The Game of Real Life

A friend received a parody of the Game of Life called the Real Game of Life for Christmas.  We played it recently and it was interesting to say the least.  You roll a character and play the game going through realities of life earning or losing health points and money and also collecting happiness points along the way.  To win, you must collect the most happiness points.

A few examples of the situations you go through include a first kiss, choosing whether or not to use drugs or commit crimes, whether or not to get married, and whether or not to have kids.  All these things have positive or negative consequences on your health and bank account.  In our game, none of the players lived to the end.  My character lived the longest, but died just before the end and unfortunately didn't collect the most happiness points.  We wrote down each step of each person's life and told their story at the end.  Most of them had pretty tough lives.  On one hand, the game was funny since it felt like no one in real life would have such terrible luck, but on the other it seemed kind of sad that there really are people out there with unhappy, unhealthy lives.  Either way, I find this game much better than the original version.  When played with the right group of friends, it's a hoot.

Kittens!

Last week we felt the time was right to open our hearts and our home to new furry family members.  We headed to the Seattle Humane Society and fell in love with these two little dudes:

Baz is a Siamese mix with a somewhat dopey but loving personality and Pog is fluffy and orange with a very laid back style.  I wish the pictures were better, but most of the ones we've taken so far are blurry because they're so active.  Much more to come on these little guys!

Crochet Kitty Nest

Remember the cat nest I talked about finding on Pinterest and wanting to make in a post back in November?  Well, I finally stopped playing Terraria long enough to finish it.  It took forever to make enough t-shirt yarn and I had to make some pattern adjustments after reading project notes from other Ravelry users.  You can find them in my Ravelry project.  Here's the finished product:

My adjustments weren't enough to curb the collapsing and curling problems many other crocheters had.  I think I'm going to make a few more modifications and crochet another nest, but this time bite the bullet and purchase the yarn from Joann's Fabric.  On the plus side, Cali really enjoyed the making of this cat nest.  She sat inside a few times before deciding it was better in a smashed flat form.  It now resides under my crocheting chair and she happily relaxes on top of it.  All in all, a decent project.  Possible update in the future.

Welcome, 2015!

Happy 2015!  Jeff and I have returned from our holiday travels and as usual would like to share some delicious food details.

While visiting my family in Illinois, we stopped by White Castle.  It's one of those guilty pleasures that we can't miss since there aren't any on the West coast.  We also visited our alma mater, U of I in "Chambana," and ate at Jeff's favorite campus joint, Cravings, which serves a variety of Asian foods.  We were happy to see the same server everyone loves is still working there all this time later.  Finally, we made the stop that can't be missed ever:  17th Street Bar and Grill in Murphysboro, IL.  I don't care what anyone says, it is the best barbecue and no one will ever convince me otherwise.

We headed on to DC to visit Jeff's family and had some great dim sum at Oriental East, which is a very busy place.  I'm so glad we read the reviews and went early to stand in line.  We also hit up a Smashburger since it was great the first time we had it with some Chicago friends.  There was terrific sushi at Matuba.  We topped it off with a visit to Mia's Pizza.  We eventually realized we ate at 3 restaurants all right next to each other over the course of a few days.  Random, but delicious.

Our first holiday travels as husband and wife went very well and we enjoyed seeing our families.  Hope you all had a fantastic holiday season as well.  Much more to come in 2015!