Let's move past our New Year's Resolutions...and watch some football.

I come from a very athletic family. Sadly, the athletic gene sort of skipped me: I played volleyball in high school, and dabbled in golf a little (mostly for the beer, though), but was never really super-athletic like my cousins.

Still, though, I have a sincere love of all sports. I love to watch basketball, football, baseball. I scream at the TV, jump up and down, whip a towel...just as if I were there. Co-workers comment often that Illini basketball games are more fun to watch with me. I love the attributes that people gain from sports: health, friendship, competition, sportsmanship, working as part of a team, etc. I probably should have went into Physical Education or something.

Nevertheless, I can always find a way to collide my passions into one:

Exhibit A: The football helmet:

We may be a little town, but in the fall, our little town goes big football crazy. My cousin Clay plays, and I made them these, which match the team's helmet, to celebrate his first home game of the year.

He got some footballs to go with them:

So after these, I am ready for the NFL. Except that I would have to pay $100,000 licensing fee. Then a royalty. Uhhhh...a little out of my price range.

One more note on these cutout cookies: I moved an amazing volume of cutout cookies over the holidays...all thanks to my Mom and Dad. We discovered they have a knack for rolling and cutting out cookies. I would give them a list, 3 batches of cookie dough and the cutters, they would have a little assembly line going...Dad was the roller/cutter, Mom was the baker/cooler. They would go through the 3 lbs of cookie dough in like an hour. They loved it, and were always like, "OK, we're done! Give us more!" Thanks, Mom and Dad...there's no way I would have survived the Christmas Cookie Extravaganzas this year without you guys.

Maybe we can do that kind of volume around the Super Bowl (if I can find 100K for the fees!)