I Wish I'd Thought of That!

Do you ever read someone's book or hear about some new product and think, "I wish I'd thought of that!"? It happens to me all the time. I am particularly disappointed that I didn't think of the Internet before anyone else, or fishnet stockings. What would my life be like now if I'd hatched a brainchild like that instead of having the brain farts I normally produce? It boggles the mind.

Speaking of which, the person who invented the word game Boggle and Scrabble--what a genius! My family and I used to have hours of fun playing with words with these games. Lots of love and laughter and learning from such a simple little thing.

As for books, I kind of wish I'd come up with To Kill a Mockingbird. I can only imagine what it must have been like to go through that creative process...WOW.

So what about you? What you would like to have thought of or created? Please share and happy reading!

FFA – Fun Family Activities or Flying Farmers of America?

My family loves board games and the title of this blog is a play on the classic bluffing game called ‘Balderdash’. The beauty of this game is that people of all ages and interests can play. You only need to be a good bluffer to excel. One person picks a card and reads what’s on it – an odd word or 3 initials or a movie title, etc. Everyone else writes down a phrase that could match the card. In my example, if the initials were FFA, you could write down Flying Farmers of America, Fuzzy Felines Association, etc. The best part is that the real answer is always some odd thing that no one knows, so this is not a game that requires knowing the “right” answer. The way to win is to bluff well so that people choose your answer. You get a point every time someone does. If you wrote down Fuzzy Felines, and three people guess that’s the real answer, you win 3 points, even though the correct answer is actually Flying Farmers. It’s a lot of fun because you’ll get many hilarious answers and it’s also a good game for a large group. And even the strangest answer will find at least one taker.

Another game we enjoy is Scattergories, which can be played individually or with partners and is also good for a large group. You get a list of categories such as: things found at the beach, book titles, items in a suitcase, etc. Then you roll the dice to get a letter. Let’s say the letter is ‘F’. Then, within a time limit, you write down answers to each category. For example: Fins, Frankenstein, Flip-flops. It’s great fun when people have creative answers, such as ‘fannies’ for things found at the beach.

There are many, many enjoyable board games, and sometimes I think we have them all!
Some of our best family memories include winter evenings (usually after skiing – another great family activity) sitting around the fireplace with a large group of friends or family and tackling these games. The main thing to remember (and some don’t) is that you’re playing for fun, not to win. My rule is to give everyone, and especially children, the benefit of the doubt. Is Fiction a novel beginning with F? Not really, but I voted yes! As the (admittedly inebriated) guy argued, it is something you see when you enter the bookstore. So what if he was technically wrong – we had a lot of laughs.

To keep somewhat on the writing topic, I’m actually writing a novel called The Candy Land Con, which references – guess – which game?

We enjoy cards (Sequence is great) and lots of old favorites like Scrabble and Clue. But I’m always on the lookout for something new. Do you have any favorites?