Thursday 12-4-25 Rainy Laid Back Day

 

Have a great Thursday

 

We had overcast skies and occasionally there was a sprinkle or two. The morning temperature was 44 degrees and it basically stayed at that temperature all day, The high was 47 degrees. We spent the day hanging around the house.

I wasn't motivated to do anything. I was feeling great but I just didn't do too much. I spent most of the day playing games. I did the Daily Challenges of Solitaire and Mahjong. The event was Event: Two Game Tango of 20 games (10 Pyramid and 10 Tri Peaks). It took me 1 hour, 56 minutes and 36 seconds, which put me in 16th place in my group. I played Angry Birds 2 in the evening. I spent a couple of hours playing the new Angry Birds Friends.

I ended up playing seven games of pinball, which were Blizzard of Ozz, Cactus Canyon, Cirqus Voltaire, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Godzilla, Jaws and Medieval Madness. I didn't have a great day of playing pinball but had fun.

 

Blizzard of Ozz

 

Cactus Canyon

 

Cirqus Voltaire

 

Creature From the Black Lagoon

 

Godzilla

 

Jaws

 

 Medieval Madness

 

 I continued working on the jigsaw puzzle.

 

Jigsaw puzzle so far

Larry finished reading Becoming Hattie Mae, he said it was OK, but not recommendable. 

In the evening we watched Emily off of Kanopy. It was about British writer Emily Bronte, she wrote Withering Heights. It was slow moving movie and depressing. Then I watched Wonder Woman 1984 from our collection of movies. I end up doing 1,000 steps.  

 

Wednesday 12-3-25 Two Dances, Synth Riders & Games

 

Overcast Day

 

We had overcast skies all day and no rain. The morning temperature was 36 degrees and the high was 57 degrees, it was warmer than yesterday. We did get some rain later in the night.

I played the Daily Challenges of Solitaire and Mahjong. The event was Event: Easy Street Mini of 5 games. It took me 9 minutes and 25 seconds, which put me in 15th place in my group. I played Angry Birds 2. I played Angry Birds and Friends in the new location in Red's Club.

I attended two virtual square dances. First was Di Green and Terry McCann's Weekly Plus at 10:00 am for an hour. Di called five tips and Terry danced with her. She the dance to 9 participants. I had a super time.

Second was Dave Eno's Weekly C1/A2 at 6:00 pm for an hour and fifteen minutes. Karin Rabe and Greg Moore helped Dave call the dance. The format was three tips of C1, three tips of A2 and two trivial questions in between the A2 tips. Karin and Greg took turns calling the first tip in C1 and A2 session, Dave called the second tip in C1 and A2 and the third tip all three callers took turns calling. During the C1 session we had 7 participants and the A2 session had 10 participants. I had a very nice evening dancing with friends.

I usually dance three square dances on Wednesday but Ett had to cancel her C1 dance. But that was ok, it gave me a chance to rest and play games.

While I danced and played games Larry continued to play with Home Assistance. He's adding more things to it.  

I worked out using the Synth Riders for 40 minutes to four songs twice. They were Carbon Cult (4:03), From Hell (3.54), Space Rock (3:14) and . I got one outstanding score playing Carbon Cult. I had a great time working out with Synth Riders.

 

 

Space Rock

 

Satanic Panic

 

From Hell

 

Carbon Cult

 

I played one game of Pirate's Plunder on Bounce Arcade. I earned a sliver trophy, defeated my enemies twice, Cutlass Clash and earned two Jolliest Rogers. I played the game for 15 minutes and had a fun.

 

Carbon Cult

 

I played eight pinball games. They were Dracula, Time Lord, Dr. No, Goldeneye, Tales of the Arabian Nights, Indianapolis 500, Blizzard of Ozz and James Bond 60th Anniversary. While playing Time Lord I got high score #1, Dr. No I got high score #3 and James Bond 60th Anniversary I got high score #4. I had a good afternoon playing pinball.

 

Blizzard of Ozz

 

Dr. No

 

Dracula

 

Goldeneye

 

Indianapolis 500

 

James Bond 60th Anniversary

 

Time Lord

 

Tales of the Arabian Nights

 

I worked on my puzzle.

After Dave's dance we watched a movie on Kanopy called Miss Willouhby and the Haunted Bookstore. It was a detective movie starring Kelsey Grammer as Robert Windsor and Nathalie Cox as Miss Willouhby. It was a cute movie about an American (Robert Windsor) who raised Miss Willouhby after her parents died. He was her father's best friend. After Larry went to bed I watched Wonder Woman from our collection of movies. I ended up doing 2,000 steps.    

 

 

      

Tuesday 12-2-25 Liberty Hill Dance

 

Awesome Day

 

We had an awesome day. The temperature was cold but there were no clouds in the sky. It was gorgeous. We woke up to the temperature of 30 degrees and the high of 53 degrees.

This morning Larry was able to get Home Assistant to control our thermostat. He can now ask it to turn the temperature up or down, he can even ask what is the indoor temperature is and it will tell him. 

Setting up Home Assistant is very challenging. Everything is much easier with Amazon Alexa. Having a huge corporation with billions of dollars makes things a lot easier.

At 10:15 am we left the house to go square dancing in Liberty Hill, which is 48 miles from our house. It takes us an hour and fifteen minutes to get to the Ski's house. On the way we parked at a convenience store and had lunch. Then we continued on, which was ten minutes from the parking lot. We arrived at the Ski's house at 11:45 am. Susan e-mailed us to say she was still traveling so we danced one extra phantom. We danced C1 for an hour to Ross Howell via tape. It was very challenging dancing with three real people and we broke down. We talked about why and found out what we did wrong. Ross is very challenging when you don't have any phantoms but when you dance with five phantoms it's more challenging. Once we figured out what we did wrong we got through the tip. It was challenging but we still had fun. 

At 1:00 we danced A2 to John Kephart for two hours. We were short one dancer to make two squares. We were short one woman so one of guys danced the woman's part. The second square had to dance with a phantom. The last half hour John said we did very well dancing with a phantom but he was going to call two tips to one square. I danced the first tip with a single guy so we could leave a little early. We said our goof0byes and left fifteen minutes early because we had danced since noon. We had a great time dancing with friends.

 

    Get a partner and dance

 

I did the Daily Challenges of Solitaire and Mahjong before going to bed last night. The Mahjong Daily Challenge was working so I did the challenge from yesterday and today so I'm caught up in the challenges. The event was Event: Spider's Adventure of 20 games. It took me 2 hours, 6 minutes and 20 seconds, which put me in 10th place in my group. I played Angry Birds and Friends and Angry Birds 2.

When I logged on Angry Birds and Friends I was notified that I had to join Red's Club, which is the Angry Birds and Friends Website, they are no longer going to have the site I play on. So Larry signed me up to the club.

I played four games of pinball, which were Blizzard of Ozz, Jaws, Magic Pinball and The Godfather. I had fun even though I did get a new high score playing pinball.

 

Blizzard of Ozz

 

Jaws

 

Magic Pinball

 

The Godfather

 

While we were in Liberty Hill my phone with a new battery was delivered, when we got home it was on the front porch. Larry discovered it was not really my phone, they had replaced it. The "new" phone is in perfect condition but it would have been nice to know we would not receive the phone we sent in. While we watched television Larry worked on getting it all setup. I am happy to have my phone back.

I worked on my jigsaw puzzle. 

In the evening we watched another movie off of Kanopy, which was A Quiet Passion. It was a biography about Emily Dickinson, who was an American poet. It started out very good but it slowed down and kept getting worse. Not a movie I would recommend. Then I watched Angels & Demons from our collection of movies. I ended up doing 3, 500 steps.  

    

Monday 12-1-25 Dancing with Di, Home Assistant & Games

 

Happy December

 

Another month has gone and a new one is here. This is the last month of the year, which is December. Christmas is almost here. It's beginning to look like Christmas and feel like it. The neighbor's have their Christmas decorations up and so does Louise. The weather is getting cold. 

Today the temperature in the morning was 40 degrees and at noon it was 43 degrees, which was the high. We also a wind out of the north so it was cold all day.

 

The temperature at the our house at 4:00

We attended Di Green and Terry McCann's Weekly C1 dance at 9:00 am for an hour and fifteen minutes. We had a surprise visitor at Di and Terry's house. We were visiting with Di before the dance and Lee asked if Michael was traveling. Poof, he appeared on the screen with Di. He was visiting them for a bit on his way to Italy. What a pleasant surprise. Michael danced with Di while Terry sat in his chair. Di called five tips to 16 participants. Larry danced four of the tips with me. In between the tips we visited. We had a great time dancing to Di calling and with friends.

 

I love square dancing

 

When Larry woke up he had a message from our water sensor indicating there might be a very slow leak somewhere in the house. He spent quite awhile trying to locate where the leak was. He turned off the water to almost every plumbing fixture and ran the test, it still indicated there might be a leak. He went around with a flashlight checking all the connections and looking everywhere for a sign of a leak and found nothing. If there is a leak it has to be tiny. You can use the same water sensor to monitor how much water is being used by the hour and day, it shows no water being used the entire time we are asleep. We will keep an eye out for a leak. 

It's the beginning of the month so he backed up the computers and put bleach in the septic system. I put our monthly expenses on a spreadsheet. I do this every month so we can keep track of how much we spend and where our investments are.  

Larry spent most of the day playing with Home Assistant. Using his voice he got the blinds to open and close together, he can also use his voice to turn the television on and off and have it turn on using whatever device we want to be using. He has all but two lights working, they use a switch from a company called Brilliant, the company has not written code to use them via Home Assistant and probably never will. He will have to decide if he wants to replace that switch with two that will work. He really likes the Brilliant switch and it has worked flawlessly for many years. The company was about to file for bankruptcy and someone came along and bought them, if they were to go away he would have to replace the switch.

I did the daily challenge of Solitaire. I tried to do the daily challenge of Mahjong but it wouldn't work, for some reason it thinks it doesn't have an internet connection. The event was Event: Two Game Tango of 6 games (3 Free Cell and 3 Pyramid). It took me 11 minutes and 59 seconds, which put me in 13th place in my group. I played Angry Birds and Friends and Angry Birds 2.

After lunch I took a nap for an hour and half. When I woke up I played two games of Monster Manor on Bounce Arcade. I earned a bronze trophy in both. My best game was the first one. I played the spider multiball, awaken the manor and tried to stun the manor. I busted the banister. I had fun.

 

Monster Manor

I played seven games of pinball, which were Attack From Mars, The Big LeBowski, Dracula, Indianapolis 500, Magic Pinball, Time Lord and Blizzard of Ozz. While playing Dracula I became high score #1. I got a new high score on Blizzard of Ozz, which was 28,820,019. This put me in 19th out of 26 participants when the score is approved.

 

Attack From Mars

 

Dracula

 

Indianapolis 500

 

Magic Pinball

 

The Big LeBowski

 

 

 

Time Lord

 

Blizzard of Ozz

 

I worked on my puzzle. 

In the evening we watched a movie on Kanopy called Genius. It was based on a true story about Max Perkin's time as a book editor at Scribner. He worked with famous writers such as Thomas Wolfe, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and others. It starred Colin Firth as Max Perkin, Jude Law as Thomas Wolfe and Nicole Kidman as Aline Bernstein. It was a great movie. When Larry went to bed I watched Pinocchio from our collection of movies. It starred Tom Hanks as Geppetto, Benjamin Evan Ainsworth as Pinocchio (voice) and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Jiminy Cricket (voice). It was a cute movie with people and animation. I also watched Men In Black 3 from our collection of movies. I ended up doing 1,000 steps.    

 

  

  

  

Sunday 11-30-25 New Challenge, Home Assistant & Having Fun

 

Smile and have fun

 

We had a cold day but It didn't get as cold as the weatherman predicted, we woke up to 40 degrees. We also didn't get the rain that was predicted. It didn't get out of the 40's. It got up to 49 degrees at the house. 

 

Temperature at our house at 3:30pm

Larry continued working with Home Assistant. 

I did the Daily Challenges of Solitaire and Mahjong. The event was Event: Two Game Tango Mini of 6 games (3 Spider and 3 Pyramid). It took me 15 minutes and 42 seconds, which put me in 15th place in my group. I played Angry Birds and Friends and Angry Birds 2.

I spent most of the day working on my jigsaw puzzle.

Today started a new pinball challenge, which is Blizzard of Ozz. We already have it so Larry just changed the balls from 5 to 3. After doing this he played it to make sure everything worked. Before last week's challenge of Slimer! Ghostbusters ended at 1:00pm I played it and got a new high score of 14,620,260. I submitted it and it was accepted so I came in 56th out of 74 participants. I played the new challenge of Blizzard of Ozz and entered my first high score of 12,018,396. This put me in 11th place out of 14 participants. I played six other games of pinball, which were Great Houdini, JP Space Cadet, Mustang, Transformers, Willow and World Cup Soccer. While playing Transformers I came in as high score #3 and World Cup Soccer I came in as high score #1. I had a super day of playing pinball.

 

 

 

Slimer! Ghostbusters

 

Blizzard of Ozz

 

Great Houdini

 

JP Space Cadet

 

Mustang

 

Transformers

 

Willow

 

World Cup Soccer

 

We watched our YouTube videos we follow.

In the evening we finished watching the third season of Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) on PBS. After Larry went to bed I watched Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Men in Black 2. I did 2,000 steps.