Wacky Wednesday September 02 2015

Sheriff of Nottingham board game

It was a weekend of tall tales, my cornering of the apple market, and some contraband. Sounds like an interested weekend doesn’t it? Let’s not forget the laughs and spending time with friends. We played the card game the Sheriff of Nottingham.

It’s a hilarious game. The concept is you have a group of players who are each trying to fill their marketplace with cards of apples, bread, cheese, and chickens. They can also sneak contraband into the town. Each player gets to be Sheriff twice per game. Now think of as going through security at the airport. You have a bag of stuff. You declare what’s insides. Security (a.k.a. Sheriff) has the right to search your bag or let you pass without a search. 

If you lie you have to pay a fine. If you told the truth the sherif pays you. I’ve heard that some sheriffs can be bribed and they won’t inspect your goods, but you didn’t hear that from me. 

What makes the game even more interesting than playing with friends is playing with couples. It starts out nice and cordial but the barbs and suspicions kick in really fast when you find out your sweetie is trying to sneak contraband into your town when you are the Sherrif! You figure out among your friends who can really spin a yard and B.S. their way out of inspection.  

Can’t wait to play again. 

photo from: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/157969/sheriff-nottingham

Wacky Wednesday August 12 2015

A rose by any other name...

I’ve been obsessed with poems lately. I gobble them up like they were caramel chocolates. Hmm... 

Before this obsession, would I have ever used the word gobble like I did above? LOL 

Poems put me in an odd mood, not bad, not sad, but also not always a good mood. I wonder - how am I supposed to feel about the words I read? Sometimes I laugh and I'm not sure why. In my recent past, I never understood a poem could be funny. I thought they were all dark and brooding - full of fluff and large words I would probably need a dictionary to decipher.  

Ironically, the words themselves are what I like about the poetry I’m reading. I read the poems and I get an immediate image and an emotional response. I can’t always explain the feeling they invoke. Reading them aloud to someone else doesn’t provide them with the same reaction. Sometimes I get The Stare. A poem makes me think and there isn't an explanation within the stanzas, only what I can interpret with my own life experiences.

As a writer, I wonder if I should write poetry? I don’t think I'm ready or if I’ll ever be ready.

I'm pretty content reading others’ works right now. I just let myself feel the words and enjoy. 

Some of my favorite Poets right now are Billy Collins, Mary Oliver, Clementine Von Radics, and I have several of the Ten Poems series by Roger Housden. The Ten Poems books are wonderful because they give me such a wide variety of poems and poets that interest me in the collection Roger Housden compiled. It’s an exciting discovery.

Photo from depositphotos.com

Wacky Wednesday July 29 2015

Music 

I've rediscovered music. I go through phases where I don't listen to a lot of music. I'm okay with the quiet and most of the time these days silence is its own type of pleasure. Too bad I hadn't rediscovered music a few weeks ago when I wrote my Romance Writers' Weekly Blog post on a song that has influenced my writing. For the life of me I couldn't get many tunes in my head that week! 

I like a popular song that's frequently on the radio by X Ambassadors, Renegade. On a whim I pulled out my ear buds and used my Pandora App during the day job. Ironically, it made the day go by faster and my focus on work tasks easier. I loved a lot of songs by X Ambassadors. There was a rhythm and beat that just made me feel. The writing ideas have been flowing this week that's for sure. 

Pandora is ever helpful and other artists I've given a thumbs up to include Ed Sheeran (Sons of Anarchy flashbacks on this music - what a great show), Fitz & the Tantrums, Imagine Dragon and Jasmine Thompson.

Ideas are in the embryo stage and my current work in progress got a boost from the music.

I still can't actually work on my fiction while listening to the music, but I'm happy that I can do other work while tapping my foot and moving to the rhythm. 

Photos from depositphotos.com