SMELL THE ROSES

In the house where I grew up, New Years Day had two guarantees.  We would carefully reverse the process of taking down the Christmas tree and the entire family would watch the Rose Bowl.  My parents were both graduates of USC, who often earned  the opportunity to play in that great bowl game.  Twice before working my way to middle school we actually attended in person, though I was too little to appreciate the honor of that.  To my little eyes, it was very noisy and hard to see the football guys for adult butts and backs. =:/

The new year does not start until the Rose Bowl is played.  I find it very disconcerting to have it played on Jan. 2nd instead of the 1st.  But sometime back, they decided that the NFL would always play on Sundays...
and now whenever the 1st lands on a Sunday, the Rose Bowl is pushed over one day.  It still feels funny to watch it on the 2nd.

By now any of you who care about football know that my Ducks won the Rose Bowl!  Woot!  The teams were evenly matched, so it was a good close game.   I tip my hat to both teams for playing well with a spirit of good sportsmanship.  No shoving matches, no dirty deeds.  It was a pleasure to watch.

A couple of interesting notes.  Two years ago the Ducks lost the Rose Bowl.  One year ago the Badgers lost the Rose Bowl. So it was a contest between the last two losing Rose Bowl teams.  The Ducks have not won the Rose Bowl since 1917!  All the sweeter the victory. 

Now no more Duck games until next season.  Sigh.  Time to turn our attention elsewhere. 

The sun is shining today and for December in Oregon, it is as lovely a day as you can get.  The breeze is up, so its not warm, but it is pretty.  I may suit up and don my warm gloves to pull weeds. Most of them are dead and the ground is moist enough to let them come out without much trouble. Its an opportunity to get out into the sun shine and enjoy what I can of it.

Later today I might sit down and do a bit of carving. I have a bear to finish and a fish to begin. The man built me a laundry cabinet that he needs to spray today before it can be installed.  They have no side jobs at the moment and are still waiting on payment from the last job. A minor frustration.  The man has decided that from now on payment will have to be made up front.  This payment has been pushed back three times.  So it goes.

Meanwhile we will take time to enjoy smelling our roses... and plant seeds for things to come.