Getting Jiggy With The Flakes. It’s Snowing Here.

February 9, 2016August 29, 2024 / Ally Bean / 29 Comments

I’ve never intentionally tried to photograph snowflakes before. I’ve photographed snow, of course, and I’ve snapped a few photos of some people who are flakes myself included. 😉

But to take on the challenge of going outside with the sole purpose of photographing delicate little snowflakes as they fall from the sky is something new for me.

I rather like these early morning artsy-artsy photos, even if they aren’t the most polished ones ever.

For me the value in this challenge wasn’t perfection, but to remind myself to try new small things as I move forward through this year. To step out into possibility. And to get jiggy.

A Sunday Morning Winter Walk To Try My New Camera

January 24, 2016July 1, 2025 / Ally Bean / 23 Comments

This less-than-exciting post comes to you from the intersection of Cabin Fever Drive and New Camera Avenue.

Because the sun was shining this morning, and ignoring the fact that it was 20ºF outside, I decided we needed to go for a walk somewhere unique.

We drove to a city park and went for a short walk on a groomed path that runs beside abandoned railroad tracks.

I wanted to take more photos, but after a 1/4 mile on the path we were cold. Plus it wasn’t all that pretty out there.

So we turned around, walked purposefully back to the car, and drove home. Because, you know– frozen!

Snow Is Falling, Books Are Calling

January 12, 2016 / Ally Bean / 31 Comments

The snow has arrived. It’s falling like salt drifting down from the sky. Everything is covered in white, slightly sparkly.

Contented, I am enjoying the slow pace of Winter days.

Coinciding with the snow’s arrival is the end of mold and pollen, my archenemies. My eyes are feeling less itchy, and combined with prescription eye drops, I know longer look like a drunk rabbit. That is, my eyes aren’t pink & bloodshot, rimmed in red.

I’ll enjoy this itchy-eye respite for as long as it lasts, because I know that Spring weather will change everything.

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In the meantime I’m going to start reading for pleasure. I didn’t do much of that last year, for whatever reason. But this year, as I move forward, I’ve decided that I’m going to make a point of reading for pleasure, and I’m going to do it with a plan.

I’m following Modern Mrs. Darcy’s 2016 Reading Challenge as my guide. With one exception [“a book published this year”], I’m choosing my books from the piles of books that are strewn throughout our home.

To wit, my first book, which will satisfy the “a book you should have read in school” criteria, is: Footsteps in the Dark by Georgette Heyer.

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This may seem like an unusual choice, but when I was in college here in the USA majoring in English, I did my study abroad at the University of Exeter in Devon, England. My official independent research paper was on Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple series.

Georgette Heyer was a contemporary of Agatha Christie. Back then I didn’t have the time to read any Heyer mysteries, being forced as I was to focus on Miss Marple, star of 12 novels + 20 short stories.

But now, in light of this challenge, and with all the time in the month of January to make it happen, I’m going to read a Georgette Heyer mystery.

Just because I can.

Happy Holidays? A Sense Of Fun, NOT

January 5, 2016January 5, 2016 / Ally Bean / 33 Comments

:: Well, didn’t the holidays suck this year? Or at least that’s how it went for us here at Chez Bean. You too?

The weather, of course, was all wrong. No matter where you were in the USA the weather was. not. right.

We had April-like spring temps in the 60s with rain and gray, depressing, bleak skies, instead of cool crisp winter weather with clear blue skies by day, starry skies by night.

Star of Bethlehem? Nowhere to be seen.

Adding to the blah, Zen-Den had pneumonia so he was a noisy hacking joy to be around. Keep in mind that I’m a highly sensitive person, meaning that for me his almost hourly coughing fits were like being jabbed with little plastic forks over and over and over again.

I used up my adrenaline supply for all of 2016 & then some.

Full moon, hazy sky. No stars in sight.

:: Needless to say, but I’m going to say it anyhow, we did not get together with friends and family because… well, read health issue discussed immediately above.

So alone we sat. Playing games, him on his iPhone, me on my iPad. Occasionally watching TV or a movie or a football game. Sort of. Ordering things online because how else could we go shopping?

Why didn’t I read, you ask?

As you may or may not know, April is my least favorite month of the year because I’m allergic to the pollen and mold that it produces. So, when that same weather showed up here [in December, thank you global warming] my eyes immediately went blurry, irritated by the aforementioned crap in the air.

Say adios to books.

Drab brown leaves accented with a sprig of red.

:: MY CHRISTMAS PRESENT THIS YEAR WAS SUPPOSED TO BE HAVING A HEALTHY ZEN-DEN HOME FOR TWO WEEKS STRAIGHT WITH NO WORK COMMITMENTS SO THAT WE COULD GET THINGS DONE AROUND THE HOUSE.

Things like sorting through and boxing up the junk in the basement. Taking things to Goodwill and Habitat For Humanity. Hanging pictures in gallery wall formations. Deciding on new paint colors for bedrooms. Going to furniture stores to look at and sit on potential new chairs and sofas.

Did any of this get done?

NO! Not. one. stinking. thing.

Meaning that as far as I’m concerned this holiday season was a bust. While I’m the first to admit that it wasn’t the worst holiday season* I’ve lived through, overall Christmas 2015 + New Year’s Day 2016 were a downright old bummer of an experience.

So boring.

* My worst Christmas/NY holiday memories include: hospital stays; a nursing home; post-operative recuperation at home; talk of hospice care; electrical outages leading to days of no heat & food spoilage in refrigerator.

And one horrible two-night stay, stuck in a shabby motel in northern GA, adjacent to nothing, with only basic cable, pre-wifi & cell phone, when our car broke down on NY Day, a Saturday, and the car dealership where it needed to be repaired wasn’t open until Monday.