Ruth and the sunset at the island of Dhiffushi, Maldives.
Where are Kevin and Ruth now? Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

Where are Kevin and Ruth going next? Kuwait City, Kuwait on March 31st.

Saturday, January 2, 2021

And yesterday at dinner time, a new season began!

When we were traveling in our motorhome and it was just the two of us, playing Backgammon while having a drink at happy hour became a regular thing. And then at dinner time we would play a couple of games of Yahtzee while eating dinner.

But when you travel as light as we normally do, it's not easy to travel with a Backgammon board! However, it's very easy to bring along five dice to play Yahtzee.

A few years ago we began to keep a yearly tally of our wins and losses.

We kept track of our Backgammon scores up until October 3rd just before we left Canada. At that time, I had a commanding lead and it was unlikely that Ruth would have been able to catch up. I think she agreed to concede the season to me. We played 619 games. I won, 350 games to Ruth's 269 games.

However our Yahtzee season continued right up to December 31st. For the year, we kept track of total scores, but more important is the win loss record. We played 509 games of Yahtzee.

It was a close season. In fact, at June 30th, half way through, Ruth was winning 137 to 126. But the second half of the year I pulled ahead and the final total for the year was 262 to 247 for me. A very close season.

By points, I guess I must have had a few higher scores as well. 132,447 to 130,132. Still, very close!

And yesterday at dinner time, a new season began!

Backgammon will have to wait though. We will pick up our game when we return to Ottawa in May and bring it back with us for use in our new motorhome. Or, we might even have to buy a new one in Germany. Actually, I should look and see if there is an online version we can play until then. Might work.

We use an app on the phone to score our Yahtzee games so that we don't have to carry around scoresheets. It's called Yahtzee scoresheet by Sweetstone.

By the way, speaking of apps and phones, I am totally happy with the Motorola G7 Power phone that I bought at the end of April last year. For the price (just under $200 USD) it proves to me that we have no need for an expensive smart phone.

What else...? 

Oh... yogurt!

We have talked about this before. Obviously everybody has heard of "Greek" yogurt. But here in Turkey, they don't sell Greek yogurt! They simply sell yogurt... but the thicker stuff is called "strained" yogurt. It's delicious, and it has 7.5% fat content with no additives. Exactly the way yogurt is supposed to be.

In Canada and the U.S., you can find good yogurt, but you have to search for it. The stuff that is prominently displayed is the crap that they try to pass off as yogurt. Full of sugar or sugar substitutes and additives like corn starch to thicken it up because they used crap ingredients or because they removed the good fat from it.

Anyhow... it's nice to be back in a country where good quality natural yogurt is the norm.

It's a beautiful sunny Saturday and we have been cooped up for too long. We are going to sneak out for a walk this afternoon. 

It looks like we are going to get almost a foot of sunshine today!

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This Countertop Oster Convection Toaster Oven normally sells for between $180 to $200. It's on sale, plus another $40 will automatically be taken off at checkout. Record low deal! 

And in Canada...



24 comments:

  1. Good one with your foot of sunshine. Almost a foot of snow storm in Eastern Ontario.

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    1. We thought that was a good one too! Sorry about your foot of snow. :-(

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  2. While playing Scrabble yesterday, I had a Q which I couldn't seem to use. Then, for my very last word I got 'quilt' on a triple word!

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    1. Nice! What a great way to end the game. :-)

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  3. Delicious yogurt free of additives can be made in an Instant Pot with a "yogurt" setting. You might look into it when you get back to Canada. I haven't bought yogurt in about 2 years.

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    1. I can make yogurt in my Wonderbag but to make it into nice thick Greek yogurt I will have to strain it. I have zero ambition of getting an Instant Pot, I know a lot of people love them but it is an extra thing to carry around in a small motorhome and it uses electricity which we are rarely hooked up to when we are traveling in the motorhome. Plus yogurt in Europe is good, with no additives and much cheaper than in Canada or the US.

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  4. Good thing you're not competitive Kevin LOL! I had milk goats for 30 years and that made the best yogurt...miss them and the milk.

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    1. Ever since we started keeping a tally of our scores with both Backgammon and Yahtzee I have only won once in each and we have been keeping score for quite a few years now. :-(

      We haven't tried goats milk yogurt before but it sounds expensive. We love the yogurt here, it is so natural and so cheap, it is amazing. :-)

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  5. We had goat milk growing up in spring/summer. I've never found good yogurt with fat in the USA...I haven't look at Sprouts or Trader Joe's.

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    1. We found that the plain Great Value Greek yogurt made with whole milk was excellent and it had no additives! That is what we bought when we drove through the States this past summer, we couldn't get the same thing in Canada though, at least not made by/sold by Walmart.

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  6. Goat milk yogourt is supposed to be the best as it is closest to mother's milk.

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    1. Seeing we don't drink much milk or eat a lot of yogurt the normal cow's milk yogurt is just fine with us. We can't justify the difference in cost between the two.

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  7. Didn't backgammon originate it that part of the world?

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    1. Yes, we believe it did and we have seen men playing it at tables in the parks a few times or outside of a small local cafes but we weren't about to buy a game just to play while we were here.

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  8. It looks like you have way too much sunshine in one day

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    1. It is never too much, especially after not seeing it for almost a week!

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  9. Are done with the eyes? I and wife might try that. We live in Tigard, Oregon, and I believe they will pay for some of it. We have insurance, that will pay some of it. I will check on that. How would you rate your experience, sounds like you had a good Doctor! I was a Clinical Specialist, in the service. And after that I was a Deputy Sheriff for 23 years, and I can't believe that I lasted that long, both are high stress jobs. I have been retired for ten years, and I'm doing ok, other than some aches and pains. We get to retire, early, as we don't live as long as say a bookkeeper, so I'm doing ok. Well enough winning, y'all take care, Rawn

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    1. Yes, the eyes are done but we still have appointments to see the doctor for followups. We will go into today for a more thorough checkup and then we will most likely see him one more time before we leave Turkey in about two weeks time.

      So far we are thrilled with the results and so far neither one of us needs glasses for regular reading, computer work or for distance. I will most likely need readers for reading if the print is fine or the lighting is very bright. If you decide to go with anything other than the normal mono focus lens you will definitely be paying more but make sure you do the research before going for your visit so that you can ask the surgeon about the different lenses and know what he is talking about when he gives you answers you will have a better understanding and not everyone is a good candidate for the enhanced lenses.

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    2. I can tell you 2 are very happy with the results! That's goooood news!

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  10. I'm with you Kevin, I've had nothing but Motorola phones in like forever, currently have the G6 and it does exactly what I need it to do, and battery life is better than most.

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    1. Glad that you like your phone as well. Kevin's Motorola does everything that he needs it to do and like you, he love the battery life on it. :-)

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  11. Check out Farkle dice game. No matter how light we travel we wouldn't be without 2 packs of cards either.

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    1. We will look at the Farkle dice game, thanks! We travel with one pack of cards as well as our little foldable cribbage game. And, we also have travel with the dice for LCR (Left, Centre, Right) game but you need more people for that game.

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