Category Archives: Packers

>Random Thoughts on Super Bowl Monday

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>My excuse for Starbucks this morning went something like this: I’d sure like to get a New York Times to see their sports section, so I might as well buy one where I can get coffee.

Wouldn’t it have been fun to substitute signals in case the Pats were somehow still stealing? I suggest dropping in an occasional sign from American Sign Language saying something like, “Haha, you just wasted your time and your video. I just finger spelled my college fight song.”

How about Bill Belichek leaving the field before the Giants could take their final knee? Poor sportsmanship, cluelessness, or did he just decide “Oh, well, now I can wash that filthy sweatshirt I’ve been wearing superstitiously all season. Might as well get at it right away.”

Does anyone feel sympathy for the eldest Manning brother, Cooper, the one who no longer plays football? I kept wondering if he was in the skybox with Peyton, but the cameras were sticking with Big Brother Quarterback watching Little Brother Quarterback.

What’s it like to be Mom Manning in a household with that much testosterone? Or is she just kind of like Wisconsin women, who know football and cheer as loudly as the men?

Did anyone notice if Jessica Simpson showed up? Did she know Tony Romo wasn’t on the field? And in the same category, did anyone blame Giselle for distracting Tom Brady?

In our household, Bridgestone won the Most Creative Commercials award. Coke came a close second with its runaway (flyaway?) balloons. Gotta love it when Charlie Brown actually wins one!

La Petite had friends over to her humble apartment to watch the game. She and her roommate decorated in Green and Gold, complete with G-Force signs and Title Towels. Up until kick-off, they pretended their favorite NFC team was playing.

And last but not least, I predict the Packers and the Giants will meet again next year. They’re both too good to stay home post-season. No predictions on the outcome or the score, but you know which colors will adorn my fireplace mantle. My Christmas tree. My husband’s feet.

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>SMART goals — or, something to take my mind off of the playoffs

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>I read the BlogHer Good Health-a-thon post about New Year’s Resolution vs. SMART goals. It reminded me a lot of writing Individual Education Plans for special needs students, where we write their goals for the academic year. SMART is an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely. With those thoughts in mind, here I go.

Back pain was a major issue in 2007. The problems have been developing gradually for a few years, but the doctor finally said “No more muscle relaxants. We need to deal with the root cause of this,” in 2007. So I started physical therapy.

The short version: it worked. Or more accurately, it’s working. PT loosened up muscles I hadn’t used properly in years, revealed some bad habits that were causing more pain, and started me on a long-term stretching and strengthening regimen that can only help. Now, instead of being stiff most of the time and in excruciating pain now and then, I’m feeling sore all the time. But it is much less severe pain than I had pre-PT.

My objective: deal with the back problem to strengthen the area and lessen the pain.

Specific: Continue exercise regimen. Practice good posture, replace bending with sitting or squatting. Use lumbar pillow when at the computer or at my desk.
Measurable: Exercise daily (as possible), evaluate pain level on 1-10 scale at least once a week.
Realistic: Take anti-inflammatories when pain is worse. Ask for help with heavy or awkward details at school (this will be difficult for me). Bring small lumbar pillow to school for desk chair.
Timely: Start now. Continue at least five days a week with a goal of 7 whenever possible, and contact doctor if progress is slow.

There are a few items I need to put in place to make success more likely. I need a new, better quality heating pad. Mine is about to give up. A smaller, more usable lumbar pillow will be good, too. Maybe even a new pillow for the bed; if it helps my spinal alignment, it’ll help minimize the back pain. Pillow shopping, here I go!

Since Husband doesn’t have to travel to Phoenix after all (Sniff, Sob), at least I won’t have to shovel or run the snowblower. Darn it.

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>Ah, it’s all random

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>I’ve been tagged with another meme, this time for six random facts about me. I’ve done seven, I’ve done eight, so six sounds accessible. Melissa of Green Girl, another Wisconsin blogger, tagged me for the (gulp) revealing post.
Here are the rules:

  1. Link to the person that tagged you.
  2. Post the rules on your blog.
  3. Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
  4. Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
  5. Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.

Well, here goes. I’ve chosen a theme for this meme.

  • I’ve been watching the Weather Channel frequently to get the latest forecast for the playoff game on Sunday.
  • I’ve worn a little Packer attire each day this week. Today, I went all out and wore my loud and wild and snuggly warm football fleece, a Packer bandanna headband, and even fan-style socks.
  • Contrary to most fans, the outcome of a Packer playoff game actually affects our family directly.
  • I had a piece of Amigo’s birthday cake with my supper; it had green and gold icing flowers and pretty sugar snowflakes. We already ate the part that was decorated like a Packer helmet.
  • Serious football fan and good Wisconsinite, I’d still rather drink Diet Coke than beer with my bratwurst.
  • I actually decorated my fireplace mantel using Packer pom-pons.

If you’re thinking that I have a one track mind, you’re almost right. I’m also obsessing over first semester report cards.

Tags? Here goes —
Shash from Diary of a Crazed Mommy
Dana from The Dana Files (another Wisconsin blogger!)
MamaCheryl from Red Pens and Diapers (also from Northern Wisconsin!)
Melanie from the Refrigerator Door
Judy from Not Afraid of the F Word
Margalit from What Was I Thinking?
I am privileged to share blog space with Melanie, Judy, and Margalit at Mid-Century Modern Moms.

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>Funday Sunday…one! more! time!

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>Poor Husband. He doesn’t have to work at Lambeau Field today for the Packer game, and he doesn’t know what to do with himself.
Most Sundays, if there’s a home game, he is either working his day job for a local television station or he’s moonlighting for the visiting network that’s airing the game. This week, somehow, he’s not.
So last night we told him wow! He gets to watch the game with his family! Together! In the den!
He’s not sure it’s good.
It might have something to do with the idea that we want the Packers to keep winning. He is, at best, neutral. It relates, again, to his job. You can read the details here, but suffice it to say that the more they win, the longer the season, and the longer and more complicated his workload will be.
It might be that we are, well, vocal fans. Okay, we’re loud. Loud! We shout. We moan. We jump up and down. We have our very own touchdown dance! Sometimes the rabbit even joins in! Okay, most of the time she cowers in a corner when we get up and start bouncing. Husband cowers in a corner with her.
Maybe it feels like a wasted day. After all, he normally works a lot of Sundays. He’ll still work on the coach’s show and the other local follow-up productions later this week. If he’s just parked in front of the TV, it isn’t a good use of his time. Daughter and I, on the other hand, find watching Brett Favre a very good use of our time. We call it bonding.
Well, if he insists on staying busy, maybe we can talk him into working on taking down the tree. I’ll take down my Packer ornaments, like my mini-blimp, my crystal snowmen, and my jingle bell guy, and pack them with care. Then I’ll re-do the fireplace mantle in Title Towels and cheeseheads.
After all, ’tis the season.

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>Funday Sunday — of a different sort

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>

Well, I can’t cheer for my favorite team tonight, but I am wearing my socks.
It’s too cold to go sledding, so I baked banana bread instead.
My cold is gradually getting better, so I’m drinking lots of liquids and hanging out by the vaporizer to keep fighting.
The temperature has reached a high of (gulp) 1 degree below zero so far today. I think we’ll stay inside and huddle around the cozy blankets and the bunnies.
Everyone has cabin fever (Amigo is sitting beside me begging me to hurry up so that he can use the computer), and we’re likely to get on each other’s nerves, so I might have to bake cookies, too. Darn. Such a sacrifice.
And the truth about tonight’s Super bowl: I’ll watch the game and the commercials, but I’ll really be cheering because Favre is going to give the Packers and their fans at least one more year.
I think I’ll fill my own Lombardi “trophy” with cappuccino and join the family “huddle” in the den.

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>Go team go! But which team?

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>Regular readers know that I live and breathe Packer Green and Gold. My teenage son wears the colors with pride and knows all the NFL stadium names by memory (watch out Jeopardy), my daughter can stump her college friends (male or female) with her knowledge of the game, and Husband sometimes works Sundays to get away from the frenzy at home. What to do when the home team doesn’t make the playoffs? For whom do we cheer? How can a family like ours choose a team that doesn’t have our favorite 3-time MVP at the the helm?
Our “logic” works like this.
We could cheer for the NFC team nearest ours, the one that won the division title, even though our Packers beat the heck out of them in the final game of the season (sorry, Bear fans, I couldn’t resist).
We could choose an AFC team that boasts another talented quarterback from the south who does priceless commercials. (“D-Caf! –boom, boom– D-Caf!”) And the Colts’ coach, Tony Dungy, has gone through a lot of private suffering in a very public arena, maintaining his dignity and class the whole time.
Then there’s the “storied past” angle. Mike Holmgren, currently of the Seattle Seahawks, coached the Pack to their last Super Bowl win ten years ago, uniting the entire extended community of Green Bay in the celebration.
But what about the New Orleans Saints? They were hit hard when hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast and trashed their home dome. Haven’t they earned the respect and admiration of fans across the country with their amazing comeback?
La Petite found a solution. Click here, and NFL.com will analyze your preferences and assign you a surrogate team.
Enjoy! And trust me, fellow cheeseheads; the Pack will be Back.

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>conversations over holiday gifts

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>Cookbooks can be fun. Cooking new things is exciting, of course, but simply reading the book can be interesting, too.
While reading the brand new Good Home Cookbook:
“Did you know that Thomas Jefferson’s cousin was the first to publish a recipe for mac & cheese?”
“Cool. I’ll add it to my Trivia file.”
“Mmm. Here’s one for goulash.”
“But do they have booyah?”
“Well, not by name, but there are several good ethnic soups. Let’s plant lots of tomatoes in the spring so I can make a good minestrone. Maybe extra beans, too.”
I like this cookbook. It has basic instructions and fancy recipes and everything in between. Of course, the trivia scattered throughout guarantees that it’ll sit on my top shlf for a long time.
Reading The Favre Family Cookbook: by the Favre family was an entirely different experience. Instead of instructions for basic midwestern recipes of my family and friends, it features “three generations of Cajun and Creole cooking from the Gulf Coast.” This is not your mama’s chili; it’s Brett Favre’s mama’s gumbo, and more.
“Honey, do you think you’d like Crawfish Bread? I wonder if it would work in my breadmaker.”
“Don’t ask me to go fishing for the main ingredient.”
“Okay. Wow, this one uses three pounds of alligator meat.”
“Alligator? Where would you buy that?”
“I know where I can buy buffalo meat. Do you suppose that would work?”
This cookbook has fascinating recipes. Some I could make (Leslie’s Potato Soup), and some, no matter how delicious, I’m sure I won’t (Rotten Bayou Alligator Broiled with Lemon Butter Sauce). Between the recipes, there are great family pictures of all three generations. I could browse this one for hours.
Cookbooks are fun. The recipes are at their hearts, but the other little details are what makes them special and keeps me reading and cooking.

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>An Open Letter to Chicago Bears Fans

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>Enjoy. You’ve waited a long time for a Division Championship.
You have more in common with us than you might realize. We in Packer Country enjoy our Green and Gold through thick and thin, and we appreciate loyalty in others as well. Those who are jumping on the Bear Bandwagon just this season will not have the deep-seated joy of those who waited faithfully, wearing their blue and orange hearts on their sleeves (and their Christmas trees).
Your last Glory Years were quite a while ago. This generation of Bear Fans might only know of Mike Ditka, Jim McMahon, or Refrigerator Perry the way we Northerners remember Vince Lombardi, Ray Nitschke and Bart Starr. Now you can teach them a whole new set of names and numbers.
I’ll be cheering for the Pack tonight and wondering if this is it for Brett Favre. But no matter how it ends, with a celebratory beer and burger or drowning my sorrows the green and gold way, it’ll be a Whole New Year with a whole new set of playoff teams.
And win or lose, I’ll keep saying, “Hey, Bear fans, you’ve earned this. Enjoy it while it lasts. “
But don’t get used to it. Your South-of-the-border dynasty will only be around until Mike McCarthy rebuilds his team. Woo-hoo! Go Pack Go!

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>The Day after Christmas

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>Gradually, in baby steps, we are reclaiming the house from the chaos that is Christmas. Oodles of wrapping paper filled a big garbage bag. Tags have been recycled, bows stored for re-use. New clothes have been tried on and placed in the hampers so that they are soft for their first day of wear. Wrapping materials are making their way downstairs for storage (until Amigo’s birthday), and the extra table “wrapping station” has been taken down and stashed in its attic home. This could almost make a Clement C. Moore style verse, if I felt the urge to write it.
Husband is back at work. La Petite is sleeping, and Amigo is using his new HUGE remote control to watch TV while he waits for his new clock to “chime”. I am relaxing over a cup of Candy Cane flavored coffee, and feeling like life is good. I can catch up on reading Time Magazine’s Person of the Year issue and feel important.
Gifts? Internet folks, a list of family gifts would bore you to tears, despite the uniqueness of our family’s shopping habits, so I’ll skip the gift list in favor of highlights.
Husband did some of his shopping at the Packer Pro Shop again. That’s what happens when he’s working at Lambeau a lot just before Christmas. He has to shop where and when it’s convenient. La Petite’s GBPacker blanket throw is so soft and warm that she spent most of yesterday wrapped up in it.
Amigo gained several new fidget tools/toys. He holds and manipulates these to keep himself focused. It started with the cool little Detroit RedWing bendable player. We set the hockey stick aside so it wouldn’t get lost. This was upstaged by a CocaCola ladle with a coke bottle shape on the handle, which was replaced later by a soft vinyl reindeer bank. Fidget tools provide pleasure for all of us, whether we’re the givers or the receiver.
The most unique student gift I received was a chalkboard mug. Yes, it is what it sounds like. It came with two pieces of chalk. The mug has a unique black finish that I can draw on and then erase again. This has potential!
The bunnies? They celebrated with a bunch of organic carrots complete with greens.

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