How many points does a team get for a touchdown?

Confused about the difference between a punt, a kick-off and a field goal?

If you don’t know the answers to these questions, maybe it’s time for you to read through Football 101 before the next big game. You see, football is my favorite sport.  It wasn’t always this way, it’s been an acquired taste.  I used to find myself glassy eyed and staring at the TV as a blur of colors ran willy nilly across the screen.  I could actually get through an entire game without knowing the names of the two teams that had just played.  Amazing I know, but I’m betting there are others of you who have done the same thing.

One day I finally decided this was no way to watch football, so I started to pay attention and ask questions…and guess what?  It’s much more fun to watch if you actually understand whats  going on out there on the gridiron. (BTW…careful research on the internet  tells me that a football field is called a “Gridiron” because,  “In 1906,  coaches specified that football fields have vertical and horizontal lines five yards apart. This created a checkerboard pattern that resembled those in gridirons, metal racks on which meat was broiled. Thus, football fields came to be nicknamed gridirons. Although the rules were changed in 1910 to eliminate the vertical lines on the field, the nickname for a football field lives on to this day,” according to Electro Mech.)

The first, and most important, tip I can give you is to pick a team to root for. If you have someone to cheer for, the game will be much more enjoyable. There are several ways to pick a team.  You could go with the stats, or maybe rooting for the underdog is more your style.  Or perhaps the color of the teams uniforms, or my personal favorite, who has the cutest quarterback.

So here are the basics, girls…

Football teams are made up of  offense, defense, and special teams.

• Either your team’s offense or your team’s defense will be on the field at any given time, and each is made up of 11 players.  The offense of one team will be opposing the defense of the other team.
• The football field is 100 yards long with end zones at each end which are 10 yards deep.   Each end of the field belongs to one of the two teams.
• A team’s offense wants to move in the direction of the other team’s end of the field.  A team’s defense wants to keep the other team from moving towards their own end of the field.
• Special teams come onto the field during situations involving a punt, kick-off, or field goal.

The object of the football game is to score the most points, so how does this work?

• The offense (the team that has control of the ball) has 4 downs, or tries, to move the ball 10 yards towards the opponent’s end of the field.  The team can move the ball by running it or successfully passing it.
• A play continues until the player holding the ball is tackled or forced out of bounds, or a pass is ruled incomplete.
• If the offense moves the ball the 10 yards, they get another 4 tries to move the next 10 yards.  If the team does not move the ball 10 yards in 4 tries, they have to give the ball to the other team, or use the 4th down to kick the ball to the other team (also known as a punt).
• If the offense makes it with the ball into the other team’s end zone, it’s called a touchdown.
• After scoring, the team then kicks off the ball to the other team who will then get a chance to try to score.

Here’s an explanation of the scoring.

• A touchdown (crossing into the end zone whether by running it or catching a pass) is worth 6 points.
• A field goal counts for 3 points. When a team isn’t close enough to score a touchdown, it can attempt to kick the ball between the goal posts for a field goal.
• A safety is worth 2 points.   A safety is when the offense of one team gets tackled in the defense’s end zone.
• A third way to score is by completing an extra point or conversion. This is what happens after a touchdown is scored.  The scoring team can get 2 points if they can get the ball into the end zone again either by running or passing in ONE play after the touchdown.  They can score one extra point if they elect to kick the ball through the goal posts (also known as a PAT).

Other important stuff you should know

• A football game has four 15 minute quarters, for a total of 60 minutes of play time.  The actual game usually ends up lasting between 3 and 3 1/2 hours.
• There is a 12 minute halftime and 2 minute breaks between the 1st & 2nd quarters and the 3rd & 4the quarters.
• Some of the reasons a game takes so long are time-outs, stoppages of play, player injuries,  and TV commercial  breaks.
• In professional football, the regular season lasts 17 weeks, with one week off (the bye week), but then moves into the play-offs and finally ends with the Super Bowl.

Well, I hope this helps you get through the football season.  If you’re wondering about something that I didn’t cover, feel free to ask  and I’ll see if I can come up with the answer.

~Kate

Enjoy your Coffee Break!

Related articles

• Green Bay Packers: 3 NFL Rule Changes Murphy Can Suggest to Committee (bleacherreport.com)
• Joe Posnanski: Bradshaw’s Reluctant Touchdown puts to rest unusual Super Bowl (sportsillustrated.cnn.com)
• 2 NFL Football Plays I Hate (lapazhobo.wordpress.com)
• Games for football lovers on iPhone and Android (download.cnet.com)

At this very moment, it is currently 3 degrees where I live. It is beyond nippy. There’s a huge ice storm moving across the country. No school once again at Liz’s house because of the weather.

Are you feeling chilled to the bone like I am? Trying to find ways to get warm and toasty without cranking up the heater? Here are a few tips to help keep you warm without turning up the thermostat this winter.

Kate’s Tips for Staying Toasty

• Dress in layers. Try wearing an undershirt or tank top, over that a long sleeved tee, and then a cardigan over that. You’ll look great and stay warm. Also, a light scarf worn indoors will help keep you feeling cozy.

• Leave the oven open after you bake. It’ll heat up the kitchen and make the house smell delicious.

• Eat soup and other warm meals and drink warm beverages for a quick warm up.

• Open curtains and blinds during the day to let the sun in, and close curtains and blinds at night to keep out the cold. Plus, letting the sunshine in during the day does wonders for relieving winter blues.

• Switch to flannel sheets. I swear by flannel sheets in the winter.

• Don’t turn on the bathroom fan when you shower; the humidity will make the house feel warmer.

• Put on clothes as soon as they come out of the dryer. This is a trick some of my kids use during the winter months here in Utah. They just put their already dry clothes in the dryer for a few minutes to warm them up.

• Make some microwaveable rice bag heating pads. I use two at a time whenever I’m sitting down, one for my feet and one to hug for warmth.(Here’s the directions.)
  

So good luck with these stay toasty tips. And if you just can’t handle the cold any longer, you could do like me. In three days I’m headed to Disneyland, in sunny southern California. It’s supposed to be a beautiful delicious 75 degrees at the Magic Kingdom on Friday. Care to join me?

Perk #1

* Let your creativity loose on a pumpkin.  Get out a knife and get carving.  It doesn’t matter what face you choose, the act of carving a pumpkin stimulates the creative right side of your brain, which is responsible for feelings of playfulness.

Need inspiration for carving ideas?

Go to ThePumpkinFarm.com

Perk #2

Dressing up for Halloween is not just for the kids.  You can release tension by wearing a costume yourself.  Dressing up for Halloween  has been proven to help adults de-stress by letting them reveal other sides of themselves that are normally stifled.  What a great way to be a superhero or a vampire, for a day, without worrying about looking silly.

Perk #3

You can rekindle romance with a horror flick.  Watching scary movies with your loved one revs up the relationship even more than watching a romantic movie.  Getting scared together pumps up the adrenaline and triggers the same brain chemicals that are released when you first fall in love, thus renewing your passion.

dyeing your hair recharges your batteries.

In addition to making you look younger, coloring your hair makes you feel more energized. British researchers who measured how women felt before and after a dye job (even just to cover a few stray grays) discovered that 100% of the women experienced a surge in energy and confidence!

Changing your hair is the easiest way to transform yourself and replenish your zest for life, says Charla Krupp, author os How Not to Look Old.

~Woman’s World Magazine

Related articles

• Do You Dye Your Eyebrows to Match Your Hair? (bellasugar.com)
• Ask Bella: Will Dyeing My Hair Change the Texture? (bellasugar.com)

this tip for reversing winter weight gain. Soak up some sun to curb cravings.  Without enough sunlight, your body’s production of the feel-good hormone serotonin dips dramatically. That may trigger cravings for chips, cookies, ice cream and other refined carbs, which have the power to raise serotonin levels, too, but for a price: calories. But sitting in the sun (or even a brightly lit room) for at least 10 – 15 minutes a day can do the same thing.

~Woman’s World

*Leave a comment on this, or any, post and be automatically entered in this week’s giveaway.

Enter exhibit A. The coupon drawer. (You know you have one, too. Admit it. It will make you feel better.)

Oh, sure, I’ve tried those little pouches with a slot for all the dairy and all the frozen and all the meats and all the beverages. But the fact of the matter is, I still had no clue what coupons I possessed. Just because all dairy was in one slot, that cute little coupon organizer wasn’t helping my cause at all. And nine times out of 10, by the time I found that coupon that had been hiding from me, it was expired. Trust me. It’s easy to develop a hate-hate relationship with coupons.

Well, people, I’ve outdone myself on this one. I’ve come up with the B.E.S.T possible way to organize (one of the) biggest messes in my kitchen. A three-ring binder with clear business card or baseball card sheet protectors! (For those of you who’ve been utilizing this method for years, is it too much to ask you to give me a little moment in the sun, here?!?)

Time to check out my masterpiece! Can you stand it? Each little coupon gets its own spot, and is placed into a broad category:

• Produce
• Dairy
• Canned and packaged goods
• Meats
• Snacks
• Drinks
• Dairy
• Bakery
• Deli
• Cleaning products
• Personal hygiene
• Paper products
• Office supplies

This brainchild actually came from my friend Summer, so credit where credit is due. But I decided to take it to a whole new level. I’ve also inserted some full-sheet size protectors in the back to house take-out menus, and another protector to keep rebate offers, sales receipts and UPC codes.

But wait! There’s more! (This is where I wish we had a video blog here on Coffee Break…) You know those little pockets on the inside of the binder? Guess what goes in there? That’s right! Your SHOPPING LIST!

I am a genius I tell you. (Whatever. It’s Monday. Let’s just roll with it.) Total cost? $4.80 – $3.88 for the sheet protectors and .92 cents for the el-cheapo binder (find ‘em everywhere that offers a wide selection of school supplies – better yet, use an empty binder you already have on hand). Cost to regain my shopping sanity? Priceless, of course.

And while we’re on a roll, I thought I’d also give you my Coupon Commandments. Do with them as you will.

• If you see a coupon for a product you don’t like, don’t bother clipping it. Saving money on it will probably not make you like it anymore than you did before.
• If a coupon is for an item you usually don’t purchase, think long and hard before clipping and allowing it to take up space.
• Instead of clipping every coupon, refer to your new binder for coupons you already have. That way you won’t be stuck with seven coupons for bleach that all expire at the same time.
• If a coupon for toothpaste expires in a month and you just bought a case of toothpaste, chances are you aren’t going to use that coupon before it expires. So why waste time and space?
• Pay attention to out-dates on existing coupons as you clip. While you may want more than one coupon for certain products, if you can’t use more than one by the time it expires, don’t bother with it.
• If you use generic brands, and have a coupon for the name brand, make sure the coupon will actually save you more money versus buying the generic you always use.

Whew! Who can stand all this fun mixed in with a little bit of common sense? Now all I have to do is figure out how to put a cute little cover on this white binder! But that’s another post, entirely.

-Liz Follow @lizrants

how to ice proof your car windows. Expecting frost overnight? Just fill a spray bottle with three parts vinegar to one part water and spray on your car windows at night. In the morning, they should be clear of the icy mess.  How does it work? Vinegar contains acetic acid, which lowers the melting point of water – preventing water from freezing. What to do if you wake up to an already frozen car? Just spray the mixture on your window to start the melting process. This should loosen up the ice to make scrapping easier.

Here’s a handy dandy Youtube video from Howcast with de-icing tips.

Betcha didn’t know…

how to prevent your car doors from freezing shut using cooking spray.  Spray cooking spray on the rubber seals around car doors and rub it in with a paper towel, “Doors freeze when snow melts into the seals during the day, and then freezes at night,” says Robert Sinclair Jr. of AAA, The oils in the cooking spray prevent water from melting into the rubber in the first place.

Betcha didn’t know…

this trick for de-icing your frozen car door lock. Just put some hand sanitizer gel on the key and the lock to solve the problem.  Why does this work?  Because hand sanitizers contain alcohol, the main ingredient in most commercial de-icers.  Just make sure to use a hand sanitizer that’s 60% alcohol.  Sanitizers with less alcohol than that won’t work. (And guess what…with less than 60% alcohol they won’t sanitize your hands, either!)

Related articles

• Prevent Car Doors From Freezing Shut with Cooking Spray [Clever Uses] (lifehacker.com)
• Are Hand Sanitizers Better Than Washing Your Hands? (self.com)
• You: Use Hand Sanitizer as Emergency Deodorant [Clever Uses] (lifehacker.com)
• Useful Object of the Day: Hand Sanitizer (benjisimon.blogspot.com)

I suppose it’s one thing to exercise for your health (I should probably walk more), but something quite different indeed to exercise for tone and a svelte, fat-free body – especially when you’re closer to 50 than 40-years-old. Especially when you’ve never really needed to worry about it before, but one day you look in the mirror and think: “EEK! What happened here?!?!”

As I looked for ways to fix the flaws, a nightmarish exercise regime filled my mind: Pain, a five-hour-a-day work-out plan, and muscles so sore I can’t get out of bed, all the while existing on a carrot stick and grain of rice. I wonder if maybe I’d luck out on Sundays, and get to add a grape to the menu. Nah. That would be too easy. My bet is I’d be given half a blueberry.

At which point, it sounded much easier, and at least on the surface more appealing, to just give it up, turn into the frumpy middle-aged woman and call it a day with a box of bonbons nearby.

Surely, I thought, it doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing proposal. So I turned off the movie reel in my mind and did some thinking (which tends to get me into trouble at times).

As a big believer in the power of positive thinking, et al, I reminded myself that we can’t necessarily get from A to T immediately. But by reaching for a better thought, we make baby steps to the end result. I know most of you know what I’m talking about. When we feel bad about ourselves, the last thing we want to do is commit to a change that seems overwhelming at best. What we need is a kick-start. Something to help us feel just a little bit better. That little bit then becomes another little bit, and before we know it, we’re feeling much better (and, with a little luck, much more svelte).

So I thought I’d take a look into some ways to improve our appearance quickly – or at least painlessly, without having to go under the knife. Truth is, I may talk about face-lifts and tummy tucks, but I’m a big chicken. Here are a few things I found that seemed worthy to share. Let’s start with this little trick for diminishing broken capillaries and spider veins from ehow.com:

Apply homemade remedies to the affected areas. For broken capillaries apply a homemade mask onto the face. Mix 1/4 cup of rose oil or crush chamomile tea in with the facial moisturizer of your choice. Allow the facial masks to set for the night.

Diminish both with apple cider vinegar (apply it to the skin twice daily) or combine rose, palmarosa or parsley oil into a mix with virgin coconut oil. Apply it to affected areas for three to four weeks twice daily.

Sounds easy enough, I suppose. This looks to work on rosacea, too – a fairly common problem for women in the 30-60-year-old age group.

Maybe you’re more worried about a sagging neck or chin. While this one is a little tougher, with researchers claiming products containing collagen don’t work (the molecules are too big to penetrate the skin), apparently products containing cynergy TK with functional keratin work quite well. But you are gonna have to pay for it.

If you’d rather not dish out the dough, Dermaxime has some exercises to try that target various areas on the face and neck. Of course, that takes us right back to exercise, which defeats our purpose.

Next up, and you know you’ve been waiting for this one, is a home remedy for cellulite: coffee grounds. Clearly a two-for-one deal, this one may just be worth a try (no guarantees).

This topical treatment, courtesy of homeremedyweb could prove to be a cellulite buster, too:

Mix 3 parts apple cider vinegar with one part of your favorite massage oil.

Gently knead this solution onto affected skin areas twice daily.

This massage treatment will help to reduce the appearance of cellulite.

Let’s move on to a little make-up trick. While you may be tempted to cake on the foundation to cover up flaws or even out skin tone, keep in mind that less is more – at least in this situation. Heavy foundations tend to make the skin look older (in total contradiction to what we’re looking for). So go for sheer to medium-weight coverage.

In my humble opinion, if you’re looking for an immediate feeling of I-love-me, get a haircut that flatters your face – and don’t forget the color or highlights.

Who knows… It could be catalyst that sends you in search of the nearest treadmill.

-Liz

Here’s a quick and easy way to catch your second wind in two minutes. Simply rub each fingertip for about 15 seconds. That stimulates acupressure points that boost flow, which jumpstarts your energy level by sending extra oxygen to your brain.

~Woman’s World

When you are feeling tired, just take a look at something bright green. Receptors in the eye are sensitive to the color’s wave-length, stimulating the brain and relaxing the eye strain that causes tiredness.

~Woman’s World