Out of Order (a post from my parents' house)

Remember how I mentioned that my sister-in-law gave us a wireless router for Christmas? "Installs in ten minutes!" is what the box advertised. Well maybe if you're a professional geek, but for Martin, it's taken a lot longer than ten minutes. Not only that, but while trying to install the glory of wireless, our whole internet went out. That's why I haven't posted lately. Now Martin is back at work, which cuts out most of the time he had for messing with it, so not only do we still not have wireless at home, but we don't have any internet access at all. Also, last week my phone mysteriously broke. I was able to connect outward, but nobody could call or text me. It was very annoying, once I figured out what was going on. Then it just as mysteriously fixed itself. But good grief! Technology is not being kind to the Schaps so far in this new year. If we keep up this way, soon my only means of connection to the outside world will be by carrier pigeon!

All that aside, we've been having fun lately. We've suddenly become quite the game players. When I was little, my family played games a lot--mostly Outburst Junior, which was really fun. My parents have always kind of been into games too, so maybe it's genetic. Martin and I have never had many games--just Scrabble (ugh) and Battleship (which we played constantly during our first months of marriage.) But for his birthday last year, his sister gave him Bananagrams, this funny Scrabble-ish kind of game, except it is SO MUCH BETTER THAN SCRABBLE, I can't even begin to describe how much fun it is. It's the perfect mix of strategy, vocabulary and speed. We find ourselves staying up late at night playing it. We're a little bit obsessed. Anyway, the night our internet broke for good, my mom called me inviting herself and my dad, along with Mrs. Schap and John Mooney, over to play games at our house. It was so much fun! We played Boggle first, and I can't remember who won, but it pretty clearly wasn't me. Then we switched to Taboo, which was hilarious. Each player had his own style of play--for instance, Martin has good clues, but he thinks too much and talks too little, so he doesn't get many words. He thinks my dad is the perfect player because he remains calm and gets lots of words. Mama does not remain calm. Mrs. Schap sat through her whole first turn unsure of what to do, and the first thing out of John Mooney's mouth on every one of his turns was one of the "taboo" words. It was great!

Christmas is officially over now. It's pretty sad. Our front room looks pretty barren without all the lights and greenery. Our happy little tree is gone. *sigh* We did a little bit of rearranging when putting the room back together, so now our front room is doubling as a playroom with a bookshelf full of Anja's books and toys where the mantel was for Christmas, and where the yellow table used to be. It looks nice, but I miss the stockings and nativity scene.

Not much else is new. I will be "term" next month, which seems absolutely impossible. There was so much I wanted to accomplish before this baby's birthday, and so far none of it has happened. For example, the quilt I'm intending to make for him/her. And the fact that Anja STILL isn't sleeping [anywhere remotely close to] through the night. Oh well, I guess it'll all work out in the end because everything does... but still.... leaving Anja for the birth is the only thing that makes me nervous about having a second baby!!!

Time to read up on everyone else's lives now.