Scrabble on a rainy day

So my hubby and I are big word nerds.  We <3 Scrabble.  We have Scrabble, Super Scrabble, and travel Scrabble.  We both have read Word Freak, and have both read and studied Everything Scrabble.  For our first Valentine’s Day I gave Jason a Scrabble mug (and of course bought one for myself too) that says “it’s your word against mine.”  And a several years ago when I had an ebay account for buying, I won an auction for 2 vintage Scrabble board games:  Scrabble RSVP and Scrabble Sentence Cube Game.  We never did  figure out Scrabble RSVP  — although we should try to give it another whirl since it’s been sitting on the shelf for many years now.  We also haven’t played the Scrabble Sentence Cube Game in a long time, but it’s pretty funny.  We also like playing Boggle and Upwords, but Scrabble is our favorite word board game.  Our Scrabble games are long and competitive as we both try to maximize points on our turn by playing tight and trying to make more than one word at once.  And lookie below, I scored a bingo — bingo is a 7+ letter word and occurs when you play all the tiles on your rack in one turn.  I played n-a-t-i-o-[n]-a off the letter “L”  to score 14 regular points and then 50 extra points for the bingo!  The [n] was a blank tile so you can pick what letter you want it to be.  Anybody else out there <3 Scrabble or have another favorite board game that they adore?  

 

Some stitchy gifts

So I don’t know if I told y’all but for Thanksgiving hubby & I decided to stay home and not travel — not that it would have been very far, less than 2 hours.  Last year friends of ours chose to stay home and it sounded so nice and cozy and stress-free to be able to sleep in and stay in jammies all day long and relax and cook and eat, that we decided to do it this year.  Well it was definitely nice to sleep in and not have to ride in the car, but the day definitely didn’t feel like Thanksgiving at all.  We actually missed being with family   I guess it’s just not the holiday season if you’re not travelling in the car and maybe even being stressed out by family so we definitely won’t do Thanksgiving solo again.  But I’m very glad that we will be with family for Christmas.  This year, at Thanksgiving, everyone drew names for exchanging gifts at Christmas.  And since hubby & I weren’t there, my SIL drew names for us.  I’m glad we drew names because I feel it puts less focus on exchanging gifts, and of course it’s much easier on the wallet.  I’d rather spend time hanging out with family than spend time unwrapping lots of gifts.  

Last year, as many of y’all know, I made handmade stitchy gifts for everyone.  I started back in September and finished up the first week of December.  Well this year I am quite tardy!!!  Hubby & I will be purchasing two small gift cards for the name we “drew” and I also will be including some handmade stitchy goodies

The name I “drew” was my SIL’s FIL.  We will be getting him a small gift card and I plan to embroider 3 hankies for him.  I finished the first hankie last night, and yes, the dog may look familiar as I stitched this same pattern on some boxers last year for Jason for Christmas.  The dog is stitched with 4 strands of floss except I used 2 strands for the dog’s monocle and I wish I used 2 strands for eye, but oh well.  I’m also not crazy about how the diamond looks on the playing card, but I think it’s mostly okay.  The other 2 hankies I haven’t started stitching on yet, but I think one will have his name and the other a big stitchy capital letter for the first letter of his name.

Jason “drew” our niece’s name and thankfully I have 2 zippies left from my now closed etsy store, so we’ll be able to tuck a small gift card into one of the zippies along with a couple of tubes of lipgloss.  So that one is all done!  YAY!

And since hubby tells me he doesn’t read my blog as he claims he doesn’t need to since he lives it 24/7, especially the weird parts I know I can safely post this WIP picture.  I’m stitching text around the hankie’s border.  It looks like it might be mushy, but take it from me, it’s a silly poem I made up.  I’ve actually said it to hubby before, so I think he’ll like it.  I have to be sneaky to work on this since I don’t want hubby to see it before Christmas.  Last night when he took a shower, I snuck in some stitches!  I think he might have a vague idea that he’ll be getting a hankie for Christmas since I used my sewing machine to hem up 6 of the, but I still want the embroidery part to be a surprise!

book review: the elfish gene

I subscribe to the Nancy Pearl e-newsletter and she always has quirky or unique books to recommend.  Within the past few months, she recommended The Elfish Gene.  Lucky for me, it was due to be released in paperback soon, so I was able to get a copy.  Call it a “coming of age” memoir of how Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) affects a young boy and his teenage years.  I have never played D&D, but I thought I might enjoy reading the book since many male friends of mine in college played various role-playing games — even the live action kind where they would dress up in character and role-play.   

When I first picked up the book, I thought that I wouldn’t understand any of it since I have never played D&D nor any type of role-playing game.  Plus when my male friends would discuss role-playing games in college I had no idea what they were talking about.  Thankfully that was not the case for this book.    The author did give additional information to explain D&D  terminology and rules, etc…..  The part of the book that I really liked, was how “obsessed” he became with D&D.  When he wasn’t playing D&D,  he would read all kinds of fanzines and official D&D magazines or explain to his Nan (his grandma –or anyone who would listen – who clearly didn’t care about D&D) the intricacies of some D&D character trait or something.  You definitely can feel the author’s enthusiasm and passion for D&D.  I also learned that D&D players can “create” or “make” their own fantasy world/story/game and become what is called a ‘dungeon master’ and be in charge of the adventure.  It takes tons of imagination to create a game because you want the story and setting to be unique and exciting to the other players.   

I’m not sure exactly what I expected story-wise, but after reading the last page (the book is 277 pages long) I kind of felt like, ‘what was the point?’  I read the book, it was entertaining, but I don’t think I gained anything from reading it.  I also didn’t like the last couple of chapters.  It felt like the author was in a rush to end his tale.  I would recommend this as a library book check-out  — it would be of interest to readers who have friends that role-play and want to learn more about their world of gaming.

Keeping it Weird on Wednesday

So when I visited my folks this past Saturday, I went upstairs to my old bedroom to take pictures of some crewel embroidery my mom made for me when I was very little.  While in my room, I heard the phone ring, and shortly thereafter my parents yelled upstairs that it was my grandpa on the phone and to pick up the phone in my room so I could talk to him.  So I pick up the phone, have a chat, and as I’m fixin’ to set the phone back down I notice the speed dial list taped to my phone.  The last time I lived at home was after my freshman year of college, summer of 1996.  I turned 19 that summer and I suppose I had on my phone’s speed dial my most important peeps.  I look at the speed dial list below and sadly I don’t remember who some of these people are!  I have no recollection for (B) Jonathan, (1) JDave or Dave, and (9) Stephen.  I feel bad because at the time they must have been terribly important to me but now, at age 32, I have no idea who they are.  To those 3 and all the other peeps on my speed dial list, I’m sorry I’ve lost touch with all of y’all and I hope everyone is doing well.     

Decking the halls…

So even though one of the radio stations out of ATL has been playing Christmas music since the day after Thanksgiving, I usually wait until the first weekend in December to start decorating the house for Christmas.  We don’t have tons of decorations, perhaps if we hosted Christmas or had children, we’d have more Christmas decoration stuff,   but the decorations we have we enjoy a lot.  I haven’t put everything out yet, but here’s a sampling.

This our “Here comes Santa Claus” plate.  I actually bought it at Bath & Body Works years ago.

Having a fireplace is nice, although since we live in GA it doens’t get used tons, but the room seems cozier with the stockings hung up over the mantle.  I love our stocking holders.  It might be hard to tell from the picture, but the stocking holders are a “daddy” deer, a “mommy” deer, and a “baby” deer.  I remember the year I bought our stocking holders, I went to quite a few stores because I wanted to get the “just right” set for us.  The reindeer stocking holders came from Target as did the big blue and red snowflake stockings.     

Here’s a close-up of Benjamin’s stocking.  It came from the pet store we always go to for his food and treats and sometimes toys

For our first Christmas together, Jason really really wanted the silver icicle “tinsel” stuff.  Sadly, by the time we went out to buy some, all the stores were sold out.  Well imagine my surprise when a week or two after the new year, I went into our drug store, and the icicles were on sale for 10 cents a pack!  I bought six of them and of course we haven’t used them since.  Perhaps I can sell them on ebay along with our can of Libby’s pumpkin and box of Eggo’s?!?!?!  (In case you missed it, you can read about the Libby’s canned pumpkin shortage here and the Eggo shortage here)

We almost always have a Christmas tree each year, but this year we haven’t made up our minds yet.  A Christmas tree is definitely wonderful and smells so good and gives a festive atmosphere, but until we make up our minds, I got out some of our lights and wound them around a lamp in our living room.  I certainly hope it doesn’t look like the Festivus Pole!

Hope everyone is having a great holiday season so far!

Vintage Crewel Embroidery – made by my mom for me

Hubby & I went to visit my folks today.  And now that we have a digital camera, I went upstairs to my old childhood bedroom and took lots of photos of 2 beautiful framed crewel embroideries my mom made for me when I was very little.  I love both pieces so much that it’s had to say which one is my favorite.  My mom said both were crewel embroidery kits and the fabric came stamped and yarn was provided.

If you like vintage embroidery you should check out tnemily’s flickr group.

Keeping it Weird on Wednesday

Benjamin beggin’ for a belly rub.  But he also likes the insides of his legs scratched and patted.  When I pat the inside of Benjamin’s leg, I tell him that I’m making pancakes.  I say “I’m making pancakes” repeatedly, actually blueberry pancakes to be exact – ”b” for blueberry, “b” for Benjamin, who knows?!  I pat the inside of Benjamin’s leg and pretend I’m a chef and I tell him I’m making him blueberry pancakes with a side of sticks (he likes to chew on sticks when he’s in the yard).  Sometimes I vary the side dish   The patting motion to make pancakes really makes no sense as we all know you make pancakes up in a bowl by stirring with a circular motion.  

But this whole making pancakes thing, it reminds of my Grandma who used to play chef and make pretend sandwiches on my arm when I was very little.  Her pretend cooking motions made much more sense.  She would stroke my arm (elbow side down on the table) from the crook of my arm to my wrist and tell me she was putting out a piece of bread.  Next she would lay out various deli meats and condiments, put another piece of bread on top, and eat it all up by kissing up and down my arm.  (Don’t worry, I don’t eat up Benjamin’s pancakes!!!!!!!)

Anyone else have any pretend cooking memories of either having been the chef or having had a body part gobbled up with kisses?!?!    

book review: marionettes, inc.

Ray Bradbury is one of my favorite authors. I’ve read Fahrenheit 451 and many collections of his short stories.  I most like his short stories that have a bit of a sci-fi element to them, but overall, Ray Bradbury just writes very good short stories that cover all different kinds of literary genres.

I was browsing recently online, and came across a new collection of his called Marionettes Inc.  I was intrigued since this collection focuses on robotics/marionettes/ illusion — which reminds me of the book Do androids dream of electric sheep?  by Philip K. Dick which was the inspiration for the movie, Blade Runner, starring Harrison Ford — but knew this was a book to be borrowed from the library due to the very expensive $35 price tag.

Sadly, I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed with this collection.  I did not like the first long story, “I sing the body electric,” but the other 4 or 5 short stories were quite good but awfully short.  Plus the hype with this book is that it contains 2 previously unpublished works. Well the 2 unpublished works are quite good stories, but are basically the same, one is in short story form, the other explains how it might be adapted for the big screen.

I recommend this book as a library book check-out, but I feel it’s not worth the expensive price tag to be added to your own personal library, especially since all but one of the short stories appear in other Ray Bradbury collections.

Finally, some sewing!

So after reading this post over at June at Noon’s blog, I realized that if Gretchen (who is a mommy of two) can find time to make her homemade stitchy crafty gifts, then I need to quite whining about how far behind I am — I haven’t started yet!!! — and just get started.  I know it is a very small start, but seeing as how November is almost over (!!!) and last year I started stitching in September (!!!), I really don’t have the time or sanity to commit to large stitchy projects like I did last year.  

Between yesterday and today, I hemmed and stitched up 6 blue hankies made from some broadcloth I had in my stash.  I had no idea it was there, which is odd since my stash really isn’t that big, so that was a nice surprise!  But anyway, yay for 6 blue hankies!  Empty canvases just waiting to be embroidered on.   I have something very specific I want to embroider on one of them for my hubby, and perhaps the other ones will be distributed at Christmas time… We’ll see….  At least they are all ready to be embroidered upon!

Doesn’t everyone have unicorn stickers on their sewing machine?!

Thanksgiving Eve

Hope everyone is having a good Thanksgiving Eve!  I am cheerful, but a bit tired, since I baked a pumpkin pie, a pan of cornbread, and a broccoli casserole earlier today. 

Benjamin’s already dreaming of turkey… we’re having ham instead… but I don’t think he will mind!

For those of  y’all who celebrate Thanksgiving, I hope y’all have a great meal and great time!