Gadzooks! The Spectacled Bean Is 11 Years Old Today

January 18, 2022 / Ally Bean / 272 Comments

[Image source found here]

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THE SPECTACLED BEAN, this weblog you’re reading right now, is a Capricorn born on this day in 2011. The inaugural post is here.

While this isn’t my first weblog, this one has been the most fun and emotionally rewarding. Below are 11 points explaining why this is so.

• My purpose has been to inform or entertain, rather than to persuade. Free spirit I am, Influencer I am not.

• I follow a simple process for deciding what to write about. The simple process, which is far from profound and academic, is to answer three questions.

• The three questions are: 1) Does this matter? 2) Where is the story? 3) Why didn’t I know this?

• It took me longer to write the previous point than it takes to answer the questions.

• I also attribute my blogging longevity to the myriad of fabulous bloggers I’ve met along the way.

• I am grateful.

• You, my bloggy friends, keep me thinking new thoughts and questioning my assumptions and laughing at the absurdity of life.

• This is good.

• You also encourage me to write more openly + creatively and to comment more freely, which for an introvert is saying something.

• Thus I try to spread the comment love whenever I have the time because leaving a comment on a blog post is a random act of kindness in a mean world.

• And I am kind, dagnabbit. Read my about page here.

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IF YOU LET ME KNOW HOW OLD YOUR BLOG IS, IN A COUPLE OF WEEKS I’LL PUT TOGETHER A BLOGROLL. I’LL START WITH THE OLDEST AND END WITH THE YOUNGEST. COULD BE FUN, YES?

[Blog must be one year old or older to qualify. Personal blogs only. Limited time offer. Offer has no cash value. Cannot be used with any other offers, promotions, or discounts. Some restrictions may apply.]

I Am Colorful, I Am Manifesting Potatoes, I Am Positive

January 4, 2022 / Ally Bean / 171 Comments

Hello again, my gentle readers and kind lurkers!

This image represents the predominant colors found in my IG account photos during 2021. I used YEAROFCOLOUR.COM, an app, to create it.

After the strangest warmest Christmas Day on record [69ºF] and the oddest gloomiest New Year’s Day I can remember [rained all day], we here in Chez Bean are ready to get back to doing normal things this week.

Well, normal as it is now defined. That is, we are fully vaccinated, wearing masks when out & about in public, keeping away from people in general– and doing our best to not spread a deadly virus.

You know which one it is.

This is what @MAGICKMOODS, found on IG, says I am currently doing. Who knows, maybe blog posts are really just potatoes… and I’m making a hash of it here?

To wit, Z-D is back to work on a hybrid schedule of 2 days downtown in his office/3 days at home in his upstairs bedroom office. He likes the idea so it’s all good*.

This will be happening while I’m back to writing my usual flapdoodle & twaddle. I never know how much longer I’m going to be writing this blog, but muse is with me and I’m feeling groovy so I shall keep going.

Plus I took a fast online test, a task as they call it, that measures verbal creativity. The average score was 78 but mine was 93. Not to brag but as the consummate B+ college student who was never quite smart enough to earn an A, I’m chuffed by this number. Ha!

While I’m not known for being a relentlessly upbeat Pollyanna, these particular words from WORDSTACKS, a game on my phone, resonated with me. So I share them here.

And with that I’ll end this post by asking: what are you manifesting today?

* Zen-Den can be a bit of an absent-minded professor. He went into work yesterday, on 1 of his 2 days in the office, but came home early. Few people were around, he said, but he got a lot done. On further reflection, and a quick check of the company’s 2022 scheduled holidays, he realized he had the day off. Uh huh 🙄

My 1,000th Post: With Grit, Grins, & Gratitude

November 18, 2021 / Ally Bean / 188 Comments

Image of Snoopy, originally drawn by Charles Schultz, courtesy of pngimg.com. Click HERE for a wonderful biography about Snoopy.

• • •

It was a dark and stormy night.

Literally.

I was sitting in our home office in front of my desktop computer, writing a blog post when there was a dramatic crack of thunder and a flash of lightning outside.

It startled me.

I jumped about 17 gazillion feet into the air and in the process my hand on the mouse moved erratically in such a way as to inadvertently hit DELETE, meaning that faster than you can say “waiter, waiter, percolator” I lost my blog post.

Then the electricity went out in the house.

For hours.

Because of course it did.

• • •

This morning the electricity is back on, but I’ve lost my train of thought about how I was going to say what I wanted to say.

So instead of my nonexistent elegant heartfelt essay about how much blogging has meant to me, showing me a kinder way to live my life, allowing me a glimpse into the lives of other people, I’ll be straightforward and say the following with gratitude.

• • •

THIS IS MY 1,000TH POST ON THIS BLOG.

THANKS TO ALL THE COOL KIDS WHO READ, COMMENT, AND LIKE MY POSTS. I’D NEVER HAVE GOTTEN THIS FAR WITHOUT YOUR CONTINUING SUPPORT.

YOU’RE THE BEST AND I LOVE YOU ALL.

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[Here is my first blog post, Hello World! I wrote it 10 years + 10 months to this very day. It makes reference to a guiding principle that I believed then and still do. Case in point, how this post came to be.]

In Which I Punctuate, Doodle, Get Out Of My Head, Then Laugh

November 16, 2021December 17, 2021 / Ally Bean / 171 Comments

As you know this is a personal blog.

While I strive to write about things that happen in my daily life, I don’t always have much to tell you, my little moonbeams.

Yet I said I’d be here so I am here.

I didn’t go looking for these 3 unique things to do + 1 funny YouTube video but stumbled over them while doing research for other projects.

Enjoy!

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✅ I stumbled over this website, just the punctuation, and decided to try it.

All you do is cut and paste a sample of your writing, input it on the screen, then ‘winner, winner, chicken dinner’ the algorithm generates an image showing only the punctuation in your writing sample.

For the life of me I don’t know what this proves but here are 6 paragraphs of my blog writing reduced to punctuation.

This is a line of punctuation, somehow symbolizing something.

✅ I stumbled over this website, Right-Angle Doodling Machine, and decided to try it.

All you do is use your arrow keys to create an original doodle. It’s easy– and reminds me of 6th grade when I was bored out of my gourd with “new math” so I started making doodles like these using pencil and paper to pass the time.

I’m not sure why, but making this doodle was relaxing and made me feel youthful and creative, in a linear way.

This is a darned dandy doodle, if’n I do say so myself.

✅ I stumbled over these 20 Journaling Prompts I Swear By to Get You Out of Your Head and decided to try them.

All you do is find yourself a comfy spot to ponder and write, then set about answering each prompt, for your own personal enlightenment.

While I appreciate the concept of writing prompts, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that I’m reluctant to use them. That being explained, overall these did get me thinking about my life in a new way– and that is good.