“We should have stories in common, I found myself thinking. We should have stories, and jokes no one understands, and memories that we know will stay alive because neither of us will let the other forget.” ― Kamila Shamsie
“I feel as if something has been torn suddenly out of my life and left a terrible hole. I feel as if I couldn’t be I — as if I must have changed into somebody else and couldn’t get used to it. It gives me a horrible lonely, dazed, helpless feeling. It’s good to see you again — it seems as if you were a sort of anchor for my drifting soul.” ― L.M. Montgomery, Anne’s House of Dreams
“Madam, I have been looking for a person who disliked gravy all my life; let us swear eternal friendship.” ― Sydney Smith
“But aren’t small things exactly what friendships are made up of? Frayed string bracelets and late-night texts and compilations of your favorite songs? When you take those things away, what do you have left?” ― Ann Liang, This Time It’s Real
“With the exception of love, friendship and the beauty of art, I don’t see much else that can nurture human life.” ― Muriel Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog
“It’s not that diamonds are a girl’s best friend, but it’s your best friends who are your diamonds. It’s your best friends who are supremely resilient, made under pressure and of astonishing value. They’re everlasting; they can cut glass if they need to.”-Gina Barreca
“No one picks a friend for us; we come together by choice. We are not tied together through ceremony or the responsibility to create a son; we tie ourselves together through moments. The spark when we first meet. Laughter and tears shared. Secrets packed away to be treasured, hoarded, and protected. The wonder that someone can be so different from you and yet still understand your heart in a way no one else will.”― Lisa See, The Island of Sea Women
“The treasure is not only gold, silver, gems, etc. The most important treasure of this world is family and friends.”― Tamuna Tsertsvadze, Galaxy Pirates
“One and one makes two,’ she declared. ‘And two halves make a whole. And Faithful Friends should be together, never kept apart.”― P.L. Travers, Mary Poppins in the Park
“Neither one of the two friends felt any great need of talking. As yet. They had time; summer lay before them, long and full of promises.”― Tove Jansson, Moominsummer Madness
“Give me books, French wine, fruit, fine weather and a little music played out of doors by somebody I do not know.”― John Keats
“Wine can be a better teacher than ink, and banter is often better than books.” ― Stephen Fry, The Fry Chronicles
“Age is just a number. It’s totally irrelevant unless, of course, you happen to be a bottle of wine.”-Joan Collins
“I know I have eaten more good food, drunk more beer and fine wine, had more friends, and seen more of the world than most men ever will.”-Andre The Giant
While chatting with a friend the other night about what to write about as a blog post, she suggested the Train Game, which we had just played online. Full disclosure, she kicks my butt at it all the time! But it’s still fun to play. I know I’ve talked about having game nights with friends pre- pandemic, but not about the actual games we play. Fair warning, our game nights are normally with a bunch of social workers or counselors, their partners, and whoever else is brave enough to join us, so it can be a bit dark, humor wise. Here are some of my favorite games
Ticket to Ride, or the Train Game will go first as it’s a favorite among a bunch of us. The main point of the game is to make a train go from one place to another. There are a bunch of different boards, including a Nordic route, India, Pennsylvania, Europe, and a couple different US route boards. Each board has different bonus cards. We have just the original, US board. It’s set in 1913 or thereabouts, I think, so it’s got a cool vintage feel.
You can play this online too, which is how I’ve been playing it recently. The Husband is very competitive and will block people if he figures out where they are going, which has taught me to do some circular route taking to prevent it. Darn logical minded man. My friends who play online are generally nicer. Game play is typically around 45 minutes.
Carcassonne is one of my favorite games and I really should look it up online, as the Husband claims it is too complicated and refuses to play often. Mainly because I win, I think. 🙂 My friend who taught me this game in college played absolutely cutthroat and I got tired of losing, so learned all the weird little tricks to win. To win, you build the biggest castles, get the most land, and acquire the most resources. I think it isn’t as complicated as Caatan, but it does have a learning curve.
Game play can range from anywhere from 45- 90 minutes, depending on how many people you’re playing with. I have three of the expansion packs and they add some different rules and pieces. I taught it to my younger brother and he really enjoyed playing it as well.
My Mom gave my MIL and I the game Quilt Show for Christmas one year and we played it while we were at the cabin with my sewing friend K2.
In this game, you have to “make” quilts with different blocks. You can make smaller or bigger projects and then show them in a Quilt Show to get points. The person with the most points at the end wins. There are different configurations of how to set up the quilts, by pattern, color, etc.
It took a minute to see how it worked, but it was pretty fun! I would like to play it again some time. I would say plan probably an hour to play.
We have three Firefly games, but not enough of our game night friends like Firefly, so we haven’t played them often. (This would be Joss Whedon’s TV show Firefly and movie Serenity, if you didn’t know.)
The game, Firefly, is super complicated it seems, so I think we’re still a little intimidated by it. Tall Card is kind of based on poker and is a quicker game. And of course, Monopoly, can be a hit. That is if someone doesn’t flip the board out of frustration like my younger brother did one summer. I believe Monopoly was banned for a week after that.
The other games we play most frequently are card based and have essentially the same game play, just different themes and cards. I’ll start with the newest one we bought- New Phone, Who Dis?
Regular game nighters brought it with them one time and we loved it! Basically, you have a main card that you all get to see and pair it with one from your hand that you think is the funniest, most ridiculous, or in some cases hilariously offensive. Then you put them face down and the person who’s judging reads them all and picks their favorite. For example:
The first one to a certain number of agreed upon points wins. The next games follow the same format.
Cards Against Humanity probably ties with Joking Hazard as the most likely to offend people. When you’re playing against mental health workers, the gallows humor abounds. Not all the cards are terrible though. There are some innocuous ones like “Lunchables” and “Bees?”
Joking Hazard is by the author of the comic Cyanide and Happiness, which as you can probably tell by the name, is generally pretty dark. In this game, you make your own comic strip to go with the main card and the judge picks their favorite. This one is especially cool because the whole strip could be wordless. It’s fun, although sometimes cringe worthy, to see what people come up with!
Jobstacles is a pretty tame game, comparatively speaking, so I thought I should end with it. Perhaps then you won’t think we’re too terrible. 😉 In this game the judge puts down a card of a person they need to hire and you add a candidate card and a card that can either hurt or help the candidate card. This game is fun because you get to see what other people think. None of the people normally fit the job, so you’re really having to pick from the best of the worst of the combinations. It’s a very quick playing game and is best with a smaller crowd as you can run through cards pretty quickly.
So those are some of the games we like to play and hopefully will be able to play again at some point. Speaking of game playing, Piggy is currently sitting like this on the couch because I started typing and not petting her, like she thinks I should. I’d better go try and cheer her up. Can’t have the world’s most pathetic dog around the house. It’s killing the game night spirit!
Hello from our house to yours! We had our Covid bubble friends over today and I realized how much I missed entertaining! We had been doing at least one event a month with multiple sets of friends and I think I’m going through pandemic fatigue and social withdrawal.
We do have a distance movie watching party planned. This year our fall movie is The Hobbit and I really wanted to keep something going, even if it was going to be really different. The plan right now is to offer an “unexpected culinary journey” box of snacks for people to come pick up and then take home and watch the movie. I have a couple of people who I will probably be mailing their boxes. I’m looking forward to it! The Husband thinks I might be a little weird, but I have had some interest in it already. To prep for it and boost our decor, I bought this fun Michigan/Middle Earth themed picture. It’s from an Etsy shop called Home Squirrel, which is located in Marquette!
Isn’t it adorable? It’s a fun touch to our decorations. Tomorrow will be the day to try and switch out the outdoor decor and finish off the indoor part as well.
In the meantime, I thought a look back at my favorite parties might cheer me up a bit. Hopefully it helps spark some fond memories in you too!
Our Epiphany parties are, of course, some of my favorite parties! It’s so fun to bake and cook and welcome people in to start the new year off in style! I took pity on my Dad and didn’t feature the rulle picture. 😉
My Christmas tomte collection is growing. Don’t ask me why the ones on the left are all facing extremely left. I have no idea!
Lunar New Year started off pretty small, but got very big very quick. My favorite part about this party is that my family celebrates it and the Husband’s family doesn’t, despite there being a connection to Chinese culture. It’s been fun to look at the different cultural aspects of the holiday and incorporate them into our life. I still love the Lego set that I found unexpectedly!
Harry Potter! I’m glad we’re taking a break from this one this year, even though I loved the decorations we had. I’m saddened that the author, J.K. Rowling has had some unfortunate attitudes this past couple of years. Choosing to celebrate the good parts of the series, including messages of hope in darkness, friendship, curiosity, and the real life struggle of good vs. evil, helps me remember our party with good thoughts. Plus, I got to buy a ridiculous amount of candy!
The Tea Making party seems like it was so long ago! I enjoyed having girlfriends over to watch movies and make our own tea blends. Maybe I can recreate this one with just a few ladies!
Our very first Hobbit Party! Fancy took over the chair by the fireplace and would whine at people who dared to sit in it until they got up and moved. I remember being so nervous that no one would get it, or it was too dorky. The food picture was the Afternoon Tea table. Luckily, we have excellent friends who went right along the nerd journey with us!
I really did miss our summer party this year. If I remember correctly, this Caprese had garden basil and garden tomatoes. It is always fun to get together with friends when it stays so light out. More time for conversation and laughter.
My parents and grandparents all instilled the gift and the desire to be hospitable in me and I know it’s suffered during the pandemic. I didn’t even know if my coworkers would feel comfortable eating homemade food this summer and have only brought in a few things. We can’t see our friends, like we used to, and it’s wearing on both of us. It is helpful for Piggy to be able to decompress with just us and a very select few people, but man… I miss party conversation. Jokes about not having enough cookies, pickle trays, and friends threatening to steal whole platters of cookies. I also miss getting to try new recipes that people have made and laughing as I attempted to find a spot for them on the table.
We both miss our game nights too! We have a rotating group of friends who switch in and out. Our dining room table doesn’t fit a ton of people comfortably, but we make it fun anyway. Now, when we can have game nights again, we’ll have comfier chairs at least, with the Star Trek seat cushions I made.
No pictures from game nights, as we were always having too much fun. The thing I like best about them is that I can be myself with coworkers turned friends and friends who put up with all us weird mental health worker types. We all have such weird and mostly dark senses of humor. I like it a lot.
I really hope the distance Hobbit party works out! I really need to feed people again. It might not be quite the same, but I’m excited to try it out.
Let me know how you’re handling connecting with people too! I’d love to hear some other ideas. I’ll leave you with a peaceful Piggy dumpling as advanced payment!
“As I grow older, I think friendship between women is a thing to cherish.”- Susan Glaspell
“Any friendship or relationship is about a language.”-Gina Bellman
“There are no shortcuts to genuine friendship. Relationships are built over time.”- Rachel Simmons
“You know, real life doesn’t just suddenly resolve itself. You have to keep working at it. Democracy, marriage, friendship. You can’t just say, ‘She’s my best friend.’ That’s not a given, it’s a process.”- Viggo Mortensen
“I think people just like seeing friendship. I think people like seeing people who just drive each other up the wall, but at same time, can’t live without each other.”- Martin Freeman
“The beginning of a friendship, the fact that two people out of the thousands around them can meet and connect and become friends, seems like a kind of magic to me. But maintaining a friendship requires work. I don’t mean that as a bad thing. Good art requires work as well.”- Charles de Lint
“My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.” – Henry Ford
Each friend represents a world in us, a world not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.” –Anais Nin
“If we would build on a sure foundation in friendship, we must love friends for their sake rather than for our own.”- Charlotte Bronte
“Friendship … is born at the moment when one man says to another “What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . .”― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
“Close friends are truly life’s treasures. Sometimes they know us better than we know ourselves. With gentle honesty, they are there to guide and support us, to share our laughter and our tears. Their presence reminds us that we are never really alone.”- Vincent van Gogh
“You only really fall apart in front of the people you know can piece you back together.”― Sarah Dessen, Saint Anything
We were excited to visit friends a few weeks ago for a weekend. I shared some of the pictures on a Wednesday, but forgot to include these last few. I’m always amazed at just how cool our friends are. They can simultaneously keep both children and animals alive and thriving! Also, they are excellent hosts. I didn’t get pictures of the food we ate because I was too busy enjoying it. One of the highlights was homemade zeppoli for breakfast the day we left, but we also had delicious BLTs and a lovely chicken and pasta dish.
Here are some of the other pictures.
I got to snuggle a baby and it was fun to see their older boy, who we haven’t seen in a year or so. He was talking up a storm, including telling the Husband a long and involved story about “coconuts poofing” away while he was attempt to nap. He was also fascinated by both the superhero stories we brought the boys and the Husband’s grown up book that had only words, no pictures. Fancy stayed with a dog sitter, as we weren’t sure how she would handle a toddler and a 7 month old, but the older boy might have remembered her a little, after I showed him pictures of him and Fancy at our last visit. We have a picture of Fancy and S from last time up on our mantle display at the moment. 🙂
Besides seeing adorable children and our friends, we had an ulterior motive. Well, I did at least. My friend K (technically K 1, since we met in college) has not has not had much experience sewing with knits and wanted to learn, so I brought both my serger and my sewing machine up, as well as fabric, and some of my free patterns. She has a vintage Viking machine that purrs like a kitten. I was expecting a little trouble honestly, since my modern one has issues sometimes, but it loved sewing knits!
We used this really cute elephant fabric to make matching leggings.
Here’s a legging closeup:
We’re both wearing Lago tanks in the picture too. I made both of those, but K(1) made herself a black Lago after making the leggings. We also have matching leggings in this fabric:
Mine are shorts and hers are full length leggings. K(1) was nice enough to share fabrics. There may also be another pair of matching leggings coming when I can figure out how to cut things without hurting my thumb again.
This was the weekend I decided I really did need to get my hand looked at after I woke the Husband up by rolling over on my right hand and whisper screaming when I couldn’t move my thumb. I now know I have sewing related tendinitis and am not allowed to use scissors for a bit. I think I can still use a rotary cutter though, but have been resting it as much as possible.
Regardless of hand condition now, I did manage to make a pj set for K(1) which turned out so cute that it almost didn’t make it. 🙂
I had already made myself a pair of jogger pants with the neon sign material and was able to get a tank out of the mint fabric, so she did get it in the end. It was close though!
I also finished these two Lago tanks, one out of heathered blue tri blend- a mix of cotton, rayon, and spandex, and the dino one out of swim material.
Both are jus t serged on the hem because they are workout or sleep tanks. They are both super comfy. I cannot stop making this tank pattern. I think it’s almost my perfect pattern.
I let K(1) use my serger to finish these beautiful linen napkins that she had started. She sent me this picture after we had gotten home and it made me all smiley and giggly.
Look how pretty they are! I did one as an example and then she did the rest.
She also made myself and my other sewing friend, also a K, these adorable pin cushions and sent me hime with some super cool vintage patterns.
I was a bit jealous of this super cool vintage pattern box that includes everything you need to make this dress.
How cool is that? I’m excited to see it made up in the future.
We had a very lovely time and it was so much fun to introduce her to a couple of my favorite patterns. I’m hoping we can see each other again soon and to be able to finish some of the things I have for her and the boys. Send some healing vibes for my thumb and I’ll try to rest up as well. Otherwise, I’ll have to find someone I can bribe to cut out my patterns and fabric for me!
