Chess and Family Night

One of my goals this year, as you maybe saw, was to leave work by 7:00 every night. Well, that goal is going . . . so-so, but comparatively, I think it's going great. Basically, in the past I've always worked with the goal to get a particular project done, and then if there's still time, I go do something fun. Well, these projects always, no matter what, take longer than I plan for, so I'm often disappointed. But my new plan has been that I just work until a certain time and whatever gets done, does, and the rest goes to the next day. This is a difficult approach for me since I always want to get "just one more thing" done, but it's being made slightly easier with the advent of "family night".
Monday is Family Night and I'm trying to leave even earlier on that night, like at 5:30 (holy moly!), and then Shawn and I play. I've been trying to incorporate an element of newness into our Monday night activities, having it be something we've never done before, or at least not often. So far, we have played the Wii with some friends (where I was a total maniac novice virtual boxer and accidentally stepped on their real cat's tail), we had music night on Haight St. where we went shopping for a harmonica and exchanged all our old cds for money at Amobea (btw- the guy totally scoffed at the music we were trying to turn in- poor Shawn had to be associated with some of my choice selections- and in the end he offered us $30 for about 150 cds!), we did a beach clean-up on MLK Monday, and highlighted here in this post, Shawn taught me how to play chess.

In case you don't know Shawn at all, I should explain that he loves chess. He lettered in chess in high school (and frequently uses that fact to support his case that he was in fact technically an Athlete since he lettered in it). He was team captain (hot!). Anyway, also if you don't know Shawn at all, I should explain that he is very excited in these pictures :) Sometimes it's hard for people to tell.

I, on the other hand, was not quite as thrilled with my introduction to chess. I mean seriously, who thought to put this in the "game" category. It really shouldn't be a game when you have to think that hard and remember that many things!! Needless to say, I have been kind of a baby about learning, but since I know Shawn loves it so much, I've promised to continue to give it a chance. So far, I think the farthest I've made it is like 8 moves in.

Anyway, along with becoming familiar with all the new game pieces- bishop, rook, knight, etc., our particular model of chess also comes with a Gremlin piece.