February 27 Stuff

Thursday:  It's been a quiet week around here! I did get to pick Cal up from school Tuesday afternoon and bring him back to his house. It was fun to see this little guy mid-week and laugh with him for awhile.

In the last few weeks, I've been trying to get a few new games to play with these kiddos. They are good at games and they really like to play. I asked a few weeks ago if any of them had ever played a game of checkers; and they hadn't--not one of them! I went online (via Amazon) to look for the PERFECT checker board--but none of them suited me one single bit! Probably because I remembered seeing this one at Cracker Barrel years and years ago and always wanted to purchase it but never did! So after a futile search online, I just got into my car and drove across the city to the Cracker Barrel near 44th Street and bought one! There are quite a few games you can play with this: regular checkers, "give-away", corner checkers, and "fox and geese!" (on the reverse side, there is a special "fox and geese" configuration and rules--I tried it, but their rules give the geese too many geese! The way I always played it was just on the regular checker board with FOUR geese against ONE fox. But anyway, I am excited to teach the kiddos some new games when I see them Friday.

The other day, I finally caught a few close-ups of my friendly squirrel up in my window feeder. I have quite a few different squirrels who visit this feeder throughout the week, and I truly cannot distinguish them apart from each other. Sometimes they come in pairs, and other times, there is just one.

This little guy is quite unafraid of me, so I get very close to the window glass and speak very kind words to him. He stops eating the peanuts to watch me, and every now and then I could SWEAR he is smiling at me! I wish I could pet this little creature.

Oh! And I ordered a new piano bench--this time I was successful on Amazon and ordered this one for a total of $44.95! It arrived today and I opened the box hoping I could figure out how to attach the legs like the directions show; but my technical/mechanical ability goes only as far as changing light bulbs--so I messaged Jesse and asked if I could bring it over to him for him to assemble. Which I did, and HE DID and VOILA'! Look how nice it looks with my piano. My old bench was rather chewed up by dear Belle-Belle and looked quite shabby. Looking at it began to get on my nerves--even though I liked to be reminded of Belle. I was going to drive over to the piano store to see if they sold separate benches, but then I checked Amazon real quick and found this one. It opens up for music storage as well--my other one did not have this feature.

Tomorrow when I see Erin, I'm bringing this little container of pretty beads, string, and everything necessary for her to make herself a sparkly necklace. Erin is a very "girly" girl, and she will love this. I've actually had the beads for a very long time ... but Erin seemed to young to be patient enough to string them, etc. But I think she is ready now.

All of this is rather random ... but like I said, it's been a quiet week around here!