Introduction and Welcome

"Life is a game board.  Time is your opponent.  If you procrastinate, you will lose the game.  You must make a move to be victorious."   -Napoleon Hill

Using the quote of a potential conman from the early 1900's is possibly a shady way to start a blog.  However, the quote kind of fit in the place I'm at right now with board games.  I won't exactly say I'm new to the hobby any more.  I've been purchasing and playing board games since 2018.  I've backed several Kickstarters.  But, the above quote was how I recently started amassing a huge collection of games over the past year-- I felt like I was running out of time.  

My name is Kate, and I buy a lot of board games.  Most of which I play- some of which are still in the shrink wrap they came in.  There, got the introduction out of the way.

Because of Covid-19, the entire world stood still for a brief amount of time last March.  Everyone will probably remember where they were when they figured out Covid-19 was pretty serious and we, as humanity, needed to do something.  I was at Walt Disney World.  The "Happiest Place on Earth" became super creepy after it was announced they would be closing.  So much hand sanitizer.  Signs appeared that reminded you to wash your hands for 30 seconds.  Overnight.  

I was quarantined and working from home for two weeks, so my days were busy with work, but for the first time since we got married (22-ish years ago) my calendar was EMPTY.  No tennis meets, no band concerts, no vacations, no camping trips, nothing.  Just a cleared out expanse of evenings free.  It was a glimpse into what next year will be like, as our 6'1" "baby" will be leaving for college in the fall.  And I started thinking about how I needed to be prepared!!  Prepared in case I needed to stay home for an extended period of time because I was quarantined.  Prepared in case my husband and I couldn't find anything to possibly fill our time when the last child finally headed out of the house for better things.  Prepared in case someone in the house got sick and needed some bedside activity to wile away the hours.

I decided to start investing in some board games- most of which can be played solo or with two players.  In my Covid-funk, I bought used games and new games and games on eBay and games from the local store and games from a not-so-local store and games that could be delivered and games.... you get the picture.  I was running out of time and needed to be prepared!!!

Now I'm trying to sort out what I've done.  And play some of these games!!  I was able to resell a couple for a sizeable profit, so that was great.  I don't feel as bad about the $$ spent- but how am I going to be able to PLAY all of these games?!?  And now, a year later, I have Kickstarters arriving. 

I hope to use this venue to review some games (I hate being on camera and hearing my own voice, so a textual adventure will have to do), make some lists, and bring you along with me.  The title of my blog "Wining About Boardgames" will make sense as we go.  Sometimes I'll have an accompanying wine and a lot of times it will be a cocktail.  I don't do beer.  So, it will never be a beer.  Even though I'm from Wisconsin- I hate beer.

Wish me luck!

The above photo is my upstairs board game shelving unit.  The pink post-it notes on the games indicate a game I haven't played yet.  As you can see, there are a lot.  

The picture to the left is my game table (with some pink moscato in the glass) that I will be at when taking most of my pictures.  I love it.  The entire setup is new since March, as are most of the games.  It's taking up half of my bedroom.  Props to my amazing husband for tolerating me.

PS. This post was long and rambling.  I will try to keep them less-so as we go on.  There was a lot to set up here.  Like a game of A Feast for Odin.  So much set up.  In cooking blogs, I will sometimes sigh and say "just get to the damn recipe already."  I will keep the meat of my blog posts at the top and then if I want to wax poetic, I'll put that at the bottom.  If you want to continue reading, great.  If not, I won't be offended at all.