The cat is chewing on my toe

Sorry, couldn't think of a title for this post so I just made an observation. JC is weird. He likes sitting below the computer desk and chewing on my feet.

Anyways...

You’d think after a number of years I’d realize that I drop off the face of the earth for a week every month and I’d maybe plan ahead and have some posts automatically show up or something. Alas, I’m not that organized. So apologies again for being lost in the land of the month-end close. (I did post on my cooking blog over the weekend though – I was way behind on that one as well.)

This week was a short one thanks to Labor Day. We people in the accounting world dislike most holidays because they always land in the most frustrating places in respect to the month-end/year-end close calendar. Labor Day is no exception. And the fact that it was on September 1st only added to my annoyance. This means we did our physical way back on the 29th, leaving plenty of time for people to mess everything up before final sales and receivings were complete. *sigh* Just look ahead to November though. Freaking Thanksgiving. We’ll end up doing our physical on the 26th. That’s just ridiculous.

Anywho, our Labor Day weekend was pretty uneventful. We finally got our comforter to the dry cleaners. I’m not sure I’d do that again. I didn’t want to try and stuff it in our washer/dryer because it’s a king-sized and therefore would probably not fit. I also have this reputation for screwing up the comforter in the dryer and all the batting bunches up. So I figured it might be easier/safer to have a professional do it. Yeah. It came back clean I guess. But noticeably faded and with a couple snags I don’t remember being there before. Live and learn.

We did our normal shopping rounds, feeling the pain of a cat food week. Of all the price increases, it seems like I notice the pet food ones the most. We used to be able to get the cans of Fancy Feast for $0.42. Now they’re $0.48. That’s almost a 15% increase! Guinea Pig food used to be $8.97 for the big bag and now it’s $9.44. While that’s only a 5% jump, it’s not nothing. Bedding went up as well. And it’s not as though I’m wishing death on our rodential (is that a word?) friends, but it will save us some money once they kick. And we considered adopting a dog. We must be nuts.

For the first time in quite a while we decided to go out on Saturday night. We went to the Monkey Bar in downtown Appleton. Thanks to the holiday weekend it was pretty dead. We got a decent parking spot and were two of five people in the bar. Sweet. We each had a drink and two “deadly sins” shots. I think mine were greed and vanity. Don’t recall. But they were good. Then we went downstairs to Déjà Vu, the martini bar. They were also pretty empty until a bachelorette party came in about ten minutes after us. Although they are part of the same bar group, Déjà Vu doesn’t have the “dirty drink” menu that The St. James has. Luckily the bartender knew what the Dirty Girl Scout was so it was all good. I also got the Tiramisu. Yum-a-licious. We stopped for food on the way home as all semi-drunk people should do. Then we went to sleep. And woke up with a headache. Drat. We also spent some money on some basics for our bar. So it was a lot of alcohol purchases this weekend. That’ll throw off our categories in Money. Heh. Sunday and Monday I don’t think I even left the house. Relaxation to the max.

But Tuesday it was back to work, thrown into month-end in a most unrelaxing way. It’s been pretty much work, home, dinner, sleep this week. Tomorrow Adam will be helping his grandmother move into her new apartment. We also plan to hit Seafood Fest in Menasha for dinner tonight. I’ve got some basic shopping/cleaning on my list, but nothing too interesting. Handbell rehearsals start a week from Monday and the first IMA meeting is the 17th. With the crappy weather we’ve had the last two days it sure looks as though fall is here a bit earlier than desired. Adam even built a fire last night!

I’ll be trying out a lot of new recipes in the next few weeks. In my quest to replace Cooking Light (and man, are they persistent in trying to get me to renew!) I bought three new magazines and found quite a few interesting things to try out. Our first meal with quinoa is coming up this weekend. I’m hoping it’s easy to find – I’m guessing it’s probably in the natural foods section. I’d never even heard of it until Adam sent me some article about it and how great it is for you. On the other end of that spectrum, I’m going to make some white chocolate-strawberry bars I saw on a blog awhile ago and I also hope to bake a cake to test out my decorating tools. We’ll see how that goes.

I’ve got my (stupid, mandatory) biometric testing bright and early Monday morning. That means I have to do the 12-hour fast thing on Sunday night. Boo. I guess I’ll bring my breakfast to work with me and eat it after they forcibly take my blood. Boo on that too. I hate having my blood drawn. The things I do to keep my health insurance… I guess I shouldn’t complain. At least I have insurance in the first place, right?

In any case, time moves right along and before we know it Christmas music will be playing in the grocery store again. Blech.