Play Day Number One

Dear Anonymous Reader,

 

So my word this month: PLAY. This blog is going to be considering "play" in its many contexts. Some things that came to mind to explore:

 

Playful

Playground

Play an instrument

Role play

Playdough

Play hooky

Player

Playmate

Playdate

Playboy/Playgirl

Playwright

 

Phrases like – “playing around”, “don’t’ play with my emotions”, “he got played”, “you’ve got to pay to play”, “playing for keeps”, “don’t try to play me”, “that’s child’s play”, etc.

 

I’m not really sure where each day is going to take me, so it looks like this will be a spontaneous adventure.

 

Today was the first day with the lanyard…no one out in the world of strangers noticed. I went to the gym, bought gas, to the grocery store, then to a small dinner party with mostly strangers. I wasn’t totally expecting people to stop me to talk about it, but maybe I was a little bit. I was surprised that before I exited my car at each errand I felt a little NERDY! LOL. Like…what the heck is this lanyard doing on my outfit!?! It’s Saturday night, dude! That’s okay though, this is called a challenge for a reason. It’s out of the norm and so feeling a little abnormal at times is to be expected.

 

When I got to my parent’s house, my sister, her hub, and their new baby were all sitting around the kitchen table doing what?...You guessed it…Playing cards. 😊 Haha…of course. Playing cards has always been big in my family and I absolutely LOVE that about us! We play games all the time and have fun and laugh every time. Okay, accept when my sister is feeling particularly testy and we go overboard with the teasing. Other than that though I love this quality about our family. Mostly we play Gin, or Rummy, Solitaire, or Sevens, Hearts, or some game I can never remember the name of, but really like.  Do other families do this? Do other families sit around and play cards and Jenga and Cranium? I sure hope so. We watch our share of TV just like the rest of the world, but we also have a blast playing games together when we are together. I wonder what my brother-in-law thinks about it all. He has no choice now…he’s our captive and in it for life. I know my ex-boyfriends always enjoyed dinner at my folks’ house because it meant lots of food, beer margaritas, endless talking and laughing, and fun games, followed by tea and some sweet treats to snack on…and then complain about because of how full we all are from dinner. We’re Italian so there is ALWAYS too much delicious food.

 

If you haven’t picked up a deck of playing cards in a while, dear Anonymous Reader, maybe you might want to try it. It gets the kids away from the phones, the TV, and the tablets. Looking into the eyes of loved ones and enjoying playful and sassy moments together are priceless. They’ve been priceless to me anyway. Come to think of it, I remember playing these card game with my great, great grandparents as well. I guess we really are a generational family of card players. Side Note: I used to play Memory with my great grandma and I remember thinking I was all smart and stuff, but really, she was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s (unbeknownst to me) and I kept razzing her about how good I was and asking her why she was so bad at the game. OMG! I find that really funny, but also really sad. I was taking advantage of a sweet, little old lady. She was the best. We never got tired of doing puzzles together either. Yup…a generational family of game players. 😊

 

That’s it for traveling down memory lane tonight… ;-).

 

XO,

Kel

 

PS – Another game we play as a family (without beer though) is called Thumper. Pull it up on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8dIKNMh5Co) next time you have a dinner party, or a college drinking party, and get ready to crack up!!! Beware of the belly aches from laughing too hard. Even the driest of people can’t help but laugh by the third or fourth round. AND…you can also play by replacing a gesture with a noise…that gets really funny, really fast!