December 27 2018

Review: Let’s Roam App & ScavengerHunt.com

Last year, for Christmas, we got a voucher for a scavenger hunt adventure. It took us an entire year and an expiration date looming over our heads to finally get a chance to use it. The time we finally got all of us together with a couple of hours free to use it, was on Christmas Day this year (actually about 7:30-9:30pm). That’s what happens when you have four adults living in three households and two cities with five jobs and lots of other commitments and responsibilities between us to have to work around our various schedules. Something to consider when giving the gift of an experience that has an expiration date, just saying.

voucher

I’m not worried about posting this scan of the voucher here because it has already been used and is about to expire anyway. This is what we were given, so first, we had to do some digging to figure out how to redeem it. I have seen tons of ads for the company on Facebook over the last few months. All their ads and website seem more concerned with selling their scavenger hunts than actually redeeming the voucher after someone presents it to you. To be fair, that IS their business, but they didn’t make it easy to use the voucher, in my opinion. It isn’t as intuitive as they seem to think, but we muddled through and made it happen thanks to our twenty-something kids. We all had to download the Let’s Roam App (this could have been a problem if we had limited data or space for additional apps on our phones). We also had to make sure our phones were fully charged before we started or bring battery packs with us (we did some of both). The screen is on constantly unless you turn it off to save battery.

I was disappointed that there are only 2 choices for hunts in our city (Indianapolis). I have to say that after living here all my life I had never walked around the areas the hunt had us exploring, so that was pretty cool. It was cold and I’m not supposed to be walking that much in my walking boot, but I did it anyway. The ads I saw online with sales for the holiday were priced at about $11 per person. The hunt we chose was rated as hard, 1.7 miles, focused on history and 1.5 hours long. Given all that, I suppose this is a fair price for entertainment, but not exactly cheap. The teacher in me thinks that fourth graders studying Indiana History would love this interactive activity. The cheapskate in me thinks next time we could save money with fewer tickets and sharing the phones because two would have been plenty.

Basically, after everyone gets into the hunt and on the team, they have to choose which role they want to take in the adventure. I chose to be the photographer. These screenshots were all taken after the fact because it was too cold to worry about that while we were doing the hunt.

I have to say the app is very slick looking and worked well on our various phones, so no problems there.

These are the photos we took on my phone during the hunt. Many were taken to fulfill specific tasks that were asked of us during the game. (Fast food, blackbird, foreign currency, black and white dog, etc.)

We chose a very peaceful time to do this hunt. There was almost nobody out in downtown on Christmas night, so we had the run of the area without worrying about other people wondering what we were doing. There was almost no traffic, and the weather, though cold at about 40 degrees F, was tolerable with our winter coats and gloves on (Texting Gloves for the win!)

Would we do it again? Probably, if all of us were healthy and not gimpy like I was. We would likely choose to do it on the spur of the moment instead of racing the calendar trying to fit it into our already tight schedules so as not to waste the money that was spent on the gift. Now that we’ve done it once, it wouldn’t be nearly as intimidating. That is why I wanted to post screenshots and such for you here. If you need help, give me a holler, I can try to walk you through it.

I’d like to see more tours offered in a city the size of Indianapolis. I would like to see more handicap-friendly options too. I would seriously consider using this as a way to see a new city on a vacation or weekend getaway. It would also be nice to see driving tours too, and maybe they do have them, but just not here.

Have you ever tried something like this? Tell us about it in the comments. I’d love to get other recommendations on sightseeing in your own city.

 

Category: Family, Review, Travel | Comments Off on Review: Let’s Roam App & ScavengerHunt.com
December 27 2018

With (Five Minute Friday)

Here we go again. The Five Minute Friday post is sneaking in under the wire to be included in the link-up.

What with the holidays and working 63 hours last week (possibly a new record for me), I just didn’t have it in me to sit down and attempt to write the post until now. I must confess I would have put it off indefinitely were it not for the deadline to post and be included in the link-up.

We had some of my family with us for a Christmas morning brunch and we decided not to worry about gifts this year. That part was good. Because it was a pitch-in, there was, of course, too much food. That was fine, good even because we will eat the leftovers for dinner this week.

The part that wasn’t good was feeling like we were racing through the day with too many things to do, too much structure to the day. We were having our brunch at 10am, but it was late getting started because one sister and our daughter were late. We had to make a big pan of potatoes and those had to back for 30 or 40 minutes. The last of the brunch guests didn’t leave until about 1:30 and we were supposed to be to the 2nd family pitch-in meals at 2pm, but the potatoes took a little too long to cook and then had to cool some before zipping the pan into the casserole carrier, this left barely enough time for the daughter to open her gifts from us and ours from her so we wouldn’t have to worry about her coming all the way back here when the night would end half-way home for her if she didn’t come back to our house. I really missed having the quiet relaxed opening of gifts and calm morning together. Maybe it was inevitable that this year would be different with the kids both living in their own homes now, and I’m not sure what I was thinking when I agreed to host the Christmas brunch, but it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. The 2nd gathering was an hour or two earlier than we have had it in years past too which didn’t help at all.

We then did a nighttime downtown scavenger hunt that was gifted to us last year and about to expire. Because ti was for all four of us and we work 4 different jobs with different schedules in two different cities we just never found the right time to use the voucher. They shouldn’t expire. There just wasn’t any other time we could do it and it was a walking tour kind of thing. With me in a walking boot and it was about 40 degrees outside, and dark. It was fun, but could have been better if circumstances were different.

While I don’t mind spending time with our families and friends around the holidays, I doubt I will ever again allow myself to have all the things happen in the same single day. It was crazy, it was harried and hurried, too much going on to truly enjoy any of it.

What did you do with your holiday? Did you spend the time wisely? Would you do it differently next time?

This post is part of the weekly Five Minute Friday link-up!
The prompt this week is: With
The assignment: Write for five minutes on the word of the week. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation. Just write.

Category: Five Minute Friday | 1 Comment on With (Five Minute Friday)
December 20 2018

Writing An Annual Family Newsletter

Holiday Newsletter

I penned my first official holiday newsletter in December 1994 and let me tell you it was a sad little thing. I typed it on one of the school’s computers in a huge font with some really bad clip art, and I was so proud of myself for actually writing a page and a half. I printed it out in color on a dot matrix printer and most likely copied it in black and white because color just wasn’t a possibility for us back then. It was just meant to go inside the Christmas cards as a way of updating everyone on what was happening in our family. I’m not sure if I didn’t have the nerve to write another one for years or if I lost a couple, but the next one I can find a copy of wasn’t written until 2001.

I have been very consistent from 2001 on only missing 2004 (a year after losing my mother, I just didn’t have it in me) and 2008 (not sure why). I used preprinted holiday-themed stationery for the letters between 2001 and 2007 which kept the printing costs down. I remember having prints of a photo of the boy printed to include in cards one year, but that was pricey too. In 2006, things changed because it was the first holiday season after I began working in the print shop. One of the perks was knowing what the possibilities were and getting a super cheap price on printing the photos in sheets and in color then cutting them apart to include with the letter.

I found a great little template on Microsoft Publisher that would change the look of this holiday newsletter forever. The little newsletter I affectionately dubbed Beidelman Bits was born in December 2009. Publisher let me insert photos and wrap the text around them and divide the newsletter into sections to cover each of the four of us and what was going on with us. By that time, the kids were teens and I had to resort to finding photos on Facebook in some cases because much of their lives took place away from the home and family life of days gone by.

I discovered really quickly that a picture really was worth a thousand words and began writing the letters by gathering the various photos I would use and writing the words to tell about the photos to fill in around them. I may have gotten lazy with the writing or carried away with the number of photos I would include, but they looked good and many of the relatives that received them each year commented on how much they looked forward to getting them and enjoyed reading them each year.

I always included the ages of the kids and what grade they were in at school. I tried to keep everyone updated on what activities we were all participated in and what family trips we took. I even included news of pets and the occasional photos of the pets.

I tried getting the kids to each write a paragraph or two about their year, but that just didn’t go over well with them. I usually didn’t let any of the family read what I had written until after it was in the mail.

I chose which kid to highlight on the front page by who had graduated that year from either high school or college and made sure to include plenty of photos of course. When they went off to college, I included the school mascot and the kids’ mailing addresses. One year my son got a package out of the blue with a Big Bang Theory TV show t-shirt from a cousin of mine who knew from reading my newsletters that my son was a physics major and would like the show.

I really had trouble scrounging up photos of the kids once they were away at college, and the news was not as plentiful about them and what they were doing. Now that they no longer either one live with us, I wonder if I should even be including the kids in the newsletter anymore. There is really very little to report. We don’t hear from them often and other than working hard and paying off student loans and trying to make ends me while “adulting” there is not much to report.

We still have the pets and our trips to report on, oh and there was that little matter of being unemployed for seven months. Which reminds me, since I no longer have a job at a print shop, the color printing has become cost prohibitive again. Last year we went through two complete sets of cartridges for our inkjet printer to get the newsletters printed in color and that was still considerably cheaper than printing it at any of the local printers because they really overcharge for color printing. I’m not sure how we will handle the printing thing this year. The photos just really don’t have the same effect when printed in grayscale, but the budget doesn’t allow for very many options. We could almost buy a color laser printer for what it would cost to print fifty two-sided color copies at any print shop. The inkjet printer just doesn’t do that great a job, but it is still better than not having color at all.

I am beginning to wonder if I shouldn’t just email the newsletter out, but a number of the older family members would never see it then and I am told that many people have saved all of the newsletters to either reread or compare the photos from year to year.

As I look back on the newsletters which I keep in a binder in sheet protectors I can really see in the early years how my computer skills progressed. In the later years, mostly the only things that progressed were my photo cropping and placing skills as I added more and more photos to each year’s issue.

If you have any suggestions, tips or know of a low-cost printing solution, please let me know. Do you write an annual holiday letter? I wish more people did. Usually, all we get are Christmas cards with a signature or a printed name inside. All that tells me is that the person is most likely still alive to send the cards out and that I haven’t been cut from the list yet. I’d love to get news of what is happening in their lives or even see pictures of the kids, grandkids, and pets. In some cases, I’ve never seen their houses so that would be cool too.

If you thought this was going to be out newsletter posted for the whole world to see, sorry to disappoint you. If you are one of the chosen fifty or so households that regularly receive our newsletters and your address has changed, please shoot me an email or text me your new address, please. I save the ones that are returned and sometimes mail the missed year out the next year so you will have it because I can’t bring myself to throw them away. Invariably I get one or two back each year no matter how carefully I check the address list.

Happy Holidays everyone!

Category: Family, Writing | Comments Off on Writing An Annual Family Newsletter
December 20 2018

Still (Five Minute Friday)

Still is a word that brings forth so many thoughts. It is almost Thursday again and I still haven’t written my Five Minute Friday prompt for last week. Okay, then, let’s do this.

“Be still and know that I am God.” “Be patient with me, I’m still a work in progress.” “Hold still!” “I’m still not touching you!” There are the stills of the foothills that make moonshine possible. I lay in bed some nights and think about how I need to get some sleep or I will be worthless at work in the morning, yet I am still awake and my brain just will not be still so I can rest. “Still waters run deep.”

Cancer is still a thing. It still tries to claim family members. If you detect it early, there is still hope. There is always hope.

When will I hear that still small voice that I long for?

Life is crazy busy and I still take time, make time, find time somehow to write. I write because I still feel like I am meant to write and publish a book. I still don’t know what that book is supposed to be, but I still feel compelled to write one. I still don’t feel like I have a clue how to plot a fiction novel, so maybe I still need to try other things when it comes to my writing. I have written hundreds of thousands of words over the past five years and I still have no idea what sort of book I am meant to write. It might be one that I have already started writing and I still don’t know how to finish. It might be one I have written and still can’t bring myself to even read it.

I read constantly, and there are still more books to be read. There is still work to be done no matter how much I get done. Each morning I wake up and think, yep, still alive, let’s face the day and see what it has to offer. Nope, still not tired. My brain is still not willing to be still.

If you are still here and reading this, I will relieve you of your misery and say enough is still enough. Thanks for hanging in there! There will be a couple of weeks that there will not be a Five Minute Friday post on here because there won’t be prompts due to the holidays (Dec 28th & Jan 4th).

The video below is a message to my hubby who doesn’t believe in blogs and never reads mine. Maybe someday he will change his mind and stumble across this one…

This post is part of the weekly Five Minute Friday link-up!
The prompt this week is: Still
The assignment: Write for five minutes on the word of the week. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation. Just write.

Category: Five Minute Friday | 2 Comments on Still (Five Minute Friday)
December 13 2018

Recipe: Macaroni & Hotdog Casserole

Macaroni & Hotdog Casserole

In our family, this recipe is called trash. Yes, that’s right trash. Not because it is bad, but because it isn’t. You see, my mother-in-law used to run a daycare from her home, which just happens to be the hose we currently live in. She was old school. She cooked from scratch and did so on occasion even for the daycare kids. One day the kids asked Mrs. Beidelman what they were having for lunch. Feeling ornery or overwhelmed or just playful perhaps, she told them she was serving trash for lunch. After they saw it and tasted it, they asked if they could have trash again the next day. This is how the meal became known as trash in our family. The rest of the world might choose to call it Mac and Cheese or some other traditional type name, but not our family. We eat trash, and by golly, we love it!

Macaroni & Hotdog Casserole (TRASH)
3 cups elbow macaroni
½ lb. Kraft NY State extra sharp cheddar cheese
½ lb. thinly sliced hotdogs
¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese
4 Tbsp. Butter (1/2 stick)
¼ cup flour
2 cups milk (I use skim milk, but whole or 2% would work too)
¼ tsp. black pepper
½ tsp. Salt (I never use salt when cooking)

Topping:
½ cup bread crumbs
2 Tbsp. margarine

Cook macaroni as directed on package. Melt butter, add flour, slowly add milk, and cook until thickened. Add Parmesan and cheddar cheeses (slice the cheddar) and cook until melted. Pour over noodles and hotdogs in a large casserole dish. Add topping. Bake at 350F for 30-45 minutes until bubbly.
(A Jackie Beidelman Original Recipe)

My family always doubles this recipe and we make it in a 9 x 13 metal cake pan.

I also cheat on the topping and often just sprinkle liberally with bread crumbs, seasoned works fine if you have them, plain if not. You can make it p ahead of time and put it in the refrigerator overnight if you want, but if it is cold you will need longer to cook it.

It works great as leftovers, I usually sprinkle some milk on top to make sure it doesn’t dry out while reheating.

Category: Family, Recipes | Comments Off on Recipe: Macaroni & Hotdog Casserole