a little thing.

one should never underestimate the joy that is asking a random stranger to take your picture and having them actually do a good job.



 

everyone looking, smiling, and nicely framed so you can actually see the point of the picture in the background!

an ode to the end of football season.

'twas a great year in Birdland and all through the town,

not one single sports fan was wearing a frown.

 

the birds really brought it this year in charm city,

it was very exciting, though not always pretty.

 

The O's went and gave us all a nice shock,

when they ended their season in a playoff spot!

 

when there was no more baseball, to all our surprise,

football had started! my how time flies!

 

the dirty birds played their way right to the top,

they brought home a trophy, now can all the talk stop?

 

the ravens are champs and ray lewis retired,

at this point the commentators are just undesired.

 

so ditka and billick, bradshaw and brennaman;

boomer and jim nantz, dan, coach, and shannon.

 

the season is OVER, so let's make this clear;

how 'bout we take a break, and we'll see you next year. 

 

 

not airing my dirty laundry.

i thought about taking a picture of my stacked-sky-high-and-overflowing laundry hamper this weekend to share with you all, to really emphasize just how eggregious was my neglect of any and all household chores over the past few days. but then i carried it all downstairs on Sunday afternoon, sorted it, and started a load of towels instead. because its one thing to tell you all that i had a monster pile of laundry on my hands here, and quite another to take an actual picture of my dirty underwear and voluntarily post it on the interwebs for anyone and everyone to see. my oversharing does have its limits apparently. you're welcome.

but surprisingly, there is an actual reason for me to even be telling you about my dirty laundry, and it has to do with my new-ish personal determination to not take my life too seriously. i am trying really really hard to not let the little stuff, combined with the wierd funk that generally comes around this time of year, get to me and bring me down. so instead of stressing about unwashed dishes, our current standstill on house-related projects, and yes even dirty laundry this weekend, i decided to embrace (and kind of ignore) some of the crazyness that is my life right now.

we made spur-of-the-moment plans with some friends of ours for friday evening. the plans included stuffing ourselves silly with italian food and cake. and spending a couple hours proving what awesome bowlers we are...

...and then playing board games and just hanging out until the wee hours of the morning.

this was shortly before we doomed the game by making a complete loop

because we had stayed up so late the night before (seriously we are old fogeys who normally have a 10pm bedtime) we slept in until 11:30 on saturday. the only reason i got out of bed at all was that i had plans to meet a few of my neighbors and spend an afternoon with them being all crafty at a rubber-stamping card-making party. it was a lot of fun and i realized that there are some really neat people who live in my neighborhood and i should probably make more of an effort to meet them.

i got home just in time to turn around again to go back out to dinner to spend time stuffing our faces with more good food and cake with a new couple. well, Mark already knew half of the couple through work, but they were a new couple to me! and if i can just go ahead and speak for everyone, i would have to say that a great time was had by all! i hope we will be seeing more of M and B in the future.

on sunday afternoon all i wanted was a nap. but since Mark declared that there would be no naps because then we wouldn't be able to sleep at night, i spent my time gettin my craft on. i'm working on two projects for Mark for Valentine's day, and even though i'm not entirely sure that he'll really like them, i know i will! i finished one of them, and i would share it with you, but since i dubbed it a "secret project" i'll have to wait til after V-day to show it to you since he has been known to keep tabs on the blog.

and then there was that whole Super Bowl thing. after that first quarter safety, (ha! still makes me giggle) the rest was kind of meh in my opinion. i actually fell asleep for pretty much all of the 4th quarter. maybe if i would have had an afternoon nap, i could have stayed up for the whole game... but i did manage to open my eyes right at the end for the sweet sweet sight of Tom Brady's defeat at the hands of Eli Manning. again. it was kind of beautiful.

so all that to say "hey, i had a good weekend!"

how was yours?

still (re)counting.

40. (again) cousins who read my blog and keep me accountable for my thankful count.
41. sunshine.
42. weekends.
43. that i figured out after only one coat that i picked the wrong color paint for the hallway. (the hubs wishes i would have just picked the right color in the first place)
44. i have never been followed/chased by paparazzi.
45. birthdays.
46. crockpots.
47. band-aids.
48. the Seattle Seahawks.
49. coffee.
50. the opportunity (and means) to go to Europe in the spring! eeeekkk!!!

die-hard.

when i was growing up, i was what you might call a fairweather-football-fan (but only if you like a good alliteration) i watched whatever game was on with the same lack of caring-at-all-about-the-outcome. i looked forward to the superbowl because it always meant a good party and another excuse to hang out with my friends. i cheered for whatever team was winning, or whatever team was losing, or whatever team had the better uniforms, depending on how i was feeling on any particular day. i went through phases where i liked the Packers, then it was the Raiders, at one point i tried to  like the dolphins, (cause i had a crush on a boy who was obsessed with Dan Marino) and i never really cared for the 49ers. but there was one exception to my wishy-washiness.

Steelers football.

i grew up in western pa, the heart of steelers country, where everyone bleeds black and gold. there was no other option on game day. the steelers were my team, whether i really acknowledged it at the time. but whoever they were playing against, i was cheering against. if they werent playing, then i didnt really care for football in the least.

now i live outside of baltimore, deep in the depths of (gag) ravens territory. and i'm married to a ravens fan. in fact, i married into an entire family of ravens fans, of the loud, obnoxious, steeler-despising variety. this makes for some good conversation, and more deeply cements my loyalty to the black and gold. the husband still thinks that in time they will convert me. they are sadly mistaken.

earlier this year, we got married on a steelers-ravens sunday. we went to the second matchup of the season in m&t bank stadium. this weekends game will be the first that the husband and i will watch our teams face off from the comfort of a couch (hopefully with a fuzzy blanket and some good snacks, too) it could be an interesting afternoon. i tend to be a fairly gracious fan, but if they get nasty with me then they had better be prepared for me to get nasty right back. i hope this wont have any negative repercusions on my marriage. or my relations with my in-laws.

all i know is that i'm going to prepare for this weekend by donning my jersey, warming up my terrible-towel waving arm, blaring HERE WE GO through my house, and digging way back into my childhood to rouse up all my deep-seeded team spirit until it begins to ooze out of me - and while i'm there i think i'll also pick up a tried and true excuse that is guaranteed to get me off the hook if things get ugly - "they started it!"

survived.

one of the things that i was most dreading about being married to my husband is our severe football rivalry. honestly it is what brought us together, but because of open hours in college, and games being scheduled over holidays, and things like our wedding we never seemed to be able to watch our teams play each other.  so since our year has been so very full of important milestones, we figured it couldnt hurt to throw one more in there: the first Steelers v. Ravens game that we have EVER watched together.

and to just make it a little more exciting, why dont we watch our first game together live in Baltimore?

i would have to say that it went pretty well overall (especially considering the outcome of the game!) we only had to put up with some minor taunting, were still able to move our fingers and toes, and we were still speaking to each other at the end of the game, so i would have to call this a major success!

now we just have to wait and see how well we behave ourselves when we're watching together in our own home...