I thought someone would be bending over me watching me cook and telling me I'm doing it wrong! All the recipes look wonderful, and I really believe it's just a matter of the judges' tastes at this time.

The whistle blew, I sure thought so. We can't take it back now, though.

Now there is a whole list of ingredients. From that list, an entrant has to choose two to use in the recipe in order for the recipe to qualify.

You get a total of five hours. This means you get the chance to prepare your dish three times. Your best effort goes to the judges. In my case, I'm still puzzling over how we'll handle the fact that I wanted the chicken served hot over the cold greens. Do I get to tell the judges to throw the chicken back into the microwave if the salad sits around long enough for the chicken to cool?

When I started I thought I'd be the little neighborhood pet-sitter, nothing big, nothing extraordinary. Business started snowballing. I found out I needed insurance and there was the national organization, Pet Sitters International. And then I put the ad on the Internet.

We thought maybe she got hurt or something, but nobody called, or anything like that.