Her leather hands cradled a soft cloud of feathers.  A head poked out between her finger and thumb, eager eyes peeping at the wrinkled face above.  Sunlight streamed through an open window, turning the straw covered floor into gold.  A breeze made feathers glide through the air, dancing and twirling with dust as it clouded the room.

     Below in the street, a boy scampered down the sidewalk along the tree lined avenue.  His brown hair and blue jacket were tousled as the wind played at his back.  The brown leather satchel slipped from his shoulder, but he continued towards home, his left fist clenching around the strap of his bag.  With his right hand, he reached out a stick and strummed the wrought iron fence that encircled his yard, listening to the clickety-clack, clickety-clack as the stick bounced from bar to bar.  The fence turned in on itself, leading the boy up to the door before it anchored to the dark red brick of the house.  He dropped the stick and scrambled up the granite steps to the door.  He knocked sharply then waited.  His hands found their way to the peeling white paint on the door jam, and flicked of three square flecks.  He ran backwards back to the sidewalk, looking up to the window above.

     "Grandmama, Grandmama!"  he called, "I'm home!"

    In answer, the window spouted a rustle of feathers and the warbling of excited pigeons.  The old woman opened the door and beckoned the child in.

How long can your title be? Do they have a letter count for it? It seems crazy that you could write your whole post in the title, and then make the body blank. I have to keep thinking of things to write until I know that this has no word/character limit. Crazy. It just keeps going and going. I guess you can stop reading now...

Game Night -Part 2

Flux ★★★★
Ever changing rules are the trade mark of this game-even the goal changes.  As the rules are in flux, the players are continually adjusting.
Collect Keepers, Obey Rules, and Have Fun.
2-6 players



Speed Scrabble ★★★★★
The spawn of parent game Scrabble, this high-action version takes the game off the board.  All players simultaneously create crossword-esque webs of tiles.  The first one to go out after all the tiles are drawn wins!
2+ players--the more players, the quicker the rounds!






Balderdash ★★★★★
Truth is stranger than fiction!  Players advance along the board by writing the most convincing answers to each card- whether it is peculiar people, incredible initials, marvelous movies, weird words, or laughable laws.  The bluffs and gathered and read along with the odd-yet true- answer and players try to guess truth from fiction.
2+ players

Imagine If... ★★★★★

Cards are in the format below:
Imagine if...(Susan) were a type of cookie which would she be?
a) chocolate chip
b) snicker doodle
c) peanut butter
d) Oreo
e) biscotti
All players would vote by secret ballot and the majority rules, no matter what the inserted name (me, in this example) votes.  Learn to think like your opponents and move around the board.  3-8 players (but who says you can't have more...)  This by far the best party game I've played.

Fill or Bust ★★★★★


"You roll your dice, move your mice, nobody gets hurt!"  That is a different game.  Similar to Yahtzee!, you roll the six dice and score points.  Each card gives an extra bonus for the turn, or gives you a chance to back-stab an opponent and rob them of points!
1+ players


Played any of these?  Like any others you think I ought to have included?

Game Night! -Part 1

"I have never heard of a game night.", "It is unheard of to play a game at a party." or  "I am a boring person who hates games and shakes my finger at them."  If any of these sentences describe you, I am so very sorry.  Your life has been only a very dull glimmer of what it could become.  Games are amazing.  Friends are amazing.  Put them together and you get an amazing combination: Game Night.  The following is the top ten games according to Susan in no particular order.  5 stars= great game for any size party.  4 stars= great game, but potentially unaccommodating to large Game Nights. 3 stars= didn't make the list.



Dominion ★★★★ 
You are a young monarch just stepping up to the thrown.  You are through with your parents way of ruling and have decided to win gold and conquer land.  Only problem:  all the neighboring monarchs have the get the same idea.  It is a race for dominion.

This card based game is strategic and fun, but is only for 2-4 players so play it with a smaller crowd.

The Settlers of Catan ★★★★

You have just landed on an undiscovered isle.  Resources are ripe for the picking and land is fresh for the conquering.  Make settlements and build roads to conquer this rogue land.  Up to 6 players strategizing, trading, and building to win.

Cranium ★★★★★

Cranium uses all the sides of your brain as you work with your team to move around the board.  From unscrambling words, to acting out clues, to answering facts, to drawing pictures-this game has something for everyone and fun for all.

4+ players split into teams for the ultimate brain-stimulating game.  Don't stress about your brain, though; it isn't hard at all!





Apples to Apples ★★★★★
See?  It was "party" right on the box!  Judge for yourself as you judge the cards.  Players choose the best cards to pair with green adjective cards.  The judge judges.  One player comes out victorious.

3+ players.  This has to be one of my all time favourites for groups.  It's light and simply, yet fun and engaging.





Nertz (of Nerds) ★★★★★
'The ultimate mash-up of Solitaire, Speed, and Egyptian Rat Trap' doesn't even come close to covering it.  This game requires equal parts agility and awesomeness.  Only players with hands as quick as a wild west gun fighter will go out first and win the game.
2+ uber-competitive players as long as you have enough decks of cards.

Waterfall Windows and Wistful Wonderings

     Ever heard of Austenbowl?   No?  Until this week, neither had I.  Let me give you a hint:  it took place on Sunday and in front of the TV.   Another hint: Superbowl, Austenbowl, Superbowl, Austenbowl, Superbowl, Austenbowl.

     Five years ago, Elizabeth B. (not Bennet FYI) decided the Superbowl was not her forte and Jane Austen movies were.  She held a party, forwent the Superbowl and watched a Jane Austen movie instead.  Five years later, Elizabeth is my youth leader, and I was invited to come.  But wait!  I like football.  I watch the Superbowl.  Do I love Austen more?  Lucky for me, Austenbowl was held before the Superbowl.  It was a double feature of the 1995 and 2007 Persuasion, neither of which I had seen before.  All in all, it was a wonderful time, with everything from cucumber salad to chili to cookies.

     I'm not the type to tear-up during movies; in the most heart wrenching moments, my tear-ducts are dry, but I almost, almost cried during the 2007 Persuasion when I saw a window.  Yep, you read that right.  You see, I used to live in a beautiful, huge, three-story house from the 1890s.  It was an old house with old crown molding, old wood floors, and old windows.  We called the windows waterfall windows because looking through them was like looking through a waterfall, or seeing a reflections on a pond.  Images seem to ripple across the window.  

     It is the opening moments of Persuasion.  Anne, our protagonist, is scurrying about preparing her home for a move.  In the midst of the hustle and bustle, you can feel that Anne is sad, and that moving was not her desire.  With all that she has to do, she still takes a second and pauses at a window, looks out for a moment at her world.  A carriage trots past and flutters in the distorted panes of the waterfall window.  And then the moment is gone, and Anne is on her way again.  This moment caught me.  No one else in the room thought anything of it, but I knew that Anne felt the way I did, leaving a home she loved, internally sorrowful yet moving on.

     Here it is.  The window appears at 1:30, but the build up comes before.

Susan Rice

Welcome to this Private Auction!

My family loves games, board games, card games, word games, art games.  Occasionally, my mother will go to the local thrift store and pick up a new game.  On one such occasion, she brought home a game called Masterpiece.  It is a unique game wherein the player trades, buys and sells paintings to create the best and most valuable gallery.  Being exposed to postcard sized reproductions of such famous paintings, I naturally chose favorites.  Regardless of whether they were forgeries or not, I would always try to have these paintings in my gallery:

Edward Hopper's Nighthawks





















The Herring Net by Winslow Homer

Paris Street; Rainy Day by Gustave Caillebotte

The Advance-Guard by Frederick Remington

The Long Leg another Edward Hopper

 Like any of these?  Prefer another panting?  Comment below.

Travels

In May of this year, my family is going to visit my sister, Karen, in England, and take a tour of Europe.  We will be visiting many cities while there; which would you like to visit most?


Madrid, Spain

Paris, France

London, England

Cotswold, England

Venice, Italy

Rome, Italy

The Italian Riviera

The Swiss Alps

Yay for selling three story houses and moving to one story houses and therefore being able to afford awesome trips!  I can't wait!

Susan Rice