Baltimore Ravens

First, let me make it clear that I am a die-hard New York Football Giants Fan. However, since living in the Baltimore area the past six years I've grown to adopt the Ravens as my AFC team.  Now, I know Ravens fans will get up in arms and say, "damn straight, we beat your Giants in the Super Bowl."  To that I immediately come back and say, "you know what, I'm okay with that because the Giants have gotten two more rings since we lost to you. And each time we beat the Patriots. You're welcome."

But, my beloved Giants are no longer the defending Super Bowl Champions.

And I'm okay with it.  Actually, I'm more than okay with it. I cheered like a crazed Ravens fan last night for the home team.  I mean, I did use my fantasy football winnings to buy Hunter Boots. The only reason I won fantasy football is because of Ray Rice!

Plus, I have to give some credit to my fellow Blue Hen, Joe Flacco, because let's be honest he doesn't get a lot of the positive credit he deserves for leading his team to the playoffs five years in a row.

Back to Super Bowl Sunday.  It would be bit of an understatement to say the hubs used the day as an excuse to grill and make a bunch of meat.  Yes, we had amazing salsa and guacamole as well, but the meat took the center stage as usual.

Season a 6lb pork shoulder.

Start grilling before 10am.  

Around 3pm, pull the pork shoulder off of the grill.  The hubs even soaked wood chips in Jim Beam to give the pork a nice little whiskey flavor. 

The tennis ball doesn't hold a candle to the shredded pork and chicken strips. 

The hubs compiled with my wishes and used peanut flour to make gluten free chicken strips for me.  That's love!

Pork shoulder is shredded and ready for pulled pork sandwiches. 

Brotherly love.

Love him or hate him, Ray Lewis will always be known as the Original Raven and one of the greatest defensive players in the NFL.

Olympics: Inspiration all around

In case you haven't noticed the London 2012 Summer Olympics are in full swing.  You know what that means? My life is in absolute chaos.  The house is an absolute wreck. I'm not gonna lie, but I actually bought extra socks a few weeks ago in preparation for the Olympics because I knew doing laundry was not going to happen.

The hubs didn't vacuum over the weekend like he always does.  Our yard looks like a jungle because it missed a cut. 

We almost ran out of dog food. Almost. It came down to watching a badminton match and giving the dogs prime rib or getting off the couch and driving to the store.  I think the dogs are upset with our decision! 

The only way I'm getting through the rest of these games is running on the inspiration fumes the games constantly provide. 

My top three sources of inspiration:

1. USA Women's Soccer Team. Special shout-out to Megan Rapinoe 

Source: mrapinoe's instagram

Rapinoe's Credentials: 

Funny as heck on twitter, yet possesses a bucket full of skills on the field.  Ideal teammate because she gives out great assists as well as remembers to wish her injured teammate a happy birthday during an Olympic game.  Not afraid to flaunt the bleached out hairdo.  Sweetest left-footed crosses the women's game as ever seen. Has handled being under the public microscope with exceptional humility, honesty, and most importantly with humor. 

Obviously I'm in love with the entire USA Women's Soccer Team.  I go through media blackouts when they play and then the hubs and I watch the games as soon as we get home from work.  Last Saturday I was able to get in a 16 mile run and have the best recovery time cheering on the team in their win over Columbia.  Double work-out for my lungs, but it felt so good. 

The only one in the house who isn't cheering for the soccer team is Jax.  He gets frightened when I yell at the tv and that means he's been hanging out on the opposite end of the house in his kennel.  Don't worry, we give him lots of treats and his kennel is one of his favorite napping spots. 

2. The Commercials

Source: Nike YouTube Channel 

There have been a ton of inspiring commercials throughout these games.  The Proctor and Gamble commercials make me want to cry when they show the videos of the Olympians when they were little kids.  The one where the athlete says he hasn't eaten dessert in over a year... yeah I was totally eating a Klondike bar when I saw that for the first time.  Whoops! 

I know the Nike "Find Your Greatness" ad above is creating some controversy because people are attacking poor Nathan, age 12, from Ohio for being overweight.  Well, if you actually watched the commercial and listened to it you'd be inspired by Nathan.  Kid is out there doing what he can and finding the greatness within himself and that's really all we can ask of ourselves. He's out there, putting one foot in front of the next, and chugging along.  

I'm never going to be an Olympian, but I can work harder and find my own inner strength.  It's what has been getting me to actually wake up every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday morning at 5am to go running.  Next week I have to start getting up at 4:30am on Wednesdays in order to get my mileage in and get to work by 8am.  I'm going to need a little inspiration in order to do that.  I also need to start to going to bed earlier, but that's not going to happen until the games are finished. 

3. Michael Phelps

Source: Visa YouTube Channel

Okay, clearly there is a regional bias here since I live in the Baltimore area, but you can't argue with 19 Olympic medals (and counting!). 

I find it absolutely hysterical that people are saying, "Michael Phelps is finished," and making it sound like he's the world's worst swimmer.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but he hasn't missed a final yet.  I'm pretty sure he's a better swimmer than oh almost everyone in the world! 

I'm actually more inspired by Phelps this time around than I was during his reign at his previous two Olympics.  Beijing was insane, actually words don't even truly convey how perfect he was at Beijing.  But you know what, we're all human beings.  We aren't meant to be perfect and now that Phelps isn't absolutely crushing his competition it makes me like him even more.  He's fighting at these Olympics and having a good time while doing it. That's inspiring. 

I can only swim a modified version of a drunken squirrel, doggy paddle stroke and I'm inspired by Mr. Phelps to learn how to swim.  There has got to be some type of adult swimming classes in the area.  Crap, I guess if that's going to happen I have to buy a bathing suit and I haven't bought one of those since my honeymoon :( 

You know what's truly amazing?  The track and field events haven't even started yet and I'm already running on crazy fumes.  I don't know how I'm going to survive the second half of the games!  I need to figure out a way to bottle up all of this inspiration and slowly tap into it as needed.  Marine Corps Marathon is only 86 days away!!! 

Are you inspired by the London Olympics?  What is inspiring you? 

Preakness: I'll Have Another!

Saturday morning the hubs and I lathered on the sunscreeen and headed up to Pimlico with a few friends.  It was a pretty low-key day, well with the record attendance of 121,309 people showing up to watch the second leg of the Triple Crown with us.

Since our plans included mass transportation and massive amounts of people I made the decision to leave my beloved Canon at home.  I'm not really keen on taking my precious baby out when I know I'm going to be around people potentially consuming too much alcohol.  All photos were taken with the hubs's new Samsung Galaxy phone and I've got to say, I have a tiny bit of phone envy at the moment.

Now, if you're not a horse racing person and you have no idea what I'm talking about let me break it down for you.  The Kentucky Derby is where people go to get dressed up to watch horse racing.  Think pearls, sundresses, and really fancy hats.  It's like an English wedding, but sunnier.

Preakness, on the other hand, tries to be fancy, but the vast majority of people that are at the race are in the Infield.  I lost count of how many women I saw trying to keep their designer stilettos out of the grass on Saturday.  I think only the Under Armor VIP Tent had a hardwood floor, everything else is all green grass and lots of walking is involved so the smarter women wore platform shoes. Yeah, I went with flip flops, but I wasn't trying to be fancy. With temperatures in the low 80s I was going for comfort.  Well, J.Crew and Banana Republic comfort!

Don't get me wrong. People still dressed up for Preakness! I have no idea how that guy was surviving in his three piece suit. Her sundress was adorable and completely event and weather appropriate.

Up until a few years ago it was BYOB at Preakness. Like, "Bring your own beer." I'm not sure if BYOB could stand for anything else, but I didn't want to take a chance on that one. Yeah, it got OUT OF CONTROL! There was a "running of the urinals" event.  You Tube it.

Now, the organizers have implemented a mug club.  For the whopping price of $20 you get to drink all the beer you can handle (they reserve the right to cut you off at any time if they deem you are unfit for alcohol consumption) out of a brightly colored mug.

 The hubs and I with our very green mugs. There's corporate tents, beach volleyball, a bikini contest, and a whole host of other activities to keep everyone preoccupied while the horses aren't running.  Which, if you've never been to a day at the track is actually a lot of time.  I think before the actual Preakness race, which was race 12 of 13, there was close to an hour in between races.

A little cornhole set up by the Pepsi tent. 

Oh you mean we're here to actually watch horses? 

The hubs and his brother checking out the races. 

Mmmm, we've switched to Jack n Cokes. I guess the beer line was too long! 

The hubs making one of his bets.  

I consider myself a fairly intelligent person, but the race program could have been written in Greek for all I know.  I bet twice and each time to win because I have no idea what box, show, and place mean! 

There was a really cool tribute to our Military brothers and sisters that included paratroopers and a B17 flyover. 

Magazines + blankets + sunshine + alcohol = good times

The main stage that had Wiz Khalifa and Maroon 5 grace its presence.  Maroon 5, above, played a really good set and I was thrilled when there wasn't a surprise appearance by Christina Aguilera!

 The hubs worse sunscreen! His brother ... didn't apply until later in the day :(

I don't even know what a Box 7 + 9 means, but the hubs was stoked and won $25!  He won two of the races he bet on, which I believe "gave him enough betting money to break even."  I don't know how true that statement is, but it's all good.  

I was psyched to spend the hours between 10:30am till dark out in the sun and came home with a good buzz and zero sunburn.  I totally used Preakness as an excuse to buy seersucker shorts from J.Crew!  The striped envelope clutch was an absolute steal at $34.50 at the J.Crew Factory Store and it would have been a crime if I didn't buy it! Mission Accomplished! 

This stuff is worth it's weight in GOLD! It's my go-to sunscreen and all of my friends refer to it as "SPF Ginger."  It takes a lot of work to be this pale! 

Super Bowl Champions!

In case you didn't know the Super Bowl was this past Sunday.

I was born in Jersey.

I grew up in New York.

Any questions on my team loyalty?

My brother might be the only bigger Giants fan than me in my family. Oh, and he's physically huge which is a perk when it comes to intimidating fans of the opposing team :)

Every Super Bowl Sunday has to begin with the Puppy Bowl! Jax was all over the game. I think he was eyeing up a future date with more than one of the cute puppies. Then, a few more vital ingredients make for a fantastic gameday.

Pepperoni and sausage pizza puffs. Recipe found on Pinterest.

Beer and buffalo chicken dip.

One husband who refuses to dress in blue.

Giants cupcakes!!! Go Blue!

Then about four hours of intense moments of football intermixed with a few commercial laughs. Seriously, commercial makers throw in a cute dog or Vadar and you're good to go!

At one point in the game I jumped up to give my brother a high five and immediately crumbled and cried, "don't hurt me!" He roared a bellowed laugh and said he's been working on not breaking hands while doling out high fives. Whew! I knew it was stressful hanging out with a real Giant.

Victory!!!!! Posing with the pups in their Giants gear. The O's mancave was officially team blue on Sunday.

Who would ever have thought that Eli Manning would have the most Super Bowl Championships out of anyone in the Manning household. Unstoppable that guy is :)

There's always a scary end to these things. We were so hyped up at the end of the game for all the obvious reasons and then it just all ends. Where does all that energy go? Well, if you're huge like my brother then you tend to start picking up people like they were chess pawns. I was the littlest one of the group, so do the logic.

The difference between men and women

Way back in early September the hubs was getting ready to begin one of his fantasy football drafts. Unfortunately, this was a draft with real live people and not random strangers on the internet. One of the dudes couldn't join in at the last minute and the guys were about to lose their draft time slot if they didn't have someone else join their league.

Enter: hubs' red head and tom-boy wife, who has never played any type of fantasy sport.

I won't go into details of how the hubs was guiding me through my draft choices and he said, "no, don't take that guy." Then, he proceeded to take that guy .2 seconds after I picked someone else.

All is fair in love and fantasy sports it seems.

Flash forward 14 weeks and I beat my own hubs in order to secure the fourth and final spot in the playoffs. The hubs didn't even make the playoffs :)

First week of the playoffs I take on the #1 seed, who just happens to be my brother-in-law. Yeah, I squeak out a nail biter and beat him by 1.28 points. There was some play in which a penalty that is never called on a field goal was called and the team received five yards and later drove down the field to score a touchdown, which took points away from the kicker, but gave me the victory.

Weird stuff like that happened.

Then, the during the final days of the championship week I ask the hubs, "do I get anything if I win this thing?"

"Yeah,, $160."

Buddy, that changes everything! That's some serious coinage for my shoe budget!

In a very odd twist of fate, I had to play my own brother, my ginger blood, in the championship. He actually beat me, until I checked a few days later and there was a stat correction and it turns out I beat him by .44 points. Yeah, it was absolutely ridiculous.

At the end of the season, I was the only girl in the league and I took down all the boys.

Not too shabby.

Now what did I do with my winnings? I bought a pair of Hunter Boots! I've wanted a pair for years, but could never stomach the $125 price tag. So two years ago I bought a pair of $25 rain boots from Target and called it a day. Yeah, they sprung a leak after a season and then when I kept wearing them it looked like I wasn't even wearing rain boots on my one leg.

I figured it was probably time to join the big leagues and buy a proper pair of rain boots. I've read the reviews and these bad boys tend to last for much longer than a season. If I can get a few years out of them, then they were definitely worth the investment.

But let's be honest, I don't pay full price for things. Neiman Marcus, of all places, slashed the price on select colors to $80 last week. I called customer service to ensure they were the Original Tall Gloss and once confirmed I placed my order.

Just in the nick of time too! It's been raining all day and the rain is forecasted to continue for the rest of the week.

Dress - Banana Republic

Cardigan - J. Crew

Tights - Target

Boots - Hunter

So really the moral of this story is: Guys, if you invite a lady to join your sports league or whatever and there is money on the line, I suggest you don't get upset when you find out her winnings went towards shoes and not beer. Sure, I only spent half my winnings, so I'm definitely up for buying a round or two at the next happy hour with the guys, but if it's raining I'm definitely wearing my boots and showing them off to the guys.

As the hubs said, "they're the best looking rubber boots I've ever seen."

He was being sarcastic of course!

World Cup baby!!!

I am a self-proclaimed soccer fanatic. It's okay, I've been playing since I was eight years old. Of course, I hung up my proverbial competitive cleats once I graduated from college and I'm ashamed to admit that I can't even find my right Copa Mundial cleat! Honestly, I only have three pairs of soccer shoes in my house (okay, five if you count two pairs of my Puma sneakers). I have my Puma six studs, turf Adidas Copa Mundials and a cheapo pair of Puma Kings I bought on sale at Sports Authority. A pair of Nike women's cleats got thrown out earlier this year after I destroyed the front toe, but I've had those since college so I definitely got my money's worth out of them! This is a drastic step from when I was in high school and my soccer gear stashed in trunk of my car cost more than my car itself.

Sigh.... getting old certainly stinks!

Once every four years I get super excited. Okay, that's a lie because I get really excited during the Olympics and during the Women's World Cup too!

Anyway, I love soccer and I'm on cloud nine right now. Every four years I keep hoping that the USA Men's team will step up and play extremely well at the World Cup. Then, soccer will magically hurdle over the plateau and take off in this country. So far it's been baby steps and I swear a few steps backwards, but I keep holding on to that hope.

Next time I go up to my parent's house I'll have to track down some more pictures because a quick scan of my Shutterfly account pointed out that I have a pathetic collection of soccer pictures.

Ah the good ol' days.

My junior year of college my team had one of the lowest goals against averages in the country (seriously, we were ranked in the top 20!). Yet, when we went down to Trinidad and played their women's national team we got our butts handed to us. The Trini women moved the ball around like it was a highly sophisticated game of pinball. The ball never stopped!!!

Playing in Trinidad was one of the best experiences of my life. These kids stayed after the game and wanted our autographs. I swear to goodness because I sweat so much my hair looked brown and I wore # 8 this little girl asked me if I was Shannon MacMillan. That was an undeserving compliment!!! I loved Big Mac and wore #8 for her.

I love soccer so much that when the hubs and I were on our honeymoon I asked him if we could watch a soccer game. Thank goodness the English blokes we went with called it by it's true name, "Football." I should have been born across the pond! No, who am I kidding, I love America and I'll be screaming bloody, "USA! USA! USA!" when our men take on the English blokes in the first round.

Anyway, when the hubs and I decided to go to Brazil for our honeymoon, this was as close as I thought I would get to a soccer stadium. That spaceship looking blob in the background is the famed Maracanã Soccer Stadium in Rio de Janeiro. Historians say 200,000 crazy fans packed into and on top of that stadium to watch a soccer game. Now, that's dedication!

Luckily for me, I married a sports fanatic as well. He just happens to be a bit nutty about baseball (and so am I). We had fancy dinner plans for one night, but the hubs overheard our English friends talking about going to a soccer game. The hubs quickly ditched our dinner plans and made arrangements for us to go to the game. Okay, I know going to a sporting event might not meet your particular parameters for a romantic evening whilst on your honeymoon, but the hubs could have offered me the Hope Diamond in one hand and soccer tickets in the other and he would still have a big old diamond in his hand!




Brazilians take their football very seriously.

I know I haven't been posting much and I can't make any promises, but I would expect a few more soccer related postings over the next month. It's going to be a beautiful World Cup!!!

Ouch!!!

Am I over examining this or do you notice a difference between those two hands????

We really are jocks

The winter sports season is a bit rough on the hubs and me. Baltimore doesn't have a hockey or basketball team, so in order to get our pro-sports fix, the hubs and I have to make a trip down to D.C. Poor us, we have to drive all the way down to Greenbelt (a whopping 35 minutes) and then get on the Metro. Tragic, I know.

Thursday morning, the hubs calls and asks, "Hey, you want to go to a hockey game tonight? You'll have to miss Grey's, but you can watch it online, right?"

My response, "Grey's is a repeat, so let's go!"

Tom, his brother, found tickets on Ebay for $15 each. So the three of us made a little trip down to D.C. I actually remembered my camera for once, but I forewarn you that the pictures aren't so great. We sat in the very last row, way up in the nosebleed section, but the view wasn't bad.


Let's Go Caps!!! (Okay, shoot me, I root for the home team.)

FIGHT!!!! This one was impressive, the guys fell down, stood back up and then started swinging all over again.

I love it when the youth teams play during the first intermission. Much better than the second intermission when you are forced to watch inebriated fools try to move around on the ice and win prizes.

Note to self- avoid getting hit in the face with hockey sticks. Yuckiness will occur.

More fighting! Apparently, Donald Brashear trained with Joe Frazier, which I think gives you a fairly accurate description of his "hockey" abilities.


On the drive home, the hubs and I realized that it had been over a month since we had been to a sporting event. That's a really, really, really long drought for us. We realized that we could never move anywhere that didn't have at least three pro sports teams. Any area that didn't field a MLB team would be automatically a no-go for us. I guess that does limit our selection of towns we vaguely talk of moving to. Factor in that requirement, plus my own stipulation of a Trader Joe's, and our moving area is now that much smaller. Looks like we're definitely not moving up to my parents neck of the woods.

Are you ready for some football???

Playoffs!!!!

Although my beloved New York Football Giants aren't playing this weekend, I'm still in playoffs mode. The hubs and I are having a few friends over for today's games. Of course I took this as an excuse to bake a new dessert. I was completely inspired by The Good Wife and made a batch of Buckeyes. I didn't use her recipe because I didn't think I needed 8 dozen and I balked at the idea of 6 cups of powered sugar. I love sugar as much as the next person, but my teeth hurt just thinking of all that powdered sugar.

Besides the tasty Buckeyes (four were sampled today and earned high praise from the hubs and that definitely wasn't one of those white lie moments), we'll have the normal football fare- bacon cheese fries, pizza, chicken wings, beer, chips, dip, veggies and whatever my brother-in-law decides to bring. Good thing the I started up running again, I'm going to need to run a marathon every day just so I can continue to fit into my clothes!
The Buckeyes


M & T Bank Stadium during last week's Ravens game

a few more pictures from the game over on my Flickr photostream