Life & Crap

Haven't posted here for a while because I got bored with blogging.  It happens, I guess.  I was playing Pathfinder & Savage Worlds on a regular basis but that stopped in May.  My kids were playing baseball and I had a bunch of stuff to do with the moms group that I belong to.  Mother's day was in there and we went camping.  I had to resign from the town park board because of all of the stuff we had going on!

The boys did really good with baseball but I'm really glad the season is over.  They start practicing in April and starting in May, they basically had 2 to 3 games every week.  It gets pretty exhausting after a while.  I'm really proud of the improvement that both boys had from last year.  They may not be on the All Star team but they both played very well, they displayed good sportsmanship, and they had fun doing it.  In fact, most of the little boys on our team were very good and good sports, even when they lost.

I finished out my term as the MOMS Club secretary and I won member of the year at our annual banquet.  I honestly don't know how I won the member of the year because I feel like I didn't really put a lot of effort into the club this year.  I've been the secretary for this club for at least 4 and 1/2 out of the 6 years that I've been a member and I think I just grew weary of the position.  It's not a hard "job" but it involves some crap that I felt like I shouldn't have had to deal with as a volunteer.  It's not like I was being paid for my "work".  But I guess it did pay off since I won the member of the year award.  I got a huge gift basket full of goodies, like a bottle of wine, a Thirty-One tote, jewelry, & a gift certificate to a local salon.

We went camping over Memorial Day weekend at Yogi Bear's Jellystone Park with 5 other families and it turned out to be a really fun trip.  I was a little nervous about it because our 2 camping trips from the previous year turned out to be disastrous but the weather was beautiful, the nights were nice and cool, the families we were with were awesome, and the kids had so much fun that we stayed for all 3 nights.  We went swimming, the kids got to play on a gianormous air pillow bouncey thing, they went fishing, we played bingo, and we had a huge water balloon fight that dissolved into tears when Zach got run over by an adult with a tub full of water (he was ok).  The kids also planned a water balloon ambush on the dads (and it was totally orchestrated by the moms).

I also got to go to Origins Game Fair on June 2nd.  Aaron was speaking at the Columbus SQL Saturday event, so I went along with him because Origins was going on at the same time.  I had planned on going to Origins all 4 days but life got in the way, so I was only able to attend on Saturday but I'm glad that I got to go at all.  I demo'd a couple of games (one was a card game called Shadowrift & it was a lot of fun!) but because I only had a day pass, I wasn't able to play in any official games (which was disappointing).  Fortunately, one of my twitter friends, Tracy (aka @TheOtherTracy), was there for the day so I got to have lunch with him and he took me to an awesome ice cream place called Jeni's, where I had a scoop of whiskey pecan ice cream and black coffee ice cream.   Yum!  We also got to hang out and talk for a while and we played a fun game called Poo, which I bought for the boys.

We went out that night with a bunch of the speakers from SQL Saturday and that was a total blast.  We had dinner at this place called The Rusty Nail or Bucket O'Nails or something like that and everyone hated our waiter.  I kind of felt sorry for the guy because our party was huge but at the same time, the place should've assigned another waiter to our area.  We then went to a place called The Scotch & Soda (I think) to sing karaoke.  Pro Tip: if someone invites you to go to karaoke, it's probably because they can sing really well.  Oh my god, could those people sing!!!!  There was one guy that was at the bar that sounded just like Frank Sinatra.  I worked up the courage to sing 2 songs (Hush, Hush by The Thompson Twins, & Somebody Told Me by The Killers) but I was so nervous the whole time.  Aaron actually got up and sang a song that I picked out (Just A Girl, by No Doubt) even though he didn't know any of the words.  I thought he was gonna kill me!!!

I purchased the Marvel RPG book while I was at Origins and I got to play in a game via G+ a few weeks back, thanks to Christopher (aka @EldritchFire on twitter).  Having never played the game, nor looked at the book (bad geek!), Christopher's scenario was very good for a beginner.  I want to elaborate more on his scenario in a later blog post, though.

I also celebrated my 35th birthday this year (yes, I really did turn 35 this year!).  We didn't do anything super special on my actual birthday because it was on a Monday and we had just spent the weekend in Columbus but my friend Sarah threw me a "surprise" party the following Saturday.  I guess it was supposed to be a surprise but Aaron told me about it because he didn't want me to make plans for that night.  My friend Rachelle made me an awesome Star Wars birthday cake and I got some lightsaber candy and a bottle of rum.  Sarah's husband kept making me drinks all night long and they shot off fireworks at the end of the night.  It was a great party!

In other news, my husband took a job in North Dakota and I've tried to be supportive of his decision but I'm not doing a very good job.  I've been very frustrated the past few days because it seems like everything we discussed about the job before he started has changed.  First, he was supposed to alternate between 2 weeks on-site and a week at home.  Then he was misinformed by a manager that he would only have to be on-site for 3 weeks and work-at-home for the rest of the contract.  Then, on his first day, he was told that he was needed on-site for 3 weeks at a time and home for a week and he'd alternate that schedule for the next 6 months.  Then he was told that they wanted to hire him on day one and that we'd have to move.

I know that he's trying to keep me informed and I appreciate his communication but I've been so frustrated because I didn't know what our life is was going to be like for the next 60 days to 6 months.  I may have a very chaotic nature but I need some structure in my life or I feel like I am drifting without a purpose.  Even a vague outline of my day, like wake up at 8 AM and have lunch by 11:30 am, take a nap at 3 PM, dinner by 6 PM, bed by 11 PM gives me more structure than not knowing where we will live.  I felt like I couldn't plan anything because I didn't want to have to pick up and move in a few months time.

After talking with the hubby tonight, I've decided that based on the changing information and his own history with jobs, I am not moving the kids to ND.  I know that everything he's done in regards to taking different jobs has been for the betterment of our family but I can't risk him getting bored with this place and wanting to go somewhere else, even if it was in ND.  And while I was excited about going to someplace new, I decided that I liked my life here and that I like what this area has to offer to my kids.  Another reason that I don't want to move is because I don't want to have them start school here and then move them in the middle of the school year. 

So as a way of affirming my decision, I bought a 4 day pass to Gen Con and registered for some events for all 4 days.  My schedule is as follows:

Prisoners of the Greens (Savage Worlds RPG) Thursday, 9:00 AM
PFS #4-01: Rise of the Goblin Guild (Pathfinder RPG) Thursday, 1:00 PM
Escape from Silicon Valley (Mage: The Ascension RPG) Friday, 11:00 AM
The Haven 14.0 Wildfire (World of Darkness RPG) Friday, 5:00 PM
Peace, Love and a Bag of Hammers (Werewolf: The Apocalypse RPG) Saturday, 11:00 AM
The Settlers of Catan (board game) Saturday, 3:00 PM
Dungeon World (Dungeon World RPG) Sunday, 11:00 AM

I signed up for a few RPG systems that I've played before (Pathfinder & Savage Worlds) and if World of Darkness is what I think it is, I've played that, too. Everything else will be brand new to me!!!!  I think I did good with not over scheduling myself so I'll have time to socialize & demo stuff and I can always get generic tickets for stuff.

So that's it in a nutshell.