Banangrams

 The new year is off to a bumpy start with my having caught a cold that kicked me in the butt. I caught it at the end of my first week back at work - illness was going around the office as usual. I stayed home a couple of days last week which is kind of a big deal for me. I usually want to plow through it, but I knew that I should stay home and rest if I wanted to get better. I'm basically over the cold, but this past week I was still sleeping a lot and my voice is very hoarse. I call it my phone-sex voice; it was always very popular when I was a waitress.

And because I spent virtually every evening and the last two weekends sleeping all the time, I am behind in posting on the blog, Instagram, and pretty much all other communications for that matter. My post today is featuring some of my solo Bananagrams. I got the game a month or so ago as a way to have some fun and try and keep my mind sharp.

I used to do the crossword puzzle everyday for fun when I subscribed to the local newspaper. Because I'm no longer doing that to give my brain a work out, I am playing at least one game of Banangrams every day, usually when I sit down to eat lunch or dinner. One goal is that I wanted to force myself to think creatively. What I mean by that is that I will keep going until I come up with words that use all the letters. I tend to be absolute in my thinking, and I am having to let go of that, and will re-arrange or even start over completely if I have to so that I can play a complete game.

I am also getting better at not going 'Ugh!" when I pull letters like V, Z and Q; although I fully admit I need to increase my vocabulary for words with the letter Q - but thank goodness the Chinese came up with two spellings for the word life-force! Qi has become my saving grace on more than one occasion.