Three's

Things come in three's. If they come in two's or four's, we dismiss that as not counting. Three births, three deaths, three accidents, three deadlines. Yes, life happens in three's and I'm heading into the finale for three big projects, all due within a week.

1. Report to the IL Dept of Health and Family Services summarizing the results of our evaluation of the Healthy Births for Healthy Communities (HBHC). All the project staff are gone; the money has ended. Still we have to produce three substantial reports in order to get paid. This project was ongoing for four years, so you know we have too much data and too little time to do complex analyses. Still, it was a good run.

2. Grant proposal due to be submitted to the office at the University which submits all grant applications via the online, federal system. Even with the relatively new NIH forms, we were able to crank out the proposal in a couple of weeks. Of course, the idea had been peculating for months and the groundwork for pulling the proposal together had been done. Still, at 80 pages max, we did it.

3. The coming Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday is the research agenda setting conference that I am 'hosting'. Naturally, during the last week I received requests to attend, but I politely said we had reached the limit of 50 invited participants. The presenters have turned in thier handouts and sent us their Powerpoint presentations. The photocopying has begun of all the handouts, and I have new clothes for the event. Still, there's some party/hostess nervousness about not forgetting any last minute details.

So, when someone says "things don't really come in three's", don't believe them.