chuffed (chuft) adjective

Pleased; satisfied.

[From English dialect chuff (pleased, puffed, swollen with pride).]

Displeased; annoyed.

[From chuff (boor, churl), from Middle English chuffe.]

He was chuffed that she was chuffed.

How desperately we need context sometimes to sort out the meaning of words. Actually that's probably true when it comes to lots of things, not just words.

I've been working with numbers most of the day. It's been gray and cold--easy to believe that spring was all a dream. There's been quite a bit of snow in the Panhandle today. Frost possible here tonight. So glad I held off on the plants. I woke up during night before last with a frozen nose. We forgot to turn the heat back on and so the house dipped with the temperatures.

Ah folks, numbers drain me. They really do. I feel like I've done six days' worth of work in the last three, and all I want to do now is go to sleep. But not before I write. :)

The word for today got me started on a rant, but I'm mentally too lazy to finish it. The topic was something about a dinner--the first one you fixed for company. Hmm.... I know I fixed many for company before the first time my inlaws came but they all went smoothly and I don't remember them much. The best one was a surprise first anniversary party for some very dear friends. I fixed orange roughy, his favorite and dessert was--drum roll--M & Ms because that was her favorite. (I'm sure I had something else too, but I don't remember it.) However the one with my inlaws is a bit more memorable because I was frankly scared to death, way out of my element, and in the end, I didn't even do the meal. They jumped in and took over (mother- and sister-in-law) which was okay by me. I was just praying for the day to end.

It was November. My husband's family has a tradition of hunting in the fall that goes back to when they settled the area in Kansas where most of them still live. My dh got permission to hunt on a field of a friend of ours. He invited his parents and sister to come with their dogs and he was excited about my getting my initiation.

I was not.

I decided rather than argue with him about the fact that I didn't want to go in the first place, I'd just go along and watch. He couldn't quit talking about how amazing it was to watch the dogs work, so I figured at least I'd have that to do, and I'd get some exercise as well.

We took off in the morning, and I never did drum up a whole lot of enthusiasm. I'm not a wintertime outdoors person. I hate being cold. The dogs were interesting enough, just boring after the first half-hour or so. Then I had to shoot the gun. Well, it wasn't like I had never done it before--I shot at my share of tin cans on the fence. But it had been awhile, and a much different gun because the kick from this one buried into my shoulder and felt like it stuck right out the back--like in the cartoons where the skin just folds over the protrusion. It was one of the many of the hurry and do it without being fully prepared episodes that have dotted my life right down to the last skiing trip.

After that fiasco, we decided to take a break for lunch. At our house. I really hadn't planned on this. Why I don't know. I guess I was worrying about one segment at a time. I was so nervous, so embarrassed, so sore, so completely unsure of myself that I was paralyzed. I know they all thought I was an idiot who couldn't even cook a can of soup. Or maybe they understood. My mother- and sister-in-law have been overwhelmingly helpful and kind for my entire married life, so they took it in stride and helped me out.

So I don't remember what I fixed. I don't remember what we had. I don't even remember what happened the rest of the day! I just remember feeling out of place in my very own home, and I'm sure it contributed to my current predisposition to enjoy working alone in my kitchen. I prefer that to having everyone in the kitchen helping out.

If you lived through that, you'll read anything!