Blogmas | Games for the Holidays!

Hello!

I don’t know about you, but my family has never been into games.

The one thing I wished my family did more of was play games. We had a couple of years where we did in fact play Just Dance and Taboo, but they didn’t end quite well, which is probably why we never kept at it afterwards!

Now that I have Nolan and Kimber, I would like to bring in some old school games that I certainly enjoyed as a child. Nolan is very infatuated with technology and understands what a PlayStation and XBOX are–thanks in part to his daddy! However, as I’ve found out recently, he has a knack for Hungry Hungry Hippoes, so I may be right in my thinking that introducing some of these games I will be talking about in this post, will be something he might enjoy too!

Unfortunately, Kimber isn’t old enough to actually play with us, but I’m hoping watching the two of us would give her something to look forward to in the future. So, here were some of the games that I thought could be really good contenders for the three of us and maybe possibly your family too to play during the holidays.

---

Connect 4

Last September, while my sister was in the hospital, Nolan and I spent a good amount of time together and on Nickleodeon, they had some advertisements for the newest creation of the Connect 4 franchise; we were intrigued, Nolan especially, but I’ve always been more into the original setup, so I wasn’t too interested in this version.

I have many, many memories of playing this game in school. While I was in elementary, I took speech and every Friday we had a popcorn party, where we sat on the floor, ate popcorn, and played a different game (thus how this post came about!) each week. Connect 4 is a very easy game to understand as you have the structure itself and two different colored coins or chips, the objective is to not only block the other player, but you also have to connect four spots in a row in order to win.

Connect 4 is a lot like Bingo and Tic-Tac-Toe as you can go in many directions: diagonally, side to side, and up and down. As long as you win “fairly” then anyone at any age can be a master at the game itself.

Jenga

When I was in elementary school, I took Speech, and I would be in there for maybe 20-25 minutes a day and I specifically remember Fridays being the best day of the entire week because it was our party day. Our teacher was so sweet, and she would make popcorn for each class, and we’d play different games, but it was a ruse because we still had to do our lessons in between turns. She was a smart and sneaky like that! Anyways, I tried to rack my brain trying to figure out which ones we played, and I really hope that I can teach my nephew someday soon.

Jenga is very unique, it is made up of rectangle sticks and requires you to really think about the overall design, whenever it is your turn, you pick a stick from the very bottom of the build or a little higher. For most people, you rarely went from the bottom as you need good bones for everything to stay up and if you take one from that section and it turns out it was helping from breaking down the whole thing, you lose. My nephew has always enjoyed stacking things up and blocks in general, so toddlers would really love playing something like this because they’re always doing things with their toys.

Screamo

For this game, I learned it at the nursing home back in October. If these ladies ranging in age early 70’s to mid-80’s can play, anybody can do it. My nephew is four and he just loves playing this game anytime he comes over. It is usually the first thing he wants to do! What he doesn’t know is that he’s learning a bit of math too!

It is fairly simple once you figure out the steps. You have a paper with the numbers 1-12, two dice, and 12 chips or coins as my nephew prefers to call them. The main goal is to roll both of your dice and say it lands on a four and seven, this equals out to be seven but you’ve already covered up your seven with a previous play, so you have three options, that is if these other numbers are not already gone, you can lay down two coins on your four and three or exchange them with a five and two or six and one, which is even better because it is better to remove the number one as you can’t get a natural one with two dice.

UNO

I like a lot of card games, but my ultimate favorite–even if I’m not the best at it!–is UNO.

I have never been able to figure out how long I’ve loved UNO, but it had to come after middle school though. It doesn’t show up in my earlier memories and this kind of makes sense because I do remember playing an awful lot from 2005-2009 with my family and friends at slumber parties (do you remember those?!) and again, it is pretty easy to follow, but there are a few symbols that can be somewhat tricky, like the reverse and skip cards. These can be really annoying if you are playing with a large group of people and nobody really knows who is next in line, so to make things easier on yourself and the newcomers, I’d pick those guys out before you start the game entirely.

There is an episode of The Golden Girls where Dorothy is playing Gin Rummy with her mother Sophia, and she always loses the game and Sophia basically drives her completely insane after every round so she gives up and decides no more. By the end of the episode, you learn why Sophia chooses to play it with her daughter and they end up playing a round during the last few seconds of the show. I guess I’m the same way with UNO. I love playing it with my family the most, it’s where I have the most memories, and it doesn’t matter on the age because my nana was in her late 70’s when we taught her so it’s not all that difficult once you know what each card means while the game continues.

---

In a way, I am like Sophia because I like the talk and watching everyone’s facial expressions as they arrange their cards and it’s one game that being an observer can have its advantages… As much as I’d like to win a round or two, I am fine with seeing someone get excited instead. This is what I hope to teach Nolan the most; it’s okay to allow someone to win but you never, ever tell them afterwards, because then they’ll think you forfeited the game and they’ll want a rematch and that attitude doesn’t make good challenges, especially if they lose against you.

What are your favorite games to play during the holidays? Which one do you hope to teach your child or family member someday?

November Playlist

Hello!

Since I’ve been kind of turning these monthly playlists into mini wrap ups, I figured this was the perfect way to talk about October and why exactly I was staying at a nursing home for a bit.

So, let’s rewind back to around August as it was the month where everything went up a notch.

My dad has a lot of health issues, but at the end of summer, we started noticing he was losing the usage of his right arm. He has had many MRIs and X-Rays in the past few years and the majority of his trouble areas are in and around his neck and spine. He has broken several discs in the past, but now as he ages, he’s continued to add more arches and pains. He has been told to have surgery since I was a kid, but he’s always turned them down for risking his ability to take care of me. If you’ve ever met my dad, you know how stubborn he is, so you wouldn’t expect anything less from him, especially for something like this.

Four years ago, when my mom had her surgeries, I made the decision to staying in a nursing home while she was there in the hospital and recovering, and since she is a nurse at a really great residential home, and at the time where my nana was living, the idea was simple but most importantly practical for everyone involved. I would spend my week there, before going to stay at my sister’s on the weekend. I was having my mom’s co-workers and friends basically take care of me like the rest of the people there. I was even allowed to get my hair cut by the hairdresser there! Honestly, I had a lot of fun spending time with my nana and the other ladies, and of course playing bingo too!

Fast forward to now, the idea of dad having surgery and knowing how indeed stubborn he truly is, made my mom and I make that crucial decision of staying at the nursing home for two weeks. We had made this decision pretty quickly, because we knew if we had it planned out well enough, my parents could essentially forget about me, and focus on dad’s surgery and recovery. We figured it out within a month or maybe less than that, because we discussed it quite a bit beforehand, so it’s difficult to narrow down the timeline.

This time was completely different.

There were things that I expected like my tiny calf muscles screaming at me during the first week because I was rolling around in my wheelchair the entire building, and like my dad, I am also stubborn and rarely asked for help, because I actually liked it. It was when I was pushing my folded bed in breakfast table with some stuff I had I would need for that day, down the massive hall that I was actually allowing myself a break and had someone carry it to my destination, which was always the activity room.

What we didn’t intend on happening was the edge of my knees, all the way down to my ankles and toes would become very swollen. I have never experience this before, it actually freaked us out because my feet felt like balloons and looked like they were going to explode at any moment. After that, I was put on a water pill and gradually it helped with the swelling, but I would still have some issues around the ridge of my feet, especially on my left foot, which makes sense considering I was using that foot to push myself around, but yeah that was a fun little surprise.

I was only supposed to stay there for two weeks, but I kept having the date to go home pushed back… twice.

My nana had moved up north with my aunt and uncle a few months later, so I would be alone this time around, and I’ll be honest I was worried about being on my own, but I was in really good hands too, as the longer I was there, the more I was making friends with the other residents too. This was my first time having a roommate since 2002, and she was a lovely lady and we sat together for meals, and we would go to the different activities. The first I participated in were these weaving pumpkins. They gave us a wired outline of a pumpkin and there were two different types of yarn to us, i went with the skinnier and darker orange whle my roommate went for the Cheeto-like yarn as it was bright orange and very puffy!

Besides doing lots of crafts, they played a lot of games too!

The first full day, not only did I weave a pumpkin, but I played Screamo for the first time ever. What is Screamo you say? Well, like my dad said, it’s like Yahtzee and it is, you have two dices and a sheet with the numbers 1-12 including 12 chips or coins, and the group goes around and rolls the dice and whatever it lands on, like a four and five which adds up to a nine, so you can cover those numbers or eight and one, or just the nine, but it is smarter to get rid of the 1 first as it can be tricky to get it as you cover the others. Once you’ve covered the entire board, you scream it out and win. It is easy to follow and would be really great for kids who have trouble with math, and you could switch it up to subtraction and maybe even multiplication if you feel like getting really creative with it.

Three weeks after I came home, I introduced it to my four-year-old nephew, and he literally kicked my butt in three games. However, I will overlook the loses as he thoroughly enjoyed himself and to me that is even better than winning any game with him. Speaking of which, I will be doing a post about fun games to play during the holidays for Blogmas, so keep an eye out for that coming soon.

I was able to spend my birthday there, it wasn’t planned as I was supposed to come home that weekend, but my gal pals really wanted to throw me a party and I thought it was too sweet to tell them no, so after playing Bingo, we had a party and my mom, sister, Nolan and Kimber came out to help celebrate it. I heard the “happy birthday” song three times and by the second time, where everyone in the dining room sang to me, absolutely terrified me, because I don’t like being the center of attention at all. I felt very loved, which was their intention of course, but again, totally out of my element.

The last day I was there was bittersweet as it was nice. I had a lot of people trying to keep me there, but I needed to go home too. While I was there for four weeks, I had missed my dad (he did come to visit me), Rumer, and the cats. My cat Stormy became fairly sick before I left, he’s been really snotty and his allergies really took hold of him, so while I was gone, I kept getting updates from my parents on him, and I enjoyed the pictures my mom would send me, but my ultimate favorite was this one. He felt good enough to climb up to the back deck, which wasn’t something he could do before I left. My mom was so proud of him she opened the patio door and allowed him to enjoy his lunch on the kitchen rug. He now has a bit of a head tilt, but he seems to be doing better. He has been coming up and meowing to us whenever we call him.

November was chaotic in those first two weeks. I had a really heavy time of the month and then on top of that, I either contracted food poisoning or stomach flu. We think it might’ve been the latter since my mom was also affected by it too, although, she wasn’t too bad, I definitely made up for her that’s for sure! Once I was through with both of them, the month started to perk up a bit. We had to have Thanksgiving two days earlier than usual; my mom tends to work on Thanksgiving, so we try to have it on Black Friday, but we had a conflict with other schedules, so we had it on Wednesday.

While I was in the nursing home, I ended up starting and finishing two books I found there. I read Murder on The Orient Express by Agatha Christie and The Duchess by Danielle Steel (the review will go out on Wednesday!) and I still have my third book which is, The Aviator’s Wife by Melanie Benjamin. It is about Anne Morrow Lindburgh, who was the wife of Charles Lindburgh, but I actually haven’t been doing any reading lately, which is sad, but I read over 50 books this year so I’m not too mad about it honestly. I’m just not going to enjoy updating my stats on Wednesday because that is going to be a real bitch, but I think once I’m done with all of my blog work for the year, I will be able to get back into it again.

I have one more thing to say, since I wasn’t able to get everything done for my final installment of the “Garden Tour” I will be waiting until January to publish it. I am going into Blogmas content on Friday and will not have time to do anything with it for a while, so I just wanted to give you a heads up on it.

And now, I can finally give you the November playlist. If you would like to hear the rest of the playlist, click here

End Of The End by Blastoyz featuring Reality Test, UNSECRET and Krigare
Rise Up by 2WEI x Edda Hayes
Ghosts by Xandria
Hold Me, Help Me by Halocene
Vivien by Crosses
Wake The World by Epica featuring Phil Lanzon and Tommy Karevik
I Like It by Cardi B featuring Bad Bunny and J Balvin
Shut Down by BLACKPINK
Dark Sun by Ros Stephen x Power-Hus
Believer by Lea Michele
What A Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong
House On A Hill by Kamelot featuring Simone Simons

How was your November? What were you listening to?

November Playlist

Hello!

I bet you didn’t expect me to be back so soon.

Today is the last day of November, for anyone participating in both NaNoWriMo and Nonfiction November, you should be proud of what you were able to accomplish in the last 30 days! I didn’t join NaNo this year because I’m not in that headspace to write anything for that long, and I doubt I have made any changes in reading the two books I got for this month. It happens… and I’m okay with it!

We are itching closer to Christmas and finally, to the new year: 2021. It seems so crazy how fast this year has went, despite the COVID mess that has taken over 2020! I bring this up because I have always felt November is a weird time for music. We are obsessed with Halloween-y songs and then we are quick to switch to Christmas carols at midnight.

I have to say, I have been doing very well at ignoring the festive commercials on TV and online, and I will be very happy when I can finally watch Christmas movies without being judged by my parents! I have a total of eight films in our DVR at the moment, so I can get my fill and enjoy everything that comes with this time of the year! As far as music goes though, I allow myself to listen to my favorite Christmas songs early, mainly because they tend to remind me of my papaw and so, it is just better for me to cave in now instead of feeling bad about it later.

This year, I am working on my “Ultimate Christmas” playlist on Spotify and will hopefully be speaking about it soon. I will hold off on that for a week or two, until I feel it is ready.

For my November playlist though, I have collected a lot of music that is selected in my “Discover Weekly” every Monday. I am always excited to see what type of music will be unleashed from the moment I hit play, and sometimes they create their own aesthetic but sometimes they reflect whatever genre I’ve focused on that past week and it is always a fun surprise at the start of another week.

Here are my Top 25 for the month!

Talk To Me by Apocalyptica featuring Lzzy Hale
Gravity by Sara Bareilles
Share That Love by Lukas Graham featuring G-Eazy
My Spring Your Fall by Falconsheild
Scars To Your Beautiful by Oceans featuring Anna Murphy
Goddess by Xana
Royals by Lorde
Remember by Leah
You’re Not From Here by Lara Fabian
Eugene by Arlo Parks
Cielo a un Diablo by Maluma
Teeth by Dirty D’Shire
Drew Barrymore by Bryce Vine
Que Color by Major Lazer featuring J Balvin & El Alfa
Ordinary Day by The Animal In Me
The Purge by Within Temptation
Dream On Me (Stripped) by Ella Henderson
Peer Pressure by James Bay
Lullabies by Yuna
Grip by Seeb
If I Could Turn Back Time by Cher
Betty by Chase Holfelder
Numb by Carlie Hanson
Cold by Crossfade

What I truly love about this list, is its diversity! You have hard rock, pop, and reggaetón like it is supposed to fit together. I continue to surprise myself on the amount of music I am willing to listen to everyday. The sad part about it is, there’s sadly not a lot of people like me, who are brave enough to be interested in shuffling their music out in the open and enjoy sharing in hopes we create even more fans for these artists and bands, new and old, and honestly the longer I go about this, I tend to enjoy it even more and I think that’s why I still want to do these playlists too.

Before I go, I wanted to let you know that I was able to post a new album review this month. Well, technically, it was an update to an older post I did in 2018, and I was recently told by the artist, that she really loved it, so that makes me really happy! Anyways, here it is, in case you haven’t seen it yet. Oh, and speaking of links, here is the Spotify playlist for November too! 🙂

SIGN from Above by RAIGN

What were you listening to this month? Name one track that you think I should check out below!

Photo Diary | Cats & Leaves

Hello!

If you are from the States, I hope you were able to enjoy Thanksgiving yesterday! I know a lot of people were debating whether or not to travel to be with their families for the holidays, so whatever you came to conclusion I still want to wish you a great time anyways!

For this post, I am discussing pretty much everything that happened this fall, including everyone’s favorite: our cats!

The year was somewhat weird, as the transition from summer to fall, was actually smooth compared to the previous years. Here in the Midwest, we tend to go through seasons very quickly! For us, the switch to autumn was fairly nice. I was able to go outside on our deck a lot in August through October, but once the cold finally arrived, it came like a roaring train and I wasn’t prepared for the aches and pain in my body.

While I was in high school, I would go to football games covered with two layers of pants and socks, plus a blanket tucked around the seat of my wheelchair to keep me warm but also lessen the chilling temperature going into my joints and making me feel horrible for the rest of the night. As of gotten older, the pain has been getting worse of course, but at least I’m not sitting outside for two-three hours at a time in the freezing cold and depending on my muscle relaxers earlier than we usually take them.

This fall has been an interesting one, the temperature would go back and forth between in the low 50 degrees to 65-70 degrees in a matter of days! Everytime we would think I would have to stop going out, it would change and the cats and I would enjoy the love and apparently, my comfortable bench to take a little nap on.

I was able to finish five books in the last two months, and in the beginning, the cats didn’t really mess with me or books, but towards the middle of November, they became a little bold and Bear-Bear would just plop down on the pages I was reading, and recently he did it again but this time of just wanting to find a place to sleep, he let me pet him on his side, and considering all of his fur, he is really soft! He and Oscar are the softest cats in our pride – I call them this, because they’re not really “domestic” instead they are more wild as they still eat, birds, mice, frogs, and the occasional bug too.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

I love it when the trees change into various colors, but the one person who absolutely hates this season is my dad, he does not care for the leaves in his yard and my mom would reflect this whenever she would sweep away the leaves that would land on our deck. A couple of weeks ago, we had a big collection of leaves in the right corner of the porch and we were just going to leave them there for Nolan, but as we found out this autumn, was our cats loved sleeping on top of them! We have caught Stormy in the leaves the most, but on a day I was out reading and taking photos of everybody for this post, Tavis, who is quickly becoming my sister and brother-in-law’s cat, decided to clean himself and take a little snooze on the pile and well, I just couldn’t help myself…

I’m not really sure what Nolan thinks about the trees shedding their leaves, but I know he is having the same joint problems as his papaw and Aunt Meg though. In the beginning of the new season, he would come over bearing the newly acorns that have dropped from the tree by their house. We have a mug full of like seven acorns and I doubt we’ll ever get rid of them because it was such a sweet thing he did one evening and continued for like two weeks until he started bringing toys over instead.

Since with the COVID-19 mess, he didn’t dress up and go trick-or-treating for Halloween this year. Honestly, he’s still too young to have a lot of candy, especially with his gag reflex still causing him issues here and there. He has been getting better about it though, but we are still very cautious with him on candy in general. Here’s a fun fact for you, he actually doesn’t like chocolate! I think the main reason why he enjoys M&M’s is because they have a color coat around them and he can’t figure it out. Trust me, the day he refused chocolate swirled ice cream freaked me out! My sister was obsessed with anything milk chocolate when we were growing up but her son isn’t a fan out of it! It’s so crazy!

Okay, I think it’s time for the rest of the pictures. Hope you enjoyed our pretty babies!

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Okay, we are finally at the end of this post. Unfortunately, it will also be the last until spring comes back around in mid-April. I will try to persuade my mom into bringing one cat into the house while dad is in his mancave this winter, but I might just pay attention to the cat(s) and be less concerned about taking their picture for my blog. I hope to continue these types of posts in the new year!

What did you do this fall? How do you deal with various aches and pains in your body with the changing of the seasons? If you are a cat owner, do your cat(s) respect your space? What is the one thing that they hate the most if you’re not paying enough attention to them?

Blogmas | Why I Went Non-Traditional This Christmas

Howdy!

I am a couple of days early, but I already had this in my daily planner that it’ll work the best. Let’s be honest, there’s a 50/50 chance that you put your tree and decorations in and around your house way before yesterday, so I wouldn’t be judging me so quickly! 😉 In my defense though, I only got the tree itself done. It’s just a little naked at the moment.

---

Last Christmas, I published a blog post about decor ideas that I was thinking about for this year.The main reason why I wrote that post is because we didn’t put up our family tree because of the mess after our new house arriving but having to wait to actually move into it until after new years. It was Nolan’s first Christmas but as much as we all loved watching him tear into his gifts, it did feel a little off not to have that tradition continuing even if it was our final family holiday together.

I like that little piece of tradition, putting up our 29 year old Christmas tree with both Blondie and Brandon. We usually make it a big thing, but now with Nolan being a year older, it’ll be interesting to see whether or not he actually helps with decorating it! With that being said, I was perfectly okay with switching things up when it came to decorating my room for Christmas–even if that meant getting a black tree!

Yes, you read that right. I said, I have a black Christmas tree!

In that post that I put up, I actually mentioned something about the trend of these black trees, but I didn’t even plan on getting or much less wanting one originally. I even put a poll up on my Twitter with four colors: green red, purple, and black; the only ones that people voted were purple with 80%, and lastly black had 20%!

At first, my plan was going about a regular green tree, but as I started thinking about more, I ended up really wanting a royal purple tree instead. My Charlie Brown tree I had in the old house was purple, so I figured I would keep this tradition going too. The only reason why I suddenly changed my mind was one night my mom was looking up trees on various websites and she found a 3″ tree in different colors. She almost convinced me to get a white one, but once she said there was a black tree, I just lost it! I knew it was for me, so we bought it for $16.95!

Now before it arrived, I expected it to be fairly large and full of little branches. What I got instead was a tree that is the same height of my push wheelchair! The only thing I got right were the branches, however my mom and I were concerned that it wasn’t going to be as grand as the larger trees, I still think it’s cute! I have fixed several of the branches since taking these photos, but nothing much has really changed.

• 

• 

As far as ornaments and topper, I am also breaking up from using my favorites ones in our family tote, but I am enjoying creating my own path though! I would like to keep a part of my original color scheme: royal purple and white.Apparently, it’s a lot easier to find white lights and ornaments, but anything in a darker shade of purple, is becoming a bit more difficult to do! My latest idea was if there was any room left that I would add some quirky ones throughout it too. At the rate I’m going though, it might become my alternative if we can’t find the right colored bulbs anywhere! For the top of the tree, I want a star instead of an angel, because I’ve always liked them a lot better!

I have only one window in my room, and it’s great because I am lucky to get both the moon at night and morning sun, which is something I wasn’t able to enjoy back in my old room! After learning the layout of my new room, and I decided which furniture would go where, I knew having a tree right in between and the middle of my window would be perfect! We don’t know if this will be okay for the lights, but I am prepared on getting battery powered ones if nothing else will reach over to the plugins. There is one final tradition I am not doing and that is, I am not using those stand wraps. I think my sunflower rug will be do just fine

When I finally have everything ready and go to actually decorate my Christmas tree, I will definitely be taking pictures of the whole process for you! Hopefully, it won’t take us the whole month to find any good ones, but you never know!

• 

• 

• 

Do you have a tree in your bedroom that’s completely different than the traditional tree in your living room or at your parent’s house? If you don’t, is that something you are striving for in the future? What kind of version do you see for it?