A Little Vacation: Went To Texas, Got Wet, Came Home

October 26, 2015July 1, 2025 / Ally Bean / 21 Comments

:: Late last week we went to Texas to visit Austin, TX, but our little extended weekend vacay took a different turn, and we ended up in Dallas, TX.

Perhaps you heard about Hurricane Patricia?

While both cities were soaked by this unprecedented storm, after getting to Texas, driving to Austin & finding ourselves in the moldiest suburban Hilton Garden Inn room ever, we reconsidered our plans & decided to focus on Dallas instead of messing around with Austin, which was more directly in the path of the storm.

And had unbelievably expensive hotel rooms. [$200.00 per night for a downtown budget Motel 6 room. That’s without taxes. And, of course, no room service available in the place.]

Photo of bleak wet world as seen from room window in Marriott Hotel at Legacy Town Center in Plano, TX, October 2015.

:: I’m glad that we made a change in our plans and chose to goof-off in Dallas, even though the whole region had the most amazingly consistent gray sky that I’ve ever seen.

A sky that some might be tempted to say was gloomy and foreboding.

A sky that seemed to hover over us as we drove around Dallas on about seventy hundred thousand different highways, toll roads, expressways + freeways, in the rain, while Siri told us how to reroute ourselves to avoid flash flooding.

:: So what did we do? Activities that kept us dry, of course.

We visited the Dallas Museum of Art [fascinating American silver collection, Islamic art + Inca artifacts].
We visited the Museum of Geometric and MADI Art [art displayed partly in museum and partly in law firm that shares the building with the museum].
We drove to, but were unable to see, the Heritage Farmstead Museum in Plano, TX, because it was closed due to flooding.
Then, despite my dislike of malls, we went to NorthPark Center, an upscale 50-year-old mall, incredibly clean– and about as soulless as a mall can get.
Continuing on went to another mall, The Shops at Willow Bend, which for a mall wasn’t so bad. I guess. Zen-Den bought a few shirts at Dillard’s, so not a total waste of time.

:: Do I have a conclusion? Well, I don’t know. Sort of.

All I can tell you, gentle readers, is that I am not unfamiliar with vacations not going as planned. I am nothing if not adaptable. Meaning that while I didn’t return from our vacation rejuvenated by local cuisine, music and artsy-fartsy Austin stuff, I’m happy that I got to see a little bit of Dallas, TX.

Which is massive, affluent, with lots of new buildings, friendly people and, in my experience, incredibly wet. 😉

Sitting Pretty On New Kitchen Chairs

October 13, 2015January 25, 2024 / Ally Bean / 29 Comments

~ ~ • ~ ~

Just like on HGTV, here’s a teaser for the BIG REVEAL.

~ ~ • ~ ~

I’M ALL ABOUT MISMATCHED CHAIRS. If things are too matchy-matchy, I get nervous. [What if I stain or break something? Then what? Things won’t match.]

I prefer the positive energy that eclectic style brings to a space. So after years of perfectly coordinating table and chairs in our kitchen, it was time for a change.

Here’s the story.

~ ~ • ~ ~

Is this box from Hannibal Lecter or Pottery Barn?

~ • ~

I BEGAN THIS PROJECT BY SEARCHING for chairs in brick & mortar stores and online. Eventually I decided which new chairs I wanted around our Ethan Allen kitchen table, which we’ve had since we moved here 15 years ago.

UPS plopped this very large box, filled with chair pieces + hardware, on our front stoop and I dragged it inside.

To make the table look better, Zen-Den painted the pedestal a warm neutral shade, SW6141 Softer Tan.

I figured that we’d use 2 dining chairs from Arhaus that we already had, knew to be comfortable, and were no longer being used in the dining room. To these we would add 2 new chairs from Pottery Barn, ordered online.

We received the Pottery Barn chair pieces in a very large box. Then one of us put them together in the foyer on Sunday morning while the other one of us photographed the event. For posterity, ‘ya know?

~ • ~

Looking lonely, a chair back leans against the wall, waiting to join together with other chair pieces to make a seat.

~ ~ • ~ ~

I’M GROOVING ON THESE NEW CHAIRS, brilliantly built by Zen-Den. After sitting on the wobbly, match-y Ethan Allen Windsor chairs that came with this table, these new sturdy chairs are wonderful.

They coordinate with, but don’t match, our former dining room chairs repurposed as kitchen chairs– all of which makes my frugal, design-y heart happy.

No higher praise than that, eh?

~ ~ • ~ ~

The BIG REVEAL shows my eclectic sense of style works for us.

~ ~ • ~ ~

[Hello FTC! I know it’s been so long since we spoke, but I wanted to make sure that you understood that there was no monetary &/or other compensation involved with these kitchen chairs. The foregoing is my opinion about things, shared here– just ‘cuz I can. We good?]

I Ask You: Where Are My Toad Lilies? Hmmm?

October 1, 2015October 1, 2015 / Ally Bean / 20 Comments

• I allowed myself to hope.

When it comes to gardening, I’m usually more cerebral than heartfelt.

I don’t assume that just because I plant something, it’ll thrive. Instead, I focus on those plants that get with the program and grow.

Like this cute little tree in the concrete urn that I can see out the window from our study.

• But there’s something missing from this photo.

Around the base of this cute little tree there are supposed to be 5 toad lilies, which I bought last spring for an outrageous amount of money from an allegedly honest garden nursery catalogue [which I’m not linking to here because I don’t want to advertise for the company].

• I know that toad lilies can grow here.

Years ago, before the front planting beds were re-landscaped, there was a thriving toad lily in this exact location.

That’s why I planted them, right there, uniformly around the base of the concrete urn, anticipating autumnal beauty whilst gazing out my window.

• But do you, gentle readers, see any thriving toad lilies?

Or do you, like me, see one scraggly looking wisp of a plant, barely hanging onto life?

That, my friends, is what $60.00 will get you when you dare to believe the copy in a catalogue. A catalogue that should be named: A Sucker Is Born Every Minute Garden & Nursery Store Catalogue For The Easily Gullible.

Because, really, that’s what the catalogue is all about.

Or so it would seem to me, Ms. Gullible.

May We All Be This With It When We Reach Our 70s

August 13, 2015 / Ally Bean / 17 Comments

“I wore rouge today.”

I was standing in the personal care aisle at Kroger. I wanted to buy some hair mousse, which is in a white container, and is on the shelf about ankle height, near the end of the aisle, on the left.

“Or I guess they call it blush now.”

In front of me was a woman, late-70s, with a coupon in her hand. She and her cart were blocking my path– not because she was careless, but because shoppers and boxes of product yet to be stocked crowded the aisle.

“I have on mascara, too.”

She batted her eyes at me so I could see her blackened eyelashes behind her thick eyeglass lenses.

I smiled and said, “It looks nice. I don’t have any on today.” I batted my eyes back at her.

This made her smile.

“I don’t usually wear any, but I had to go somewhere special. I went to lunch with a friend and there were men there.”

I smiled at her, nodded my head– and tried to casually, gracefully lean over to the left, reach around her cart and grab my mousse.

It was not meant to be.

“I’m sorry I’m in your way here. But I have this coupon for $2.00 off and I can’t find the right product.”

I could see her predicament, the hair care line she was looking for had 4 different manifestations of their products, all in different colored bottles.

So I waited. No rush really.

“It was a free lunch at Barrington Manor. You know that place? It’s assisted living for old people. I’m not ready for that place yet.”

I told her that I knew where it was, in a fancy part of town.

“They had a make-up stylist after lunch who showed us how to wear make-up now that we’re senior citizens. I didn’t have him do mine, but I asked questions.”

{ silence as she eyeballed the shelves }

“And they gave us a make-up bag filled with $37.00 worth of free make-up. FREE.”

{ big smile as she continued to look for the hair care product }

“Thirty-seven dollars!”

After about 30 seconds she found what she wanted to buy, then turned to me with her coupon and her product.

“This is right, isn’t it? For the $2.00 off. Like on the coupon.”

I looked at what she had picked up and pointed out that the words on her coupon were the same as the words on the bottle.

“Well, I hope I can read these words,” she said. “I taught reading for years. That’s what I did. Read. Words.”

And with a chuckle and a “thank you” she moved on, leaving me to grab my hair mousse off the shelf and to reflect upon what it means to age stylishly while retaining your sense of humor.

May we all be so cheerful, curious and coherent when we reach her age.

Amen.