{support}

There are 2 games left.  8 quarters are all that stands in this season we call ours. Not uniform worthy or jersey clad, but covered in the every single day of football, we live.  Absent from our other half for the 4-5 month majority, we keep the world of home locked in its best tight spiral form.

We rearrange schedules and find new ways to make time for family.  We are the late night home-game-week-stencil-coloring the Patriot on the field even though not one ounce of paint splatters our hands.  We are the Sunday afternoons alone and the long evenings-turned-nighttime dinner plates covered in aluminum foil too. Warmed over & waiting.

Life behind the pigskin is ours.  It's that black & white whistle blow for love's 5 yard gain.  And there are times when the penalties are almost unbearable to experience.  The fickle who call themselves fans show up in big ways with their pointy sharp cleats. Irrational & oftentimes so very absurd, they stomp all over the humans we sacrifice for most.  There, right there, we sit as the dirt clods fly.  Around us and right by us, the nasty and immature destroys the field we work so hard to tend.

It is in times like these that I am reminded that the football life is not for the fickle.  It's for family.  It's for the people who know the value of the collective "us".  And it is in those moments that I am thankful for the navy & red, we claim ours.  For the humans that bleed together and who will do all they can to just keep tending.  For those are the ones that know the heart of what playing is really all about.  Behind the scenes effort will always exceed blatant bad mouthing.  Always.  Dirt clods can always be replaced.

I am thankful on this day for 8 more quarters.  For the chance to cheer on the hard work of us all.  Players, parents, coaches & staff.  I am thankful for the family I have gained in the left hand rings of ladies who know all-too-well the covered dish warm & waiting in the oven.

To open all 31 gifts from this month's celebration, visit here.