Remembering and Reinventing games

We recently were in a position to make our own fun and when the busy book did not inspire we had to use our own ideas.

The kids' grandma got the ball rolling by doing the "memory game" where you present a tray of objects that you get to see for a short time and then you look away and write down or tell (if you can't write yet) what you saw.

We got into play clay big time. There were no limits on that one. Really, none. Jumping fish, and a blueberry tree and a giraffe that can bounce are proof of that.

Then, with a start, I realized that there was the capacity to play Jenga in the house (and all the pieces were in the bag!!) We had been sadly overlooking it all this time. It quickly got turned into another version, but cool, all the same.

The best, most enduring activity was the TASTE TEST. That idea kept on giving. Raisins, pepper, salt and cookies and milk. Not a lot of mystery there, but fun to set up and come up with new things to try.

Comments

I entered August without you.

I won't visit you this month. You won't call. I will raid your garden and you won't get any of the vegetables. I will make plans without telling you about them. We'll go to the store and not buy you one single thing. Whole books will be read and I will not tell you which ones. I will watch movies and not inform you. The nasturiums will ripen. Last month was different. I changed my schedule and took time off work to be with you. I dropped all kinds of plans for us to be together. You sent me messages, I received them. I picked up food that I thought you would like at the store and sent you pictures of every beautiful thing I saw. I sang with you. We watched the Great Canadian Baking Show. You chose the recipe for the garlic scape pesto and gave me instructions for making the gooseberry jam. I am in August without you. You are in July.

Fists full of lettuce

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Shake your Bummy

In recent weeks, two things have come to my attention, this article by Mary Beth Williams, T he real key to good health and the viral hit created by Dr. Mike Evans, 23 and 1/2 hours: What is the single best thing we can do for our health? Both coincided with when I was turning my attention to new years resolutions and reflecting on the year that was. Thanks to both, a reckoning came to be. Mary Beth Williams' candid advice was to get your heart stronger because you never know when you are going to need it. She herself has been receiving treatment for lung cancer. Dr Mike Evans' way of putting the exact same thing? "Try to limit your sitting time to 23 1/2 hours a day". In my day job, I sit a lot. I occasionally rise to retrieve something from the photocopier or to make a coffee, but an awful lot of the time, I'm on my bum. This is in steep contrast to my night job. At the end of the work day, occasionally in the middle, I h...

Growing Versions

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