Scrabbling

I've been very focused on creating word study lists, cards, and even videos lately.  Matt and I are playing at a tournament in Houston in March and I want to do better than I did last year.  I'm focusing on learning as many unfamiliar four letter words as I can as well as the five letter J, Q, X, and Z words.  I also need to review my threes but I'm still pretty confident of about 90% of them.  I'm creating videos using a web based program called Animoto to create a kind of study aide.  I've focused on adding two new J, Q, X, and Z words each day with a picture with a sentence using the word along with the definition and hooks.  (Hooks are letters that can go in front or back of the word.)  I'm also editing at least one letter of my 4 letter word lists each day along with creating lists of their front and back hooks.  After that, I'll focus on some 7 to 8 bingo stems.  Once everything is created, I'll start spending time digging in and actually studying - though I think a few things are sticking through osmosis or something.

Matt and I went to see the movie Hidden Figures this afternoon with a friend of ours.  He's a retired priest that used to volunteer in his department at the library and lived in his same apartment complex.  We enjoyed the movie and had dinner at a Greek restaurant nearby.  I've been pretty bad on my diet this weekend - kind of dreading the scale on Wednesday (my self-designated weigh-in day).  I had to estimate some of the meals since they weren't at national chain restaurants with readily available nutrition menus.  Yesterday we at at the restaurant where we had our first date.  My cousin and his family met us there after spending the day at a Harry Potter arts and crafts festival.  I think it was the chips and salsa that did me in.  But it was very good.  I only ate half my dinner of carnitas (pork) and rice.

Here's a picture of my cat, Lucy, helping me study:

Can you believe that Lucy is my 17 or 18 year old cat?  She broke her foot 2 1/2 years ago and had surgery but is still doing well.  She does like to "help" when I'm on the computer sometimes.  She also wants me to get up and feed her around 6:30 a.m. which is about 30 minutes before I normally get up.  Sometimes she'll just lay right on top of me while I try to get that extra 30 minutes of sleep.