Home Alone

Sat, 17 Feb 2007 19:13:19 GMT

Well, my DH took the kids to go tubing or sledding today and I am home alone with the puppy. He is doing great. He is the most lovable puppy. I do need to mop the floor in the family room and the kitchen to get rid of any pee smell. Everytime he pees we clean it up and then spray it and clean the spot again, but I think it is time to mop. When we redid this house, we decided that since the kids were young we would put vinyl flooring into the kitchen and family room where the kids would have a big screen tv, futons for sleep overs or movie night and put thier Playstation and any other games they get. I think I might get the Dance Dance Revolution for our playstation. That is so much fun and even my boys got into it. Good exercise too instead of sitting there in front of the computer or PS2 with a joy stick.

Well, anyway, I am home alone and besides for the cleaning that needs to be done, I have some ideas about how I want to spend my short free time today. I just took the book "Saving Fish From Drowning" out of the library yesterday and it looks like a good book. It is written my Amy Tan who wrote the "Joy Luck Club", which I really enjoyed reading and seeing the movie. I have had that book on my list of BTR (Books to Read) for so long , but it has always been out of the library at the exact time I am there. I am also waiting to take the Memory Keepers Daughter out the the library, but it is always out too.

I also want to finish reading my Better Homes and Gardens magazine and maybe do a little cross stitch. I love to cross stitch, the counted kind, not the kind where the pattern is already pre-printed on the fabric. I am also thinking about what to do for my next Thursday Thirteen. I think I have some good ideas, but I need to narrow them down.

Also, if anyone has any info about Pay-per-Post and what the he_ll I have to do to get it working or to get an "opportunity" from it, please do let me know.

Have a great weekend.

Peace,

Maureen

Thank you.

Fri, 02 Feb 2007 18:27:21 GMT

I was over at Daisy's blog on Spaces at DaisyBasket and found a wonderful link to send thank you cards to our troops overseas. This effort is funded by Xerox and is free to anyone who wants to take the time to support our troops and thank them for a job well done. The link is Let's Say Thanks.com and has some adorable cards drawn by children to be sent to troops. You don't get to pick who you send them too, but it does go to an individual serviceman or woman. I think that is so neat that you can send a card to someone you don't even know just to thank them for helping our country stay free and brave. Even with all the bickering in the media and in Congress and in Washington, our troops are doing their job to the best of their abilities and doing it well. We support them and thank them.

I read an article about playing games with your kids in the Hallmark Magazine and one mom played World of Warcraft or WOW as they call it with her husband and kids. The article went on to say that this family had also cultivated friendships with servicepeople in Iraq from playing this online game. That is really neat. My boys play WOW and really enjoy it. I have to make sure that when they are chatting online, that they know the safety rules, but besides that, the kids and adults in this area are really into this game. I tried it once and found it to be fun and entertaining, but of course, I need to fight for computer time to use it and then I get to blog or check my email. Ha ha.

The article in the Hallmark Magazine was entitled, Let the Games Begin and had lots of great ideas for both online games and old-fashioned board and outside games. I love to play games. My kids are still at the age where it is easier to let them win sometimes than trounce them and make them feel bad. But a bad loser or a bad winner is never encouraged. I am not a braggart and would like to instill that in my kids. An "ooh ooh, I won" is okay and healthy, but continually rubbing a win in someone's face or constantly pouting because you lost is unacceptable. Games are supposed to be fun and when they stop being fun, then that is when the plug gets pulled.

What games do you guys like to play? I remember in college playing many games of quarters (a drinking game) and chandelier (another drinking game...do you see where my college years went?). Then I remember when my husband's mother was in the house for cancer surgery, he and I and his mom playing hand after hand of 500 rummy. I also remember as as kid playing Spoons and Fish and War (or neverending, as we used to call it because the game never seemed to end.) One thing I never learned, and I don't know if it is because I was a girl or if my dad or mom just never learned it either, was Chess. My husband has taught the boys (the two older ones) how to play Chess and they seem to enjoy it. They even have a 3D chess game they can play on the computer together if they don't want to take the real set out. My game was checkers. I liked regular and Chinese Checkers and all kinds of card games.

When we got older, my mom taught us how to play Hearts and Tripoli and somewhere along the line we acquired the skills to play Pinochle. That was fun...lots of fun. I never learned Bridge, but hear it is fun too.

We are just finishing up the basement painting and are planning on painting a hopscotch board and a four-square, well square, on the floor down there so there are other things besides ping-pong and foosball for the kids to play. It is turning out really nice.

So anyway, if you remember where I started, send a thank you card to one of our hard working soldiers overseas, then sit down and be thankful that you have all of your family with you and play a simple game of Go Fish. Have a great weekend and play lots of games.

Peace,

Maureen

Technorati tags: Hallmark magazine, games, board games, cards, checkers, chess, troops, thank you cards, DaisyBasket

I Want to be sane with 4 kids in Enola: Hobbies

Home Alone

Thank you.