Minikin's Journal

I've been loading up on webpages and dragging my computer with me when I leave the house lately, too busy to read at home.

Flar's still in Brazil. I've driven Tigger to school every day except this morning, when Critter drove, so I could sleep another 1.5 hours. I worked last night, and took Flar's car to the dealer this morning. Icky poo expensive brake work. But they drove me home in a Quattro, so I've worked on laundry today.

Yesterday, I cleaned the kitchen, including washing the hand-wash, starting the chili-meat, and making a chowder. I also met with Amber about admin stuff, went to a KQJr beach party and info meeting, and attended Celebration. I think I was home for a total of four hours yesterday.

Now it's time to get to the bank, pay for Flar's car, and drive to school. Car-line, then Tutoring Club, then an hour or so at home, before I get Critter to drive me to the dealership, and I drive to Synergy group (and possibly work, haven't heard yet) in Flar's car.

Two hours offline at Tutoring Club. I should have time to catch up on reading, enter bills, queue on online tasks and *maybe* start another transcription.

I just found out that I'm not writing the text that will be translated in subtitles. I'm working the text that will be translated into a script for dubbing. And they thing they've found a voice that sounds like Pete. Cool!

This does not count as script-writing. I am not a scab. This does not count as script-writing.

.. should tidily fill the next 35 minutes before it's time to pick up Tigger at Tutoring Club.

I took Flar's car to the dealer today, to get brake work done. I am *not* looking forward to his reaction to the bill. He threw numbers at me when he asked me to do it, with a nod toward doing some price comparisons. I have either been (a) too lethargic to stay awake or (b) too busy to make phone calls, and ducked the price comparisons. iiieeee, take this task from me. The number he threw me? One pair of pads. No labor. Turns out, his car needed new rotors in front; needed new pads in front and back. Labor per pair; rotor cost; pre-ordering the replacement cupholder. Ick poo. I really don't know if there's going to be heat about putting this total on the company card. But hey, he didn't tell me *not* to get the work done. I'm just second-guessing myself on this, and really wishing I'd have said "eek, no thank you, I need to make him handle it."

Enough of that nervousness. Peace is one of the attributes of the Fruit of the Holy Spirit. I need an extra helping about now, Lord.

On the bright side, I did finally get out of the lethargy. Tigger is now my personal trainer, and we are up to about 30 minutes of the easiest games on Wii Sports. I'm better at bowling than golf. Future Wii adventures will probably be shorter posts with my Mii as an icon. Yesterday, I cleaned up the kitchen, did the dishes, started the chili, and made a homemade chowder. Tigger ran a load of sweaters, and I moved them into the dryer.

Today, I hung out a bunch of clothes, folded some others, and started two loads of laundry. And caught up on tons of reading. And managed 7 hours of sleep after working last night, before driving over to the Audi dealer.

It's been years (2002, I think) since I made crockpot chili. Step one: break down the chuck roast. Slow cook with onions and garlic for a few days, then refrigerate to facilitate skimming off fat. Step two: add the tomatoes and chilis and cook them down to the right consistency. I love the way things just fall apart in the crockpot. I bought some huge sweet peppers, and I'm debating whether to seed and chop them, or cook them whole. I'm worried they'll break up too much to retrieve, and personally I don't like chili seeds in my chili. Even from sweet peppers. Generally, I add the chili powder and cumin and cinnamon and chocolate in the last stages. The open-crock stage, when I'm cooking out some of the liquid. I grew up on thick chili - although we never went to the trouble of using solid meat to start it; Mom used ground beef, and it generally took 30 minutes to put together and only got to simmer for an hour.

This particular batch is for the chili cook-off at the Mat, which is scheduled for Feb. 8. I still had all the freshly-purchased ingrediments on the counter when I started cleaning the kitchen (no, not the meat -- I don't age my meat at room temperature ;), so I got the bright idea of grouping it all "artistically" and taking a picture. I'm going to use this for a sort of Ingredients label at the cook-off, although I forget to include the roasted garlic in the picture. I may add it in before I make up the card. Once I'm finished with it, and happy with it, I'll probably post the adventure over on what_a_crock.

I loves me some soup on cold winter days - almost as much as soft, over-sized sweaters - so it tickles me no end to have two crockpots in the house. I can slow-cook the chili over the course of the next couple of weeks, but still have a crock available for making soups every few nights.

Last night, we had a meeting for Kids Quest Junior volunteers, to learn about official policies and such. I only recently gave Christina my Yes to being a regular member of the team, rather than a frequent overflow-needs filler. Last Sunday was the first time I really started internalizing this, and seeing these kids as "my kids" and realizing how much I'd come to know them and love them already. They're going to modify computer check-in to include workers as well what we already using it for, to check in parents and kids. I asked if Critter will get a "parent" sticker to be able to come back to pick me up after service. ;)

Yesterday morning, I met with Amber, and I'm really excited about getting to work with her more regularly. I've even got an "Amber's Schedule" calendar setup in my iCal to keep track of her time.

I ducked out of speech this coming weekend. My excuse is preserving energy for the next week, when we host, but I'm going use the time to be busy. I want to clear out a bunch of stuff from the front hall, and go shopping with Tigger, and then I get to have Girl's Night Out with Ro and KyRed. I'm looking forward to it, 'cause we're going to the Mad Potter, and I've never been. Then we're going to end our end with games, after dinner. mmm, loves me some girly time.

Well, looks like it's time to wrap up. I'll post this when we get home.