Of scrabble and scalloped potatos

While waiting for the baby I have to come up with various ways to keep myself entertained. I have been out of the work force since the end of May and many people ask me what do I do with all my time. Having been used to the 40 + hour work week I thought that there would be so much empty time to fill while staying at home. While I have found more time for relaxation (my post- breakfast and post-lunch hour naps are essential to me these days) I still find that I need to carefully organize my time or else nothing will get done. So last night after a carefully prepared meal of chicken masala (thanks to the pataks people) and garden salad, Chris and I sat down for a game of scrabble. Now when I play scrabble with Chris I insist that the TV stays on because otherwise I get bored during his 15-minute turns and end up walking away from the game. So a little bit of channel surfing while he comes up with his monster words is the perfect solution. Naturally Chris grumbles about the distraction of the TV but on that point I do not budge. Anyway he did very well even pulling out "continue" and getting 50 bonus points for using all his tiles. We are not overly competitive with points but every once and a while we try to play words that are questionable and get indignant when the other does not allow them. And on yesterdays board Chris was determined to play the word "amoan" because by placing the "a" in front of "moan" he could pull off another 8-letter word (which at the moment escapes my mind). Naturally I would have none of it, because "amoan" is not a word. Later on I had the oppurtunity to play "reclaw" on a tripple word and at the same time landing the "w" on a double letter tile. Even though "reclaw" was not in the dictionary per se I still felt it was a word because you can claw soemthing and therefore if you can do it once you can do it agian thus "reclaw" somthing. Ultimately Chris caved and I was able to play "reclaw" (which earned me a stellar 45 points!). A subsequent google search revealed that neither "amoan" nor "reclaw" would likely hold water at a scrabble players tournament but the important thing is I got my way and we ended up finishing very close in points.
On to the scalloped potatos, I put them in the oven some time ago and I have not checked them since and I can smell them all the way upstairs. I should not neglect my dinner, even if it is for the sake of a blog post.