Fantasy Football FAIL

After enduring four football seasons at Dustin's side, passing the time getting lost in the depths of the internet in some endless Google conquest or or painting my toenails while he would drink beer and yell at the TV all day, I decided to finally give myself a reason to (kinda) pay attention to football. This year, I joined Dustin's Fantasy Football league.

I'm the lone girl in a league of 12, but I was lucky enough to get third pick in the draft. With the rankings (and Dustin) as my guide, I ended up with a lineup to make all of Dustin's friends jealous - Aaron Rodgers, Adrian Peterson, BenJarvus Green-Ellis, and a bunch of other guys I have a hard time remembering but who are apparently pretty bad-ass as well. Beyond my lucky picks, though, I am a complete dolt with this Fantasy Football stuff. It's a bit more involved than I had expected.

I thought once I picked my team in the draft that the "work" was over, that I was all set and would be able to just sit back and watch all my players do their victory dance for the next four months. That is, until Dustin sent me some frantic texts on the first day of Week 1 that I needed to set my lineup. My what?! I had to scramble to download the app to my prehistoric iPhone 3GS (iPhone 5 delivers in mere hours, baby!! woohoo!) and rearrange all my players to ensure the ones projected to score the most points were starting for me. 

During Week 1 I tried to diligently keep up with Adrian Peterson's health situation as his name had a big red "Q" next to it all weekend, and it still did as of Sunday morning, so I kept him on my bench. Of course I wasn't paying attention when he decided to play at the last minute, and I missed out on his incredible 20-point performance. 

But the real goof-up came tonight at the start of Week 3 starting. I had a kicker who was projected to make very few points this week so Dustin suggested I drop him and pick up a free agent. Now, I had only one kicker on my team to begin with so he was my starter by default. I went ahead and dropped him to pick up a kicker with a better projection, and I assumed that he would automatically be plunked down into the same starting spot where my castoff kicker had been. I then got distracted by the 13 other tabs I had open on Chrome (is there a Hoarders for internet surfing?) and continued browsing for window treatments and eye shadows.

Later on tonight I checked the score and noticed that I had less playtime left than my opponent, yet none of my players were in play. Hmmm.. that seems peculiar... so then I looked back at my lineup and saw a big fat NOTHING in my kicker spot!!

I scrolled down to the bottom of the page, and there he was, on my bench! And of course this kicker, Lawrence Tynes, was the only player on my team who was playing this evening instead of Sunday or Monday, so it was too late for me to move him into the starting spot - and too late for me to capture the TWENTY points that he scored (which I hear is pretty freakin' amazing for a kicker).  

I think it all boils down to the fact that the girly girl in me really just doesn't care all that much about football, so I haven't paid enough attention to really learn the Fantasy application or the minute-by-minute status of my players. The boys are starting to prey on my naivete, too - one of Dustin's best friends sent me a trade proposal tonight which I immediately forwarded to Dustin, who scoffed at the apparently ridiculous offer and sent his friend a snarky rejection text on my behalf. 

Despite my halfhearted interest in the game, I must admit it is fun to talk smack with the boys, since a lot of Fantasy Football success is determined by luck and I still have a decent chance at kicking their butts no matter how versed they are in scoring stats. And yelling at the TV is pretty fun, too!  :)

Produce Market Discovery - Dragon Fruit!

Every day since we moved into our house a few weeks ago, I've  driven by a market called Clemons Produce in our new neighborhood, but it's never open on Sunday evenings when I normally do my grocery shopping. I decided to stop in on my way home Saturday afternoon, just to see what the place was all about.

It's the cutest little market, with friendly staff and fresh, reasonably priced fruits and veggies from local farms and some other interesting snacks. What an amazing assortment of produce! I saw lots of exotic items I rarely find at the supermarket, and for much better prices. I had walked in without a basket, not really planning to do much shopping, but by the time I had walked all the aisles I was struggling to balance armfuls of assorted produce, Amish deli meats and cheeses (why has no one ever introduced me to kettle chicken before?! I can't wait to have my sandwich at work tomorrow), German spaetzle, and old-fashioned birch beer to take to the register.

As the cashier started ringing up my items, I noticed a sign that read "Cash or Checks Only." Uh oh! I only had $20 on me, and my deli items alone were going to cost me about $10. I had to sheepishly apologize and ask the cashier to cancel a couple fruits and the spaetzle, but I still managed to walk away with a couple full bags of fresh and healthy treats.

The most interesting discovery from my trip to Clemons was the curious looking dragon fruit! From the outside, it looks like some type of hot pink dinosaur egg meets alien plant - perhaps a cousin of the one from Little Shop of Horrors fame. I had tried some "dragon fruit" flavored candies before but had never seen a whole dragon fruit before. I just had to take one home, especially because it was pink!

Curious about the origin of this strange fruit (and clueless as to how to go about consuming it), I searched online for "dragon fruit" and came across the Wikipedia page for pitaya, which is the proper name. Apparently the pitaya grows on a species of cactus and is native to Mexico and South and Central America. The fruit is rich in Vitamin C and antioxidants as well as fiber. 

I followed the simple directions on Wikipedia and it easily sliced in half to reveal dalmation-esque flesh! The fruit inside is soft and white, with tons of tiny black seeds. The inside resembles a kiwi, but not green, and with lots more seeds.

I was able to effortlessly scoop the fruit out of each half and slice into cubes.

Then I returned the pieces to the little fuchsia "bowls" from which they came, and here I had a beautiful and nutritious dessert for two! The flavor is mildly sweet, like a melon, and the texture is just like that of a kiwi. 

What a funky fruit! I just love black and white polka dots, and combined with pink it's a winning style combo any day - I find it fascinating that this strikingly fashionable food occurs in nature! This would be wonderful to serve to company - it provides a gorgeous presentation all on its own and would make for an interesting conversation starter.

Proud (and exhausted) homeowners x2!!

This post is looooong overdue, but the last few weeks have been insanely hectic. I've been dragging my feet about writing this post because I'm just so freakin' tired all the time. August was a crazy but productive month. We closed on our second property, found tenants to lease our condo, moved out and cleaned up the condo in a whirlwind of a weekend, and moved (or at least dropped all our stuff in boxes all over the place) into our new home!

We are now officially landlords and legit real estate investors!

After many months stalking the MLS and even making a few offers sight-unseen, we finally achieved our goal to buy another piece of real estate. We are trying to buy at least one per year - let's see if we can keep it up!

I hesitated to mention this home purchase until after closing because you never know when a deal might fall through at the last second. This actually happened to us a few months ago, but it ended up working out to our benefit.  We were fully approved and a week away from closing on a cute downtown bungalow when the termite inspector literally told us "Don't buy this house." He looked at us like the house was about to fall down. We immediately backed out and lost some money from the inspections and appraisal. Disappointed and desperate to buy something, I was then on the home-buying rebound, ready to pounce on any listing I could afford. Luckily I had Dustin around to veto my interest in any less-than-stellar deals.

Finally in July we found a helluva deal on a 3/2 in the cozy Conway neighborhood, just south of downtown Orlando. Because we had already completed the underwriting process for the termite-infested house, we were fully approved (versus the typical pre-approved) for our mortgage, which made our offer on the house a slam dunk - much more attractive to the seller because we can close quickly.

It's a bank-owned home, so we were able to purchase it well below the price per square foot of other recent comparable sales in the area. The house is a solid 1960s home with real, original wood floors and updates to the rest of the interior (except a tacky green and yellow guest bathroom that does not deserve to be pictured). It's in a quiet, well-maintained area within the desirable Boone High School district... no, we are not planning on staying in this house THAT long - we just know that a house in a great school district will be an attractive rental or resale when we're ready to move out!

Here are some pics of the house:

Cute front porch

Huge living room

Updated but basic kitchen

Hey, pretty little house! You're mine!

Nice yard with lots of shade

Tiny master bathroom, but we'll make it work :(

TACKY guest bathroom - was the original owner an old Packers fan?!

It's 1,500 square feet, not including the huge laundry room, and has a carport and spacious backyard. After cramming into 1-bedroom condos for the last few years, we don't know what to do with all this space!

The house is in excellent condition overall, but it does need some work. We are anxiously awaiting our new windows (which are super expensive, BTW! waaah) so that we can finally close all of them properly and not run up the utility bill as our A/C works overtime during the hottest time of the year. Other than that we need some minor repairs here and there, and to give that hideous bathroom a modern makeover.

Oh, and we must keep lurking on Craigslist for furniture to fill all this empty space, since we spent all our cash on closing costs and windows!

I'll keep posting on the progress with the house and hope to be sharing some wedding plans soon... I promise to keep up on the blog more now that we're somewhat settled and finally have internet!