Friendship

I know that for you, my friends in my inner circle, it can be quite exhausting at times. I'm relentless and aggressive in evangelizing my outlook on life. I can't help it. I so firmly believe that there is joy to be found around that next corner that the enthusiasm for what's to come just bubbles out of me. I am excited about the magic within our reach. Life *is* magical. Life is a miracle. Every day is an amazing gift! I want to live mine to it's fullest potential and I want to see you do the same alongside. I know that God created the universe and from end to end it's filled with wonder. I'm an optimist because the most powerful all-mighty God set things in motion to come together for the best and that's not just a fairytale but a promise we can count on. I count on it. I expect it. When you're in my inner circle my joy is going to knock on your heart over and over again. It's going to whisper to you, 'Believe. Believe in love. Believe in joy. Believe in the very best.' Do you know I see the best in you? I see your hurts and your wounds too. I see the scars of shitty childhood and the pain of fresh cuts from more recent tumbles. These experiences lie to you about your worth, they poison your mind against God and try to deny your entitlement to joy. I want you to see beyond those lies. I want you to see the truth of how amazing you are. I want you to see how you have been destined for great things. And every chance I get, I will push you to be bold and be brave and come along on magical adventures with me and revel in joy.

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Board Game Review: Hues and Cues

Last week we received Hues and Cues from The Op Games. We recently finished playing through Scooby-Doo Escape from the Haunted Mansion (a fantastic game in The Op Games catalogue designed by Jay Cormier, Sen-Foong Lim, and Kami Mandell that you should absolutely pick up to play with your family) and wanted to give another game from the same publisher a go. I picked Hues and Cues because I’ve been pleasantly surprised by other “test whether our minds think the same way” games such as The Mind and Wavelength. In Hues and Cues , players gather around a large central board comprised of 480 graduating colors of the rainbow surrounded by an x-y axis and scoring table. White and black (which are technically not colors) are conspicuously absent as are shades (mixtures of color + black; e.g., grey) and tints (mixtures of color + white; e.g., cream). On each player’s turn, they draw a card with four colors and the x-y axis codes of those colors depicted and they select one. They are in the

Board Game Review: Brass Birmingham

Here’s a story of a lovely lady (spoiler: it’s me) and her pride and how it has led to the discovery of the single greatest board game I have ever played. It’s probably also a good primer for other reviewers on increasing your reach. At GenCon this year, I was perusing the wares of the various booths and my eyes caught a glimpse of two beautiful game boxes. Each had crisp metallic lettering with an old world feel and artwork that radiated European class. I made my way to the booth and waited patiently to speak to to the team manning it as there were many buyers lined up to purchase the games. I didn’t know anything about the games (Brass Birmingham and Brass Lancashire), or the publisher – Roxley Game Laboratory – but I knew I wanted to review one or both of the games. Almost every board game love story I star in in can be summed up this way: I am seduced by the artwork or theme and then I stay for the right mechanics. When the lead rep spoke with me, he gently rejected my request. He

Board Game Review: Lost Cities Roll & Write (A Comparison to the Original Lost Cities)

I really love the card game Lost Cities , designed by Reiner Knizia. When my husband Christopher and I were first getting to know each other, we used to meet up at Starbucks sometimes and play games. Lost Cities was one of our frequent picks. It’s a head to head, two player game in which both players are trying to outscore each other by laying down ascending runs of card suits on a small board between the two of them. There’s a theme laid over the mechanism (completing expeditions in the lost world) but it’s basically pasted on and so that is the last we will speak of it. So there we were, newly in love, eyeing each other across the table, smiling and flirting, and doing our best to beat one another at Lost Cities . It was awesome. And now, with the roll & write genre having made an impressive rebound a few years ago (let’s not forget the mechanism has actually been around since the 50s with Yatzee ), Knizia has ported his award winning game Lost Cities into this format, releasi