Daily Archives: August 26, 2013

Have you ever been in a situation at work doing an icebreaker where you are forced to purposely come up with an interesting fact about yourself? When I was hired at my company 8 years ago I started in a training program with about 10 other people. Over and over as we were introduced to each other, to our new department or to the executives within the company we kept being told to “Prepare an interesting fact to share.”

Man, THAT IS TORTURE!

It’s like someone walking up to you and demanding you say something funny. All day long I have funny commentary going on in my head, but the second I have to be funny I can’t think of a single joke!

Eventually I got my interesting fact down pat, but these days — since I’m no longer a new hire — no one really asks. But today I wanted to share my interesting fact as a part of a partnership with BlogHer and the NFL.

I have lived in California my whole life but I was actually born in Detroit, Michigan. I was born in October because at the time my dad was playing football for the Detroit Lions. That’s probably interesting enough, but it gets even more fun. You see, I was the first grandchild on my mom’s side of the family and the third on my dad’s side so all of my extended family were awaiting my arrival. But this was 1978 and since the internet didn’t exist and my parents lived so far away – no one was receiving texts of new born baby pics like we all do these days. So the first time that many of my family members saw me was on Thanksgiving Day during the annual Detroit Lions football game (they play every Thanksgiving Day — it’s tradition) when the commentators showed my picture as a sidebar when talking about my dad.

Pretty neat birth announcement, right?

Eventually he went on to play for the San Diego Chargers (my mom was ever grateful to move AWAY from the snow!) and he retired right as I started Kindergarten so we wouldn’t have to move anymore.

I don’t know about you all, but around our house the beginning of football season is a pretty big deal. Garrett loves betting on games at https://nevadaonlinecasinos.com, and just about every Sunday you can find us hunkered down on the couch checking out the action. We also recently have been enjoying satta king too.

I’d like to tell you it’s because I love football as much as he does, but these days I have to admit I get just as excited about game day menu planning as I do about the game.(I think my dad would understand.) Here’s a legitimate site สล็อตโจ๊กเกอร์ วอเลท for you to bet on your favorite team or player that could win some prizes and exciting freebies.

As you can imagine, in my family football is definitely more than just some seasonal entertainment — the NFL is part of the fabric of who we are. We’ve also found bookies not covered by Gamstop which makes betting on the games so much easier. Garrett comes from a football family too (HUGE fans of The Ohio State, by the way) and as we get closer and closer to having kids I wonder about whether or not they will play football. After all, it is in our blood. (And of course my linebacker shoulders which — Man dad…couldn’t you have passed on your nice eyes, or pearly white smile? Did you have to give your daughter YOUR LINEBACKER SHOULDERS??? But I digress…)

It’s no secret that football is a PHYSICAL sport, and whether or not I will encourage my children to play isn’t something I can speculate about right now. But I have good friends with who are right at that age so I have heard quite a bit about the concerns. Knowing what I know about my dad’s experience and hearing the concerns of friends made me really excited to share the following information that I recently learned through a campaign that I am working on with BlogHer + the NFL about the importance of player health and safety, especially as it pertains to kids. If you are deciding whether or not to let your kids play, here is some interesting information. And if you want your children to play a safer sport like soccer, you can encourage them further by buying England football tickets and watching the game with them.

*Through Heads Up Football, the NFL and USA Football are working to educate youth football leagues across the country on proper tackling technique. More than 900 youth football players nationwide will be learning Heads Up tackling during the 2013 season. It is the future of the game. Heads Up Football was developed with a $1.5 million grant from the NFL Foundation. Ask your youth football player’s coach if they are Heads Up Certified. They can get certified right now. And make sure your child’s league is a Heads Up league for 2014. Learn more by visiting www.usafootball.com/headsup.

*The NFL works with parents to make sure they understand how to help their kids stay safe on the playing field. Through the NFL’s partnership with the CDC on their Heads Up curriculum, parents, coaches, clinicians and youth athletes can all access the resources they need to learn more about concussion signs and symptoms. To learn more, visit http://www.cdcheadsup.org.

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Allowing your child to play football is a very personal decision, but I was happy to hear the NFL acknowledge that kids look up to professional athletes and emulate them. They embrace their leadership role on the important issue of sports safety which is why, in the last year alone, they have committed more than $60 million to medical research on new ways to protect the brain and to address head injuries. For more information visit the following:

NFL Evolution

NFL Foundation

CDC Heads Up

Well Jesus, it sure has been an emo couple of weeks around this blog, YIKES! Hoping to put that all to bed this week. I feel like these last two weeks have been a complete blur, but I’m coming out of the fog.

I was in Iowa last week again for work for like a split second (literally in the air longer than I was in meetings) (Sorry we couldn’t meet up for lunch Jess! Next time!) and while that would normally be a quick and easy trip, it ended up being really exhausting. I was up at 4am to catch my flight Wednesday morning, spent a long day travelling (WHY, OH WHY CAN THEIR BE NO DIRECT FLIGHTS TO DES MOINES!) and when I got to my hotel on Wednesday evening ready to change my clothes, unpack, hell, JUST WASH MY HANDS IN A NON PUBLIC BATHROOM FTLOG, they were like “Sorry, we overbooked we don’t have a room for you.”

I mean…WHAT?

It was like the straw the broke the camel’s back for me and I basically had a mini breakdown in the lobby of the hotel. I wasn’t crying because there was no hotel room, or because I’d had a long travel day, or because I hadn’t eaten yet that day after making the rookie mistake of forgetting to pack a breakfast and having connecting flights were so close together that I couldn’t stop for food, or because my dog was at home and had been sick for a few days and now I was anxiously leaving him behind, or because I also hadn’t had time for coffee and after 12 hours of being awake the headache I had going made me sure I had a brain tumor, or because my grandma had just died and I was not well with that news just yet. I was crying because of all of it. All of that together in the span of less than a week just made this sudden hotel snafu when I was thousands of miles away from home just feel like too much.

The poor 20 year old kid who was the “supervisor on duty” just kept looking at me with a shocked and confused face and kept saying “I’m so sorry! This is the worst part of my job.”

Yeah, you and me both — kid. 🙂

I also cried again on the phone with my mom when they dropped me off at the super nasty “replacement hotel” after I found cigarette butts in the toilet and realized that the TV would have to be on all night to drown out the noise of the freeway outside my FIRST FLOOR WINDOW. But after a good pep talk I was able to get myself together enough to call the hotel supervisor back again and tell him the room wasn’t going to work and I would need to stay somewhere else. Somewhere within actual walking distance of my workplace since I did not rent a car. Somewhere where people didn’t smoke INSIDE THE HOTEL ROOMS. Somewhere that I could walk to find a place to eat dinner because ZOMG MUST EAT RIGHT NOW OR I WILL EAT YOUR ARM OFF, HOTEL SUPERVISOR BOY.

Luckily he was able to work it out.

I think he was just afraid I was going to come back to the lobby and cry again, and who knows, I just might have.

It all worked out in the end, but I came home Friday evening (the 15th anniversary of my dad’s passing) with bags under my eyes and a little more world weary than I had left and I just sleeeeeeeeeeeeept. There was a lot of sleeping this weekend and beyond unpacking my suitcase, not a lot else. WHAT A MONTH!

But the fog is lifting. And (THANKFULLY) I took this week off of work so my plan is just to get back to my life. I read a ton this last week (the upside of spending 12+ hours on planes) and flipped through a bunch of magazines, and got in touch with that tiny little creative spark inside of me that needs to be stoked regularly in order to stay lit. I have lots to say and share and write and do, so I feel like I am back. In life and in this space.

I’ve missed you all. How are ya?