated about not having a cooking mishap to start the day.

2) I watched hours of TV shows about buying property in Alaska. Alaska is a state that I adored in Northern Exposure, but after watching these shows, I dunno about these people.

While watching these shows I learned that 33% of the homes in Alaska have outhouses. And that people there seem ga-ga over views of mountains that all look the same to me. And that moose wander around free-range style in Alaska’s largest city, Anchorage, population 300,000.

Clearly, no matter how much I loved Maggie and Joel, this is not a state for me, a woman who thinks staying at a Motel 6 is roughing it.

3) I sorted through all the catalogues that are in this house. I ended up with a 14″ high pile of catalogues, unwanted, in my way, yet here, for reasons most varied.

Some were catalogues from companies that I have bought things from online, while other catalogues, unsolicited, seem to magically appear in our mailbox. Then like a ninny, I bring them inside the house.

My conclusion? Catalogues are a plague of locust, impossible to stop.

4) I researched perfumes online. I want a new fragrance, but when shopping in the stores I can’t find one that suits my fussy nose. So I sat here, at the computer, reading online descriptions of fragrances, knowing full well that perfume is something that needs to be sniffed and dabbed before buying it.

Yet all because I cannot accomplish anything around the house like I want to do, I was bored enough to read about perfume, as if that was a good use of my time.

I mean really? Reading about fragrance? I’m doomed.

My Weekend At Home With A Snotty Hacker

June 16, 2015June 16, 2015 / Ally Bean / 24 Comments

Last week Zen-Den got a cold. This is unusual.

He was traveling for work and somewhere along the way, on a plane or at a hotel perhaps, he picked up a nasty head cold that over the weekend morphed into wheezing and chest congestion.

This condition, as you can imagine, lead to lots of nose blowing and loud coughing. I dubbed him a snotty hacker, which I thought was clever.

He didn’t seem to appreciate my sly sense of humor, clearly showing you that he didn’t feel good.

Snotty hacker. That’s funny. Healthy people would laugh.

Whatever.

So this past weekend, when I wasn’t fetching hot tea or a blanket or a box of Kleenex, I goofed off in my own low-key, dear-lord-it’s-hot-and-humid-outside, kind of way.

The following are my three big takeaways from my time spent, more or less, alone.

I finished watching Grace and Frankie which is a wonderful new, not violent or crude, TV show available on Netflix.

The show, which stars Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin as two straight women whose husbands have left the women for each other, is smart + authentic + funny.

Just a little bittersweet.

And has the most amazing house porn, the sort of which that is usually reserved for movies.

Go watch it now. I give it 5 stars.

Ever since I heard the whole “Call Me Caitlyn” thing, it has bugged me. Not the idea that a human being has the right to do whatever he or she wants to do within and/or to his or her body.

No, that I get.

What has bothered me, I finally figured out, is that a woman born in 1949 would not be named Caitlyn, a name that showed up in the the 1970s. She’d be called Linda, the 1st most popular girl name that year. Or Mary, the 2nd most popular.

And if by chance her name was “Caitlyn” it wouldn’t be spelled all modern-like. It would be spelled Kate Lynn. Shortened for the 9th most popular girl name, Kathleen + basic middle name, Lynn.

Kathleen Lynn. A perfectly acceptable 1940s name.

Right?

I finished reading A Little Salty to Cut the Sweet: Southern Stories of Faith, Family, and Fifteen Pounds of Bacon by Sophie Hudson.

Sophie is a blogger who took her personal stories to the next level by writing this funny, charming memoir. The book, published in 2013, has been on my list of books to read for years, so I’m not exactly talking about it on a timely basis.

No surprise there. My reading is rarely current.

However, be that as it may, I thought that I’d tell you, my gentle readers, that if I could pick a family to join, I want to be part of Sophie’s family. I know that I could fit right in immediately.

I like bacon. And I adore kindness.

Both of which are in abundance in this delightful memoir. Highly recommended.

QOTD: What Are Your Dreams For This Spring?

March 19, 2015January 24, 2016 / Ally Bean / 28 Comments

Always looking forward. Always planning. Influenced by ~~Arrowsmith~~ Aerosmith. I’m rarely without a list of what I need to do next.

Usually my lists revolve around practical matters, but occasionally I make a personal list of a few simple things that I want to accomplish. So without further babble, I give you…

My “Dreams For Spring” List

I want to go for a walk almost every day. There will be no numerical goals attached to this walk, I just want to move more. Rain be damned.

I want to bake muffins. The reality here is that for months I’ve said that I’m going to start baking again– then I haven’t done so. However, now that it’s on my list, let muffin-palooza begin.

I want to travel somewhere. While this may seem vague, I’ve learned that when I talk about a specific vacation, the gods start screwing around with my life. So mum’s the word. I’m going to sneak travel by them this time. You just watch and see.

I want to work in the garden. Last year I was lazy about gardening because– well, I haven’t a clue why I was, but I was. This year I’m planning some new features out there– and some new color schemes. Nothing like a design project to ramp up my interest and keep me enthused.

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So here’s the Question of the Day, presented to you on the last full day of Winter:

What are your dreams for this Spring?

Answer in the comments below and I promise that we here at The Spectacled Bean will cheer you on to victory!

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