Today I’m doing Throwback Thursday. This means that I’m posting a photo of myself taken a long time ago. And that you, my gentle readers, will probably get a laugh out of it.
Enjoy!
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And if you need to refresh your memory about who [exactly] is Pixie, you may click here. Go on and do it. You know that you want to.
*click, click*
You looked, didn’t you? You just couldn’t stand not knowing exactly what I was doing.
And now that you’re here you’re kind of wondering why I’m doing that which I’m doing. I know how you think, my gentle readers. So I’ll tell you.
I’m claiming my blog, The Spectacled Bean, at Bloglovin’. By placing what I did at the top of this little post, I am lead to believe that I’ll have:
And with that said, I’m publishing this post. Hoping that I’ve done that which they want me to do in a way that pleases them, so that I might have that which they tell me I can have, which would please me.
Hallelujah and pass the potato salad, let’s see what happens next.
I. Anyone who has ever spent any time in southwest Florida standing on the beach looking at the sunset over the Gulf of Mexico, knows that there’s this thing called the green flash. It’s a phenomenon wherein a sharp line of emerald green flashes across the ocean horizon the second that the sun disappears.
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II. For the last few weeks, Ohio has experienced sub-zero temps that have made life [shall we say?] interesting. Since the arrival of this arctic weather, there’s been one aspect of it that has charmed me. Almost every night at sunset when I look out the window across our deck through the trees to the neighbor’s houses, I see a beautiful shade of orange on the horizon.
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III. While not as spectacular and dramatic as the Florida green flash, this delightful Ohio-in-winter sunset phenomenon has a quiet magic of its own that is more in keeping with the low-key vibe of this state. And as such, I believe it deserves a name, too.
So it is with the foregoing in mind that I’ve decided to take it upon myself and name this phenomenon. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Ohio’s answer to the green flash. Around here, it’s all about the orange smudge.
All the cool kids are telling their stories about how & why they chose the names that they did for their blogs. Read this.
Naturally, I want to be a cool kid, too. So here’s my story of how this blog came to be named, The Spectacled Bean.
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SHORT VERSION: I am nearsighted and wear eye glasses (aka spectacles) all the time. My blogging nom de plume is Ally Bean. Ergo, I am The Spectacled Bean.
LONG VERSION: I knew that I wanted to start a blog, but was dithering around about the whole thing. I kept thinking that if I could figure out the perfect name for a blog, then I’d do it.
Well, one sunny winter’s day Z-D & I went to the zoo. Many of the animals were at their best, loving the coldness. As a result of this, we stopped to watch some animals that until now I’d never paid much attention to.
One of said animals was the spectacled bear. He was moseying around his enclosure and looked rather dapper. Reading the information* about him I knew that he was just the sort of animal that had the right attitude.
I was smitten– and in a moment of divine inspiration I realized that by using a modified version of his name for my blog’s name, I could describe myself. Hence, this blog is called The Spectacled Bean.
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* Often described as small, adaptable and elusive, spectacled bears can “… while away the hours in treetops, occasionally feeling the urge to become productive when they build huge platforms out of broken branches, to help them get at out of reach fruit.”
THE SPECTACLED BEAN 