I don't know how this happened......

 .......but I am currently playing 30 games of Words with Friends.  A few years ago on my old blog I wrote about the scams that occur with that game and after that I changed my profile to male and pretty much I stopped getting scammed.  I never start games but if someone invites me to play a game, I'll accept it.  Since that time of that post, I've had about 5-6 "women" that I've played with.  The reason I italicized women was because they were women's names on the invites and pictures of women alone or with their significant other or with their children, so I'm assuming they were women.  We didn't chat, we just played.  The game would end.  I wouldn't rematch but a few days later they would usually start another game which I would accept.  

But recently, about 3 weekends ago, suddenly I became "popular" and I was getting invites left and right for people who wanted to start a game with me.  I'm thinking "okay, must be the scammers out there again" but not all of them were scammers.  As my usual policy, I accepted invites to the games.  There were scammers that were easy to spot.  The scammers usually were level 1 (I'm level 16) and usually only play a letter or two at a time.  And they send a message.  I found that you could mute conversations, which I did and wonder of all wonders within a play or two suddenly I was no longer playing that person (they opted out of the game).  Scammers.  I did have a chat with a couple of the scammers just to see what they were asking for.  The few I had chats with wanted to "get to know me better" by "hanging out on Hangouts or WhatsApp" and one or two of them got right to the point "let's have an opportunity to share pictures of each other."  One was blatant in saying they wanted to be on Hangouts to share sexily explicit pictures that my wife wouldn't find out about (remember I had changed my profile to male a few years back).  Most of the scammers come with really suggestive pictures in their profile (big busts or wearing really revealing clothing).  My profile picture is Winslow.  

Anyway, there were the scammers but there were legitimate people wanting to play a game and I'm okay with that.  I like to play the game and I do like playing challenging people who I have to really look to see where to place words to make the most points or make sure they don't have an opportunity to place a word that would be high scoring.  I'm competitive but I'm okay if I don't win.  I just like playing.

I think I must have been listed some place as "match of the day" as I see that sometimes coming through my feed for games to start, but like I said before I don't start games, just accept invites to play games.

Not all the people that start games play back quickly.  I usually do unless it is nighttime, I'm driving or I am at work (though I do catch up on games during my breaks/lunch) . Anyway, some will only make one move a day and then I won't hear from them for several days.  Several have started games with me and then after a few moves they never play again.  The game is set to time out after 11 days of no activity.  Counts as a win for me when that happens and then I block the player.  I figure if they start a game and can't commit to playing it through I don't want to play them again (that may be cruel, but it is how I manage things).  

Most of the time I'm really only actively playing 5 games with people who quickly play back.  In the mornings I'll have maybe 10 games to get through to catch up on moves.

It is just weird.  I think sometimes when someone who just likes to play the game finds someone who just wants to play the game and not scam them or chat, they'll continue to want to play that person again and again.  So I may be having repeat players from this round of popularity I seem to be in and might always have a lot of active games I'm playing. 

So, if you are on Word with Friends and you want someone new to play with, feel free to look me up.  My user name is Winslow (go figure) and there is also zyngawf_26791315 under Winslow's name on my profile.  You'll also see a dapper picture of him in a blue tie.  Hit me up for a game.  I'll accept the invite.  Just don't chat or try to scam me.  

The way I look at it, the more the merrier. 

 

Grocery shopping

(This is not a political post; this is a fact finding post).

I thought of this post early this morning (not at 3 a.m., but about 6 a.m.).  At first I wasn't going to write it because I was too lazy to go to the store to get pictures.  Hubby does the majority (all) of our grocery shopping so I'm rarely in a store these days.  But then, midmorning our DIL text us and told us the wee one and his sister had tested positive for Covid.  Have no worries, they are both doing good.  Just feeling like a cold.  Wee one has a bit of a cough and feels tired.  His sister has about the same symptoms.  We asked DIL if they needed anything and she put together a few items, so we went to the store.  And so I thought, why not.  I will write this post.

(Remember, this is not a political post).

I always ask my hubby when he has gone shopping how the stores are.  Were they crowded? Lots of cashiers working? People wearing masks? That sort of thing.  He always mentioned bare shelves.  Over the past few weeks he mentioned shelves were more bare than previously.  For the most part, he could get what was on the shopping list but sometimes had to buy the brand name of something rather than the perfectly okay generic one because the generic was not available.  

We shop mainly at Wal-Mart and Fry's which is a local food chain.  It is part of the Kroger family.  The pictures featured below are from Fry's.  They are literally around the corner from where we live and although a few pennies more than Wal-Mart, we tend to use them for convenience items if we don't want to go to Wal-Mart which can be more crowded at times.

Our DIL had a simple list.  Children's Motrin, orange juice, chicken noodle soup, tomato soup and cough drops (not cherry flavored ones).  The wee one threw in that he wanted Dorito's so I asked what chips his sister wanted and she said Hot Cheetos.  So we added those to the list.

As we walked the aisles to get their stuff plus a few of the things we wanted, I snapped pictures of the empty spaces on shelves.   

Canned fruit aisle..

More canned fruit.  

Juice.

I think this was the soup aisle.  We actually could find everything on our DIL's list except for Campbell's chicken and noodle soup.  We had bought some premade soup over at the deli with chicken noodle and tomato as I know our DIL likes those, but wanted to get canned soup for the kids as they like those.  We had to substitute double noodle soup for the chicken and noodle soup which was double noodles with chicken broth (no chicken).  The majority of the Campbell soups were wiped out.  Very slim pickings.

Eggs were kind of wiped out too.  Not much choice there.

Same with the refrigerated cookies and other pastries.  (Not that we needed those).

Even the candy had gaps in their items!! We  may or may not have bought some little Hershey bars.......

However, the wine aisle seemed relatively stocked! Unfortunately we aren't drinking in the month of January.  

So I'm curious.  How are the shelves at your stores?  Well stocked, holes between items, bare?  Are you able to find everything you are looking for at one store or do you have to drive around to other places to get it all?  

I know some of this may be blamed on bad weather in parts of the country are having or on shortage of staff with Covid and the like.  But we've been having bare/empty shelves for a few months.  I found this fascinating article about food supply disruptions.  A lot of it made sense.  

Anyway, I know our president mentioned that shelves are 89% full.  But I'm thinking ours don't quite add up to that.  Maybe I'm wrong about that.  

I think it will get worse before it gets better.  But again, I could be wrong.  

(Again, this is not a political post but a fact finding one).  

A weekend in pictures

Like a lot of you, I write my most brilliant posts at 3 o'clock in the morning.  In my head.  In bed, tucked under blankets in the winter chill.  (Right, you live in Phoenix Arizona, you do not have a winter chill.  Tell them it was 72 degrees here today).  (We are spoiled here in winter, but come summer we will "pay" for it, as you know, with temps way over 110 degrees).  

Anyway, I digress (once again).  Those posts I brilliantly write in the wee hours of the morning fade from my aging brain by 6 a.m. and of course I can't remember them, except for  maybe a snippet or two.  

So I got nothing today.  Except for the last few pictures I took with my cell phone this weekend.

Winslow, in all his cuteness.  Enjoying the warm Sunday afternoon sun.  We have taken to sitting outside on these weekend afternoons in the sun, along with him, to get our Vitamin D.  I like to think perhaps it gives us some protection from the virus.  At the very least, the warm sun feels good on these old bones of ours.  

The pool is 52 degrees.  Any takers?  A coworker's nephew and family jump into their pool on New Year's Day as part of the polar bear swim/challenge.  She showed me a video of them doing it this year.  Good that they did it, but not for me.  Would you do it??

Over at son's/DIL's Saturday night for dinner.  These are the wee one's (grandson) pop-its.  Have you heard of them?  He has about 20 of them. They are fidget toys and supposedly great for stress relief.  (sorry, I got the photo off center a bit).  

Saturday morning's sunrise.  

The wee one's birthday present from us.  He'll be 6 years old next month.  How he got that old so quickly I have no idea.  If you haven't heard of Ryan you are pretty lucky, in my opinion.  He reviews toys and has a very popular YouTube channel.  He is also worth a lot of money.  The wee one likes him, likes to watch his reviews, and plays Tag with Ryan (a game) on his tablet and my phone.  It is a cute game.  The egg has mystery toys inside of it.  The wee one told me he wanted this for his birthday when I saw him Saturday.  It is exclusively at Target and our Target had one in stock.  We grabbled it while the going was good.

Will you play with me?

And that is pretty much what is happening here with me, especially this weekend.  Technically I have a 3 day weekend though I'm going to work tomorrow.  The office is closed but the department I work in is part of payroll.  The company does their payroll weekly, so those who process it have to work Mondays, regardless if it is a holiday or not.  They get the Friday off before the Monday as their holiday.  I'm a temp and don't get paid for the minor holidays I'll call them (Martin Luther King day, President's Day, Veteran's Day and the like) but get paid for the major ones (Christmas, New Year's, Memorial Day and the like).  My supervisor gave us temps the option to work or not.  I chose to work as we weren't really doing anything for a 3 day weekend and might as well earn some money.  The two other temps that work with me chose to take it off.  I welcome the opportunity to work in a quiet office.  I won't be the only one there, as payroll will be.  Hubby will come and have lunch with me (there's a fast food restaurant right across from where I work).  It will be a good one!

Until next time.........

A few favorite reads from 2021

I like to read, always have and probably always will.  I mainly read when I'm walking the treadmill 5 days a week for 35 minutes.  I use my tablet for reading e-books that I get from our local public library.  I also check out "regular" books from them that I read at night before bed.  It takes me about 7-10 days to read an e-book and about 3 months (lol) to read a "regular" book because I tend to read a few pages and then am too tired to keep my eyes open.  

I thought in 2022 it might be fun to keep a list of the books I read.  I probably read about 30-40 books a year.  I haven't finished any books yet for this new year, but thought I would share 3 of my favorite from last year.  I also plan to review in sets of three, the books that I read in this new year.

So, in no particular order, here my favorites from the year 2021:

The Family by Naomi Krupitsky.  I'll just give a little synopsis of each book I feature.  This book tells the story of 2 best friends that grew up in mob families.  It is fictional.  It was easy to read, descriptive, but, without giving away anything about the end, it just ended.  It seems like the majority of books I read these days just end.  They don't wrap up loose pieces or do an epilogue so we know what happens to the characters.  I become attached to the characters in books and I want to make sure they'll be okay at the end.  Know what I mean?  Still, this book was really good and I do recommend it.

The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles.  It is historical fiction based on the heroic librarians at the American Library in Paris during WWII.  It is told in both the past and the present.  It was informative to read about the history of the library.  I didn't realize there was an American Library in Paris (still is to this day) so I did learn some new things as a result of reading this book.  I enjoyed the plot very much and it did sort of wrap things up by the end of the book.  

The final one is Nomadland by Jessica Bruder.  This was a nonfiction book.  Now normally I don't read a lot on nonfiction books (do you?).  I'm not sure why I don't.  I speed read and skim a lot when I'm reading fiction, so perhaps it is because it is harder (for me at least) to skim through a nonfiction book I find it more difficult to read them.  Maybe that's why I don't read a lot of them.  I didn't realize this was a nonfiction book until after I started reading it.  It flows like a fiction book though (I'm sure this makes no sense).  The story is basically as a way to escape homelessness some people decide to buy trailers or convert vehicles to be trailers and they basically live on the road going from camp site to camp site, seasonal job to seasonal job, in order to survive.  The book was written back in 2017 and I understand a Netflix movie was made about it, which I have not seen.  I did enjoy reading about the history about workamping (the term used for camping from site to site and working from site to site).  Amazon even hired (not sure that they still do) workampers for their seasonal times of needing lots of employees.  It was a very interesting read coupled by the fact that the annual get together for workampers was held in Quartzsite, Arizona  which is about 125 miles from where I live.  Yearly (before the pandemic) many would come to Quartzsite in January to convene as a mini convention for workamping and RV living with seminars and other get togethers to discuss the lifestyle they had chosen to pursue.  We recently drove through Quartzite on our way back to Phoenix from San Diego.  It is a very small town with a lot of RV parks.  Anyway, the book was informative and I did enjoy reading it.  Again, highly recommended.  

Let me know if you have read any of these three I featured as well as what your favorite book of 2021 might have been as well as what you are currently reading.  I am always looking for a good read.  

Not really resolutions

I don't make new year resolutions these days.  I used to in the past and usually broke them very soon into the new year.  A few years back I made a list of goals I wanted to accomplish in the new year which worked out better in achieving them. The only goal I can remember from that year (lol) was to be up and moving around a bit more as I was basically a couch potato.  I remembered I set the goal to reduce the time I sat around by 50% over the year which I did.  I got up more, did more exercise and definitely achieved that goal.  The other ones I remember also achieving, I just don't remember what they were (oh the fun of getting older).

Some years I would pick a word that I would focus on for the year.  Like joy or love or the like.  I didn't do well with those either.  After a week or two I had pretty much totally forgotten the word or gave up really trying to achieve what I wanted to do with it so I stopped picking a yearly word, though I might have one this year......

I really don't have any goals this year.  I will do what I have done the past several Januarys and that is what I call "Reset January."  Because of all the extra eating one does around the holidays and because I do enjoy drinking wine, sometimes more than I should, a few years back I decided to give up alcohol for the month of January as well as getting back to healthier eating after the holidays.  It worked in getting off the extra weight one might put on this time of year.  So I'll do the same this January though I'm drinking less wine than I used to on average and miracle of miracles I didn't gain any weight this holiday season.  I was up 2.5 pounds Christmas week but then had lost that this past weigh in on Friday and ended up the month a pound down than I had begun the month.  So definitely a win there! I hope to drop a little more weight in the new year but I don't have a specific amount nor a monthly goal of wanting to lose so many pounds per month.  

So many people set what I think can be an impossible goal and that is of reading the Bible from cover to cover in a year's time.  Some fall behind in the reading plan, especially when they get to the tough book of Leviticus, and never catch up and then give up that goal.  I've been reading the Bible consistently for about 20 years now.  When I first started, the plan I did had one reading through the Old Testament in 2 years and the New Testament in one year.  That was more manageable and a very attainable goal.  Then I just started reading the Bible straight through from Genesis to Revelation, reading for about 15-20 minutes daily.  It would take me about 13 months to read it cover to cover.  For the past few years I haven't really read it straight through.  Have skipped around from book to book, study to study, and there were times when I wasn't reading it daily like I used to due to new schedules of hubby being retired and home more, me working outside of the house when I worked for years at home, etc.  I finally got into a good routine when I took my last blogging break when I used the evening time when I used to blog to read/study the Bible.  I got back into the habit of doing so and now have kept it up pretty much daily like I used to do.

I wasn't sure what plan I would follow this year for reading the Bible or if I would follow a plan but a few days before the new year began I ran across an article that mentioned the M'Cheyne Bible-Reading Plan.  Now, like I said above, I have been reading the Bible for about 20 years and I never heard of this reading plan before.  So I checked it out and I liked the plan.  It is designed to read through the New Testament and Psalms twice in the year and the Old Testament once.  There are 4 readings assigned per day.  It looked manageable so I printed out the schedule and I started it yesterday.  I'm estimating it would be probably about 30 minutes of reading per day if one read through them all but I intend to break it up a bit as time permits.  Perhaps one chapter in the morning before work, one when I get home from work and the other two in the evening after dinner.  I want to read slowly and really think about what I'm reading and take notes and do some research if something comes up that catches my eye that I want to know more about.  

So, when I was at church today and thinking of the Bible reading plan and listening to the sermon, the word "learn" came into my mind.  So maybe that will be my word for the year.  Learn.  Learn more about Jesus and God than I did before.  Grow in my knowledge and hopefully my faith.  I think that is probably a doable word for me for this year.  We'll see.

I think that is about it for goals this year.  Keep it simple and hope for the best in this new year ahead of us.  And trust in God.  He's carried me this far, I think He isn't going to give up on me yet (never).  

And hopefully at the end of 2022, I'll be wiser and would have learned a lot more about God.  And for me, I think that would be the mark of a good year, no matter what may be happening around me and to those I know and love.  

I'll let you know if I achieve that goal.