Game Day Necessities

Being from the South, I'm sure most of you are no strangers to the past time of tailgating. But in the SEC, especially in Athens, we take it to a whole new level. Saturday mornings, you wake up to a sea of red and black in the classic city. Motor homes next to tents with generators powering TVs to watch football all day long. Tables filled with a wide spread of game day goods: hamburgers, hotdogs, chips, dips, cookies, the works. 

Although I am not a proud owner of a generator or even a game day tent to pitch. Fortunately, I have friends that have a lot of the basics so all I need to bring are a few things this Saturday....

Cups for holding the necessities, like mimosas

A koozie, for obvious reasons

 Pepperoni Pizza Puffs; the easy to make hit I made a few weeks ago to watch the kick off game of the season!

 Puppy Chow; who doesn't love a handful (or 8) of puppy chow?! YUM.

And of course a Georgia cooler to tote all of these goodies across campus to the Myer's Quad!

I cannot wait to be in the Classic City, sipping on mimosas, snacking on treats, and with friends decked out in our red and black! 

UT Football Game Flashbacks

I promise, blogging world, I am still alive and present! I've just been super duper busy. Pretty much if I'm not in class or working, I'm in the car on the way to either of those destinations or slaving away writing papers, reading for classes, or taking quizzes. I don't think I've been this busy is a long, long time! I love it, but I have to be super intentional about making free time. And speaking of free time--this Saturday I took off work so I can go to the Georgia-Tennessee game in Athens!! Woop woop! A bunch of girls from my pledge class with be there so that's a definite reason to wake up early and head to the Classic City.

The UGA vs. UT game has been hands down my most attended home and away game in comparison to any other team that we've played. The only years I've missed since starting UGA in 2005 was Freshman year (2005, away) and this past fall (2011, home).

2006, Sophomore Year-Home: Loss

This was one of our first big losses of that season. It was a night game (read: long day of tailgating) and Sloan got mad at me for being "that girl" that was crying in the stands at the end of the game.  

 

2007, Junior Year-Away: Loss
Okay, so far my streak for good luck at UT games is not so good...but Elizabeth Cox had some tickets to the game in Knoxville. I don't think I have ever been more ready to not hear Rocky Top ever again.

 

2008, Senior Year-Home: Win!
This game doesn't stick out to me too much out of Senior year but regardless, it was fun because it was a football game in Athens...what's not to love about that?

 

2009, Away: Loss
During my random employment/unemployment after I finished camp when I first moved to Chattanooga, I made a trip up to Knoxville to see some camp friends and it happened to be for the UGA-UT game! I had to brave the UT student section, but I guess for the sake I of my safety, we lost...

 

2010, Home: Win!
Yet another game I got to go to as an alumna and I loved it even more because we won! So fun to be back in Athens with some of my favorites yet again :)

 

With all of that said, I am so excited to be back in Athens, taking a break from work and school work, cheering on my #5 ranked Bulldogs between the hedges against UT (who surprisingly has a decent team this year). Gooooooooo Dawgs! Sic'em!

A Day of Pre-Wedding Festivities

This past weekend was a blast! Friday was filled with school work, laundry, and work. In other words, nothing exciting. Saturday was a day I had been most looking forward to for a while now: Mary's wedding shower and Bachelorette party!

Saturday morning we had delicious food (seriously, so yum!), mimosas, toilet paper bridal wear, an present opening. So fun to celebrate Mary's upcoming vows with lots of cookware (Mary loves cooking) and some other fun, very "Mary and Dan"-esque gifts!

We had a little break in the afternoon (just long enough for me to watch some football, do more schoolwork, and start getting ready) before convening back at the Higgins house for the Bachelorette Party!!

Lou Jane, Mary's sister and the Maid of Honor, planned everything to a T. Seriously, flawless. Oh, and she's 17. Go Lou! And every stop was a complete surprise to Mary which made it even more fun! We had a limo pick us up so we didn't have to worry about DD's, taxis, or parking. Genius. The limo ride was probably a highlight of the evening. We had some Pinterest snacks, champagne, and lots of girly music blasting the whole ride!

We had dinner at a great Mediterranean restaurant in Atlanta called Divan. We ordered a ton of appetizers, main dishes, and hookah to share. It was so fun to have a room just to ourselves and enjoy each other's company! I even tried some lamb--and loved it! 

After dinner, it was off to Loca Luna for some Latin dancing. My dancing was more just pitter-pattering my feet and moving my hips a lot, but I got by just fine! haha The most important thing was that this was right up Mary's alley and she loved, LOVED it!

We headed home for the after party in Mary's awesome basement. Mary's mom and aunt had decorated and even thrown some pizzas in the oven with some other treats for us to snack on. We stayed up way too late, but nights like this are few and far between so the limited hours of sleep is well worth it.

 After a mediocre night of sleep on a pull out couch, (I saw mediocre because Mary is officially a violent bed hog. And we love her anyways.) we gorged ourselves on doughnuts, bagels, bacon, eggs, OJ, and coffee (well, diet coke for me).

I can't believe how soon Mary and Dan's wedding is since we've been planning, talking, and waiting for this day since March of 2012!! Just over a month until the big day and I am so glad that we got to celebrate Mary's last month of singleness with so many great friends!

9/11/12--11 Years Later

This will be a short post, but I just wanted to acknowledge 11 years later and the aftermath that followed all of the lives lost in the planes and buildings, firefighters, police, and citizens that risked their lives to search for survivors, and family members that are left with the heartache. I wrote a post last year about where I was when the towers were hit, I know the details of that day will be something that I will never forget. I will never forget and each year that passes, my heart still aches with those memories.

Pepperoni Pizza Puffs

Sloan invited some friends over to watch the game on Saturday night and I was excited for a chance to try out another Pinterest recipe. After scouring my "Celebrate Good Times" board (cheesy, I know)  that consists of party planning ideas, tailgate snacks, etc., I finally settled on Pepperoni Pizza Puffs. 

The Ingredients: The only changes I made were that I used 1% milk instead of whole milk and used paprika instead crushed red pepper flakes...you gotta make do with what you've got sometimes. 

 The Dry Ingredients

 I was skeptical at this point that it would make enough for 24 little muffin tins filled with stuff

 Not that appetizing looking at this point, but I was more hopeful it'd made enough

Success #1! It filled them up...now the next test, how will they turn out?

Success #2! They turned out perfectly! (I tend to overcook things so I was pretty proud of myself on this one)

They were delicious. Not a single one was left at the end of the night and I will definitely be making them again! Tailgate food touchdown!!

A Day in the Life...

My day's are crazy. And no two days ever seem to be the same. But the days that I have work and school look a little like this; sometimes in a completely different order or starting earlier, but here's the gist more or less to give you an idea. (Sorry for the blurry pictures, they were all from my phone and a little "action" shot-esque)

8:30 AM Alarm goes off

8:40 AM Work out

today it happened to be a little walk/run

other days it's stationary bike (which includes reading for school while doing so)

 

9:45 AM Cool off/Breakfast/Catch up on emails, Twitter, Blogs, etc.

Every day, it's Multi Grain Cheerios, I never get tired of them!

10:00 AM Shower

10:20 AM Get ready

Usually I try to pick out my outfits for work the night before so I don't have a wardrobe meltdown

 

11:00 AM Pack my snack, lunch, and more snacks for the rest of the day

11:20 AM Leave for work

Snack on the way to Perimeter

12:00 PM-4:00 PM

Anthropologie

4:00 PM Off to class!

4:15 PM Snack/Dinner while driving to class

5:30 PM Class

8:00 PM Drop off Taylor Ann

8:10 PM Head back to Marietta

Catch up on phone calls or time to myself while on the road

9:20 PM Unpack the mess that has become my car

9:30 PM Snack/Catch up with mom/Catch up on Twitter, Blogs, emails, etc.

OR I write a blog post for the next day or two 

10:00 PM Read for school/Do whatever school work I have to do for the next day

11:30-12:00 PM (depending on what I'm doing) Get ready for bed

12:00 PM Read for fun (Right now, it's On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness by Andrew Peterson)

12:30 PM Lights out! Phew.

Long story short, I live in my car! It's not that crazy every day, but the 2-3 days a week I have both class and school, that's about it. 

It's the MOST Wonderful Time of the Year!

 That's right!!! It's FOOTBALL SEASON! In honor of the kickoff of football season this past weekend, I'm going to relive some memories of football seasons past.

Freshman Year: 

I had next to no clue what I was doing when it came to football, tailgating, or even where to sit, which entrance to take to get into the stadium or how early to get there for pregame. Clueless, but still some great memories. 

Sophomore Year:

This year, I had it down. Well, at least better than my freshman year. Living in the house, it was fun to get ready together, tailgate together, and sit at the games together. I had added to my wardrobe of red and black and felt better prepared for the long days of tailgating and getting sunburned before kickoff. Okay, that's a lie...every year, I always seem to get an awkward sunburn complete with necklace lines on my chest and a circle of white on my cheek where my "G" was. Older, but not wiser necessarily.

Another bonus of this year, I got went to Georgia/Florida the only time I made it out of my 4 collegiate years. Too many memories to list from that long weekend...even if we lost. 

Junior Year:

Another year in the house, another year of great tailgating with sisters. Kathleen's parents tailgate was a regular post-game stop for us. Highlight of this year was definitely the Auburn blackout game. A night game, with a stadium full of black-clad Bulldog fans was incredible...added to the fact that we won! But the chills I felt when the team ran out of the tunnel after pre-game warm ups in their black jerseys: chills. A feeling I will always remember. 

Senior Year:

This year marked a lot of lasts, which meant a lot of being sentimental. It's the seniors' job in the sorority to host the tailgate but I almost enjoyed it more that way. Our pledge class got to spend a lot of time together, even if it meant waking up early to secure a good parking spot or packing up a tent following a late game. I think this whole senior year season was my favorite year, not because the team did so incredibly well (note the sarcasm), but because of the friendships. Most memorable game, in my mind, was the Georgia/Georgia Tech game....not necessarily good memorable though! My last game as a Georgia undergrad and it rains/is freezing. And we lost, terribly. More bitter than sweet, but we survived just barely with only a small bout of pneumonia. (Okay that's an exaggeration, but either way it was rough.)

2009, First Alum Season:
I've only been able to make it to one game per season in Athens since graduating (I'm hoping this year will be the year that changes...), but when I've gone I've made it count. I've finagled my schedule so I can make it to Athens when the most of my friends are there. We always have fun and it's so great to get to relive a weekend in college every once and a while. 

I actually made it to the UT vs. UGA game that year too since I had so many UT friends in Knoxville. I tried to "blend in" as much as possible though considering I had to sit in the Tennessee Student section. But I was especially excited because the Alpha Gam Seniors made the trek up to Knoxville so I got to crash with them for a bit! 

(Can we talk about how long my hair was?!)

2010, Post Grad, Year #2
I got lucky because Jessica Schwartz went to grad school at Georgia, so that guaranteed that I had a couple of extra seasons of housing for the weekend/a buddy to sit with at games. I loved getting to spend the whole weekend in Athens with a good friend, but I remember this year I started to realize how exhausting football game days really can be!

2011, Post Grad, Year #3
Just last year, we had an Alpha Gam Alumni Tailgate for the South Carolina game and it was so much fun! I was really impressed with the turnout from a handful of pledge classes, Fall '05 in particular! I'm hoping this can be a semi-annual event because I had a blast! 

Just looking through these pictures has gotten me all pumped up to go to a game! Anyone have tickets or housing they want to offer up? I'm kidding....but not really. I just need to be intentional to clear a weekend that I can go enjoy the game in the Classic City. But if nothing else, I will be cheering on my Dawgs watching TV, listening over the radio (RIP Larry Munson), and checking updates on my phone. Life gets busy post-grad and you do what you have to do for the sake of football down south. 

*So proud of my Dawgs from this past Saturday--Todd Gurley, keep it up! Defense, step it up!