A Good, Old-Fashioned Game of Scrabble

Under our coffee table is stashed our collection of board games, which we’ve been collecting since the early days of our marriage. We’ve got chess, Cranium, Scattergories, Yahtzee, Clue, to name a few. Since we don’t have a television, when we find ourselves with an evening and nothing to do, we turn to this little spot for some good, old-fashioned fun-in-a-box.



The other night, we pulled out Scrabble and went at it, flexing our brains and our spelling to crank out words like “jetty” and “guild” until we emptied the bag of letters.

It was a delightful way to end the night, and as I put all the wooden letters back into the bag and folded up the game board, it made me wonder how other couples spend their free time, without turning on the TV or breaking the bank?



So, I’m curious… What are some ways you make use of a free evening, that doesn’t involve television? And if you have any good two-player games to suggest, I’d love to hear your recommendations. (Because you can only play Scrabble so many times!)

Update: I'd encourage you, if you haven't already, to check out the comments that readers have posted about their favorite boardgames and some other unique date ideas. You guys have some great recommendations and ideas! Can't wait to give them a try! 

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New Music-Listening Tool I've Been Using Lately

My husband (the one who introduces me to all things musical in our marriage) introduced me to this handy new site / download / application. (Not sure what you’d call it exactly.) Except to say that I think it’s awesome.

It’s called Spotify, and you download it onto your computer. Then, open it up and type in any artist. Their albums will pop up and you just click on the album or the song and stream them while you listen. (You can even look listen to my husband’s EP, just search for “Still I Believe.”)

It’s like a personal radio and I like it better than Pandora because you pick the songs, not them. I’ve used it to listen to a bunch of new bands lately or artists I’d heard of but not really dug into. Right now, I’m bopping along to the new-to-me band All Sons & Daughters that I saw in a banner ad on Relevant’s site. Really enjoying them. (If you need other suggestions, check out this post I made with 5 of my favorite good-for-your-soul songs.)

I just downloaded the free version, so there are a couple of ads plugged in every few songs or so. But it’s not too bad. If you want to sign up, you have to get invited. However, the website HITS Daily Double has a link here (scroll way down to #6) and you can get a subscription without a hassle. Pretty sweet. Try it and see for yourself.

Any new band recommendations to pass along?

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A Playlist: Some Songs for Your Soul

I love having a soundtrack going in the background while I'm working around the house or taking a walk or running my errands. And I got the idea to try to share some of my favorites with you, in hopes that you might discover some new tunes to keep you company during your drive or workout or even to set the mood for some time alone with the Lord.

Below are songs from some of my favorite Christian artists that aren't only good for your ears but also for your spirit. Rock 'n roll for the soul!

To listen to them, I set up a playlist on iTunes where all the samples are grouped together (that link will prompt you to open up iTunes to listen to the playlist). I thought that would be nice, because you can just pop it open and let the samples play in the background. Or you can check each song out individually below, whichever you like!

#	song	artist	listen
1.	So Shall It Be	Cool Hand Luke	(iTunes / Amazon)
2.	Faithful to the End	Cory Asbury	(iTunes / Amazon)
3.	Dress Us Up	John Mark McMillan	(iTunes / Amazon)
4.	Fill This House	Maeve	(iTunes / Amazon)
5.	Break the Chains	Misty Edwards	(iTunes / Amazon)

And I'm always up for discovering other good Christian artists, so if you have any recommendations, please share them in the comments below. Also, let me know if you listen to any of these folks and find new favorites!


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Inviting Anne Shirley Over for Dinner. (Or, the Answer to Getting Stuff Done Around the House.)

(So, uh, I accidentally posted this a couple days ago. I tried to correct it immediately—so that I wouldn't overwhelm your blog reading too much in one day—but I think it still might have posted in some readers. My apologies for that!)

It's not so much that I minded spending almost an hour or so a day in the kitchen, between cooking and cleaning up. I think it's a worthwhile investment to take the time to see what's going into our food, to get more acquainted with cooking from scratch and to experiment with finding more ways to make our diets healthier. (And besides, I can't complain because Michael makes breakfast for us every morning!)

But at some point, it became boring. Sure, the silence offers a respite to the busy day of working and writing that lets my mind relax and contemplate all sorts of curiosities. But, sometimes, after the counters were wiped down, the dishwasher emptied and our bellies full, I'd look at the clock and wish I could have just a smidge of that time back for something more than routine chores.

And then I remembered a dear chum of mine, The Audiobook. Back before my days of working from home, I had a 30-minute (or so) commute to work and the church I attended was about 40 minutes away. Me and my car stereo got to become pretty tight during those long hauls of trying to pass the time as I drove to and fro over the Cincinnati highways. When my collection of CDs had worn thin and I gave up on trying to find something decent on the radio stations, I started listening to audiobooks during my drives.

This was the way for me to spend my drives more productively, more peacefully, more intentionally. It also was an outlet for me to make my way through some titles that I probably would never otherwise get around to reading. For whatever reason, even though my staple bedside read is nonfiction, I couldn't manage to pay attention and listen closely enough to piece together the information they were
spouting. So, fiction became my book of choice for those drives, and I listened my way through many great books, including like the Chronicles of Narnia series that I'd been wanting to read for years.

And so, the audiobook and I struck up our friendship once again. I've been listening my way through a book while I'm cooking, cleaning, doing laundry or going for a walk, and can make my way through one book in about a week. Which tickles the multitasker in me quite a bit!

Where to Download Audiobooks for Free

One of my favorite sites for sourcing books to listen to is LibriVox.org, where you can download for free books that are in the public domain. If you're interested in catching up on any classics, this has been great. I've downloaded and listened my way through all of the Anne of Green Gables books they have available, as well as Alice in Wonderland.

I've also discovered a great many tales that I've bookmarked to come back to: The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield; Paradise Lost by John Milton; The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett; A Garland for Girls by Louisa May Alcott; and a slew of other L.M. Montgomery titles that I didn't know existed!

The only thing about using LibriVox is that they are recorded not by professionals in a studio like audio books you'd buy, but by everyday folk like you and me on their computer. Usually, chapters are read by different people, and sometimes there are those people's voices that are hard to understand. But, for the price of free, I'd say the benefits outweigh those negative points.

You can also try your local library. I've noticed more and more books on cd available, as well as some that offer you to download the book directly from the website, but I've not tried that yet.

Other Favorite Sites to Buy Audiobooks
If you're looking for more contemporary or hard-to-find titles, you're probably going to have to pay for them. iTunes has a whole collection of downloadable mp3 books for sale. Otherwise, you can always get the old-fashioned CD kind. Amazon.com has a pretty extensive collection to flit through.

Do you ever listen to audiobooks? Any titles you'd recommend?

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Favorite Film Recommendations

Once upon a time, I posted an entry asking you lovely readers for movie recommendations, thanks to our foray into the world of Netflix.

I figured it was time to repay the favor and share some of the favorites we've stumbled upon over the past few months. Most of these are the ones you can stream for free from your computer, which is one of my favorite aspects of having a Netflix subscription.

As I mentioned in my original post, I gravitate toward movies that are pretty clean, especially when it comes to sex and violence. That holds pretty true for all of these recommendations:

The Songcatcher

Ever since reading Christy a few times over while I was growing up, I've had a thing for Appalachia. And that's only half the beauty of this movie, The Songcatcher. Set during the 1800s (I believe), a city-gal musicologist, Doctor Lily Penleric, takes a sabbatical to visit her sister who has started a school for the Appalachian children. Lily goes there to escape the double-standard of academia  (where she gets no credit for her research due to her gender), but ends up discovering in the Appalachian folk traditions, musical gems she never knew existed. She then goes around recording these songs--hence the name "Songcatcher"--which is where the beauty of this film shines, bringing to life folk songs that are hauntingly beautiful. There are also issues of earning trust and her culture clash with the Appalachians as well as (of course) a sweet love story laced in.

Phoebe in Wonderland

Phoebe is a 10-year-old girl who decides to try out for the Alice in Wonderland play at her school. She falls in love with it and turns out to be a natural on the stage. It's here that she feels "at home," when everything else around her seems not to make sense and be out of her control. She begins lashing out and doesn't know what's going on, even with herself. I'm not going to ruin this story, but it's a touching and psychological portrayal of a little girl, discovering and learning to cope with how she's different from everyone else around her.

Outsourced

I saw a commercial for a new TV series that is coming out soon that I think has to be based on this movie. I can't vouch for the series, but the movie itself is really funny! The premise is that the main character works for the customer service department of a company that makes cheesy American products like eagle-head cookie jars or cheese-head hats. To save money, the customer service department gets outsourced to India, so the main character has to go train the new workers (and his replacement). It's a funny and good-hearted story about the culture-clash he faces and, ultimately, how he begins to embrace the Indian way-of-life and actually enjoy himself. It was especially enjoyable for us, because our church supports a few missionaries to India, so we've heard them share stories about what life is like there that brought some of the nuances of the film to life.

A Walk to Beautiful

This is a documentary that was recommended to me on my original call for movies. Once I watched it, I've found myself mentioning it to a handful of people, which is why I've included it on this round-up. The documentary takes place in Ethiopia, where harsh living standards for women and malnutrition end up causing devastating effects during child birth. This movie follows a handful of women whose lives have been ruined by these realities, leaving them physically affected and outcast from society because of untreated fistulas. Each of them makes the decision to try to get medical help, journeying for up to 24 hours to the one hospital that will treat them. It's there that "they find a haven that they never imagined, transforming their long and arduous trek into a "walk to beautiful," says the Amazon description. I enjoyed this movie because it opens up a reality I was completely unaware of, and it made me ever more thankful of the medical freedoms that I otherwise take for granted.

Have you seen any of these movies? Any additional recommendations?

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Life in the Slow Lane: The Up-Side to Going Without Internet

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For the past two weeks, our apartment has been quieter than usual: No streaming movies or Youtube, no reciting the latest hilarious/insightful/fact-finding Facebook update, no flitting through music on MySpace. Our internet has been down, due to a late-night rendezvous someone had with the telephone pole outside our apartment building. (When the crash occurred, Michael went outside to check and is pretty sure the guy is, surprisingly, totally OK, though it's suspected it was drunk driving.)

This has caused its share of problems, especially considering Michael is in his last semester with his fair share of research papers to write and one class being held completely online and I work from home, via internet/email. We've packed up our laptops and made our rounds to the various area coffee shops, pecking away to get as much done in as short a window of time as possible.

And yet, in spite of the frustrations, it's taught me something. Having spent the bulk of the past 8 years in front of a computer screen--first during college and now in the professional sector--I've come accustomed to finding stuff to do online. When I get bored, I'll troll through blogs or pull up the latest online article or surf through Facebook. I'll reload and reload my inbox, waiting for the latest email (and then put it aside to write back to...later).

Without that luxury at my fingertips, I've learned that I really can go 24 hours without checking my inbox...and I'm not missing anything! I've noticed that now, when I do check my emails, I'm quicker to go on and respond (albeit if not as longwindedly as before) because I don't know when I'll have another chance to check. I've noticed that my life is no less interesting or up-to-date by not having my Facebook newsfeed at my beck and call.

I've also noticed that I don't really miss it... I spent one whole day curled up in bed reading a novel I picked up at the library. I went through a bunch of cookbooks and photocopied some recipes for easy cataloging. I created a little "household" binder for a place to store all the ideas and magazine pages I tear out about things like decorating or crafts or planting a garden. And I also don't have much fighting to distract me from my morning quiet time (except for my Sudoku book!).

It's funny how attached you can get to something like the internet with its instant-gratification smorgasbord of options and entertainment. And this little "situation" has been a handy little reminder of not getting too attached to things like technology.


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Netflix Recommendations?

photo by dailyinvention

Well friends, Michael and I have joined the club, specifically the Netflix club.

I've never been all that into movies, but it is nice to get to settle down with a good movie, wind down for the evening with a little "happily ever after" tale (or something like that.)

The next step? Fill up our queue. Which has proven harder than I'd thought, mostly because the recommendations they give on there aren't all that helpful. And also because I'm kind of picky when it comes to what I'm going to watch: I don't enjoy anything that's too raunchy or too violent. (Michael and I were watching 24 and the sound of hearing necks break made my stomach lurch, so that stint is now over.)

Curious whether you might want to offer some suggestions in that vein. What movies have you seen lately that you'd give a hearty recommendation to?

To get a taste of what I mean, some of the movies I've seen lately that I enjoyed include: The Songcatcher (takes place in Appalachia during the Victorian era and is filled with awesome folk music), Coraline (beautiful little "cartoon"), Therese (looks at the life of Saint Therese, who Mother Theresa took her name after), The Prize Winner of Defiance Ohio (set in the 1950s, tells the story of how a mom provided for her family by entering jingle-writing contests, and is based on a true story!) and Star Trek (seriously).

Alright, please pass along any suggestions. I appreciate it!!

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Why we don't own a television

photo by dailyinvention

Michael and I don't own a television.

And it doesn't really feel that weird to us. In fact, I actually like it this way, at least for now.

It all started a couple of years ago when the staples of my television schedule were "America's Next Top Model," "Heroes," and "Gilmore Girls." One night, as I flipped off the TV, I realized that nothing had happened during that episode. I kept watching, episode after episode, hoping it might be satisfying or thrilling or something. But somehow, in spite of how they made the previews look, it usually ended up being disappointing much of the time.

C.S. Lewis said that we ought spend our time doing things we need to do or things we love to do. Our time is far too precious to be spent on anything less. So, I decided to spend my leisure time on things I enjoyed more or found more fulfilling.

As I cut out television watching, I realized I didn't really miss it, and, two years later, I still don't. For one, our apartment really doesn't offer much space to a television set (because we have no intention of keeping one in our bedroom, which happens to be the largest room in the place) and our budget doesn't really accommodate one of those fancy flat-screens either.

But more than that, we've found that it makes us be selective about our viewing habits. To watch something, we either have to make friends with folks who also enjoy that show, download it on Hulu.com or rent it from the library (where I recently found a copy of the movie Coraline!). It's like when you get accustomed to drinking a fine wine (or so I'm told): No longer does the "junk" satisfy. If it's not something I really want to watch, it's hard for me to sit through it. I start to feel bored and wasteful. We still watch "The Office" (one of Michael's favorite shows, which I've adopted as the Mrs.), but if I'm going to invest my time in a TV show, I try to stick with shows where I can try learn something...like, ahem, "Super Nanny." (I know, I know...but I do love that show!)

It's a system that works for us, causing us to be picky about our habits and freeing us up for other pursuits--like this blog! (Though, admittedly, I would like to become more disciplined about how much time I spend online. I think that will be a harder media for me to break free of!)

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