Scrabble, a Walk, and a Sunset

Thursday, August 7.

Another day, and what to do...  Relax, of course!  This is the Lake, after all.  One must always find time to do not much of anything.  Scrabble is always fun, especially with Mom.  It started out pretty bad, but we ended up with a few seven-tiles-used words, and the points eventually racked up.  I can't remember the final score, but we topped 800!!  Sweet!

Topping 800 points is pretty awesome

when you haven't even used three of the triple word score spaces!

In the afternoon, I decided to take a walk by myself up the road with my camera.  I started with one of my favorite shots of the line-up of mailboxes on Hermitage Road.  Come walk with me...

I wandered back home and out to the dock, where I sat and soaked in the afternoon rays.

After dinner, we walked on up to Janet's place for a spa and beauty products party.  Hand scrubs and facials, and lots of products to check out and try.  The ladies let me sneak out to the deck, then the lower dock, to catch the sunset, which was pretty amazing.

I zoomed in a few times to try to capture the amazing-ness. It was much more spectacular in person, though.

Ahhh, the peaceful end of a beautiful day at the Lake.


Back to life,
Christine

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Shattered: The Eight Hundred Ceiling

July first.  Lazy Sunday afternoon.  Fernando suggested a Scrabble game.  I'm always up for a Scrabble game.  It was one of those games.  You Scrabble players know what I'm talking about.  At one point, I had the following tiles:

W  -  U  -  U  -  A  -  A  -  A  -  F

Try doing something with that.  No fun.  Here is a picture of our finished board:

Our combined score?  833.  The 800 ceiling has officially been shattered.  I think that's four 800+ games, with one of those being a 900+ game.  Yeah.  It has been a really good year for Scrabble.  :)


Back to life,
Christine

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Another Great Number -- 800

I've played Scrabble since I was a young teenager, and have always dreamed of combining with my partner for an 800 game.  Mid-700s was all I could ever manage playing with whomever would play with me.  (Fernando and my mom are my regulars--Fernando because he loves me and my mom because she likes playing.)

Finally, one day my friend Dee and I broke 800.  I mean, really broke it.  I will probably never have another game like that.  But here's hoping!

A mere month after that epic game, playing with a son who just had his wisdom teeth out, we broke 800 again.  Two awesome games in a month's span!  Wow.  The second 800 game was almost a letdown after breaking 900, but let me tell you, it's still a thrill.  Which is why I'm posting the below.

847!

A spectacular 929 with Dee.
An awesome 819 with Danny.
A super 847 with Mom.

Sweet.


Back to life,
Christine

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Another Awesome Game!

Danny had his wisdom teeth removed a week ago last Friday, so he has been taking it easy lately.  Due to "dry socket" horror stories, we're pretty paranoid about wisdom tooth recovery, and it has rubbed off on Danny.  No bouncing, jarring movement for him!

Since he wasn't up to attending church that Sunday, I stayed home with him to keep him company and to minister to him if he needed anything.  Danny is a doer, so he was pretty bored just sitting around.  Watch a movie, read books, yeah, that's all fine, but he needs to do stuff.

He was bored enough on Sunday that he agreed to play Scrabble with me.  Which is really neat on two fronts:  one--that he actually wanted to play a game he's not really good at, and two--he loves me enough to be willing to be potentially creamed in the game.  :)

At one point, he had the following letters on his rack:  Q  U  I  I  I  I  O

At another point, he placed six tiles and picked six more:  T  T  T  I  I  I

What a challenge!  He had the Q tile, but I picked every other high-point tile!  And our scores weren't lopsided, either, which is always nice--and which makes for a potentially high-scoring game.  Which we had!

I didn't make the below shot "pretty" by clearing off the countertop area.  It reflects our everyday living, complete with medication, crumbs, a used butter knife, and green garden twine.  :)

And our score?  See below.  I thought I'd never see an 800 game in my lifetime, and then I had a 900 game in May, and an 800 game in June!!

Below is the cleaned-up version of our countertop, and the game with all those wonderful words.  We learned some new ones (as per the Scrabble dictionary, which sometimes allows words I object to)--braza and dup being the most interesting ones.  Both Danny and I had seven-tile words:  revision (Danny) and dinkiest (me on my first turn).

I love Scrabble!


Back to life,
Christine

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For All Word Lovers -- An Epic Game

During our vacation week in Florida, a few Scrabble games broke out.  My friend Dee and I love to play Scrabble together.  Mostly because we're friends--practically sisters--and because we like to spend time together.  And also because she and I both love words.  Greek/Hebrew concordance, anyone?  :)

So one lazy afternoon, we decided to play Scrabble.  What a tough game.  She kept picking mostly vowels, and I kept picking mostly consonants.  We slogged through the game, and I think if we had retired to the couches at that point, we would have both taken a nice nap.

But, I shrugged and asked, "Wanna play another one?"

She laughed a little and agreed.  She placed all seven tiles on her second and third turns, and then I placed all seven tiles right afterwards.  We perked up at that point, and started to write the words down next to our scores.  Nathan happened along at one point and helped Dee get kitties.  It was a three-family effort!  And the rest is history.

For all you Scrabble addicts, below the pic are the blow-by-blow details and stats.

(BTW, Dee led off the game.)

1. 26 aglow -- 35 fez (+ of + we)
2. 81 requite (7-TW) (+ oft + wee) -- 18 weeds
3. 72 moisten (7-TW) (+ re + en) -- 74 ignoring (8-TW)
4. 24 aged -- 42 comb
5. 20 cover -- 50 ox ("x" on a triple-letter space, "ox" two ways!!)
6. 83 kitties (7-TW) (+ covert) -- 20 ivy (+ id)
7. 20 cabin -- 35 ashy (+ ya)
8. 7 said -- 92 replowed (8-TW)
9. 12 (cabin)et -- 16 trope (+ er)
10. 8 iron -- 33 lief
11. 57 jute -- 33 huns
12. 10 lox -- 8 ma + ar
13. 12 dap -- 9 koi + on
14. 7 ow -- 8 no + na
15. 5 uh -- 5 uh (a nice copy!)
16. 7 fa + ta

Dee's score -- 451 (her all-time high), with three seven-tile words!!
My score -- 478 (my all-time high), with two seven-tile words!!

TOTAL SCORE:  929 (all-time high combined score)



Back to life,
Christine

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Adventures in Springtime Georgia Part II

I think I made it halfway through Danny's and my trip to Georgia a few posts ago (click here to read "Part I").  I thought I'd try to finish up our adventures with another post.  So here we go, back to Georgia for reminiscing about wonderful friends and warm weather!

Danny and I were supposed to fly home Monday night, but a tornado watch and severe weather took care of that for us.  We had one whole extra day in Georgia!  Though it made the rest of the week slightly off-kilter, I think both of us were happy.

Extra time in Georgia means more fun, and more tea, and more Scrabble, and more trips on the golf cart.  We fit it all in.  I made tea for myself Monday night, and since I couldn't reach the mugs, I asked Danny to get "that green tea mug down for me, please."  He came in to the dining room and set the "mug" down in front of me:

After a good laugh, I happily drank my tea out of the creamer and continued with our cut-throat game of Scrabble.

Danny spent game-time regaling us with hymns!

I'm not a pet photographer, though I now have four pet albums, two of which were generated by this pair:

I like to experiment with my camera however possible, so Talbot and GK presented some good opportunities for practice.  Here are the results.

I love the light in the image below.

On our last day, my heart-sister Dee had one big golf-cart adventure left.  We went south.  South sounded good!  Below is a synopsis of our trip.

My heart-sister Dee!

What a great trip we had, on so many levels.  We will see them again really soon, too!  This makes me happy.  :)


Back to life,
Christine

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