Wednesday Baking and Gaming

Wednesday was not as packed as Tuesday, but I had to finish my class plans, and I knew I would need to finish that today. Deborah is working on the inbound student evaluations and assembling her area’s classes for “English as a Second Language” in Michigan, and so we chatted here and there all day between our various tasks. We both live to some degree in two time zones with a three-hour change.

I return to Michigan in October, arriving on the 10th and returning to Oregon on the 21st. The church trip, with some extras, is leaving on November 5 and returning late on the 17th.

I find it hard to write this blog this Thursday morning as I am busy with a few items…but let me try to find focus, dear reader.

I managed to write over 1,000 words and drink all the coffee with my last banana (“Yes, we have no bananas,” always comes to mind when I take the last one) and a bagel-like locally made bread product. I may have to make my own. I reheat the French-style beef that I made a few days ago for my lunch (leaving the India-style food I made yesterday for lunch on Thursday). With everything published and lunch inside me, I was tempted to find a nice bar and write some SciFi, but I needed to finish my plans and notes for the Sunday School Class: Denominational History, which I am teaching on Sunday after church.

I spent the afternoon reading multiple Wikipedia searches and trying to create a narrative of the connections of the United Methodist Church to other denominations. Methodists are heavily represented in Wikipedia as the primary source of Arminian influence in American Protest movements of the last three hundred years (for those who do not speak obscure theological terms, including me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arminianism). I took my notes and plan to use an excellent chart from Useful Charts to help make this more straightforward. Steve Wolff also sent me a drawing of the assembly and disassembly (to use non-church terms) of the Methodist church over time. All good.

I made mac and cheese for dinner (I might have reversed lunch and dinner, but I am not going to re-edit that) with the completion and some final edits for my class. I sent out the notes to church folks and was relieved to be ready for another class. My next one is about Methodists, and I have more reading for that.

I remembered that the new trash pickup day is Thursday and got the recycling out. I saw later that my nearly empty containers are now filled. I had informed my neighbors to enjoy the bounty of my containers to avoid overage charges. Excellent!

I forgot to mention in the blog yesterday that I received some Board Game Geek upgrades for the board games Istanbul and The Lost Ruins of Arnak. The Istanbul QR code for the rules for the new location tiles no longer works, and after some effort, I discovered I was not the first to notice. The rules are obvious; I can use the promo items. For The Lost Ruins of Arnak, the new hard plastic pieces fit one of the add-ons, but not the less popular second. I decided to use it, remembering that the other add-on, The Lost Expedition, has fewer pretty parts. I kept the replaced parts in a bag, as it may be necessary to play with the paper.

I baked a pound cake, nearly misreading the amounts, but managed another excellent one, and enjoyed a slice of pound cake as dessert and a snack. Yes, it has too many calories, but it is still sooooo nice.

I did get more church paperwork and refresh work that I will not share here. I was busy all day.

Next, I boarded Air VW the Gray and headed to First United Methodist Church. Dondrea and Z were there already when I arrived around 6. Z and I took on another game of Concordia using the Roma map. Z, a bit scatter-brained from starting High School and playing soccer, took a while to find focus. I, having played Michael R yesterday, was ready to play and soon pulled ahead and remained there. The scores were high, and they mainly played an independent game. Z had my favorite personality cards and focused on building, while I bought cards and collected money. We were playing each other’s style of game, and Z even commented on this. I won and we put away the game. Ashley and Andrew arrived and introduced us to their newborn child, Ila.

Choir starts now, and we have another hour. We are used to stopping sooner. We got out Flip 7, and I taught it, and soon Z was enjoying this push-your-luck card game. She enjoyed the decision-based game. We got a few looks from the choir director as we had a few reactions to the happy or unhappy results. It is a cheap, $10 game I would recommend to anyone.

After the games and meeting the newest Methodist, I headed home. I paid bills, did the dishes, and read for a while. My head was a whirl of Roman place names from Concordia, daring card play from Flip 7, and Methodist theology. I soon rolled over and did not wake until I had to prove hydration once (better). I forgot to assemble the coffee.

Thanks for reading!