Fall has definitely arrived. It went from 80 one day to 53 the next. Wisconsin weather is harsh. Anyway, Tuesday evening Adam went out and raked our backyard. Partly to get rid of some aggression, partly because there were a lot of leaves there and the city comes around to suck them up with their big vacuum trucks on Wednesdays. After dinner I joined him with a tarp and we hauled the leaves to the curb. It was incredibly windy but we still managed to get most of them in the pile.



Impressive, eh? And that’s just the first installment. We’ve still got most of the leaves on the big tree directly above the deck to deal with. They’re still on the tree though, so we have to wait.

In pet news, the cats are slowly (and I mean VERY slowly) warming up to the idea of coexisting with “the humans.” They have nightly stampedes back and forth from the computer room (their room) to the living room. It’s amazing how noisy two eight-pound furry things can be when they run. We got a cat playhouse contraption from one of Adam’s co-workers and they seem to enjoy it. Ted regularly hangs out in the teepee and Conner lounges one level above that. They both have started to venture further out from underneath the bed when Adam and I are home. We haven’t gotten to the point that they’ll let us touch them, but hopefully that will come soon. They’re letting us get closer and closer to them before they turn and run. Ted has taken to sleeping on our bed during the day, usually on my side. It’s cute, and as long as he doesn’t pee on it, I’m fine with him making himself comfortable there. We were warned when we adopted them that the other Katrina kitties had taken about two months to adjust to their new homes. We’re almost to the two month mark so we’ll have to determine what we want to do from there. Of course, we don’t want to take them back to the shelter. But we also don’t want cats who hide from us.

The guys of rodent persuasion are all doing fine. Although Mo seems to have a guinea pig version of PMS (yes, I realize Mo is male, but work with me here...) A while back he stopped eating and I got worried about him. Then he went back to normal. Now he’s not eating again. Grrr. I think it might be a ploy for attention. We have to keep the door to their room closed so I think he’s feeling deserted. I try to say hi every morning and before I go to bed and I cuddle with both Mo and Einstein a few times a week. I don’t know. I worry about him, but there’s not a good solution to the door issue. Einstein isn’t bothered by it. And Howie, Gus, and Barry seem to be more annoyed by my presence than pleased by it. Hopefully it works itself out again like it did last time.

Work has been pretty busy this month so far. I just finished September and can concentrate on getting as much normal October stuff taken care of before the internal auditors show up for two weeks. After they leave we’ll have PWC auditors here right during month-end. Nice timing guys. Gah. Not looking forward to that, but really, when does anyone look forward to meeting with the auditors?

Not much else is going on. I have an eye doctor appointment bright and early on Saturday morning. Then we plan to go down to Middleton to do some clothes shopping at Marshall’s. That’s pretty much our weekend plans.