Tis So -- Another "Bible" Game

Yesterday, I chose to play Tis So--a game where you put together Proverbs from the Bible.  It includes a list of the ones in the game and color codes them into 5 groups with different point values.  Each proverb is broken into three parts and the object is to put them together.  There are also some bonus point pieces that you can use to add 100 points or double the point value of the proverb you play it on.  You can play until all the pieces have been picked, but that would take quite a long time so we just set a time limit of an hour.  I won.  It isn't a lot of fun, but it is a good way to learn some proverbs!  I think once you learned the Proverbs well enough that you didn't have to look on the list, it would be more fun and go much faster. 

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The Game Called "TRUMP"

Just so you know, we don't only have old games.  Friday night we played one of our newer ones--TRUMP.  It is a real estate game about making deals, bidding for property and just trying to make the most money.  An odd thing about it is that we are dealing with millions of dollars which I am not used to counting.  It was a little hard when it came to totaling everything up at the end!  I won by $510,000,000 with a total sum of $1,250,000,000! 

I think this is only the third time we played it because it's really a game meant for 3-4 players.  With only two of us playing, we modified it a bit by only using about half the Trump cards so it wouldn't take as long.  The game ends when the pile of Trump cards are gone.  Play just continues until no one can play any more Trump cards they hold.  Then you add up all the money you have, including what is hidden in the properties you own.

Have you ever played this one?

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Saturday Morning Relax Time With Roxy

After blow drying Roxy off after our walk in the rain, I rewarded her with a little mom time on the bed together.  Nice to not have to do our grocery shopping this morning since I did it Thursday this week.

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Time For Baseball!

Today was supposed to be the Indians home opener and we had a beautiful day for it!  Unfortunately, it has been postponed due to the Corona virus.  So, tonight we played our Baseball box game that came out in 1959.  It's actually quite fun and as close to actually playing as you can get, for a box game.  Sometimes the simpler games are the most fun!

One person gets to pitch by choosing good and bad pitches, trying to strike out his opponent who either swings or doesn't.  A swing at a good pitch results in a batted ball (not necessarily a hit) and a swing at a bad pitch is a strike.  Not swinging at a good pitch is a strike, not swinging it a bad pitch is a ball.  If the batter hits the ball, they choose either a "Bases Empty" card or a "Base Runners" card.  There are little tokens you can move around the bases.  The cards have baseball situations on them such as "Fly out to left" or "Long double, runners advance 3 bases."  You can even try to steal if you wish, by drawing a "steal" card.  It's actually quite fun if you like baseball.  We played a full nine innings and I won 7-4.

The scoreboard has wheels to turn to show the number of strikes, balls, outs and runs.  The cardboard scoreboard originally had tabs that fit into slots on the game board, but they broke off so my dad attached a wooden stand for it.  There used to be sticks that fit into the circles to move the pitch choice and batter knobs, but those broke too so we just push the knobs.  It works!  Have you ever seen this game?  I sometimes use the cards from it when we have a baseball review game in Sunday School.

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Hodgepodge Wednesday

1. Howdy Hodgepodgers. It's kind of fun to be back, isn't it?  Last time we met was September, 2018. Tell me something big-important-happy-or sad that's happened in your life since that date. Just one thing. We don't know how long this current isolation situation is going to last and we might need to dole out our news bit by bit.

Our wonderful dog, Abby passed over the Rainbow Bridge May 20, 2019 and we got another dog, Roxy, from a shelter on August 10, 2019.  It was a huge decision because my husband absolutely wanted another dog but I did not.  I wanted to be able to be free to go places anytime when I retired Dec. 16, 2019.  I gave in though and not only got a dog, but a 66 lb. Siberian Husky mix!

Abby

Roxy

2. Might as well get this out of the way early on...COVID-19. On a scale of 1-5 how serious are you about keeping your distance? Explain. fyi-I didn't create the scale but have seen it several places online. Also fyi-we won't only have virus related questions each week, but for this first one it feels right.

1-Not at all, living normally

2-Cautious but still going out

3-Going out as needed, mostly home or working from home, still seeing friends/family

4-Extremely limited, only going out when unavoidable, minimal contact with people

5-Full lockdown, no one in or out

We doing #4.  Walking the dog, getting groceries as needed (not hoarding them like some) and going through drive-thrus for fast food on occasion.  Both my hubby and I are over 60. At home we are watching TV, doing exercise videos and playing games (see previous posts for our latest games played).

3. Raise your hand if you think you might run out of steam in the cooking department before it's all said and done? What's something delicious you've cooked or eaten in your own kitchen in the past week?

Not cooking.  Using microwave and toaster oven.  Liked my tuna fish sandwich the other day and today we used a 2 for $5 coupon for beef and chedder sandwiches.  Haven't had them in a very long time and they tasted delicious!

4. What's a television show or movie you've seen recently (it could be an oldie) that you really liked?

My TV shows I like are All American, The Biggest Loser, Survivor, The Rookie, The Wall, When Calls the Heart and a movie I saw this week that I enjoyed very much was Parts 1 and 2 of The Princess Diaries.

5. Share something funny you've seen or heard this week.

The movie, The Princess Diaries, made me laugh out loud!

6. Insert your own random thought here.


I wish people would stop hoarding paper products and groceries and just buy like normal what they need for that week.  The last two weeks our Giant Eagle has been completely out of toilet paper and liquid antibacterial hand soap.


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Go To The Head of The Class Needs Updating!

Our game for Tuesday was Go To The Head of the Class.  Players start in Kindergarten and move up 6 desks when they answer correctly.  If you land on a desk with a red ink well, you get an examination question and the opportunity to skip the next grade!  We had two of these games but I combined all the pieces into just one.  One of the question books was copyrighted in 1957, the other in 1960.  Some of the categories need to be updated.  For example, one question was name the 3 presidents who were assassinated and the answer:  Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley but J. F. Kennedy wasn't listed in the answer.

We started with the senior questions, but quickly found they were too hard for us so moved to intermediate.  When we got through all those, we went to the junior ones and then we moved along much better.  It got to the point where we just were ready for the game to end so much that we were giving each other hints (although that is against the rules and should have moved back 3 desks for prompting).  I was way behind most of the game, but caught up once I got to the junior questions and won when my husband missed his last question with a come-from-behind win.  I believe next time we want to play, we should probably take some time to study the questions ahead first.

Here are some sample questions for you to see how you do (answers at end of this post):

Senior questions:
1.  category "Styled for Tomorrow":  What make of car has the "Park Lane" cruiser series?
2.  category "Where Would You Advertise":  Within 5% either way, what would a one color full page in Life cost?

Intermediate questions:
3.  category "Shopping Spree":  Where would you buy a Quid?
4.  category "Do You Watch TV":  What show does a man sitting in a chair looking at the picture of a house on a large screen remind you of?

Junior questions:
5.  category "Signs of the Holidays":  Which is not a symbol of Thanksgiving Day?  pumpkin pie, turkey, onion soup?
6.  category "What's My Name?"  I am a little Chinese boy and have a wonderful magic lamp--what's my name?

1--Mercury
2--$29,500 (1960)
3--Tobacco Store
4--Person to Person
5--Onion soup
6--Aladdin

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Two Games We Gave Up On

In continuing our "quest" to play different games each day, I pulled out Upwards, but soon we discovered it was too hard and not fun.  My husband couldn't even find any words to make in three turns in a row and just kept turning in letters.  My mom was good at this one but me, not so much.  I was having a hard to coming up with words as well so we quit and changed to what I thought would be a much simpler game--Bridge It.  My husband said "This is the worst game yet.  Even Mingh wasn't as bad as this!"

In Bridg-It, a very old game by the way, all you do is try to connect your pieces all the way across the board.  Red goes one way and yellow the
other way.  While you try to get your pieces connected across, you also must try blocking your opponent.  It took only about 15 minutes (or less) for me to win two games.  I thought my husband would like this one, but he didn't.

Have you played either of these?  What did you think of them?

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Battleship and Bible Trivia Challenge

For Saturday night, I was looking for a fast easy game to play so chose Battleship.  Of course, we have the original version.  The white pegs are misses and the red are hits.  My husband only found two of my ships!  It was fun, but hubby didn't like having to push in those pegs.  This game involves some luck with a bit of strategy.

Then for Sunday, I thought it would be appropriate to play Bible Trivia Challenge.  We used the children's questions because they are easier and had some fun with that.  We could sit in comfortable chairs for both these games instead of sitting at the table to play.  The object is to be the first to move your piece up the rainbow three times by answering questions from the seven categories in order and one from the category of your choice.  Then to win, you put your piece on the dove in the center and must answer a question correctly from the category chosen by your opponent.  The categories are:  Old Testament, History & Geography, Prophets & Prophecy, Names, Letters-Numbers-sequence, New Testament and Wisdom (usually a verse with a blank to fill in the missing word).  One of the questions I missed was "Who was the mother of Ishmael?"  I said Sarah, but the right answer was her hand maid, Hagar.  I knew it as soon as I saw the answer!  I should have got it right.

Which of these games would you most like to play?  Have you played either of them?

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Improved Version of Monopoly

Ever hear of Animalopoly?  We bought it from a gift shop at the Cleveland Zoo years ago.  It's just like Monopoly except instead of buying properties, you but animals and instead of paying rent when you land on someone else's animal, you pay a meal fee.  Instead of building houses and hotels, you build habitats for your animals.  Instead of going to jail, you go hide from a predator.  This is the game we played this weekend.  I forgot how much I enjoy it!  Even when I have to pay, it doesn't seem as bad because you're paying to feed the animals.  Now that we have this, I doubt if we'll play Monopoly anymore.  I won fairly quickly.  My husband kept landing on my Gorilla which is the equivalent of New York in the regular Monopoly game.  I actually believe this is the game that helped me learn how to manage money.

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"What We Do All Day During Stay at Home Time" (Writer's Workshop)

First off, I am not bored.  I am very thankful that I can watch videos of Silver Sneakers and Planet Fitness workouts to keep my exercise going, plus now that all the places I usually went are closed, I get five walks in a day with my husband and dog, two of which take around an hour each.  I am also thankful that on Facebook, I can watch a livestream of our Pastor's messages.  Tonight he is talking about the last days at 7:00 on the Parma Heights Baptist Church page as well as his own page.  Although Sunday services are canceled, at least I can watch our service on video at 11:00 on Sundays which is better than nothing.  I really miss teaching my Sunday School class and meeting in person, but understand the reason for this separation.

My husband has also agreed to play a game with me every day.   Since Friday, we've played all these:  Sequence (get 2 sets of 5 pics covered in a row that match your cards), Sorry! (like Parchesi with cards to add some strategy), Aggravation (marbles are used to go around the board like Parchesi but with shortcuts), Mhing (card game based on Mah Jong), Checkers and Stadium Checkers (move rows to get your marbles to drop towards your hole and get yours in first).  Although I usually win, he is a good sport about it.  We have lots of games so are trying to play a different one every day.  Do you like any of these?  Have you ever played any of these?  I will be posting more game posts in the coming days.

I used to go to the Parma Sr. Center to play Pinochle twice a week.  I miss the people, but found I can play online by just googling pinochle.  I also play Gin and Cribbage (through Facebook) and some Word Wipe, Word Search, Scrabble and Free Cell solitaire on the AARP website.

I have plenty of books I can read as well so am getting some reading in each day too.   Of course, I still enjoy certain TV shows that I tape so I can watch them any time:  Biggest Loser, The Rookie, Survivor--Winners at War, All Rise, Bull, For Life, My Wife and Kids, When Calls the Heart and All-American plus of course the news and movies.

What about you?  What are you doing to occupy your days? 

Stop by Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop for more post options and to link up yours.

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The Corona Virus Restrictions Makes Someone Happy!

Everyone is upset over the Corona virus except our dog, Roxy.  Every time my husband and I leave together, we crate our dog.  She never minded though until last Monday and we cannot figure out why.  We've been crating her since last August twice a week.  We just put in some special treats and she walked right in and settled down.  Since I retired in January, we've been going out more often.  We crated her about 1-2 hours a day, 3 on Sunday while we went to church.  We used to include a busy bone along with some delicious frozen Wolf Wilderness stew until about four weeks ago when we found out she had gained 8 pounds and I discovered the busy bones are really high in calories.  We were giving her them 5-6 times a week but the recommended amount on the bag said only 2 a week for a dog her size.  Oops. 

I think she's realized that she misses these busy bones.  She has been losing weight since we've cut them down to just on Sundays so it's working.  Since our last vet visit 4 weeks ago, she's lost 4 pounds but still has 4 more to go yet to get to the weight she was at when we first got her.

With our church services cancelled, the Sr. Center closed for the rest of this month at least, and the libraries closed to the public, we are spending lots more time at home and haven't gone anywhere together without her.  I did our grocery shopping last night alone to avoid having to crate her today.  We are doing lots of walking including new routes to change things up.  Fortunately, the weather has been in the 30s or better and dry for the most part.  The ice and snow are all gone so I am grateful for that!

Although I am bummed that all our hangouts have closed down, Roxy is thrilled!  Any ideas on how to get her going back in again without the Busy Bones?  We can't really trust her to leave things as they are and not break a window if we leave her out when we go away. 

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