Well it's finally here. If you have no idea what I am talking about you might as well quit reading. GO BUCS! Before anything else, I hope this season is filled with great games but most important, that the players stay healthy and with no major injuries.
As with most major holidays, the football season is filled with tradition. Although my wonderful hubby decided to break with tradition this year and in addition to making our picks, we are also playing in a fantasy football league. I am still not sure about this, but as I have won all but 2 of the years since we have been keeping score(1997), he needs to try something so he can win. Besides just the gloating factor, winning is very important as the winner will pick where we go next season for our away game. This year we are going to Kansas City. Yes, my husband got to pick. With places like Miami, San Francisco, San Diago, Denver, New England in the fall. No, we're going to Kansas City. Picks like that just make more incentive for me to win.
I took a break to watch the games and needless to say if it keeps up like this I'll end going to Cleveland next year. Well at least I got to watch Serena Williams win the US Open. I love tennis and used to play. In fact I played for Penn State and made it to regionals. I was lucky that two of the facilities I worked for had tennis courts and I was able to play in the leagues. I remember I'd be right in the middle of teaching one of my classes and someone would come up to the window and hold up a tennis racqet, which meant someone didn't show up can you play? I will say I am very blessed, even though my career was short, about 15 years, I was able to live my passion and I would not trade a single moment of it, I had a blast. Although if I could go back in time, I'd go to one of my tennis lessons when I was 7 years old and instead of crying that I wanted to go home, I'd get serious. Of course my first choice would have been to play football, but as seeing they still don't let girls play in college or pro's, tennis would have to do.
Anyway, got off on a tangent there, I was talking about traditions. My dad got me into football when I was little as a Pittsburgh Steeler fan. And thanks to his job, we were able to go to one home game a year and sit in the box. As my uncle was a Cleveland's Brown fan, that usually made Holidays all the more exciting. My grandmother put a ban on football games during holiday get together's, but one by one most of us stole off to the upstairs to watch parts of the game hoping to go unnoticed. Thank goodness the women were always in the kitchen until meal time, and everyone wondered why I picked to clean up rather than set up.
Going to Penn State only added another dimension to our love of football as we now paid attention to college ball. I made the Blue Band and had some of the best years of my life. To make it even better, while I there Penn State was always in the top 10 and in my third year of college we won the national championship. Talk about excitement, I don't think I will ever have an experience like that one. Even though we were just the band, we were included in a lot of the activities. Marching in the parade was fantastic. If you're not familiar with Arizona, the stadium is built into the mountain and we were standing outside waiting to go into the stadium to do our pregame performance and the sun was setting. One of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.
I met Andy, my husband, my last year of college. I had stayed at college for a summer semester and met him in one of my classes. I wished I would have known how nice summer semesters were and I would have gone every summer. It was so much more layed back and easy going.
Andy and I start seeing each other that summer and were still together for fall. How or why have no idea, but he never went to any of the games. If you have never had the opportunity and you like football, go to a college game, especially a team that is doing well. It's completely different from the pro's. So, I got Andy to go to a few games, but he still wasn't too interested and as we were in our senior year, things got busy pretty quickly and as time moved on we graduated, got married, moved to Florida and began to work. We didn't have much time to watch football. When we first moved down here Andy was working 2 jobs and I was working 3 which meant weekends. It was in 1997 when our lives had settled down and we began to watch it again. The Bucs had just changed their colors from that candy orange to pewter and red and they began to play good football. My biggest regret is we didn't buy season tickets back then when there wasn't a waiting list. To this day I can remember the commercials and see the billboards offering cheap tickets trying to sell the stadium out. By the time we woke up, they were Superbowl Champs and we were number 81,000.00 on the wait list. I figured we'd get tickets when we were 90.
So with no tickets, we tried to make our own fun. We got our jerseys to wear then decided the dogs needed jerseys as well. We put them on and walk them around the neighborhood on football Sundays. We try different foods famous from the cities the Bucs are playing against, although that turned out harder than I thought it would be. For Monday night football we always get wings. Since we added our pool a couple of years ago, we like to watch the first game in the pool and on Monday night's, it's the hot tub.
I have to say, our interest in football has really helped me while I've been sick. Now that we have season tickets, I really look forward to the home games. Before the game, we eat at the restaurant in the stadium and we like to sit by the window and people watch. It's fun to see how people will dress up, paint their faces, wear silly hats, etc. We've made friends with the people around us and feel like we really fit in. It's been hard with us moving the few times and with me being sick, to make friends, so this really has made a difference. I did real good last year and only had to miss 2 home games. I was sick for one of them and left in the third quarter to go sit inside in the air conditioning and comfy seats. I got an overstuffed chair and swung my feet around and watched the rest of the game on the TVs they have. I'm pretty sure most of the people thought I had too much to drink, but I didn't want to leave since Andy had invited some friends and I didn't want them missing the game.
For me having things to look forward too meant the difference in how I perceive my illness. Once Andy and I started planning these things, my outlook brightened considerably. Last year was our first trip to an away game and we decided not to go to far so we went to Atlanta. We had such a good time. We went out for dinner with a friend of Andy's and then saw the show the Bluemen on Saturday night. After the game on Sunday we went out to dinner at a nice restaurant and then flew home on Monday. Since our anniversary is in September we decided that our yearly trip is our gift to each other. So even though Kansas City doesn't sound too exciting, we'll make it a great time.
Here's to a great football season 2008!
Melissa
As with most major holidays, the football season is filled with tradition. Although my wonderful hubby decided to break with tradition this year and in addition to making our picks, we are also playing in a fantasy football league. I am still not sure about this, but as I have won all but 2 of the years since we have been keeping score(1997), he needs to try something so he can win. Besides just the gloating factor, winning is very important as the winner will pick where we go next season for our away game. This year we are going to Kansas City. Yes, my husband got to pick. With places like Miami, San Francisco, San Diago, Denver, New England in the fall. No, we're going to Kansas City. Picks like that just make more incentive for me to win.
I took a break to watch the games and needless to say if it keeps up like this I'll end going to Cleveland next year. Well at least I got to watch Serena Williams win the US Open. I love tennis and used to play. In fact I played for Penn State and made it to regionals. I was lucky that two of the facilities I worked for had tennis courts and I was able to play in the leagues. I remember I'd be right in the middle of teaching one of my classes and someone would come up to the window and hold up a tennis racqet, which meant someone didn't show up can you play? I will say I am very blessed, even though my career was short, about 15 years, I was able to live my passion and I would not trade a single moment of it, I had a blast. Although if I could go back in time, I'd go to one of my tennis lessons when I was 7 years old and instead of crying that I wanted to go home, I'd get serious. Of course my first choice would have been to play football, but as seeing they still don't let girls play in college or pro's, tennis would have to do.
Anyway, got off on a tangent there, I was talking about traditions. My dad got me into football when I was little as a Pittsburgh Steeler fan. And thanks to his job, we were able to go to one home game a year and sit in the box. As my uncle was a Cleveland's Brown fan, that usually made Holidays all the more exciting. My grandmother put a ban on football games during holiday get together's, but one by one most of us stole off to the upstairs to watch parts of the game hoping to go unnoticed. Thank goodness the women were always in the kitchen until meal time, and everyone wondered why I picked to clean up rather than set up.
Going to Penn State only added another dimension to our love of football as we now paid attention to college ball. I made the Blue Band and had some of the best years of my life. To make it even better, while I there Penn State was always in the top 10 and in my third year of college we won the national championship. Talk about excitement, I don't think I will ever have an experience like that one. Even though we were just the band, we were included in a lot of the activities. Marching in the parade was fantastic. If you're not familiar with Arizona, the stadium is built into the mountain and we were standing outside waiting to go into the stadium to do our pregame performance and the sun was setting. One of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.
I met Andy, my husband, my last year of college. I had stayed at college for a summer semester and met him in one of my classes. I wished I would have known how nice summer semesters were and I would have gone every summer. It was so much more layed back and easy going.
Andy and I start seeing each other that summer and were still together for fall. How or why have no idea, but he never went to any of the games. If you have never had the opportunity and you like football, go to a college game, especially a team that is doing well. It's completely different from the pro's. So, I got Andy to go to a few games, but he still wasn't too interested and as we were in our senior year, things got busy pretty quickly and as time moved on we graduated, got married, moved to Florida and began to work. We didn't have much time to watch football. When we first moved down here Andy was working 2 jobs and I was working 3 which meant weekends. It was in 1997 when our lives had settled down and we began to watch it again. The Bucs had just changed their colors from that candy orange to pewter and red and they began to play good football. My biggest regret is we didn't buy season tickets back then when there wasn't a waiting list. To this day I can remember the commercials and see the billboards offering cheap tickets trying to sell the stadium out. By the time we woke up, they were Superbowl Champs and we were number 81,000.00 on the wait list. I figured we'd get tickets when we were 90.
So with no tickets, we tried to make our own fun. We got our jerseys to wear then decided the dogs needed jerseys as well. We put them on and walk them around the neighborhood on football Sundays. We try different foods famous from the cities the Bucs are playing against, although that turned out harder than I thought it would be. For Monday night football we always get wings. Since we added our pool a couple of years ago, we like to watch the first game in the pool and on Monday night's, it's the hot tub.
I have to say, our interest in football has really helped me while I've been sick. Now that we have season tickets, I really look forward to the home games. Before the game, we eat at the restaurant in the stadium and we like to sit by the window and people watch. It's fun to see how people will dress up, paint their faces, wear silly hats, etc. We've made friends with the people around us and feel like we really fit in. It's been hard with us moving the few times and with me being sick, to make friends, so this really has made a difference. I did real good last year and only had to miss 2 home games. I was sick for one of them and left in the third quarter to go sit inside in the air conditioning and comfy seats. I got an overstuffed chair and swung my feet around and watched the rest of the game on the TVs they have. I'm pretty sure most of the people thought I had too much to drink, but I didn't want to leave since Andy had invited some friends and I didn't want them missing the game.
For me having things to look forward too meant the difference in how I perceive my illness. Once Andy and I started planning these things, my outlook brightened considerably. Last year was our first trip to an away game and we decided not to go to far so we went to Atlanta. We had such a good time. We went out for dinner with a friend of Andy's and then saw the show the Bluemen on Saturday night. After the game on Sunday we went out to dinner at a nice restaurant and then flew home on Monday. Since our anniversary is in September we decided that our yearly trip is our gift to each other. So even though Kansas City doesn't sound too exciting, we'll make it a great time.
Here's to a great football season 2008!
Melissa
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