It's been a while--and my football picks paid the price

I've been out and about this holiday season and finally came home yesterday morning around 3:30am, a little worse for wear. The hardest part was losing in my Fantasy League playoffs last week after a 9 game win streak. It's a sad week when my kicker with 14 points bests every other offensive player in my roster (except the quarterback) who combined for very disappointing 31 points. Yes, that's COMBINED! An unexpected fat egg from Arian Foster and worse, a -2 from Danny Amendola didn't help my numbers at all.

The second hardest part was losing my top spot in fanpool. By Monday morning, I was sitting in second place by 2. And worse, I have been second-guessing my picks all monring for this final day. This is probably the least confident week I have had all season. And of course, it's the most important. I haven't had the nerve to watch any of the games yet.

On the plus side, last night, Michigan State pulled out a 17-16 win over TCU in last night's Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl. Unfortunately, due to its 10:15pm East Coast start time, I passed out before they won, but made my morning waking up to the news. Hopefully it's a harbinger of my day. Fingers crossed.

Can we hang in there Peyton?

The Bowl game schedule has been released and Michigan State is slated to play against TCU on 12/29 in the Buffalo Wild Wings in Arizona at 10:15PM, ET.  PM!!!  Man, I hope MSU has a LOT more stamina than me to play in this Bowl game against TCU. 

Anyhoo, this was a rough week in the FanPool but fortunately for me, it was for most everyone.  I'm still clinging to my overall lead by a narrow margin:

And speaking of narrow margins:

I barely beat Paul in our fantasy football match-up this week.  But FWIW, a Win is still a Win, no matter how narrow the margin is and my win streak is up to 7.  Currently I'm leading in the league with most wins by 2...

Can Peyton and I hang in there for the rest of the season?

I'm just loosening my arm

Just sharing my current favorite commercial: the one for the NFL Play 60 program with Cam Newton and this hilarious kid:

Thanksgiving weekend

It was a great Thanksgiving weekend--starting with some traditional Thanksgiving noshes:

I also made a gluten-free vegan pumpkin pie and vegan coffee cake!

But the exciting part was a visit from our friend Tom and his boys on Saturday--just in time to be enlisted in the Garnet Army for the big South Carolina victory over Clemson:

Very pleased I got Tom hooked on Green Smoothies:

And Tom, being the devoted Dallas fan he is, was a great reason to actually wear my Dallas Dat Nguyen shirt on Sunday gameday.  And he appreciated my debut effort of the Dallas City Satchel--he was very good-natured about the stitching mess on the strap, especially when I compared the project to a typical Dallas game this year--great and efficient start only to see things maddeningly fall apart and not go as planned when it was almost done.

For posterity's sake, the kids (because they grow so fast):

Can't wait to meet up again!

Still feeling Peyton Manning

After my mid-season slump, things definitely turned around after that for me, football-wise.  Now a couple weeks later, I'm still feeling pretty Peyton Manning though he and I have hit a few bumps.  Last night he threw an interception--but the Broncos still won (though not by the spread, argh!).  For me, Michigan State lost another heartbreaker by 3 points this weekend.  They have lost their last 5 games by a TOTAL of 13 points.

Anyhoo, on the positive side, I have regained my top spot in my football pool (though a win by SF by 5 tonight would be super):

Side note: I took on the handle of MissTaylorSwift this year when I didn't get an immediate invite to the football pool and said I was going to crash it like Taylor Swift did at that Kennedy wedding.

Also, I'm currently leading in my first season of my fantasy league as well.  Really psyched how Doug Martin exploded this year.

So to your health, Peyton Manning.  We're in this together, it seems.

Junior Honors Regional Orchestra

The girl made Regional Honors Orchestra again, though we missed her performance.  It was the last home game of the USC Gamecocks and since we live right by the stadium, we got snarled in the post-game traffic.  Fortunately, I had dropped her off earlier in the morning for rehearsal. The girl did get a shout out from the director of the String Project orchestra, which we were psyched about:

Glad she got to see the performance.

On to the next one: kids that make the Regional orchestra have the opportunity to try out for the Honors State Orchestra--fingers crossed!

Am I supposed to be somewhere?

It's a little disconcerting when I get a text like this from Southwest Airlines:

Considering I'm not flying anywhere today. Or at least I think I'm not.