Two Games- Two Very Different Outcomes

Oakton HS is the Northern Region Champs!! They are 2 games away from State Champs. This last week was supposed to be a tight game against the only team that gave them a run for their money during regular season play, but the score was 42-0 at half time and the final score was 52-14, not much of a competition on Saturday. As fun as it was to watch, it was frigid. It's not so much the temperature that made it so cold, the wind was bitter. I wish I could have taken a picture of myself sitting in the stands- 2 hats, long sleeve shirt, fleece, coat, boots, scarf= still freezing. What's also funny is that when I woke up on Sunday I said to Wes, "I think I've got some sort of rash or something because my face is all red and it feels kind of tight and dry." Wes' response, "you got sunburned." Sunburn was the last thing I was thinking of sitting there, heck, if I would have known I could get a tan I may have taken off the layers.
The dad sitting behind me took pity on me and asked me what I was doing sitting all alone; I told him I'm a coach's wife and all of a sudden I'm the knowledgeable footballer in the section. Yep, me chatting it up with the dads around me about stats, the last game, the next game, what colleges these kids could get recruited to. Wes would have been so proud. Oh, how far I've come in only 3 short years.
The next game of the day was a lot less thrilling (between the Cougs and the red team to the north). We can just leave it at that.
I would say though, that if we could only choose one to win- I'm glad it was the HS team.

Jury Duty

Disclaimer: Super long post that admittedly, isn't that exciting.
Ok, it's our civic duty to serve jury duty, but considering my present circumstances I wasn't all too thrilled about getting my summons in the mail. I didn't really think that it was something that you could get out of and plus, there was no where on the sheet that even gave you the option of calling someone to give your excuse, however good it might be. So I show up yesterday, kind of irritated but also a little curious. I have to walk about a mile (okay, not that far) to get to the courthouse from the parking garage, which has me preoccupied at the thought of going into labor from doing my civic duty, through the metal detectors (which, by the way, are much stronger than airport ones) and find the room, 5 minutes late. There are probably 200 people in the same room, just waiting with the same juror badge that I got in the mail. The girl at the desk tells me that they'll be in in a few minutes to tell us about the day. Well, a few minutes was an hour and 15 minutes, which is actually okay with me because I have to sit and let myself recover from the marathon I feel like I just walked. We watch an orientation video that talks about how this is no fun for anyone but it's the responsibility of a good citizen, yada, yada, yada. Then the court officer (I thought they were called bailiffs but that's not what they called themselves) comes in and reads a bunch of names and tells them what room to report to. I wasn't called. This happens 3 more times and I'm not called. By this time I've been there 2 hours and thinking that I might just get away with not doing it and leaving early, but on the last one, my name was called.
Me and about 60 other potential jurors go to the courtroom and wait some more. They call 20 of us to go sit in the juror box and on the front row for the attorneys to weed us out and get it down to 12. It's actually kind of cool at this point. Then the judge tells us that this is a 2 day criminal trial and they will break for lunch at 1 and it will start again tomorrow at 9. At this point I'm thinking about the parking garage again, out for lunch, then back tomorrow, lunch tomorrow...I'll for sure go into labor! I'm trying to get up the courage to raise my hand and tell them I can't commit to 2 days. I quickly change my mind though after seeing 2 people raise their hands to tell the judge why they couldn't do it, all in front of the tons of the people in the courtroom. The judge gives not happy looks, tells them to get over it and they have to serve; I'll just take my chances.
The two attorneys ask tons of questions about our potential biases, do we know anyone involved, could we be fair, etc. I didn't object to anything, just sat and nodded. They picked out several people and asked specific questions like their job, their family, whatever, they didn't talk to me at all.
Then they got the chance to eliminate people. I got eliminated! I didn't know whether to be excited about this because it solved my parking problem, or to be a little offended! They apparently thought I wasn't impartial. Hello, rude! I'm choosing to believe it was because the trial was about a teen charged in assault of another teen and being tried as an adult and I'm a middle school teacher?? Who knows, whatever, I'm a good citizen. We got to go home about 30 minutes later. Great. $30 in the mail for me. I have to go again next Monday; part of me wants to get chosen, it's like getting picked last for kick ball- I'm good enough!

I'm Pretty Much an Accomplished Seamstress Now

I realize that you can't really see these very well but trust me, you'd be impressed (especially because you can't see them very well).  I think that all moms should know how to sew- I, however, don't know how to sew so I thought I'd need to teach myself since my motherhood time is coming in the next few months.  My mom is an awesome sewer but somehow I didn't pick up much in my formative years so I was starting from the beginning.  I found a pattern that said "Easy Sew" and I went for it.  I knew how to read the back of the pattern (I did learned that so maybe I wasn't starting from quite the beginning) and found the right fabric and "notions" (yep, I know the lingo) and it only took me 5 hours to complete this tiny little dress.  (I know that for some of you, an "Easy Sew" would be a mere 30 minute project but I was teaching myself!)  My plan to save money now is to find a little pattern I can use over and over and just buy different fabric for our BG.  This dress was the size small but I'm pretty sure it's big enough for a 1 year old; BG will have to wait I guess.  And, the elastic on the leg holes will probably be too tight but I figure I can adjust later.  I'm behind on all this stuff, but I'll catch up.  I also realize that once I actually have a kid, I probably won't be able to sit for 5 hours straight and just sew.

Cougar vs. Cougar

I put Cosmo on there because that to me is what a cougar mascot should look like.  The other two pictures are of the Oakton Cougars' mascot.  I've been trying to get a good picture of him at almost every game because I think he is so incredibly scary.  Not the kind of, "intimidate the opponent" scary, but the, "intimidate the audience" scary.  Yikes.