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Blake Neuhauser

@blakepaintsminiatures

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Miniature painter and occasional crafter of other things!

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❌ore Than A Ga❌e.

Rivalry week is back. Sorry IU, your time will come, but we’ve got a little unfinished business with a certain team first.

I could sit here and toss around trash talk all day. It’s fun. It’s chaotic. It’s basically a second language in November. But every time I ask myself why we get so worked up about sports, it circles back to something a lot bigger.

No matter who you root for, there’s usually a reason your fandom even started. Maybe it’s where you grew up. Maybe it’s where you went to school. For me, as much as I love BG, they’ll never be my first love. That spot was taken a long time ago.

My dad raised me a Buckeye. Once I was old enough to squeeze into a stadium seat, we tried to make it to at least one game a year. Those trips became some of my favorite memories. And on the weekends we couldn’t make it in person, we were still huddled together watching the game like it was a family holiday.

All of that stacks up over time. The laughter. The nerves. The moments you remember way longer than the final score.

So yeah, of course it’s more than a game. It’s a thread that ties together some of the best parts of my life. I catch myself making it all about the wins and losses, especially when your team has basically lived in powerhouse mode your entire adulthood. Winning is fun. Obviously.

But win or lose, this team is the anchor to so many memories I’ll always hold close. And I can’t wait to keep adding more for the rest of my life.

#gobucks #rivalryweek

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October 31, 2015. Ten years ago today I spent my first night in this house. No Internet. Almost no furniture. Just a bunch of leftover college things and the feeling of stepping into my very first place on my own.

A little while later my best friend Blake moved in. We were fresh into our careers and figuring out life together under the same roof. I will always cherish those nights of dreaming big, failing upward, and laughing hard. Blake eventually met the amazing woman who would become his wife, and started his next chapter.

I lived solo again for a bit until my close friend Chappy moved in. We had also been connected since high school and he was the kind of friend who always had your back. We definitely had far too many late night pizza orders, and he basically worked as live in tech support helping me with every web and tech need I came up with.

And eventually, this place opened its doors to the best chapter yet. In 2022, after Madie and I got married, she moved in. My bachelor pad instantly began to feel like a home. There is something so meaningful about walking through the same rooms but suddenly seeing a future instead of just a present. Sharing this space with my wife has grown my heart in ways I could never have imagined back in 2015.

The walls here have had friendships that shaped me, dreams that built me, and now a marriage that inspires everything ahead. Even as things feel a little more crowded these days while Madie finishes her doctorate and we begin to imagine what our next home might look like, I am overwhelmed with gratitude. Gratitude for this house. Gratitude for this city of Fort Wayne. Gratitude for the memories and the people who made these years unforgettable.

I never thought I would still be here ten years later, but this house has been the launchpad for the life I have always hoped for. I will always cherish what it has given me. And I cannot wait to see where Madie, Sally, and I go from here.

PS, please enjoy Sally in a hot dog costume. Honestly that is what’s most important here.

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