It’s that time of year again!

I love, love, love the middle of August. There are so many reasons to love the middle of August; The kids are a week or so away from going back to school. No Pesky gift buying holidays around the corner. BBQ’s a plenty because the end of summer is nearing.

Those are just icing on the top of the cake for this girl.

It’s almost football season. Pre-season starts in two days. Can you see the goosebumps?

The Fonz & my dad raised me around a lot of stuff that wouldn’t fall in the category of ‘cute’. Football, guns, BMX raising and flannel.
It wasn’t easy trying to fit in. When most girls were reading Teen Bob, I was reading Gun’s and Ammo. Old Navy fleece was replaced with Dad’s double lined flannel shirt. On the weekends you could find my friends at the mall. I was in front of the TV watching football with my family.

Neighbors and friends would come over with beer and hangout for hours. My aunt would call and yell, “DID YOU SEE TERRY BRADSHAW? DID YOU JUST SEE THAT PASS?” and then she would make some ‘neener neener’ sounds. It was the Pittsburgh Steelers against the Oakland Raiders IN THE SNOW games that made my house louder than any house in the whole town. If you weren’t a Raider fan, you were the next logical choice….The Steelers.

Growing up having WAY too much knowledge of football formations and a smack talking mouth didn’t make my dating life easier. You would think I would be a guys dream girl.
Not the case.
I based every guy I dated on how much football knowledge they had…and who their favorite team was. I had a strict rule: No dating 49er Fans & they must be able to tell me who won the Superbowl the year before. You wouldn’t believe how much that narrowed the field here in California.
The more I dated, the more I realized I needed to add a few more rule: No dating Bronco fans. I thought a Raider fan was bad, but the Bronco fan is far more obnoxious. I think they had to talk more smack to make up for the lack of talent. (Oh shit, here it comes….the inner football smack talker. Please forgive me…it happens and I have no control over it)

Shaun came into my life when my football world was being turned upside down. The Raiders were on year two of kicking ass and they were one game away from going to the Superbowl.
When people asked about this guy I had started seeing they would ask what we talked about.
“Football.”
“You mean your phone was busy for 4 hours last night and all you talked about was football?”
“Yeah. We talked about Raider defense. Howard Cossell and Al Davis. He was telling me about if the Raiders signed this new guy that we could change our whole…”
“STOP. Kristine, you mean to tell me that you talked about nothing but football? Do you know anything about this guy? What type of person is he?”
“He’s a fucking football encyclopedia!”

For the last two years I haven’t had to stress about football. I was certain that the football world come crashing if I didn’t have preseason stats.
SHAUN KNOWS THIS. I can just sit back and relax and just enjoy the game now and ask him things like, “What college was he from? What team did he play on last year? Oh, he’s cute…what’s his name?”
He’s also taught me things I didn’t understand about the ‘timing’ of football and why they run certain plays at certain times.
I want to lick him so no one else comes in and steals my little football treasure.

Now it’s right around the corner again and for the first time in the last couple of years I am more interested in checking stats and ‘gearing up’ for the games.

It’s the middle of August that I get ready for Pigskin Pick’em & ESPN Football becomes my homepage.