The Morning After

Ah, the Monday after the Super Bowl. It's always so much fun to watch people drag into the office, sleepy but quite clearly displaying varied shades of "morning-after syndrome": either My-life-is-better-than-chocolate-cake-because-my-team-well-they-aren't-really-my-team-but-my-real-team-didn't-even-make-it-to-the-playoffs-so-I-adopted-this-other-team-and-they-won!!! or Please-don't-speak-to-me-and-actually-just-don't-look-at-me-even-just-the-light-in-your-eyes-is-painful-because-my-team-lost-and-I-polished-off-all-the-leftover-alcohol-to-keep-from-crying-in-front-of-the-guys. These coworkers proceed to their desks, where they stare densely at their computer, either jumping at each chance to rehash the glorious game of the century or pounding their head against the filing cabinets whenever it is mentioned. Oh the life of a (borderline-) dedicated football fan, it's never easy.

I am a huge fan of college football and cheer quite candidly for several favorites, including my alma mater and my hometown team (except for that time that they played each other when I was a senior and my typically wimpy little college team soundly trounced the big bad home team... that was a good day). I'm really not sure why, but I just can't get into the NFL. After a full day of football on fall Saturdays, I'm usually feeling a little deprived of fresh air and just can't stomach hanging around the couch another round of games on Sundays. So when the Super Bowl rolls around, I feel a little un-American, but I really don't care who wins. I hate randomly picking a team just for the sake of one evening, so I typically watch the game, chuckle at the commercials, and keep pretty quiet. This year, I spent most of the game in the kitchen, being as brilliant as I am and deciding to start cleaning or cooking around 3. Thankfully Dan helped clean the apartment, and I am so thrilled to start the week with a clean living space so that I don't have to feel guilty every night after work for not doing anything at all. 

Dan's brother and his girlfriend got there right as the game started -- about the time I popped the wings in the oven -- and luckily they weren't starving so I took my time and finally served everything during the 2nd quarter. We (as in Dan) opted for a plethora of appetizers, so our meal consisted of: crackers with fantastic cheese and sausage (our Christmas gift from my best friend), stuffed mushrooms, the incredible buffalo chicken dip from this blog that I love, homemade wings (that came out pretty well and got lots of compliments), ranch dip, baguette brushed with olive oil, and a yummy dessert dip with cookies and pretzels and a sugar coma on the side. I ate way more than I should have and even enjoyed the second half of the game before tackling my mess of a kitchen. I was so busy that I forgot to take any pictures of the food, but I'm pretty excited to have lots of leftovers for lunches this week!

The rest of the weekend was fun as well -- Dan got home late Friday evening so instead of going out, we enjoyed a nice quiet night at home. Saturday we spend most of the day at another wrestling tournament with Dan's brother and got to watch him win his district match. On to regionals next weekend! We made up for our date night Saturday evening and went to Outback with his whole family so that I could silence my craving for a bloomin' onion. I also had one two of the best margaritas I've ever tasted that night. All around I'd say it was a great weekend for my stomach (although we'll see if I still think that after my run this afternoon...)

So here we are, back to Monday, everyone shuffling around in a fog of last night's beer and tortilla chips. I'm so happy that this week should be an easy one and that we have a little mini-vacation coming up this weekend!

Hope that you all survived the weekend -- and the big game -- unscathed!

   Love,

    Meg