Thursday, January 6, 2022

Thursday 13: 13 Random Things

Thanks to Liz’s comment on one of my random posts during the summer, I learned about Thursday 13.  That seems like a great way to catch up since I didn’t blog for a few months.

1.  I always seem to take lots of pictures, so there will be random pictures scattered throughout this post.



2.  Our neighbors gave us this adorable rug for Christmas.  The cats even look like ours.  They took care of the cats for us over Christmas when we went to my sister’s and this was the first thing we saw when we got home from our trip.



3.  I’m back to working in the office.  We went back on November 1st.  This time I’ve opted for the two telework days a week. 

4.  Caroline has not outgrown her habit of climbing the Christmas tree. She was in it before we even put the lights on.



5.  I received Christmas cards from both of my chemo buddies and my senior buddy.  They’re all doing well at the moment.  I love hearing from them.

6.  Words With Friends is seriously addictive.  I resisted playing it for years because I knew I’d get hooked.  But, at the end of 2020, my dad was struggling with all of the isolation from COVID, so I downloaded it to play with him.

7.  The reason I finally downloaded it was because my sister Gabby, who had been playing it with Dad for years, was finally fed up with what she called his heckling.  Dad’s side of the family has always taken Scrabble very seriously.  As teenagers, we had to pass a spelling and vocabulary test to be allowed to play with Dad, our grandmother, and our great uncle.  When we play Words With Friends with Dad he texts and/or messages us in the app if our words aren’t up to his standards and/or if he thinks we’re taking too long.  Gabby was finally fed up with that. 



8.  A few months after I downloaded Words With Friends and became addicted to it, my Dad decided to take a break from playing.  He still hasn’t started back, which seems very unfair since I downloaded it because of him in the first place.

9.  One of my goals for 2022 is to limit the time I spend playing Words With Friends.  My loophole is that “limit” is fairly vague.

10.  Nick and I have both had our COVID vaccine boosters.  I had Pfizer and he had Moderna.  We both had incredibly mild side effects that were almost entirely gone the next day.  My only side effect was a rash that lasted for a few days, but it was milder than the rash after the first andsecond doses.  Not a bad tradeoff for the extra layer of protection.



11.  We’ve had our first snow for the year.  It snowed on Monday and was mostly melted by Tuesday morning, with some snow still lingering in shady areas.  I’m hoping that will be the last of the snow for us.

12. Thanksgiving was a little closer to normal in 2021.  We were able to take the meal to the hospice house for lunch, which always makes me happy.  As usual, everyone was incredibly nice.  We also hosted Thanksgiving but opted to have it at a covered picnic shelter at a local park.  Our guest list included children too young to be vaccinated at the time and elderly people at high risk.  Our house is too small to allow for any distancing, so we opted for the outdoor shelter. It was a little weird, but definitely better than 2020 when we weren’t able to host Thanksgiving.  As usual, I managed to take pictures of the desserts but totally forgot about taking pictures of the food.



13.  A planner for a new year is incredibly promising.  It’s so blank and pristine; full of possibilities.  



16 comments:

  1. I hope your new planner can be filled with good things. Hgs, Valerie

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  2. Great update! What a sweet gift from your neighbor! I’ve never played any online games because I waste enough time on social media. But, I did try out Wordle last night. It was okay, but not something I’d be excited to do once a day. I’m glad you heard from you Chemo buddies and Senior!

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  3. So much news in this post. Love it. How wonderful you could host the Thanksgiving dinner outdoors! That’s quite a selection of desserts.

    We are booked for booster shots later this month, the earliest appointment we could get. Take care, you two.

    Love that mat!

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  4. Welcome to Thirteen Thursday. I've been doing it since 2005. It's a good practice that structures my week and gives me place to journal loose ends. The original idea was this kind of random list as a way to get to know other bloggers. I'm a big Scrabble player but I don't play online cause I'm online too much as it is.

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  5. I love the rug--I got a couple of mugs for my hubs and mom for Christmas from the same folks. I love that you can customize cat look, size, fur length and so on. Very cute!!

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  6. I played Words with Friends for a while but then it stopped working on my Amazon device and I never bothered to go back to it. Welcome to Thursday 13! You did a great job with your first entry.

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  7. What a lovely random list of 13 things!

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  8. I started on Words with Friends in 2020. I figured I needed a new game. I'll have to look for you, although I don't have as much time to play right now with work and all.

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  9. I've been playing Words with Friends probably about 8 years now. I must have been spotlighted somehow because this week about 5 new people started games with me (2 of them were scammers I think because they wanted to chat and I muted the chat). It can be time consuming but a really good way to use the old brain!

    A cute post! I'm going to do this 13 thing one Thursday when I remember to do so!

    I'm glad you got to do your Thanksgiving meal for the hospice. I actually thought of you on Thanksgiving and wondered if you were doing it!

    Oh my, look at all those desserts!

    So glad your Senior Buddy and Chemo Buddies are doing good and you heard from them at Christmas! You have been so faithful keeping up with them!

    Cute rug!

    betty

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  10. Caroline's face cracks me up. She looks like she's proud of getting up there and has no intention of coming down.

    I was never good at Words with Friends. Because I'm used to Scrabble with its timer, I answered faster than I needed to and not as wisely as I should have. Anyway, I think this post makes me glad I'm not hooked on it!

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  11. Hey lady, not seen you on in a while but along the way I tend to lose contact with folks. We got snow on Monday also, total of about 1.5 inches....but yesterday we ended up with 6.3. Hoping you are well. Love you kitty in the tree. Torties are adorable.

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  12. I love word games, but I am going to resist downloading this game for fear I will spend way to much time playing it :-)

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  13. Love your list of 13 things, Danielle. That rug from your neighbors is super cute!

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  14. I'm really pleased for you that you were able to host Thanksgiving this year, even if it had to be a bit different to how you used to do it. I know you love doing that. I'm glad some things are returning to something resembling normal in your world now. Oh, and I'm not surprised to hear about the cat in the tree incident. LOL!

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  15. I love your Thursday 13 and it's so nice to see that all is well! Your cat in the tree cracked me up. We didn't put up a tree for years because our cats always climbed it and knocked it over at some point during the season. Have a beautiful Sunday and a great week. Stay safe out there my friend.

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  16. Hi Danielle,
    ...I love your cat rug...that's so cute...we're cat-sitting our Son's cat (for 3 years while he's stationed in Japan)...and we had to keep up gates so she wouldn't get into the tree...cats are so weird...haha...
    ~Have a lovely day!

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