Month: March 2010

The 2010 Chili Champ!

To my great surprise and pleasure, I wound up winning tonight’s Chili Cookoff. (See photo of trophy below.) There were 5 chilis in the running. They were all tasty (as usual – we haven’t had a lousy one yet in the years I’ve been coming). But in the end, mine got the most votes! Go me! I think Gary was a little miffed that I beat him. (It’s one thing, he said, to be beaten by someone his own age, but to be beaten by a younger person…) It helps that Moe didn’t have her 6-time winning recipe there. (Apparently she agreed not to enter the contest if Gary did a long-term sub for her husband earlier this year. Heh.)

Still, to put me and Moe in our places, we played 2 games of pool against Gary and Garry and lost both of them. Then Michael and Moe tried against the two Gar(r)y’s and lost as well.

We all had a lovely time at Gary & Marcia’s and I am stuffed to the gills with not only excellent chili, but also fabulous desserts. Mmmmmm!

Winter Lashes Out

Had I known mom had to work yesterday, I wouldn’t have been as surprised when we got the call that school was closed. Just about every time she worked in February, we wound up having bad weather & closed school. I really need to talk with her about what “retired” means. 🙂

So we’ve already filled up all of our days before May 7, which is our last day or bust. I’m guessing we’ll be going in on a Saturday in a couple of weeks. But that’s not an official word from the superintendent, just me speculating.

It was an interesting morning, weather-wise. It had rained all afternoon and evening on Thursday, then the temperature dropped into the upper 20s F. And then the rain turned to snow. There was a substantial layer of ice all over the roads and sidewalks with a light dusting on snow when I got up. We were called around 5:30am that we had a 2-hour delay, so I got up an hour later than normal. But then while I was finishing breakfast, we got a second call. And I’m glad we did – those roads looked nasty. (Mom says the drive into work was not pleasant.)

I enjoyed my day yesterday and spent a good deal of it being geeky and fixing up my album art in my MP3 collection. I also added a large number of CDs to the collection – my early Bernice Summerfield stories (seasons 1-4), the Excelis quadrilogy (I had forgotten about that!), and the Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III audios as read by David Tennant. (Bought the CDs a couple of weeks ago, but hadn’t ripped ’em yet.)

So now I’ve got nearly 60GB of MP3s in my collection. And that’s still not all of the CDs that I own. But many of my Big Fish CDs won’t be ripped. All of McCoy are, of course. Docs 5&6 have a few. The only Doc8 audios I have as MP3 are Zagreus and the first ep of Company of Friends (which I bought on its own for 99cents cuz it’s the only ep with Bernice in it.) I love that Big Fish now offer the Doctor Who audios as MP3s for about half the cost of CDs. Wish they’d do the same with the Benny audios!

In just a few minutes I’ll be heading off to a Chili Cookoff party. I’ve got a pot of chili cooking right now. The Chili Cookoff is always a hoot. The parental units will be picking me up (and presumably dropping me off after the party) soon. So I guess I’d best put on my best party t-shirt!

This has been a good March!

Happy First Day of Spring! May your daylight equal your night time today!

I tried to tell the seniors that after the holidays, time was gonna FLY. They didn’t believe me then, but I think they are beginning to. March is just zipping by. Though the days may seem normal (or even slow) you quickly realize how fast the months themselves are flying.

So here we are just past mid-March and things have been especially good to the Short household.

Last Thursday, as I reported here, I turned in my Thesis. (Thanks to all you well-wishers! Being done has lifted a huge weight off my shoulders!) My adviser has reviewed it and pronounced it “overall in good shape.” After this weekend, I’ll make the changes which he suggested and get a better discussion section (most of what I’d put in Discussion should have gone in the Findings, apparently).

On Monday, mom and dad closed on their old home. Yay, they sold it! And on Wednesday, they closed on their new house. And then on Thursday, Amy drove into town!

I’m currently at the parentals’ house with Amy. I took yesterday off work in order to hang with the family. (She’s worth getting a sub for.) We’ve been having mucho fun. 🙂

Thursday, I got off work, did a bit more cleaning in my house (litter box, for example), then headed to Troy. Amy’s car (well, really Rachel’s car) was parked outside the house. Yay! Amy & Jason were there (she picked up Jason in Chicago and they drove down together). We took a walk around the neighborhood, then had supper. And then spent the evening playing games – Rummikub and Banagrams. Amy and Jason kicked butt.

Friday morning, Jason headed up to Shelby County to visit with his folks (in my car) and we headed to my house so Amy could look over the stuff she’ll be taking back with her. She sorted through her stuffed toys and we got 2 bags of stuffed toys to give to Good Will (and added a box of similar toys from my closet). Then we headed to Kent’s Wood Fired Steaks for lunch.

I’d told the folks last weekend that we needed to celebrate our recent successes and I wanted to take us all out for dinner. And we decided to wait til Amy was with us. So yesterday’s lunch was my treat. We all ordered steaks and an alcoholic beverage and the meal, as always, was lovely. Amy asked if she could contribute the tip, which I agreed to.

We popped into Kohl’s for a bit of shopping – Amy got gym shoes, I got travel PJs, and mom bought some outfits for our upcoming cruise (oh yea, we organized one of those this week too…) Then we dropped the stuffed critters at Good Will and headed home.

Amy filmed some old family photos with mom describing the people in the photos. And we discovered mom’s great at remembering uncles’ names, but aunts who married into the family, not so much. (I was just glad mom & dad had few siblings and thus Amy and I don’t have as many relatives to remember as they did.) We also went on another walk and this time got a couple of movies to watch from a Red Box in the Kroger’s behind their house.

Back at home, we watched Inglourious Basterds, which was a bizarre but entertaining (albeit icky at times) movie. Then we started Duplicity, but as people started to pass out due to exhaustion (or, rather, fall asleep), we decided to stop the movie and continue in the morning (or as it will turn out, afternoon, probably).

Today we’re off to Piqua for a little more shopping, then tonight we’ve invited mom’s brothers around for supper. Looks like neither may make it, but my cousin Patty ought to be able to. Tomorrow will be another game day with Aunt Becky and Deanna coming to play games, with Jason returning as well.

We know how to have fun in this family!

It’s off!

I have just e-mailed my Thesis draft to my adviser. Here’s hoping I did what I was supposed to do! I actually feel pretty good about the paper (except for the conclusion paragraph – I suck at those). Hope my prof agrees wit me (and more than just on the sucking conclusion).

Time to back it all up!

I know you are all curious…

The Thesis is WRITTEN!

Still need to finish editing, but I’m pretty sure it’s written in its entirety (with maybe a sentence or two in the conclusion if I think it needs ’em).

Tomorrow, I finish editing and then I turn the sucker in!

WHEW!