If you are visiting my blog for the first time, thank you for stopping by!
If you have been here before, thank you for returning!
I have been blogging here at Four of a Kind (formerly Three of a Kind Working on a Full House…) for 4 1/2 years now. My family and I dealt with secondary infertility and loss for over five years and being able to write and share about our journey here has been invaluable. To find out more about me, you can check out this page. You can find links to some of my favorite posts here.
This month I am doing NaBloPoMo for the first time and it has been an interesting experience. Today is Day 21 and I am proud of myself for having posted 21 days in a row so far. I am confident that I will be able to finish what I started and reach my goal of writing and sharing a blog entry here every day this month!
Every week here on my blog I host a blog hop/writing exercise called Time Warp Tuesdays. You can read more about it here. The idea is to revisit and share some of our favorite blog entries from our archives and reflect on our journeys since we wrote them. I would love for any and all of you to join me this week (starting tomorrow) or any week in “doing the Time Warp!” This week, in honor of the Thanksgiving holiday, we are reflecting on a post from our archives where we talked about something we were thankful for in our lives. You can find out more here about participating in Time Warp Tuesday this week.
I will leave you with three random things about myself and three questions for you. I would love for you to answer any and all of them in the comment section:
Thing 1: I recently started playing Words with Friends on my phone via the app and Facebook. It is the first Facebook game/app that I have ever really gotten into. I find it to be a lot of fun and appreciate how it challenges and stretches my mind to come up with words that work into this Scrabble-like game.
Question 1: Have you ever played Words with Friends? If so, what is your favorite thing about it?
Thing 2: Every year we put up our Christmas tree the weekend after Thanksgiving. This year is our first year living in our new home during this holiday season. Over the past few days I have been staring at my living room trying to decide where we should put our Christmas tree here.
Question 2: If you celebrate Christmas and/or decorate a Christmas tree in your home, how do you decide where to put it every year? Do you always put it in the same location or do you vary it from time to time?
Thing 3: Another thing I am really looking forward to this week, besides getting together and spending time with our family on Thanksgiving, is going shopping with my mom and sister on “Black Friday!” This is a family tradition that the women on my side of the family partake in most years the day after Thanksgiving.
Question 3: How do you feel about “Black Friday?” Do you like to go shopping and take advantage of some of the great deals available that day or do you avoid going anywhere near a store or shopping mall on the day after Thanksgiving?
Thank you to those who have already left me comments here on my blog today via ICLW! I look forward to visiting and commenting on your blogs too this week!
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
1. I've been playing Words with Friends for awhile now. I play Scrabble all the time against the computer, so it's fun to play against real people (even if it is only virtually.)
2. I'd love to vary the location, but there is really only one great place in our house to put it. The past few years, we've traveled the week before Christmas, so we've started a new tradition of putting in up on Christmas Eve Day.
3. To be honest, I don't get the "Black Friday" shopping thing. I avoid stores completely!
2. We have 2 trees, one in the front room and one downstairs. I do tend to change their locations though, depending on my mood when I put them up.
3. I used to go to Black Friday with my sisters. But, 2 years ago, after sitting in the very cold for hours just to buy one basketball I decided I wouldn't do it ever again.
Hi1 here from ICLW!
1. Never even heard of words
2. The tree always goes in the same corner so it can be seen from outside
3. I love black friday, but we are cutting back christmas this year to pay for ivf, so I will sit this year out
Hi! Found you from ICLW.
1. Never heard of the game
2. I always put my tree in the recroom downstairs – but this year will need to find a new place from its usual location as we have recently moved our office downstairs too
3. I'm from Canada – we don't have black friday here and since I'm TERRIFIED of crossing the boarder, will probably never go (I hate people in authority).
Happy ICLW!!!!
1. I LOVE Words with Friends!
2. We usually put our tree in the same location except for the fact that we've been in a new home the past 2 years and are going to move again in December.
3. I don't shop on black Friday lol
My answers:
1. I don't have a smart phone so no apps of any kind. I used to play a music game on Facebook but have since tightened my security. I tend to spend way too much time on games when they're available so it's probably for the best. 😉
2. We put trees up in two rooms. Both locations are based on existing furniture arrangements and pet exposure. Having a tree knocked over by a rambunctious dog is a nightmare so I put them in a corner where they're least likely to be bothered but also where I can see and enjoy them.
3. I boycott Black Friday. That is when I will be putting up decorations at home. 😉 We will most likely head out on Saturday to finish up our shopping but I've been getting things here and there for over a month already.
1. Never played — I don't have a smartphone & I try to avoid games on FB, etc. I waste — ummmm, spend — enough time on there as it is. ; )
2. We always put up a tree, & always in the same location. It's a pretty small house & with the way the furniture is placed, traffic patterns & the location of the electrical outlets & heating vents to consider, there's not a whole lot of other places where it would really fit well.
3. I've been in the States a few times for Thanksgiving (mostly when I was younger) & I guess I could make the trip to Buffalo (2 hrs) if I really wanted to, but I've never done the Black Friday thing. I did Boxing Day sales once, & that was in the States 35 years ago when it wasn't quite such a huge deal. I'm not sure there's any bargain that I would want badly enough to stand in line for hours & fight my way through crowds to get.
Here from ICLW — #3. Not a fan of Black Friday! Like to chill and have leftovers and put up decorations. : )
Hey! Swinging by from ICLW! And I LOVE Words with Friends!!!! But I don't like Black Friday, and I love putting up my Christmas Tree in the same spot every year 🙂 Look forward to reading more! (I'm also doing NaBloPoMo..what a journey!)
1. I loooove Words with Friends. My favorite thing is beating someone who's obviously cheating…usually my husband!
2. We put our tree up in the same spot every year. When I was a kid our family tradition was to decorate the day after Thanksgiving, without fail, but my husband and I don't have a set date.
3. Last year was my first ever Black Friday shopping experience. I hated it. I'm so glad we don't have the money for it this year.
1. Yes, I played words with friends. It was nice playing games with family across the country.
2.We don't have a normal place for our tree since we usually travel during the holidays. We will figure it out this year.
3. No black Friday Shopping for me.
Happy ICLW #16
hello from iclw…. i love the questions…
1. i have played words with friends… i never loved it though. my mom and husband both were obsessed for some time, which for some reason drove me crazy and made me not want to play
2. sometimes we put up a christmas tree and sometimes we don't… i know. its a little crazy, but some years i just don't want to deal with all the hubub
3. black friday is not a day that you will find me shopping. no way. last year we did buy a tv on black friday, but it was after midnight thanksgiving night, and i bought it online. 🙂
hope your thanksgiving and black friday is fantastic!
xoxox
iclw
Hi there – here from ICLW 🙂 So, let me get started on your questions:
1. Yes, I've played Words with Friends on my Smartphone, and I really liked it. It's challenging, especially because English is not my native language – so I loved as a word-building game. Unfortunately the app wasn't that stable and it was hard to find people to play with via the random functions, so I stopped playing.
2. We've only spent one Christmas in our new home so far, but if we get a tree this year (which we might not because we might not be home for the holidays), we'll put it in the same spot we picked last year. It simply was the spot with the most room, where the tree wouldn't be in the way and where we could see it best.
3. This one's easy: we don't do Thanksgiving here in Germany as you do in the States. But when there are special events here (for example "Open Sundays", when the shops are open – normally, shops have to be closed on Sundays hereabouts), I tend to avoid the malls because it's just too crowded.
BTW: love your "Timewarp Tuesday" idea. Once my blog is a little older (I only just started a couple of weeks ago), I'll definitely participate.