Lots of Things to Talk About....

First of all, today is Ash Wednesday. The beginning of my 40 days of certain failure, subsequent guilt and the "I'll do better next year" promise I make every Lenten season...usually 5 days in. I've decided to give up carbs for Lent. It's a sacrifice, but one I really think that I can get a handle on. One year I gave up red meat and alcohol (at the same time..stupid, I know), the next year I gave up liquor only and red meat...still didn't fare well. Oh...and coffee...that was HORRIBLE. I needed a rehab facility after a day. That was bad. Soo...I'm going to give up carbs...and promise to go to Mass once a week. Anyone want to make a wager? I can give you a tip...do NOT bet on me to succeed. You'll make more money that way :)

We had our Pod meeting last night and although it was primarily to talk about our cook off a few weeks ago, we all talked about the RR issue and how cook offs are scheduled. A few people were upset over the cook off that was scheduled in Ft Worth the same day as ours. From what we have been told, that cook off only had 16 cooks. Would some of those cooks have come to our cook off if there hadn't been another one close by? I'm sure they would have. At any rate, we still had 61 cooks and a great turn out for the weekend. I guess it doesn't bother me too much. On the other hand, there are two cook offs scheduled on the same Saturday in May. They are literally 20 miles (or less) apart. One is in Burleson and the other one is in Cleburne. Seriously? That makes absolutely no sense to me...or to some of the members of our Pod who either serve or have served as a Regional Ref. This has to be addressed with CASI. And I mean ADDRESSED with CASI. This is too big of an issue to fall by the wayside. That, along with boundaries, are certainly a hot topic with a lot of Pods and chili cooks right now. CASI has committees for certain areas of the Board...finance, executive, governance (try not to laugh...I know what you're thinking), so why not one for upcoming cook offs and regional areas? The state of Texas alone is a challenge when it comes to keeping a handle on who has what area, what areas are close to one another and what cook offs end up scheduled on top of one another. It's just a thought and I'm sure it's going to irk a lot of people. Oh well...you can't please everyone now can you?

Have a great day! I'll be clogging up the blogosphere the next 40 days with carb-free recipes along with my daily struggle to stay true to my Lenten promise. This should be fun :0)

Kelly