Tag: family

Cornhole – the game

In Ohio (and probably other places), Cornhole is a popular game to play at family gatherings and other places. It’s sort of like a cross between a bean-bag toss and shuffleboard. And today, my folks and I went to my Uncle Doug & Aunt Charlene’s for Charlene’s birthday gathering where mom & I got to play Cornhole for the first time.

What we discovered is that neither of us are good Cornhole players. The young ladies we were playing against were 10+ points ahead of us when it was time to sing Happy Birthday to Charlene and thankfully the game was forgotten. It was kind of fun to play, but considering I’ve never seen a game set for sale for under $75, I don’t think I’ll be buying one any time soon.

In other news, I’m spending my final days of summer vacation here at the Lake with my parentals. I left work on Friday at lunchtime and picked up Subway on my way to the Lake. (I drove dad’s truck, not cuz my car is broke again, but because dad wanted his hip boots. Dad’s comment when I arrived was “Oh! It’s my favorite… truck!”) The weather here is brilliant and we’ve been having a very nice time. And mom and I have been playing gin rummy (and I keep winning, to her annoyance).

On Monday, it’s the teacher’s first day at work (though I’ve been working all through the summer). And Wednesday is the first day for students. So it’s nice to be here at the Lake and relaxing on my final summer days. 🙂

Garage Sale Day – 2007

Last year for the town Garage Sale Day, we actually had a garage sale at mom & dad’s place. This year, I thought I would be at a meeting over the lunch hour, so I didn’t get stuff ready for selling. Only to discover earlier this week that the meeting was canceled. (It was our pre-planning meeting for B-WISER, but with only 11 girls signed up so far, there’s a chance we may cancel the camp this year. Eep!)

However, nothing was stopping me from going around to other people’s garage sales. When I headed off to the post office this morning, I checked out some of the garage sales around. And I stopped at my cousin’s house to talk with Aunt Becky, Deanna, and Taylor. I then moved onto the gas station to buy a two bottles of cream soda and get some cash. When I got back home, I wrote a check for a bill I’d forgotten about and retraced my steps. (The weather was beautiful, so walking around town was quite a pleasure today).

This time, on the way home, I got in line at the Texas Tenderloin caravan which set up just for the town garage sale day. (I’d seen the caravan on my walk home yesterday and decided then that I’d have a Texas Tenderloin sammich for lunch on Saturday.) The line was pretty long, but, as I said before, the weather was wonderful. In front of me was a young girl I’ve seen around who will most likely be a future student of mine some day. A bit before her were two sisters talking, one of whom is a current student and the other a former student. Was kind of neat to see the timeline there in the lunch line. Heh.

I ordered a sammich and fries and walked home. And thought about how nice it would be to have local restaurants within walking distance of home. (Well, other than the one pizza joint in town.) Lunch was yummy. Linus wanted some, but I assured him that tenderloins (well, the breaded & fried type like I was eating) are not good food for kitties. And not good food for humans either, but there ya go.

Later on, I decided to go on a bike ride. It’s my first time out for the season, so of course the tires were a little flat. However, the Free Air at the gas station wasn’t working. So I popped around to the folks’ to see if dad would fill my tires with his air compressor. And my timing was perfect. Mom was home from work and ready to go garage saling. So I went along with them.

Dad bought a balance at the first sale (their neighbors, so he walked ’em home after buying). Mom bought puzzles at the second. And then we were back at my cousin’s where Becky & co. were still selling. Mom bought a puzzle and a puzzle mat there (Becky said we didn’t have to pay, but dad got rid of some quarters to pay for ’em – heh). While they were pondering just what someone could do with a quarter these days, I suggested to Becky that she should save up her garage sale revenue and take her favorite niece out for Chinese Buffet. And that inspired our evening adventure at the Chinese Buffet.

Whenever I upgrade my computer, I always give the old one to my Aunt Becky. I will admit, the last upgrade, I decided to try building a linux box out of my old machine so that I could play with it, but I just never used it as I’d wanted to. So after nearly 2 years after my last upgrade, Becky finally got her upgrade. She promised to take me out for Chinese Buffet in thanks for the computer – and who am I to turn down Chinese food?

So with my subtle hint, plans were made to have Chinese buffet for supper. Becky picked the folks and I up, Deana took the girls (Taylor & Sydney), and my other cousin Bill and his wife Connie and their youngest, Braden, met us at the Piqua China Garden Buffet. We had a pleasant evening having Chinese food and chatting. And the little ones were pretty well behaved. Afterwards, Deanna took the girls to their mom (the garage sale was at their dad’s place) before she herself headed home to south Dayton. Becky dropped the parentals and I off. And Bill & co. returned to their place.

Once home, I saved the latest Doctor Who (which was done downloading from before supper time) to CD and watched it. It’s fun to watch new Who on my big screen TV while chatting with folks on my laptop. Mmmmm, technology!

(Oh, and if you were wondering if I ever got to ride my bike, the answer is “yes.” After returning from the garage sales – we hit about half the town before returning – dad pumped my tires and I rode around town for awhile. Yay for bikes!)

Winter Storm

Like others in my friend’s list, we were part of the Winter Storm that swept quite an area of the US. Thankfully, since I’m a school teacher, I had yesterday and today off. And I had fun documenting the storm with photos. 🙂

Oh, if you haven’t already, be sure to check out my Valentine’s Day card. Linus and Lucy posed especially for it.

So, yesterday we had lots of snowing going on. I made chicken & rice soup for lunch, but since I put far too much rice in it, I wound up with very nice chicken & rice porridge. Yum! I spent the entire day indoors, except for a couple of minutes when I took some photos from my front porch. In the process of doing that, the kitties got out and Lucy hopped off the porch to investigate this “snow” thing better. I stepped down to coax her back up. And then proceeded to slip and fall onto the porch (into the thin layer of snow which had blown up that far). I now know why they call those things “slippers.” Heh. I’m pretty sure that Lucy was laughing as she hopped back inside the house.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. I finished watching season 3 of Open All Hours (and now must order season 4…) I played some City of Heroes. I had leftovers for supper (from Dinner & a Movie). It was a very nice day.

Today I’ve been watching Columbo and trying to get caught up with grading. I’m nearly done with the physics tests, but then I’ve got chemistry tests and physics quizzes to grade. (The lab reports are stacking up too, but they’re on the server at work, so I’ll do them when I’m back in the building.) The folks and I walked up to the Post Office today, so I took some photos along the way. I took a cute photo of them outside their house so dad could send to one of his friend’s in California who’s been complaining about the 60­°F temperatures they’ve been having. Heh. Also took a photo of a neighbor’s house who’s off in Florida for the winter. That way they can remember why they go to Florida every winter. 🙂

Anyhoo, here are some of the photos from Winter Storm 2007:


Here is a shot off the porch during the storm. It’s all misty looking due to all of the snowflakes falling.


This is a similar view after the storm was over.


Lucy went out again some this morning and plopped into the same spot as yesterday. A little more snow in that space than yesterday. Silly kitty.


Getting from my doorway to the street was something. Some of those footprints are DEEP. (Up to my knees in one of ’em!)


My house in all of its glory!


Awwwww, aren’t they cute?


The mound of snow after they plowed out the Post Office parking lot makes for a fun snow mountain for kids!


My street on the walk back.


Dad shoveling the walk… Actually, a neighbor had just plowed through with her snow blower (and it was a chore for her!) and dad’s just following up.


This is a neat icicle that always gets formed in that tree each year. Some years it’s been much bigger. But it’s always pretty.

I know some of you are probably tired of snow and/or photos of snow, but for those of you who aren’t, I hope you enjoyed my pictorial journal. 🙂

Bridge Contest 2007

As of Wednesday, school is back in session. I had a lovely time with my family and friend’s this holiday season. Indeed, the folks, Amy, Rachel and I spent Tuesday out shopping. We started with lunch at Sakai, the new Japanese place in Troy. Sushi for all (and some chicken cutlet for dad too). We tried many different types of sushi and rolls and enjoyed it. I love California roll, especially with crab salad, but I also love ebi sushi (steamed shrimp) and various tuna rolls and sushis. We discovered that the yellow tail roll that I got didn’t taste as good as the other items on the table, but I think that was the only real loser of the bunch.

Shopping started at Kohl’s and moved onto to the bookstore in Troy. I spent some of my birthday money there (for Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett and American Gods by Neil Gaiman) and also bought everyone coffee or tea at the coffee shop which is in the bookstore. I had a caramel steamer and it was very yummy. We finished up there and then moved onto the Piqua mall. I returned the leather jacket which I’d received for Christmas but which didn’t fit. Despite checking every store in the mall that might carry one, we just couldn’t find a nice replacement for that jacket. Perhaps mom and I will find one another day out. Still, I was able to complete my birthday purchase by getting The Beatles Love.

When we returned home, we had Wine Time which wound up sating us all for supper too. Alas, I had to work the next day and miss out one some quality A&R time, but I gotta be making the money to buy food for my kitties! So Wednesday morning, I got up bright and early for work.

The full week before Christmas break, my seniors were building bridges using only toothpicks and glue. (They also had Monday & Tuesday of our last half week to finish up.) Yesterday, we tested them. The bridges had to span a 30cm opening and at least hold the bucket. And all of them did that. Then the students were to add up to 15kg (~33 lbs) of mass into the bucket. Normally bridges break before the full 15kg is added, but this year we did have one bridge that held the maximum! Indeed, the girls who built this bridge wound up with the highest efficiency (mass held divided by mass of bridge). It held 550+ times its own mass! Pretty impressive!

I had dad drop off my camera because I’d forgotten to bring it that morning, so I managed to get a few photos in. And since my camera can do video, I tried to video some of the bridges breaking. Alas, my timing was off and I usually ran out of video time mere seconds before the bridge actually broke. (My camera does videos in 15 second segments – and doesn’t record sound.) However, I managed to capture the last two bridges that we tested as they broke. And I have uploaded one of them to YouTube for your enjoyment!

This bridge managed to hold quite a bit before it broke. Off hand, I can’t remember how much, but I believe it was around 7 kg. I was quite pleased with all of the bridge performances. And it was interesting to see the different techniques students had to add their masses to the bucket. As one student said “I think I used more physics to place the masses than I did in building the bridge!”

Happy Birthday to Me!

Well, after welcoming in the new year, eventually judiang and I got off to bed. I shut the kitties in with me to allow Judi to get some sleep, but that meant that Linus (I swear, someone must have let him drink something caffeinated!) ran around in my room keeping me & Lucy up rather than keeping Judi up. He settled down sometime after 2:30am and we all fell asleep.

Around 6:30am, I let the kitties out in case they wanted breakfast or to do their business. Linus bugged Judi a little, but then he returned to me and we all fell asleep again. I got up sometime after 9am and made my way next door on the rumor that there would be cinnamon rolls there. The rumor was right!

As folks slowly made their way into M&D’s kitchen, we put HDTV on to watch the making of Rose Parade special and then the parade itself. I peeled potatoes for mashed taters while I watched. I wasn’t worried about missing too much of the parade since my computer was supposedly recording it. But an investigation around noon showed that my computer had just recently rebooted. Crap! So I’ve no idea how much of the parade that I have. I’ll make a DVD for watching later.

Mom had invited her brothers and their families for New Year’s Day lunch (pork and kraut, an Anderson family tradition). But before folks were to arrive, I had to feed Judi and then drive her off to the airport. In fact, we had just finished lunch (first lunch for me) as Aunt Madeline and Uncle Bob arrived. We said our hullos and good byes and I took Judi off to Dayton International. Seeing as she’s currently on IRC, I think she got home OK. 🙂

I returned home and it was still just Madeline and Bob. They were starting on desert, so I started on second lunch. It was just as good as first lunch was. Pork, kraut, mashed taters, and biscuits. Yum!

We decided to teach Madeline how to play Apples to Apples while Bob went upstairs to watch football (or was it sleep through football?) It turns out Madeline has a gift for Apples to Apples. She quickly made her way to the lead. I eventually caught up with her, but she won out in the end. It was during the last couple of rounds that Uncle Doug showed up. Then his wife, Aunt Charlene, and daughter Patty arrived as well. They had 2 of Charlene’s grand-nieces with her. They were fascinated by Apples to Apples and we promised to play it with them after awhile.

Despite mom having a nice new dining room table that could seat 10+ folks, people congregated in the kitchen. It was rather funny. But eventually we congregated in the dining room to play Apples to Apples again. Mom and Madeline decided not to join in, but Patty, Halie (the younger niece), and Uncles Bob & Doug agreed to join in. Some of the funniest table-talk took place in this game. But Halie (with a little help from her sister Sarah and from Rachel) quietly took the lead and eventually got the win. Meanwhile, I only got 1 card in this game. Alas!

The family headed out a little after 6pm and then Amy began making my birthday cake. She had the inspired idea of making cupcakes because they would cool faster and then people could decide whether or not to put icing on and how they wanted to decorate.

After the evening news, we put mom’s new copy of Ice Age 2 on and watched that. With a break first for folks to get supper. And then a break near the end for Rachel & Amy to bring in my birthday cupcakes. They had iced 5 of ’em and put “T” “R” “I” “N” and “A” on them. Then put sparkling candles on ’em for decoration. Despite the best efforts of the three of us, the candles refused to go out until we were nearly passed out from trying. It was quite a hoot. I had the “I” (cuz “I” was having a birthday today) while Rachel took the “R” and Amy took the “A.” Dad had a blank one and mom decided to wait.

After the movie was done, we had ice cream and (for some of us) cupcakes again. We watched Two and a Half Men (which mom and dad watch regularly). And when it was over, I opened my presents.

elsaf got me Volume 3 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection – yay! Wile E Coyote & catapults! Plus lots of other great cartoons! Judi got me the CD version of Monty Python: The Final Rip Off, which I am currently listening to. Thank you ladies! M&D got me some cash which I might get to spend tomorrow during our shopping spree. And A&R got me The Complete Monty Python’s Flying Circus Megaset. Yay! Plenty of Python and silliness to last me for some time!

So, now I’m 36. Hmmm… So far doesn’t feel any different from 35. 🙂

Happy New Year!

Well, judiang and I are resting up from our successful New Year’s Eve party. OK, so it was just us, my folks, and Amy & Rachel. But it was great fun. OK, so I forgot some things like, say, ice and, say, pop for folks other than me. But I had the ham cooked and was working on the mini-piggies-in-a-blanket when folks arrived. No matter, the folks brought lots of booze with ’em and their own drinks master: Amy.

We had supper and started mom’s (new) DVD of Trading Places. Once we finished eating, we sat and watched the movie to its end. When I started up Serenity, we ladies played Apples to Apples (which A&R gave to mom for Christmas) while dad tried to listen to the movie (unsuccessfully, from what I understand). I was in the lead for awhile, getting 5 cards. But then Rachel sped past me to the win.

Euchre was our next game of choice, but the movie ended and we had 5 minutes to go til midnight. So ABC came on and we Rocked our way to the New Year.

MERRY NEW YEAR!
(Beef Jerky Time!)

We finished the game of Euchre with Judi and I beating mom & Amy. (They say they let us win cuz it was now my birthday. Heh.) Folks then drifted off home and Judi and I cleaned up the place. The dishwasher is now going, Judi’s over in the chair on her laptop and I’m here on the sofa on mine.

2006 is dead and gone. Long live 2007! May it be a good year for everyone on my flist!

Holiday Swag

Yesterday was Christmas for my family. We had a late lunch of sandwiches and/or salads and Munchies. And then we chatted or read or slept or played Sims (well, just Judi for the Sims). But eventually we couldn’t stand the suspense any longer and at 4:30pm, Amy began passing out presents for opening.

We always do the “take turns” bit of unwrapping in my family. And we went in order of youngest to oldest. So Rachel started, followed by Amy, me, Judi, dad, mom. (The difference in dad & mom’s age is 6 months, but she is the older…) It was lots of fun unwrapping and seeing what folks got and seeing their expressions when they opened your presents. I, for one, had a blast with Amy & Rachel’s gifts. Rachel decided maybe she’d like some ice skates from LL Bean since they look more gym-shoe like and, thus, more comfortable than what she’d had in the past. So I told her that I’ll see about getting her some ice skates. And I did! And with Amy’s gift, I made up a Netflix-style service of my own DVDs. I call it Flicks DOT Net and made up a logo & everything. She got several pre-paid envelopes for the DVDs, and a list of my collection for her to mark up requests. We’re shooting for 5 at a time and we’ll see how it goes.

The surprise gift of the afternoon were these little wind-up flashlights that mom’s cousin got everyone. They’re LED lights and very easy to get lit. We had a blast cranking and shining and I’m happy to note that I’m not the ONLY one who looked into the lights. We took a break about an hour into the unwrapping and wound up finishing just a little before 7pm.

We had supper in mom’s “new” dining room. Chicken casserole, green beans, Brussels sprouts for mom & Amy, cottage cheese, cranberry sauce from the can, and vino. It was an excellent supper and we toasted Christmas and families.

We stayed there til after midnight and finally mooched on home with our swag. And boy did we do well! I have placed my holiday swag under my tree and taken a photo of it.

As you can see, I received many nice things. (The teddy bears are just decoration.) Several items of clothing from the parentals: 4 turtle neck shirts, 2 vests, corduroys and socks (which I picked up today). A Brit’s Pub shirt from A&R (from the English pub near their place). Dad’s toy (that the thing on the left with the nails in it) from this year. A Robopet from the parentals – yay toys! Books, a CD, and DVDs from the folks, elsaf and judiang. Wrap-around hearmuffs from the folks (all of us got a pair). The aforementioned flashlight and a box of gardening tools from mom’s cousin (the box of tools is under the clothes). A lovely photo of A&R in a motherboard-style frame from the girls which is currently on my kitchen counter and thus not in the photo. And some book uprights for when I finally get my bookshelves built (from m&d). The two wrapped presents there are birthday gifts – one from Elsa & one from Judi. I get to open then tomorrow.

Today, Judi and I headed off to Fairborn for my monthly(ish) trek to the Bookery Fantasy and Jeet India. We both got $50+ worth of stuff. And we had Indian Fud at Jeet. Wonderful buffet. We also went to the Evil Puppy Mall where Judi hugged a baby Pomeranian for a bit. At the Walking Place, I bought socks from mom as well as socks from me. (Well, they were buy 3 get 1 free, so I got 2 pair from mom and 2 pair from me). I love Fox River Socks!

For the third time since my holiday began, Judi and I visited Best Buy. This time, I was going in with the intent to get some speakers for my iPod for the kitchen and/or living room. (They’re portable enough for both – or even my bedroom should I desire.) I got a nice set of Logitech speakers for $150. And I’ve tested them out and they are nice. Judi got herself an external soundcard for her laptop.

After a short stop in Meijer for the last of my groceries for tonight and tomorrow, we returned home. Judi immediately plopped onto the sofa for a nap and I worked on getting things ready for tonight’s New Year’s Eve gathering. We’re playing games and eating food and watching movies and stuff.

I hope all of you have a Happy New Year! I certainly intend to do so!

Baking Day 2006

Mom and I once again locked ourselves in her kitchen all day and baked our little hearts out. Yup, it’s our annual Baking Day! (OK, if you’re picturing us locked into the kitchen with shackles and a taskmaster cracking a whip, it wasn’t quite like that…)

In 2004 and 2005 I reported on those Baking Days. We’ve stuck with most of the usual lot for baked goods. Though we did try one former classic once again – Oatmeal Carmelitas. Think chocolate chip cookie bars with gooey caramel and pecans. Indeed, they came out so gooey that we’re just going to bring them along in their original pan rather than get them out to set with the other cookies.

The list of things we made were as follows:

  • Ice Box Cookies (Butterscotch cookies – a family favorite, great with coffee apparently)

  • Oatmeal Carmelitas

  • Caramel Pecan Dreams (AKA floor sweeping cake – this time with REAL floor sweepings!)

  • Lindy Cookies (mom’s classic oatmeal chocolate chip cookies)

  • Cheesecake Cupcakes (a double batch)

  • Peanut Blossoms (AKA nipple cookies)

  • Candy Buckeyes (using a slightly different recipe and Ghirardelli chocolate chips)

  • Market Day Sugar Cookies (which we haven’t baked yet – we’ll decorate & bake those and the ice box cookies tomorrow)

We’ve tasted most of these and they are YUMMY! Mom and I rock mightily. 🙂 Tomorrow, as I mentioned in the list, mom will be baking the ice box cookies (we made a double batch – that’s 12 cups of flour!!!) and when I get home from work, we’ll decorate and bake some of the sugar cookies. (The elementary school is doing a monthly fundraiser called Market Day where you can buy a number of prepared food items. I decided to try their holiday sugar cookies. And they had cool decorations which I also got.)

Tomorrow evening, we’re off to the Shorts (Aunt Becky et al) for the extended family Christmas. And Saturday evening is the Andersons. It’ll be sad going to the family gatherings without Amy & Rachel, but in a selfish way, it means we don’t have to share them with anyone when they do come. Hee hee! (Well, Aunt Becky is invited to New Year’s Eve – as is Deanna – so they’ll get to share in A&R a little.)

Heading for Home Again…

In an hour or so, we’ll be departing Amy & Rachel’s place for the Twin Cities Airport. Our flight is at 7:10pm CST and we should be back in Dayton just after 10pm EST. Then I’ll get to see my kitties again. Yay! (I hope they remember me!)

We had another lazy morning and I did my best to stay in bed until 9am. Dad once again put his cullinary talents at work and made us all Egg McMikey sandwiches. Yay dad! Then we sat around and read and slooched until lunchtime. We took a walk in Loring Park and even walked over I-94 to see the Sculpture Park from above. Then we walked through the Greenway to get to Nicollett Mall. Lunch was at Brit’s Pub. Yum! I had the steak & ale pie with chips and cole slaw. It was wonderful, but then again, so was everything that we ordered. Oh yeah, I’d also gotten an amaretto sour and managed to not spill it this time (unlike my last time at Brit’s).

Dad was out of reading material, so we also stopped at Barnes & Noble on the Mall. I looked around and got a few Christmas gift ideas to ask folks for. When we all joined up again, dad had gotten the reading material he needed and we headed over to the Tarzhay Mahal (the big Target downtown) for a few essentials.

We’re now back at the apartment and all packed for the trip home. Thus far, flight times are looking OK. Here’s hoping they stay that way! I wanna see my kitties soon! 🙂

This trip has been a blast and has been one of the nicest Thanksgivings ever. Thanks once again to Amy & Rachel for hosting us. I love you both lots!

Mary Poppins & Indian Fud

There’s a cathedral and basilica nearby and one of ’em has a 7:30am alarm chime they like to play on Sundays. Needless to say, we all woke up around 7:30 and then “slooched” for awhile after. “Slooch” is a term Amy & Rachel use to describe the whole being in bed & awake & snoozing time that’s just so enjoyable on the weekend. Dad made us all Egg McMikey sandwiches. And around noon, we finally headed out to Nicollett Mall and Macy’s (formerly Marshall Field’s).

On the 8th floor of the former Mashall Field’s, they like to do an animated holiday display each season. This year’s animated theme was the novel Mary Poppins (with music from the New York musical based upon the Disney movie). When we went 3 years ago (or so) to see Charlie & the Chocolate Factory there, we’d gone on the Friday after Thanksgiving and waited in line for a LONG time. Today, being further from the holiday, there was NO line. It was quite pleasant. The figurines were cute and the scenes they picked were fun.

On our way back to the apartment, we stopped at New Delhi for Indian Fud. They have a lunch buffet and I promised all that I’d pick up the bill if we went for Indian this weekend. They had a few dishes I’d not had before – egg masala and goat curry. They were good, but the bones (and hoof?) in the goat put me off of finishing it. We all enjoyed our lunch and waddled back to the apartment.

At this point, we all started reading and eventually folks dropped off. We napped for awhile and then spend the rest of the evening just relaxing and drinking wine (or cream soda in my case). We girls played Euchre and mom & I won both games. Go us! We had nachoes with guacamole & salsa for “supper” and finished it off with pie – both apple & pumpkin. I put ice cream *and* whipped cream on my apple pie. Yum!

This has been a fabulous weekend and I’m so happy we were able to join the girls for this time. Thank you Amy & Rachel for being great hosts. Tomorrow we’ll have a bit more time together and then finally we fly back home. I’ll miss being with the girls, but it will be nice to see my kitties again!