What Games Say

One of the things I will deeply miss when Quinn leaves for college at the end of August is our regular evening games. 

It's not every night, but it's almost any night I ask. The game the two of us play most often is Boggle. Sometimes we do Scrabble, or Cribbage. Other favorites when there are more players around are Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne, Concept, Code Names, Just One, Spite and Malice, and Point Salad.

Much of the entertainment for me and Quinn when we play Boggle is adding to our word card. Nearly every round we spot something that sounds like it could be a word, and we check online at the end of the game. Some are easy to remember for no apparent reason, like DAP (which is a form of dip fishing), and others we absolutely never remember if they are allowed or not. We check everything against the online Scrabble dictionary, and after looking up the same few words over and over we started making lists on a card. One side of the card is legal words (like PAC, SLOE, and EFT) and the other side are things we always want to be words that are not (like POC, LIM, and HAR). 

We laugh a lot, and we discover many new things during Boggle. Quinn recently started learning all the variations on the spellings of letters of the Hebrew alphabet, which is a treasure trove of short words that the game allows (like BETH, TAW, and MEM). We know many forms of currency around the world thanks to Boggle.

Far and away the most interesting things I've learned while playing games with my kids over the years, is simply seeing how their minds work, and how their thought processes differ (or don't) from my own. 

The most vivid example of this in my memory was when Ian and I taught the kids how to play Monopoly at the family cottage. They were young, and the days are long up north and perfect for sprawling kinds of activities. We thought Monopoly was the kind of thing they should experience at least once, but we warned them up front that it was a mean sort of game. We didn't expect them to like it, but it's referenced enough in the culture at large that we thought they should try it.

We proceeded to play the weirdest game of Monopoly I've every experienced, because nobody got a monopoly anywhere on the board, so it became rent controlled. There were no houses or hotels to spike prices. My kids wanted to own collections of assorted property colors and each have their own railroad, etc., so everyone continued to affordably circle the board until we'd passed Go enough to break the bank and we had to stop. It was fascinating and rather heartening.

Anyway, that game gave me a glimpse into my children's possible relationships to money. Quinn likes rules. She had no interest in bending any during the game. If I could not pay rent on one of her properties, that was too bad. Aden, on the other hand, could not abide anyone suffering, so she would slip me money in order to pay rent to Quinn and expect nothing in return. Mona could not tell the difference between $200 and $200,000. Her approach to money in the game was pure chaos. The whole thing made me laugh because I told them when I am old if I have to rely on the three of them, Quinn should be in charge of my bills, Aden should decide when to pull my plug, and Mona will keep things interesting but should be in charge of nothing. Those assessments have shifted a bit as my children have become adults, but some of it's still apt.

The latest game we've been playing is called So Clover (which I think is supposed to sound like "So clever"). Each person gets a small board in the shape of a four-leaf clover, and you arrange four cards on it into a square. Each side of the square has two words and you have to write a word above each pair that will relate to them or connect them in some way. Once you've completed your board, you mix up the cards, add a decoy card, and then hand it all over to the other players who have to see if they can reassemble the board the way you had it.

To do this, you have to have a sense of how that person thinks. It's a little like Code Names, which changes depending on who your partner is and you have to rely on your shared knowledge to create meaningful clues. My kids know, for instance, that coming up with references to video games will not spark anything for me at all. Or if I'm playing with Aden I can reference Star Trek, but with Quinn that would get us nowhere.

The other night we did a round of So Clover that I found fascinating. Maybe because the two of us play so many word games together, Quinn knew intuitively how all of my clues worked. For example, I connected the pair of words "Hammer" and "Dreams" with "Nails." She kept insisting (correctly by my way of thinking) that a hammer would dream of nails. Mona and Aden kept taking the card back off and telling her that was insane. What kind of maniac would see Hammer and Dreams and write Nails? It was taking them so long to solve my board that they eventually agreed to a hint, and I told them to listen to Quinn, who put it together in seconds.

Aden, who I usually think I understand rather well, had an approach to this game I could not fathom. She didn't try to connect pairs of words, she simply found a clue that applied to each one independently. So for the words "Raft" and "Spicy" she put "Water." Her thinking was you need water for a raft, and you also drink water when eating spicy foods. My brain could compute almost none of her clues, but Mona seemed to get them. 

Like the long ago game of Monopoly, Quinn was logical, Aden was creative, and Mona was unpredictable. It made for a very entertaining game night.

I love seeing different people's strengths and priorities while playing games. In Settlers of Catan, Mona will always go for The Longest Road card. She doesn't even care if she wins, as long as she gets and retains that card as a point of pride. Quinn likes things that line up neatly. Aden will often take a purely sentimental tack and finagle it into a win. If it's a game that centers on pure strategy and Ian's playing, the rest of us seldom have a chance.

It's also enlightening to realize what gaps in experience others have that you make assumptions about. When I was growing up, my family and my Uncle Joe's family used to celebrate New Year's Eve together, and there was a different theme every time. One year we played a homemade version of Wheel of Fortune, and in addition to the kind of confusion only my dad could bring to any game, my mom and her brother were shocked to discover that none of their children knew the name of our great-grandmother. We uncovered all the letters of her name and still couldn't solve the puzzle. It had never occurred to my mom or uncle that we didn't know the name of their beloved grandmother. (But then, I also remember when someone asked my grandfather what his grandparents' names were, and he just said, "Grandma and Grandpa." He honestly didn't know.)

Word games always make my mom feel self-conscious, even though Quinn and I assure her the number of times the words POO and PEE show up in Boggle is embarrassing and she's perfectly capable of finding those, but she still won't play with us. She'll only play number based games involving cards or tiles.

Any game where I might need graph paper makes me glaze over, and makes me think of an episode of Gravity Falls where Dipper tries to explain how to play "Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons" and his sister whines, "This is like Homework: The Game!"  

My dad seldom went a week without doing a crossword puzzle. I have one in ink on my refrigerator that he didn't quite complete. I found it among his papers after he died. I tried to make him a crossword puzzle once when I was in second grade, because he loved them so much and I wanted to make him happy. I had zero idea of how they worked, though, and he had to hand it back to me explaining that the clues had to lead to words that overlapped properly, not the random mess I had made. He was very sweet about it. 

Crosswords summed up a lot about my dad. He liked clever use of language, and knowledge of both past and current events. It was an activity both solitary and neat and came in a newspaper. I used to snuggle up to him on the couch or in bed and try to help, but I was useless. I remember once the two of us puzzling over a clue about Newton, and both of us assumed it had to do with Sir Isaac Newton, but as other words came together, my dad exclaimed it was Wayne. Wayne Newton. Wayne seemed like a significant step down, history-wise, and we really laughed.

I find Sudoku puzzles relaxing. I have them stashed in glove compartments and in gig bags and on shelves and tables around the house. If they really help stave off dementia, I should be in good shape for a while.

Online I like to do the Wordle, Connections, the Mini, and Strands. Quinn and I regularly compare notes on how we did with those Times puzzles at the end of the day. We commiserate over how the Mini resets on a different schedule than the other games. The things I find easy in Connections are usually the things Quinn found hard, and vice versa. Solitary games like these feel like private interaction between me and the person who designed the puzzle. There's usually at least one category in the Connections where I scoff a bit, and feel like the game maker somehow knows and were maybe going for that reaction.

The dog just likes fetch/keep-away, and a little bit of wrestling. She has board-game-blindness and will happily tromp over whatever my kids and I are trying to play to seek affection.

I've been trying to remember what games Ian and I used to play before we had kids and everything shifted to include them. I don't know if when it's just us again what will feel right. I have such a specific rhythm of playing Boggle with Quinn that I don't know if I want to do it without her. It may become something I wait to do at holidays when she's in town.

Is it odd that when picturing the imminent empty nest that I imagine missing Boggle nights the most? Probably not, when I remember that playing games says very little about the actual games. They are about connection and time and humor and love. Losing that puzzle piece from our daily home life will be rough.

 

 

A Family That Plays Together, Minecraft Edition

As my kids have gotten older, adjusting to being a family that doesn't all live in the same house has been interesting.

On one level, it's not that hard because we've always been a collection of introverts who like each other's company. Which means we're all very happy to each do our own thing at the same table or in adjoining rooms. So if Aden is hanging out with us over speaker phone on Discord while we're doing other stuff, it kind of feels like she's still here and not so far away at college. Mona doesn't live here anymore, but is close by and has a car, so she pops over to say hi on her way to or from Target. Sometimes she'll stay to watch part of show with us, or help with a chore or two. There are days I see her more than I see Quinn who actually lives here.

One of the things that's nice when we're all together is to occasionally play games. I've written in the past about playing Settlers of Catan, but we also love Concept, Code Names, Cribbage, and when we're at the cottage, the family card game of Spite and Malice.

Quinn and I pair up regularly to play Boggle. We've amassed quite a list of words we know are playable, but struggle to remember what they mean. The ones we do remember we try to find ways to use, but it's difficult. (Some of the words on this list are RET, LAT, UTS, ETAS, COE, HIE, WEN, VUE, EFT, and HOB.) We have a lot of discussions about pluralizing things as they are "said by people in another room." Like, AHS, as in "We heard the Oohs and Ahs from the people in the other room." We've had many a laugh-filled argument about whether we stretching the concept too far, and we wonder periodically about those people in the other room. (I picture them just out of sight behind a ballroom door at a hotel.)

The funniest part about looking up words to see if they are allowed in Scrabble is there are some sites that think nearly everything is a word, some that exclude North America from using them, and one site that usually adds a line about how "This is no one's favorite word" which seems unnecessarily rude. Sometimes the Urban Dictionary pops up in our searches, and my all time favorite description of any word was for MER, which they claimed could be used in situations that were either awkward or not (which would be all situations?) and that when used in an awkward situation would not help. So now when there is an awkward pause I'll say, "Mer!" and then we'll agree it indeed did not help.

We also really enjoy family games like Jackbox, which involves interacting online, so we can include people in different places. (Our favorite Jackbox games are Quiplash and Split The Room.) Jackbox is online, but it's not a video game. My kids do enjoy certain video games, but that's never been a family activity. It's something the siblings do together.

But for many years now, like many people's children, my kids have been playing Minecraft. So much Minecraft. And there must be parents who play it too, but if so they haven't bragged about it to me. So Minecraft has not been a family game, just a thing for the kids.

However, Aden has been trying for years to convince her dad to try it. She thought he'd enjoy playing Minecraft, and got him to help build her her own server. Ian has his own projects, and thought it seemed like a chore for him to have to learn to navigate the Minecraft world, so he would politely demure.

But it turns out when I was talking to Aden when she was home over spring break, that she wasn't trying to get her dad hooked on a new hobby for his sake. She just wanted an activity that she could do with her dad. Even after I explained this to him, he was still reluctant to take on another thing, so I signed up for an account for myself with the idea we could maybe share it.

Mona walked me through how to move, build things, break things.... My only past experience with anything Minecraft was this very old video, and a quote from Rick and Morty describing it as "You're mining stuff to craft with, and crafting stuff to mine with," which about sums it up. 

After establishing a little cobblestone island within sight of the island my three kids had built to plant a garden and store supplies, I handed my laptop off to my husband so he could wander off with Aden to find me a dog. He was much better at navigating that world than I was, and the next day Mona convinced him to simply get his own account rather than share mine. Which turns out to have been a good idea, because he wants to do different things than I do. He's got a big mine with a glass ceiling and lots of safe houses to retreat to at night, etc. I planted flowering trees and make flower pots and feed my dog.

But the lovely thing is for us it is a private virtual world where we can be with our kids. All five of us, regardless of where we actually are, can all hang out and have conversations in the Minecraft server. And the kids are so sweet! I noticed fish in the water, and asked Mona how to catch them. The next thing I knew, she arrived at my place in a boat and put a fishing rod among my supplies. If I say my dog is hungry, one of the kids shows up with meat for me to give it. Once I drowned (I'm still not sure what happened) and I reappeared back at my bed but all the stuff I'd had with me was gone. Aden had been in a nearby boat and collected all my stuff where I died and brought it back to me. The kids make sure I have armor, food, etc. It's amazing to watch them move around in that space so competently, and it's funny to have the roles switched where they have to look out for me.

I love seeing what everyone makes. Mona walked me around her pink island covered with cherry blossoms and a second level that's nothing but torches. It's both hilarious and beautiful. Ian's structures are mostly glass so he can see what's around him. Everyone puts up weird signs.

At one point all of us were on the server at the same time, with Aden talking over speaker phone, and she remarked how nice it was to hear "home sounds" in the background (dog barking, Quinn getting up to get a snack, etc.). And when she left me building my house to go on an adventure with her dad and siblings, she said, "It's the dream!"

I don't know how many parents are lucky enough to have their kids excited to join them in their activities this way, but I don't take it for granted. Every time I log onto the Minecraft server, any kid that's on there greets me happily. They visit my place when I'm not there to see what improvements I've made and restock my supplies. We get to be a little family that mines stuff to craft things, and crafts stuff to mine things. 

If you'd asked me even as recently as a few weeks ago if I would ever play Minecraft, I would have just brushed it off. But I like making things, even in a virtual world, and I love seeing what my kids are up to. I love my family, and finding ways to be together when we can't actually be together is the best game yet. 

And now I'm off to mine sand so I can make more glass, and see what Aden's up to. It's a good night.

Being Thankful in 2020

This year has been so strange and raw. It's been stressful, as somehow too little and too much is happening.

There is good and bad in all things. This year it's just been easier to see the bad.

But when I started this post yesterday on Thanksgiving (where we didn't have any guests, and I had to make my mom's stuffing without my mom) I thought I would do a quick accounting of the good things while the turkey rested and the potatoes boiled. I thought the list of what has made me smile in 2020 would not take too long.

I was wrong. When I gave myself permission to set aside the worry and the grief and focus on the positive without guilt, the list was huge. It surprised me.

Starting even with just the normal baseline for thankfulness--that we are healthy, that we are safe, that we are together--means something larger this year.

So here are some of the things specific to 2020 that I am thankful for, regardless of whatever low-lights there have been at this peculiar moment in history.

Our Neighborhood:

Bay View is a special place with some really kind and creative people in it. Our neighborhood association went above and beyond making sure the farmers market by the lake could still be enjoyed safely all summer, and they put out lists of local businesses that were still operating and how. I've already written about how they created a neighborhood-wide Pumpkin Pavilion event where our business won a "golden pumpkin" for our Halloween window display.

But beyond the official outlets organizing to make the world a little better at a complicated time, neighbors were simply good to neighbors. When everything shut down in the spring, many people came up with ways for people to enjoy their frequent walks outside while maintaining social distance. There were groups that arranged for people to put things in their windows as a fun game for kids, so they could spot teddy bears one week, flowers the next, etc. We put up information in our store windows for people to read since they could no longer come into the shop to ask questions. (I even put up a page about how the plague in the 17th century impacted the life of Stradivari.)

A neighbor named Kellie Krawczyk did a series called "Through the Windows" where she photographed people all over Bay View in their businesses and homes. She wanted people to still feel connected at a time of isolation, and it helped to see her pictures of people together and smiling through their windows. Here's the one she did of me in my shop:

 

My favorite activity back in the spring was a crayon-themed scavenger hunt put on by Rush-Mor records.

They asked me if I wouldn't mind having my violin store as a clue on the route, and I was so pleased! It was fun watching people discover our store, and stop to scribble down the name written on our crayon before moving on to the next clue.

Ian and I had a great time solving all the riddles and walking and biking all over Bay View to find everything over the course of a few weeks. We got all the clues right, and even found most of the extra dummy crayons (for a total of more than 70).

The only one we missed I felt ridiculous for not getting, because it was right by my daughter's high school on my drive home from work every day.

We even looked there once as a possible place for a clue about an old library, and still didn't see it. I don't quite get how that happens. We went past a bright green crayon alone in a field at least twice before we finally saw it, so we're apparently bad at things hidden in plain sight.

Ian and I learned stuff about our neighborhood we didn't know before (Milwaukee has a submarine dock!), and found several restaurants we're looking forward to going inside one day when the plague is over.

Here are all the crayons mounted outside the record store after the hunt was over. (The one we had in our window was a lavender one at the bottom.)

There was a Saturday afternoon in spring when Ian and I were able to leave the store for lunch. In normal times that doesn't happen because Saturday is our busiest day, but when you're by "appointment only" there is newfound freedom. We got takeout sandwiches from a place on the scavenger hunt route we knew would have a crayon. It was chilly out, but sunny, and we walked for miles collecting crayons and enjoying each other's company. The clues and crayons were a wonderful distraction, and it was the first real stretch of time after the lock down began that I simply had fun. It felt good to smile. We started to think ahead that maybe when things get back to normal that we should not be too busy to make time for a walk on a Saturday again.

Things I made this year:

Creative energy is a strange thing. Big projects that take real continuity of thought were hard for me to handle in the spring and summer. But I still had bursts of inspiration here and there, and small projects that you can pick up and put down are always fun for me.

 

 

This year I made a display case for my books, a clock out of a bass top for a friend, a cribbage board for my son, and a Cell-O-Lantern for our window (among other things).

I love making things. I wish there were enough space in the world for all the things I want to make, but I have to limit what I do to what storage will allow.

In terms of those bigger projects that take more focus, I'm thankful that both writing and violin making are activities that aren't hindered by lock downs. (Only by my state of mind.)

On the writing front, back in January and February before things shut down, I was really proud of myself for taking a real stab at proper book marketing for my latest novel, "Just Friends, Just War." Writing is such a fun challenge, but I find promotion and marketing rather painful. I learned how to make a press release, lined up a review in a local paper, and scheduled a book reading/signing at my favorite bookstore. All of that fell through, and my book got kind of lost in the peculiar scramble and shutdown that was the spring, but I am still pleased I tried. Next time I need to promote a novel, I will know better what to do. 

Check me out on the wall of upcoming events back in March! One day, I'll actually get to DO such an event.

Speaking of new novels, my most recent one is called "1001 Weddings" and the manuscript is currently in an agent's hands for consideration. That's exciting, even if nothing comes of it and I have to publish it myself. Keep your fingers crossed for me! It would be an interesting adventure to be published traditionally.

And I finished my repair diagnostics guide! "My Violin Needs Help!" has been a project I've been meaning to do for years, and I finally did it. The timing is good, too, because now more than ever, players and teachers need help troubleshooting violin (and viola and cello) problems from home. At least once a week now, I get phone calls from parents of players who have issues with tuning or something buzzing, and I just read to them straight from my book until they figure it out, and usually fix it safely themselves. I hope that book helps a lot of people.

Related to my repair guide, I was invited to write an article version of it for Strad Magazine. It's a beautiful publication out of London devoted to violins, and I contacted them to possibly review my new book, and they offered to commission an article instead. It's all written and submitted, and uses my photographs. Having an article in the Strad was not even on my bucket list, because I was intimidated by that particular bucket. But wow, what a cool thing to have happen this year.

I also got to do a Zoom book club meeting for a group in Ohio that read "Just Friends, Just War" and that was really gratifying. I don't know if that would have been a possibility in the past, but online everything is a way of life in 2020, and I had a blast talking with that book club.

Violin making took a bit of a hit early in the year, because it was hard to get my head into that focused, creative space. But in recent months I've jumped back on that lutherie horse and I have two violins and a viola underway. I'm not as far along as I'd like to be, but I keep reminding myself that any progress is good, and I am making progress. (Except when the dog gets into my shop. He does NOT like me working in there. He likes to herd us all together into one space, so when I'm trying to work on instruments he sits at my knee and stares at me imploringly to leave already.)

I even got to carve scrolls up at the cottage in October. That whole trip with all the leaves changing and where I got time to be alone and read was wonderful. I got to visit with my mom and spend time with Aden. I got a weekend with my friends that was more fun than I can properly describe. I loved every minute of it.

Plus, this fall was stunningly beautiful.

Aden was supposed to start college in the fall, and I'm sad she didn't get to because of Covid, but I'm not going to lie--I love still having her here. We've been watching Deep Space Nine together, and she makes dinner a couple of nights a week before I get home from work. This has been a less than ideal kind of a gap year, but I'm not looking forward to not having Aden as a part of our household.

And even though some of her big milestones got derailed a bit, my first baby still graduated high school this year. Amazing. And she not only voted for the first time in 2020, but she was able to convince a few of her friends to vote for the first time as well. It's odd that she'll look back on the graduation ceremony that never was, and voting in her first presidential election at our dining room table (where I signed as her witness, and she signed as mine, and then we went to a drop box), but still. I don't take for granted for a minute that I got to watch my child grow to adulthood. (I am so damn proud of her.)

 

Anonymous gifts of 2020:

As part of Aden's graduation, she received a gift card from "Grandma Book." We have no idea who that is, but apparently "Grandma Book" left graduation cards and gifts at every home in Bay View with a "graduating senior" sign out front. How's that for making us feel better about people in general?

We also got our unexplained coconut light in the mail earlier this year, and a few weeks ago I received a beautiful book about the famous Studley Tool Box (that every woodworker I know is mesmerized by). Who sent them? Don't know. But if you did and you read my blog, "Thank you!"

And not that this was anonymous, but my kids made me breakfast in bed for Mother's Day this year where they got up at five in the morning to make cinnamon rolls from scratch! I was really impressed and touched.

I'm thankful for our health this year:

Health-wise, things are good. My granulomatous mastitis issue seems to be done, and I had surgery recently for a uterine problem that should make my nightmarish periods go back to normal again. Only my back is giving me trouble, but eh. I just make Quinn pick things up off the floor for me when possible. 

Quinn broke his wrist in March on a school ski trip (back when schools and trips were a thing) but has healed just fine. I am always thankful we have health insurance.

As much as virtual school has its drawbacks, I think in terms of Mona's pain issue, it's been better for her to do school from home. The hours are shorter, she's not under as much stress, and she can manage things like headaches more easily. That's a win.

Not having to deal with the physical schools in general has been nice, actually. My kids are all old enough to take care of themselves, so from my end it's easy. They get themselves up, get on their computers, and go. We haven't had to worry much about clothes or showers or anyone outgrowing shoes.

The other sort of health related thing was that after my pool was shut down in March and I couldn't swim anymore, I decided to dust off my old stretching notes from my dojo days and revive doing that and some blocks and strikes. We taught all of it to the kids, and got into a nice daily routine. We got a hold of some donated yoga mats, and cleared space in the living room to stretch. We take turns choosing the music, but most often we listen to records. (I think my kids were most confused by Prince, saying, "Well, that's a lot of sounds.") The dog goes back and forth between ignoring what we're doing, and bringing us toys to throw while we're all on the floor.

We got away from our stretching routine during the last half of summer, but it's back. I really like family stretching time. I can't imagine it ever would have come about in a normal sort of year.

I miss swimming, but I've been doing more walks by the lake. It takes me about an hour to walk the loop from my violin store through the neighborhood and down along the lake path and back. It's always beautiful. And often I use that time to call someone and chat as I walk, and that's nice, too.

A good year for our Mold-A-Rama machine:

We got the Mold-A-Rama machine up and running! We've had it in our garage since 2014, and it sort of worked, but not reliably enough to put it out for the public to use. This year, mostly thanks to the extra time that comes with wiping all activities off the calendar, we were able to really look it over, call in the proper experts, and get it working. Ian and I put better wheels on it, so it's easier for us to roll it down next to the store. We had it out for public use for a couple of days in October, and it was so much fun! Little kids in particular were so excited to make their own dinosaurs.

I have hope again that one day we will get a custom mold made so the machine can crank out little violins, but in the meantime a corythosaurus is plenty good. We even got written up in the local news! They plan to run another piece in the spring when the machine is out again once the weather is nice.

The bird and game time:

A couple of years ago, Mona got a cockatiel. I have never been keen on the idea of birds as pets, because it seems to me any pet that would leave if you left the door open, probably shouldn't be a pet. Plus birds are meant to fly, and it seemed cruel to prevent one from doing so. But Keiko LOVES Mona, and has grown out their clipped wings and flies just fine. We leave their cage open when we're around, and sometimes the bird hangs out with us and flies a bit, but for the most part they really like their cage, and they sit on top of it.

Anyway, the bird seems to love having people in the house all day, and is just the funniest thing. Recently Keiko discovered ponytail holders, and those frequently wind up around their neck and then the bird protests loudly when we promptly remove them.

And the bird likes to hang out with me and Quinn when we play games.

I like evening games with Quinn. We have a card table set up in the living room where games are stacked to choose from. Regular favorites are Boggle, cribbage, rummy 500, and backgammon. The bird often joins us as we play, and last week got so fussy with us about moving cards around, that we gave them their own hand of Jokers and the rules to Texas Holdem which seems to keep them content. Keiko sits on their cards and occasionally scolds Quinn for reasons unknown.

For Quinn's birthday this year, I made him a scavenger hunt of plastic frogs hidden around the house, and a Boggle cake. (We played the Boggle cake board before we ate it.)

Quinn and I have also gotten out a couple of times to do archery in the park. That's a nice socially distanced activity that I wish we could do more of. (It's also near our favorite frozen custard stand, that when it's not too crowded we indulge in.)

Random bits of thankfulness this year:

Ian retired from the army in April, and we don't miss drill weekends. I'm not sure what those would have looked like this year anyway, but we didn't have to find out. I like having my husband home. I like not being in a panic every time something in the world goes awry that might necessitate calling up his reserve unit again.

I learned poker recently. It's fun. I'm sure it's very different with actual people and real money involved, but at the moment I find my online games with fake money and virtual opponents really enjoyable.

Work is good. I am beyond thankful to have a job I love that is apparently rather recession-proof. (We learned that back when we opened our own business in 2008, and it remains true.) The teaching studio has been closed since March, and I miss the sounds of lessons in the back, but we've retooled the space to be Covid-safe to teach in if anyone wants to. And I miss having people inside my shop, but having quiet time to work is great. I am thankful to have a space to go to that I can control and that is like an extension of my home. I like having somewhere else to be so I don't have to be in my house all the time. Aden even used the teaching studio over the summer to do art and practice guitar when she needed a break from her siblings. Work has been sanity saving in this time of isolation.

I like that Aden has been learning guitar since she now has the time.

I like to eat popcorn and binge watch things with the kids. We all loved The Good Place. Currently we're watching Community, and just finished Season One of the Amazing Race. When we're feeling really fried and need something simple, we watch House Hunters International, and marvel how many times the woman in the couple has given up a job she loves to follow her man someplace where she knows nobody, and she wants to be in the city center because she has nothing to do which clashes with his need to be near his job or screws with their budget. We watch all such shows now with an eye for how good a place would be to quarantine in.

I'm thankful for grocery pick up, which we may continue to do even after you no longer need a mask to go inside a store.

I'm thankful my husband is good at computer stuff, and found a way I like for storing my photos that frees up memory on my laptop. (My MacBook Air now kind of looks like a Borg, but it makes me happy.)

I'm thankful for how generous people are when given the opportunity. Yesterday on Thanksgiving morning I went online to see if anyone had foil tape, which we needed to finish the vent installation part of putting in our new microwave. Within minutes not only did people offer up foil tape, they all offered to deliver it. How nice is that? We are also members of a "buy nothing" group on Facebook where you can ask for things or show what you want to give away. Recently a woman escaping a domestic violence situation with her kids needed anything people could spare for her new home. We put a rug we don't need anymore on our porch for her to pick up, along with a bag of toys my kids assembled that they've outgrown. It feels good to help someone. It feels lovely to be helped.

So not my favorite year by far, but many good things to look back on. More than I can even put in an already too-long post.

This Thanksgiving was even nice, if a bit low key. We worked together to install our new microwave, we made food, we ate food, we walked the dog as a family which made him very happy, and then we played a few rounds of Jack Box games with my brother Barrett and his family online (and over the phone). Our favorite games are Quiplash and Earwax. (We highly recommend them if you get a chance to play--they are party games that require devices, not "video games.")

We even enjoyed our annual plate of orange goo at our Thanksgiving feast. I have no idea what we are doing wrong with that jello recipe. We even added extra gelatin, and let the whole thing sit in the fridge for an extra couple of days. We have gotten that orange jello to set exactly two times since I inherited my grandmother's coveted mold and glass serving platter. I have no clue what we're not doing now that we did then. But orange goo still tastes good, so we served it in little ramekins instead of adding it to our plates.

 

I hope however your orange goo came out, you had a nice Thanksgiving. I hope there are moments in 2020 you'll look back on with fondness as well.

Escape the Room

This past weekend we decided to try Escape the Room.  It was really fun.

Escape the Room is a game where you are in a room filled with puzzles and locks and have one hour to figure how to get out.  We managed to escape (with lots of hints from the Clue-Master) with over three minutes to spare!

I'm not going to give anything away because it would be a lot less fun for anyone who wants to try it to know much in advance, but I will mention a few general things, and some that were unique to our experience.

Spring Break--Now with More Snow!

We just returned from a lovely (if too short) trip to the cottage.  My kids' spring break didn't completely overlap with their cousin's this year, but we were able to meet at the cottage in Michigan and spend Easter together, along with my brother and our parents.

Picture of my Gram we keep at the cottage

Is it strange that coming on our second anniversary of buying my grandmother's cottage it still hasn't fully sunk in that it's ours?  (For me, anyway.  Ian's the one who sees the bills and pays the taxes and does annual toilet repairs, so I'm sure reality has set in for him by now.)  When I clean up at the end of a stay I make the beds the way my grandma liked and put things back as if she were visiting next.  Which is probably silly since she would have been the first to say that we should redo things to suit our own tastes, but aside from removing items that make my husband sneeze we've left everything pretty much the way it's always been.  It feels right, and that consistency is part of why we love it.

The cottage is a family place where we can relax and play and talk about our history while making more of it.  We brought along a 750 piece puzzle to do, the kids made up their own games in addition to playing favorites like Settlers of Catan and Set. We read, my mom cooked amazing food, and generally just enjoyed hanging out in a shared space.  The TV stayed off except for movie night when we watched Elf.  (Hey, it's a good holiday movie!  Does it matter what holiday?)

Despite the calendar suggesting it should be Spring, we had snow.  No buds on the trees yet, no flowers.  But no matter!  We were able to walk across the frozen lake and birds were easier to spot.  The interesting thing about the cold up north is that normally we can't see much past the porch for all the green, but with the trees all bare we could see straight across the lake.

Settling Catan

I like games.  I've always liked games.  And I'm thrilled that my kids are finally old enough to play interesting ones so that I don't have to suffer through Candyland anymore.

The family card game is called Spite and Malice.  At the cottage we like Apples to Apples Jr and Monopoly.  When my mom's in town we play Cribbage.  Last year we were introduced to Set.  (I love Set, and Quinn and I do the online version regularly.)

But the big obsession of the moment is Settlers of Catan.  I bought it years ago (when Ian was deployed the second time) on the recommendation of my brother who had read good things about it.  We tried it once when he was visiting along with a friend of his who thought he remembered the rules.  It seemed like it could be fun, however it didn't get a fair trial back then because we really didn't know what we were doing.

But a friend of mine down the street does a regular game night at her house and I've been lucky enough to be invited from time to time, and upon spotting a Settlers of Catan box in the pile of games I asked if she could teach it to me.  I'm not great with reading rules, I need to learn a game by just doing it.  My friend set up an evening where I could come over and give the game a whirl.

Living Tribute

We just spent the last two weeks at the cottage.  It's still hard not to write "my grandma's cottage," but I'm getting closer to being able to say "our cottage."  It's finally starting to sink in after owning it for a year that it belongs to us now.

We signed the paperwork last summer on my grandmother's birthday, more than half a year after her death.  I think she probably pictured her summer cottage in the woods being shared by her children for a time rather than moving so soon into the hands of one of her grandchildren, but I think she'd just be pleased that it's stayed in the family.

When we are in Milwaukee living our busy lives and we get the bills from Michigan to maintain another house there, one with taxes and fees and things to fix, I wonder if it's worth the expense.  But when I'm there I know it is.  It's a home of my childhood that doesn't change.  When I'm at the cottage it's like being with my grandma again.  Like being with the family I grew up with while getting to share that with the family I have now.  It's magic.

The Ultimate Game (Babble)

My photos of this are not worthy of the awesomeness I’m trying to present, but I figure with enough descriptions to guide people through it’s still worth a post.  Because wow.

The other night Quinn and Mona were absorbed in a game of ‘chess.’  Neither of them knows enough to actually play, so they improvise.  (They do this kind of thing a lot.  At a friend’s house the other day they decided to play checkers using Tootsie Rolls.  When I pointed out that a few moves in they wouldn’t be able to tell which pieces belonged to whom, they moved Quinn’s to the light colored squares.  This of course creates new problems, but they just changed the rules about how to jump, where to move, etc.  The rules were fluid, and as long as no one ends up crying I stay out of it.  But back to the ‘chess’ game….)

They abandoned their game at some point to watch something on TV, and Ian called me into the living room to look at how they left the board.

Now, Ian is an Army Major who understands strategy.  He’s a smart guy who likes a good puzzle.  But he could not decide which player had the upper hand in this game.
On Quinn’s side we have two rooks and two knights, fortified by an army of frogs.  There is also a ring of mystery placed front and center.  This does look daunting.

But, on Mona’s side we have two rooks and two knights, but also a bulldozer being driven by a toy shrimp, and a snake slithered halfway onto the board.

How many frogs does it take to overwhelm a bulldozer?  Or are the frogs merely spectators since most of them are not on the actual board?  Is the bulldozer more or less of a threat when you add the shrimp?  Are the powers of that rook changed with the blue frog on top of it?  How do the Uno cards factor into any of this?  What does that ring DO?

We will never know.  Probably because they never quite knew.  But whatever game that was, I want to try it.  Because again, just…. wow.

A Ton of Projects and Three Blind Mice (Babble)

We have very little scheduled for summer here.  A few swim classes, the regular violin lessons toned down a bit for vacation, and a little bit of school review for the kids in the mornings so they don’t forget everything by fall.  I have work, a few rehearsals….  But overall summer break is pretty free form.  For most people it would look like a pretty lazy summer.

But my kids take after me in that the more time there is available, the more ways we find to fill it up.  No one here is ever bored.  My kids are up at dawn and squeaking, and there are a lot of projects.

Mona continues to crank out paper creations.  She has stepped up the level of her production since we started supplying her with colored duct tape.  One of my favorite creations of late was this cup o’ snakes.  You probably didn’t realize the world needed a cup o’ snakes until you saw it, but now you know.

Aden’s projects tend toward food (I taught her how to use the oven without help, and now she can make cookies from scratch completely on her own!), games, or science.  This was her own version of a kite last time it got really windy:

(Pretty good use of a grocery bag, I think.)

And the other day she made a volcano and invited us all into the kitchen to watch the baking soda and vinegar eruption.

What I’d like her to do is either finish or completely abandon the popsicle stick log cabin we started at the book club meeting we had about Little House on the Prairie.  One of the craft projects we did to accompany that book was build little houses, but Aden was being very particular about how hers would look and she took too long and now it just sits.  But she’s too distracted by all her new games and projects to do something with it now.

She also has a project to make a marionette made out of a baking soda can and a bunch of empty spools that never quite got done.  But how do you force someone to finish a marionette?  That’s just not the hill I want to die on.

Quinn continues to lay things out in rows.

(Quinn with his Bananagram game that we’ve never learned the rules to because he’d rather just lay out the letters in order and then make words on his own.)

He also wants to learn to play chess, but we haven’t gotten much past just teaching him how all the pieces move.  He’s not sure what to do on his turn without coaching yet, but I think by the end of the summer he should have the basics down.  In the meantime he and his sister play checkers.

In between projects there is a lot of bouncing, elaborate games that seem to use all of their toys at once, and when it’s not cold or raining they set up a lemonade stand.  As I said, they are not bored.

Most of Ian’s projects involve his computer.  I take it on good authority from people who understand what he’s doing that he’s quite brilliant, and I believe that because any old odd thing I ask him to make a computer do he can make happen, but I don’t get what’s involved in all of that.  He built his own router, for instance, to which I said, “Good for you!” but that had my brain-mapping brother’s jaw on the floor because he actually appreciated what it means.  The funny thing is that everything Ian does on the computer looks the same to me, so he could be writing code, reading a book, playing a game, and I can’t tell the difference.  But he politely listens to me say things like, “I planed my rib assembly taper and it came out 0.2mm low in the lower bouts but the twist is gone so I’m happy,” so it all balances out.

The main project I’m trying to work on is a new violin I’m building on commission for someone.  I end up doing most of the work very late at night after the kids are in bed.  It’s not that they mean to disturb me while I work, but I don’t like to turn away hugs or cuteness, and there is always the potential for disaster with kids around.  When my bending iron is plugged in I don’t like to risk that I may forget about it because someone needs a bandaid, and some steps like gluing can’t be interrupted.  So I wait until everyone is asleep.

This is what a bending iron looks like:

It’s used for bending strips of maple into the right shapes for the sides (ribs) of a violin.  (It’s also used for bending linings and purfling, which is just techno babble to most people but I mention it so my luthier friends don’t roll their eyes and say, “Well, it’s not JUST for ribs….”)

When all the ribs are bent I glue them to the blocks attached to my form:

(The form is just for building the ribs around–it gets removed before the instrument is finished, just in case anyone thought maybe that big piece of wood stays inside the instrument.)  This particular violin is based on a Guarneri del Gesu model from 1737.  It’s a fun model to build.

So, I’m making progress, but it’s harder to find the time for this project than I’d like.
What kinds of projects do I end up working on instead of my violin?  Things like repairing wind-up mice.  On Father’s Day we let Ian pick where we should go and what we should do, and we ended up at American Science and Surplus, which is a fun and eccentric store full of a crazy variety of things.  There were very cheap wind-up mice for sale that day, so we let each of the kids pick one out.  Within hours the plastic tail came off of Aden’s.  I told her I would replace it with a better tail.  So the next thing I knew, Mona had deliberately snapped the tail off her mouse hoping for an upgrade.  Then Quinn’s mouse lost its tail.  I sang them the song about the three blind mice and the woman who cut of their tails with a carving knife and they were horrified.

In any case, I cut some strips of dark red leather that I had at the shop and used epoxy to affix them to the mechanical stumps that the plastic tails were once attached to.

(Prep for mouse tail surgery)

(Peppermint, Chocolate, and Cupcake, all with new tails.  Children should not name toy pets while hungry.)

That was time spent that I could have been doing violin work.  Now ask me how quickly after getting their mice back they all broke off the turnkey or messed up the springs inside rendering them immobile.  (Actually, don’t ask, because it’s sadder than the blind mice song.)

It’s harder to keep the house clean lately.  I’m tracking wood shavings all over.  Sometimes I look around my shop and think when people ask what I make I should just say, “Wood chips” and it would be a more accurate description of what’s going on.  There are bits of duct tape everywhere, and scissors and crayons.  You don’t want to know what kind of debris is left over from a volcano project.

But I like that we are a house of projects both big and small.

And of course if they run out of projects there is always hula hooping on rocks to do.

(Because that’s good for a mom’s nerves.  Sheesh.  Their dad lets them climb the rocks by the lake, and I’m just the worried looking figure off to the side saying “Be careful!” over and over, because I’m fun like that.)