Gaming and griping...

Well, again it has been several days since my last post. The time has been filled delightfully with a number of activities. The highlight was a trip to Monmouth to visit son and daughter-in-law on Saturday. Patrick is still fighting a cold that has been hanging on for a couple of weeks. Nevertheless, we had a delightful time playing board games, and watching the animated movie Wall-E.

When I say board games, I don't want you to think of Monopoly or Sorry. No, these are games that originated in Germany. Many of them have won the coveted "Spiel des Jahres" or "Game of the Year" award. Well, I guess it is a coveted award, else they probably would not display the award prominently on the box. At any rate, the games are interesting in that, with few exceptions, they are played on a board that changes each time the game is set up. Some, like the labyrinth game we played, have a board that changes with every player's turn.

My favorite was a game called "Pandemic." As the name implies, it has to do with the spread of infections. The interesting thing about this game is that, unlike most board games, where the object is to beat the other players, Pandemic is a co-operative game, in which the players work together to beat the game. We failed. We not only failed; we failed miserably. Once we came close to curing two of the diseases in this make-believe world, only to be beaten by another. It is a fascinating game, and I liked the fact that there was not a lot of competition involved. There was, however, a lot of teamwork and group strategy required.

On Sunday, Jill and I were honored to make a presentation to the lay counseling ministry of our church. We talked about communication in marriage. This is a subject near and dear to our hearts, because we have struggled to develop a communication strategy in our marriage. It is also a favorite topic with the marital counseling that we do through the church. We are by no means experts, but we seem to be able to communicate openly with each other, and we have seen other couples learn to improve their communication skills, as well.

The weather in our area continues to present interesting "opportunities." Today, there have been snow showers in the western Willamette valley, just to the south of us. We had a hail storm a few minutes ago here at the house. So, winter continues apace. I, for one, would just as soon have spring show up at the earliest possible time. January, for me, is interminable, and February, while it offers some hope, as the crocuses and daffodils begin to poke their heads up, is seldom warm enough to suit me. In all fairness, we did have a week or so of sunny weather with daytime temperatures in the upper fifties and lower sixties. But that has passed now, and we are back to gray, dreary skies and frequent precip. Still, "this is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." Amen.