Yes!

So, Can You Do This?

/ Ally Bean / 17 Comments

When I read the article that included The 20 Most Commonly Used Words, I knew what was required of me.  [5]

Obviously, it was a challenge to use these words in one succinct blog post– just for the fun of it.  [6]

He who wrote this article might not have envisioned my response, but those of you who know and love me will understand immediately.  [6]

This is one of those activities that anyone, with a bit of gumption, can do on his or her blog;  so I did it.  [3]

[Source of inspiration for this little foray into nerdy silliness is an interesting article: “Your Use of Pronouns Reveals Your Personality” by James W. Pennebaker in the Harvard Business Review, December, 2011.  Click here.]

 

Dream A Little Dream

/ Ally Bean / 25 Comments

Zen-Den knows me well.

He was sitting in our study, shopping on the Williams-Sonoma website with the purpose of buying the Breville Electric Pie Maker, which I had decided we needed.  [More on the Pie Maker after it gets here & we use it a few times.]  I was in another room but he called for me to come into the study to see what he described as: “this is what you’d buy if you won the lottery.”

And what he showed me was, indeed, EXACTLY what I’d buy if I won the lottery.  I’d buy a Kitchen-Aid Mixer in a different color for every month of the year.  Heck, if the payout was large enough, I’d buy a different one for every week of the year!

Just because I could.

So, here’s my question to you:

if you won the lottery, what would you buy for yourself that your pre-lottery-winning-self would call an extravagance?

Bourbon, Bourbon, Who’s Got The Bourbon?

/ Ally Bean / 14 Comments

{A Weekend Getaway – Part 2 of 2.  Part 1 here.}  

[I know, I know.  I said that I’d post once a week during the summer… but this adventure was two parts.  My blog, my rules to break at will.]

After taking time to enjoy Shaker simplicity, we hit the Kentucky Bourbon Trail.  Yes, there is such a thing.  You didn’t know that?!!

•  First we went to Woodford Reserve.  It was the only distillery to charge admission.  This might be in part because it was a very commercialized, modern place.  There were tickets & lines & audio headsets & a short bus ride & a long-winded presentation.

Our one small taste of Woodford bourbon was smooth & delicious, but the tour was not what we expected.  The whole experience had a “keep it moving” vibe to it.

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•  Next we went to Four Roses.  This distillery was about as mellow as the product they were selling.  Our tour guide was a young & friendly guy with an amazing knowledge of how the bourbon was made, the buildings in which the bourbon was made– and the charming family history that underscores the brand.

At the end of the tour our complimentary tasting included three different types of bourbon with suggestions of which ones to use in mixed drinks & which one to drink straight.  This tour was more of the experience that we had expected.

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•  Our third and final tour was at Maker’s Mark.  This distillery was by far the most personable and well-organized of the three that we visited.  The tour started in the refurbished home of the company’s founder, walked us through the distillery grounds, showed us the fermenting vats, the oak barrel storage facility & the bottling line where the bottles are hand-dipped in the famous bright red wax.

This tour ended in a laboratory-type setting where we each had four generous tastes of bourbon.  Our tour guide talked us through each glass telling us how the different Bourbons might taste to us– and why.  This was the experience we had hoped for along the Kentucky Bourbon Trail.

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[Hello FTC!  As you may recall I do not take any money or other compensation for my opinions about any products that I discuss on my sweet little bloggy.  I tell you this again in case you’ve forgotten that fact.  We good, my friend?]