January 2025 month in review

Y’all we are almost 1/4 of the way through the 21 century, how is that for weird?

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Week 1

Most of my pictures are from the first few days before Batman left to head back to the army. This will probably be the week that has the most pictures.

We played a whole slew of games because we got many games for Christmas and we are trying to play them to learn what we like, we also gave away many games. I should have gotten a picture of the games we gave away. Many of them we played a few times and were like, “meh that’s okay,” and others we were like, “I don’t even remember what I thought about it.”

I had a few years where I was buying games from Half Price Books for Christmas presents or I bought games there to go with our history studies to play, which was a fun idea, but that meant we ended up with lots of games, and we didn’t necessarily play all the games we had. We’ve come to the conclusion we would rather have a few games we play a lot then LOTS of games we only play every now and then.

So many games played.

Then we went out to eat before he headed off and got delicious soup in bread bowls, well three of us did, and I was quite happy with that. I love soup in a bread bowl. It makes me quite happy.

The obnoxious photo at the top is me forcing everyone to get a picture together right before Batman left, then you can see the boys torturing The Artist as he’s heading off. Don’t be fooled, she is quite happy, it’s that happy sort of annoyance that happens among siblings.

Superman and I went grocery shopping together and were meeting my Mom at Sam’s Club, but we got there a few minutes early, so we wandered about Barnes and Noble. The amusing part is it was 30-something outside and I’m bundled up in a nice warm coat and super warm, while he was in shorts and a t-shirt. His only concession to the cold weather was socks. That’s right, socks. You know to help him keep his toes warm. I found a few books I wanted to look up reviews on then pick up on my Nook. I buy gift cards at my local store then get electronic copies of books.

Though, I will admit I have a large TBR pile that I’m trying to work through as I’ve picked up a lot of free or on sale books over the past couple of years, so that’s what I’ve read this week, especially as I started this week with the worst migraine. I was attempting to play a game with everyone and it was so gad that everyone just stared at me and finally told me to go take a nap and take medicine. So I did.

Books read:

• A Groom of One’s Own– This was a cute marriage of convenience book, and I enjoyed it as a fun read to finish during a migraine which led me to reread the other books in the series
• Just Don’t Fall– These make for good, I don’t feel well, I don’t want to focus type of reading, I can skim it, and skip over a page or so by accident and still know what’s going on
• Absolutely Not in Love– rereading this, I like it better than the first time I read it, but I still feel like he got off rather easily for leaving her hanging when he said he would help her, but it was a solid apology. I’ll pick up the other two books in the series whenever they’re on sale, but I don’t care enough to buy them full price. They’re a fun silly read, but not enough for full price
• The Nutcracker and the Mouse King– I listened to this as an audiobook on a podcast, Finding Fantasy Reads, which shares short novellas about an hour long each week, occasionally she’ll do a 2-part book that is 2 hours long, but I finished listening to it this week
• Her Fae Secret– I’ve been keeping an eye on this series for a bit, and finally bought the first. It’s an interesting take on the 12 Dancing Princesses set in a vaguely Regency Era world with magic, the next book in the series is going to be Beauty and the Beast, but keeping with my reading my TBR I’m trying to be good and not getting the rest of the series but it was a fun way to do it
• The Beginning of Once Upon a Time– I apparently managed to buy the third book in the series and not even realize it. There are parts of this I really enjoyed, and there are parts of this I was rather meh on. It’s basically the story of a fairy who is accidentally creating the basis for all the famous fairy tales but they don’t happen exactly how we know them, and she wants them told. It’s odd and weird, and I’m unsure on the book.

Games played:

• Aeon’s End– a cooperative deck-building game based on a video game, which Jeff got me that he thought we would enjoy playing together after the kids went back to college. It’s max 4 players so we played when The Artist was played out of games. I’m thinking of buying the game to play online with the kids.
• Invasion from Outer Space Game– a cooperative competitive game which currently is max of 4 players, but could be 5 players with an expansion, but it’s a fun light-hearted game where you’re trying to invade Earth. Batman got it for Jeff as a Christmas present and we had a lot of fun playing it.
• Bloodbourne– I found this as a Prime Day deal for Superman thinking he would enjoy it at college as it is 1-4 players, then he discovered it is based on a videogame, and he is thinking of getting the game. So that is two successful board games we’ve found from video games

Week 2

Okay this is a bit of genius, I just cooked these two dishes and now I’m trying to remember which countries they were for. I was about to write up the countries and realized I had a few countries where I do not have pictures of the food so I was recooking the food. So the top one is a coconut pancake. It’s lightly sweet, but not super sweet. They were good, and seem like a nice alternative to traditional pancakes, but a little more work since you’re adding yeast and waiting for it to rise a little and you probably don’t even need to add syrup to them. I just added some honey butter on top and it was delicious.

Then I made a schwarma from somewhere, I really need to go look this up so I can put it in the correct country. I’ll get up and do that in just a second once I finish writing up this. This is actually a funny story. Jeff is not a big fan, so I planned it for a night I thought he wasn’t going to be home, and I had planned the amount of food, and then he got home earlier and I did not have enough food for him to eat too and I felt so bad because he was soooo hungry. Thankfully we had leftovers from his business meal where everyone else didn’t want to take the food home.

That’s another funny story. So there were clients or technically vendors in town and they took the team out for dinner at an Italian restaurant and they got so much food that was served family style. At the end of the meal there were a lot of leftovers and they went around the table and figured out Jeff was the only one who made sense to take it home. The vendors were in a hotel room, the other people at the table had excuses (it’s just me and my wife, we won’t eat that, excuse, excuse, excuse), but it was funny. So we suddenly had 5 different main dishes, 3 desserts, and some random salads. Then we had a long discussion about differences in life-choices, one of his co-workers was talking about how his family spent thousands of dollars on DoorDash in December because the teens were home from college and would get up at different times and would DoorDash breakfast from the coffee place.

Our entire family was hearing this and thinking, “I can’t imagine calling DoorDash just to get breakfast, and if you did, not getting the entire family’s order at once so you don’t pay the fee several times.”

Huh, I just learned from Spellcheck DoorDash is all one word.

But every now and then you see something of how someone just has a very different lifestyle from you that you hadn’t even thought of. It was interesting to see.

The right hand lower pictures are from church, our craft was of John the Baptist and I stupidly did not pre-make the craft so we were kind of experimenting as we put it together to see how it worked. The Artist was helping me in class that day and it was fun to see her seeing how differently our class worked versus other classes. She was thinking to tell them step by step how to make the craft. Whereas I usually let them put it together more how they want which lets them have more creativity. But, I don’t know that my usual method would have worked with this craft because it’s a bit finicky. But it was an interesting and fun craft to do with them.

Th other picture is of a chair in our service, we now have an official chair for the ASL interpreter which is cool to see and made me very happy.

Now the final big picture in the middle is of the massive amount of cleaning I’ve done in our office. I went through our bookcase there and cleaned it out. In many ways this bookshelf truly represents who we are as people. It’s filled with theology, history, gaming, and education books. Oh and the random fiction books that weren’t put away.

Books read:

• Tattoo of Crimson– I’ve read this before, this time I read it with Superman as I got to choose the book we buddy-read together, this I’ve been slowly reading since December, so don’t think I read this entire book this week
• Forest of Scarlet– A Scarlet Pimpernel retelling in a fae kingdom, which is an interesting book, it’s book 1 in a somewhat interconnected series of fairy tale retellings, that also seem to be somewhat connected to an earlier series of hers
• Stolen Midsummer Bride– book 0 to the previous book, which I actually read first, but I’m trying to be good and keep track of the books I read on Goodreads this year, so I’m seeing them in reverse order of what I read them in, this book is not a fairy tale retelling but seems to take place in the background of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which was rather interesting. Also interesting to see Oberon and Titania and their court as bad guys, which they are in this series. This is more of a novella.
• Steal a Swordmaiden’s Heart– And this is the prequel to Book 0, it’s how Theseus and Hippolyta met and fell in love, it’s an interesting take and somewhat also brings in some Greek mythology. This is technically a short story or maybe a novella.
• The Midnight Prince– This is either a long novella or a short book. But it’s a retelling of Cinderella, and I can’t quite decide if I like it or not. It’s told as if they knew each other before, and it’s part of a series of vaguely interconnected fairy tale retellings billed as “The Prince fights for his happily ever after,” and I just was rather meh on the book
• The Oakley Island Collection– I bought this when it was on sale partially because it has some things the individual books don’t have, and I didn’t like the series enough to buy it individually. Meh, it’s a fine series, and I did enjoy it. I think my favorite was probably the third sister in the series, because it was a different take. Then afterwards there’s a novella for the second generation, with two “not cousins” (they’re cousins because they’re parents of complicated family relationships, but they are not biologically related, and the marriages making them kind of cousins didn’t happen until they were 10, so it’s that weird how is this relationship defined line).

Games played:

• Bloodbourne– we played the second game in the storyline, because it is written in storylines, and lost, so we had originally planned to play it three times before Superman left so we could finish the storyline, but with our loss, we would have to start over, and that just killed the momentum. It’s also a brutal game, with a high likelihood of losing, so Superman likes that. He likes the idea you are probably going to lose, whereas Jeff is frustrated by that because he wants to think if you play right you should win, not that the odds are stacked against you.
• I think we may have played another game, but I’m finishing this up on January 29, and I’ve forgotten now

Week 3

Oops, this is week 3, not week 4 as I first said. This is what happens when you get behind on writing stuff.

Storytime, right at the end of week 2 and the beginning of week 3 the Austin area got a cold snap and had a very slight chance of snow, but we did not get snow (that picture of snow is after the kids left). However, San Angelo got snow. The Artist watched in dismay as she heard all about her college being covered in snow and we had none. It was cold, and there could theoretically be snow, but nothing.

Then the kids headed back to college, and two days after The Artist was back in college, she headed back a day later, we got snow, and they had none. She was feeling quite robbed. I was wishing they had snow and I did not. I would like to pretend Leezard felt the same way, but in reality, she did not write that message in the snow, as much as I like to pretend she did.

Okay, but back to the things that happened before the kids left. Right before they left we had The Artist’s 18th birthday party with her friends, she invited a bunch of people over and Peter did a 1-shot for them. He did an amusing thing beforehand with riddles where you had to take pictures in front of local landmarks to get bonuses for the one-shot that night. It was rather amusing to see his excitement with the riddle.

She had a few friends spend the night, and they were up late talking right above my room, so I sent her a text asking her to move somewhere not right above my room as I could hear them talking fairly well. So she moved into the kitchen which is while technically not right next to my room, there are no walls between my room and there, so there is nothing to stop the sound. So I let it be until 2 am at which point I was done reading and VERY tired, so I went out and asked her to find another place, and after a bit of negotiating she found another place to talk where they talked until 5 am. Ridiculously late to my mind, but that’s what being a teen is for, having those late-night talks with friends.

We got to play one of the games Jeff gave me for Christmas, Clank Catacombs, which is an interesting variation on the original game. Jeff and I enjoyed that variation much more than the boys did, which works well because I think it will work well as a 2 person game and will be a good travel game we could take for car trips as compared to some of the other board games we enjoy.

Superman headed up on Saturday right after the Artist’s party, then she left after church on Sunday.

We enjoyed a lazy MLK jr day and had fun playing Cthulhu Death May Die, which I had given Jeff his own copy of the game, which he is quite excited by.

Then came the snow, which I mainly stayed inside and away from, because cold. Also, I’m greatly amused by Leezard who loves the fire and will happily go and cuddle up by it. Somewhat worryingly close to the fire at times.

Books read:

• Well, if my Goodreads is to be believed, which I’m trying this year to actually keep it up to date, I read nothing during week 3, which feels off, so maybe I just registered everything I read in week 3 during week 2?
• Just wait, I have OPINIONS for a book I read during week 4

Games played:

• Cthulhu Death May Die cooperative RPG horror game– At some point I should update my review of this with the various things we’ve added in and more details now that I know more about how the game works now that Batman isn’t always setting up the game
• Clank Catacombs– I really like the changing board game

Week 4

Happiness is a warm puppy and a good book.

Sadly the book I’m reading in that picture didn’t end up being a good bok because of the ending, but that’s another story.

I’ve got a really random collection of pictures here, and this is only through January 28. I’m scheduling this for February, but I’m finishing writing it on the 29th as I leave on the 30th to go visit Batman, so the end of January will show up in February’s pictures. Not that this matters to anyone but me.

Funny story, so in the D&D campaign I’m running I had this giant lizard they were fighting but I couldn’t find the figure for it, and so I used this stuffed dog for the fight, and everyone was greatly amused by it, and I was too if I’m honest, but it led to some confusion. Everyone thought they were fighting a giant dog. We got a lot of laughter as everyone joked about fighting a lizard named dog since we have a dog named Leezard.

Now, funny picture down in the bottom. I was sitting there waiting for the light to change. It’s super cold, well super cold for Texas. This guy just starts crossing against the light, he does not have a walk sign, but it was more or less clear and he’s just crossing with this shopping cart and what looks like a mattress. He got stuck halfway across the intersection as the cars that had the right of way came, and when my light turned green, he was still stuck there.

But, I had so many questions. Where did he get the shopping cart? Was that really a mattress? Where was he going? I started inventing all sorts of fun stories for him, none of which will ever be answered.

We talked about Jesus calling His disciples in Sunday School today, and we made dominoes for our craft, and I was amused how the kids made their sets. I was thinking they would color the people, but instead they decided to color the squares in patterns. This was interesting choice.

And the final picture, we had some new friends over for lunch and I filled up our cooler with lemonade and yesterday I noticed it was dripping every minute or so, so I put a bowl underneath it to catch the drips. It slowly filled with lemonade, which was great, until Leezard tripped over it and spilled the lemonade all over.

Books read:

• Charting Stars– This was so incredibly disappointing, I really enjoyed the book for most of it, it was an interesting story, it was fairly tropey, but in a fun way. It was slowly assembling their fun cast of characters, and then it just ended. I mean literally right in the middle of the journey. There was no satisfying end to a story arc, it just stopped. The male and female protagonist admitted their attraction to each other and then said the title of the book, I flipped the page and there was one more paragraph and THE END. That was it! I cannot begin to express how insanely mad I am at this book. Prior to that ending I had thought to buy the rest of the series as it came out, but now I won’t touch it, because I don’t trust the author to actually write a satisfying conclusion
• A Spirited Engagement– I think this is the one I technically read last week, but I didn’t figure out how to add it to GoodReads until this week. But this is a fun sequel to Haunting Miss Trentwood
• Haunting Miss Trentwood– I decided to reread this book, and reading this one without the short story that takes place between them, I rather wonder how some of the characters end up as friends the way they are in the second book. There are hints it might happen, but it definitely wasn’t there at the end of this book, but I enjoyed both books
• Wrought of Silver and Ravens– I reread this to prepare for a modified book quest over in Lorehaven, we’re changing how we’re doing book quests there so I’m trying to plan out some good questions for the book. It’s going to be interesting

Games played

• I don’t know that I specifically remember any, the week was weird