Double Argh.

Days of cat medicine administered: 5. Days remaining: 8. Scratches received: many - most are easily covered up, thankfully.

But! I think we may have figured out a system that not only gets the medicine into the cat, but also minimizes the pain of kitty scratches and frustration of being spit up on. We were at Petco this weekend anyway (you get a free book with all kinds of coupons when you adopt a pet) so we picked up some pill pockets. We were initially unsure they’d work, but they seem to do the trick. Adam’s figured out just how far down Carly’s throat he has to stick his finger so she can’t spit out the pill but doesn’t barf. We then swap and give her a breather. I inject the orangesicle liquid in small squirts into the side of her mouth and she licks it off her face. We generally have to take another break halfway through the orange stuff because she starts struggling. It still takes some time, but nowhere near the 40-50 minutes it took the first few days. We try to get it done while the other cats are eating. I can only imagine that nothing’s worse than being forced to take gross medicine while JC gloats at you from the floor.

Friday night was pretty low-key. We ate dinner, watched some TV. Saturday morning we went out for some shopping. A lot of shopping. We stopped at Menards so Adam could check out a tool kit he was considering swapping his Christmas gift out for. We went to Petco, Walmart, Walgreens, Target, grocery shopping. We spent pretty much our entire weekly cash. Which is ok – we’ve been under for the past few weeks. We were out the whole morning. We grabbed some lunch at KFC while we were on the road. When we returned home Adam changed the oil in my car. He started a fire in the garage (on purpose) that he had to put out with the fire extinguisher (not on purpose.) We re-filled the indoor wood storage area by the fireplace. Adam made scallops and stuffed mushrooms for dinner. I had leftovers.

Sunday morning we went up to Menards when it opened so he could make sure he got one of the tool sets. It was on sale and had a $75 rebate. We also picked up a new fire extinguisher. We then stopped by his parents’ house. He bought a new laptop and was giving his old one to them. Unexpected wireless router issues turned a “quick stop” into a much longer visit. We then headed back home. I ate a quick breakfast before heading back up to church. The bells did play, albeit a truncated list of songs. We were not at our best. It went alright I guess. I snuck out early after the bells were put away and still only managed to get out at noon.

I stopped at Walmart and Pick ‘n Save on the way home (to return things and get a good deal on milk.) I returned home to a house full of baking smells. Adam made two pecan pies, two pumpkin pies, and a loaf of sourdough bread. And a sinkfull of dishes. I had a headache and was feeling generally awful so when I went to drop receipts off in the office I just laid down on the bed in there and took a nap with Carly for a little while. When the neighbor started chopping firewood I moved to our bedroom and took a nap with JC. Adam finished watching all his DVR programs so we put in Deception. Reminded me a lot of Derailed and The Last Time. Decent movie I suppose. I’ve also got The Darwin Awards waiting in the wings. We ate dinner and caught up on the most recent SNLs. Then it was clean-up time. Adam got pay-per-view wrestling so I retreated to the bedroom to watch Hannah Montana (I wish I were kidding, but I’m totally not.)

This morning we awoke to this:



Gah. I guess we should have watched the weather at some point. My reaction included a few four-letter words not suitable for reprinting. Adam shoveled the driveway out but had to go back over the end when he got home from work (thanks plows!) The drive this morning wasn’t too bad. I wasn’t being run over by irresponsible drivers and while things were a bit slow, it wasn’t unbearable.

This week is a short one with the holiday. The Paalman Thanksgiving is on Thursday afternoon. We plan to exchange names for Christmas again. The “secret” Santa deal works out pretty well although we seem to keep getting the same people each year. We both also have Friday off. No plans to do anything that I’m aware of. I’m going to throw some ribs in the crock pot and hope to start working on our Christmas cards.

On a sadder note, we lost Julie again for bells. She came back a month or so ago and we were so glad to be a full crew again. She was not doing so well yesterday but made it through. But she won't be coming back in the forseeable future. She is starting another round of chemo. I don't even know which round number this is. She's a fighter, but has been fighting for so long now... We're not sure what we'll do for Christmas yet. Make do, as that's all we can really do. So that's a bummer.

On a happier note, here are some Carly pictures:

We know how to pick 'em

So Adam called me on his way home from the vet yesterday. They do a fecal floatation test (hence the need for poo) as part of the wellness exam. They apparently found two difference parasites - giardia (Connor also had this when we got him) and something else. Turns out it's contagious. Excellent.

So this new cat we just rescued from being cooped up in a room full of cats now has to be quarantined for two weeks. And force fed a nasty tasting pill and some liquid that smells like an orangesicle every night. It's a ton of fun. I hold her while Adam administers the torture. A lot of it ends up in my hair or on my shirt. I've gotten three new scratches. And this is only day two. *sigh*

Needless to say, we're kind of pissed off at the Humane Association. They (allegedly) had their vet do the same exam before they gave her to us. How did this miss this? It's not the end of the world - if we can keep getting her to take the medication we should be ok. None of the other guys seem to be affected by it (yet) but we're supposed to keep an eye on them since they shared litterboxes for a couple days. I am just angry that the Humane Association knew we had three other cats but still neglected to tell us that this new addition had a CONTAGIOUS PARASITIC DISEASE. I mean, damn. That's low. I'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt and say they didn't know. But that's hard to reconcile.

So, we have her in the office with her own litter box and food again. We play with her in the morning and evening. I stop and chat with her at lunch. JC howls outside the door. So much for bonding with the other cats.

This too shall pass.

Neglected Happenings

With all the posting I did this past weekend I forgot to mention some of the more important stuff. Firstly, we went to sign our paperwork at the lawyer’s office on Thursday afternoon. Once again, we waited months to stop in for five minutes. It seems pretty ridiculous to me, but hopefully we’re done with that for awhile.

Also on Thursday I had my haircut (beautifully displayed in a previous post) and an eye doctor appointment. We went back on Saturday and I picked out new frames. I really hate the ones I have now. They’re totally cheap and the lenses are chipped. So it was time for a new pair. I opted out of the Transitions this time, which really brought the total down to a more reasonable level given I didn’t expect to get new glasses so I didn’t set aside more flex dollars. I had to wear sunglasses in the car anyway, so I might as well just get a decent pair of those. I picked the new pair up tonight (7-10 days my butt) and I'll try and get a picture up soon.

On Friday I spent most of my day at home, watching TV and making sure the cats didn’t kill each other. Since Carly spent the majority of her day under the couch, that wasn’t too difficult. We had our photo appointment at church to have our picture taken for the directory. Why is it that photographers are always semi-obnoxious? We were in and out of there pretty quickly, not falling for any of their sales pitches. We’ll get a complimentary 8x10, but that’s it. Like we need more pictures of ourselves.

This week has been flying by so far. Monday was the first real snow of the season. It wasn’t really a lot, but it was cold enough that it froze on the roads. Once again, people completely forgot how to drive in the winter again. Tons of accidents on the highway caused by people being stupid. My drives home and to and from handbells weren’t bad at all. I guess I managed to avoid most of the idiots.

Tuesday was IMA. It was at the Darboy Club, which I like because it’s a family-style meal (ie – no meal choices for me to worry about) and they’re used to our group: Things are always set up the way they should be, the bill is easy to settle (the same bartender/manager has been there the past few times so he knows me), and my job is a whole lot easier because of that. The presentations were a bit dry – it was tax update time after all – but overall the night was good. Smaller attendance than we’d prefer, but we take what we can get. I’m still being pestered about moving to the president role. Ugh.

Yesterday Carly had her vet appointment for her free check up and rabies shot. We needed a stool sample so Adam shut her in the office Tuesday night when he got home. He was hoping she’d poo relatively quickly so he could let her back out. She ended up being in there all night long. Stupid cat wouldn’t poo! Luckily when we went in there yesterday morning there was a fresh one in the litter box. I suppose it wasn’t that big of a deal since we were leaving her at the vet all day. But it was still a relief to know she’d been eating. We worry a bit since she doesn’t appear to like wet food and we don’t see her eat an awful lot of dry food. She runs around and plays with the laser like a pro so we know she’s got to be eating something. Unfortunately it wasn't all good news when Adam picked her up. More on that later.

The rest of the week (what's left of it) should be back to normal (whatever that is.) I’ve got a lunch meeting tomorrow with the entire accounting department to figure out what we’re going to do when SAP steals so many of the key users next month. I’m a little afraid to hear what’s going to happen. On the bright side, because Thanksgiving lands in a bad way for month-end, we’ll be counting on 12/1 and there will be no 2nd day estimate requirement. This means not only will one day of invoicing adjustments be eliminated, but I won’t have to stay late on day 1 or come in at 6am on day 2 either. Woo! That said, my counting crew is pretty sparse. It’s becoming a monthly struggle to convince people to take an hour out of their morning to help. *sigh*

Bells are supposed to play this Sunday, but seeing as how two people weren’t at Monday’s practice it’s a real possibility that this one will get cancelled too. Eventually we’ll play. Even if it takes until Christmas Eve. Ha.

A 4 Letter Word

Starts with S.

Ugh.

I see it right now, looking out the window.

Stupid winter.

Stupid snow.

Cat Craziness

I know, overload of stupid posts this weekend. What can I say? I have some free time.

Adam's still enjoying a cat that will cuddle:





(Pay no attention to her glare - she's glaring at me, not because she's in Adam's lap. She doesn't like me.)

We kept her alone in the office last night with her own food and litterbox. She seems confused by the rolling litter boxes we have and had taken to relieving herself on the bathmat in Adam's bathroom. She did ok overnight but still hisses at all the other cats when they get too close to her. Ted especially ticks her off. But at least she doesn't hide under the couch all day anymore. Progress...

In Hot Water

Oh house, how have we repaired you? Let me count the ways...

So yesterday morning we both took showers (as we're apt to do) and we both noticed they were a little colder than usual. Adam blamed me, I blamed JC. (That cat takes really long, hot showers. What a diva.) Adam investigated the hot water heater downstairs and determined it was kaput. I mean, of course it was. The warranty ran out in June. So he did some online pricing, called his dad, and went to get a new one. They spent their afternoon sweating pipes, tripping over things, and installing the new hot water heater.



I know, I know. Why did I take a picture of a water heater? They all look pretty much the same. I'm weird. That's why. I mean, I bought this cute guy on clearance at Fleet Farm and he's my only Thanksgiving time decoration.



(Not the Furby, the corn guy. Although now that I think of it, having a Furby is kind of weird too.)

Anyway. The new heater works (yay!) and the water comes out hotter than ever. I think the old one was kind of wimpy. We knew we'd have to swap it out eventually, but I didn't think it would quit so soon. At least it crapped out on a Saturday. (Always look on the bright side of life...)

Now we're just crossing our fingers that the furnace stays with us for the winter. Since we anticipate replacing it this coming spring, it will probably die on the coldest day of the year. (Nooooo! Knock on wood!!!)

Patented Butt Wiggle

In which you get both lame 90's references and a picture of my bed head! Lucky you!

So last night wasn't so bad. The cats all seemed to get along better. JC and Carly had a few stand-off moments, but overall everyone kept calm. Ted and Carly don't seem to get along too well yet. I guess we'll have to try and still keep them separated. (Whoa, The Offspring flashback. Anyone? Bueller? *crickets chirping* Ok, I'll keep my lame 90s references to myself. Ok, so probably not...)

Anyways. Much like the other felines in the house, Carly enjoys napping in the sink.



Made that much better by a nice tummy rub from Adam, I'm sure.

She also enjoys relaxing on the kitchen counter



(where she's totally not supposed to be, but that's a cat thing - doing the exact opposite of what you tell them to do.)

And, unlike any of the other cats, she has also taken to laying on the top of the couch. By my head. Check out my awesome bed head (and my new, shorter hairdo.)



She also camped out on my pillow for a while last night. While I was laying on it. Kind of like Candy used to do - although Candy actually laid ON my head, not just next to it...



She looks eerily like Ted, doesn't she?



Aah, memories.

So, in conclusion, cats are weird.

And because I can never post too many cute cat pictures...

JC staring intensely



Ted sleeping in the new chair



Both Ted and JC conked out on the cat tree



And, by far the cutest picture ever, Conner napping over the heating grate. Smart cat...

An early Christmas present

The Benefits of Benefits

Ah, annual enrollment. Such a joyous time of year. When you once again discover that the increase in your health insurance premiums will completely negate any raise you might be getting. Plus more. Sweet.

We did some comparison shopping between Adam’s plans and my plans as per usual. This year (well, for 2009) Bemis added a +1 category so we had more options. It turned out we were still better off sticking as employee only on our separate plans with Adam tacked on to my dental. We’ll save $58 for the year by doing this rather than putting us both on my plan. Adam’s +1 plan was even more expensive. *sigh* Adam also enrolled in his company’s flex spending program. I’ve been in it from the start, but this is the first year he’s doing it. Contacts are expensive. So it will be interesting to see how our net pay shapes up next year. It might be scary.

Yeah, I know, What's with the no posting for two weeks thing?

So on Halloween instead of sitting at home, attending to trick-or-treaters and handing out all the candy we bought at Sam’s Club, we drove to Milwaukee. To go shopping. No, really. We had initially intended to do that on Saturday, but Adam called me at work in the afternoon and suggested we do it Friday night so we would have the rest of the weekend to “chill.” So we made the drive, did the shopping (rather successfully on both our parts) and came back home. To a house full of candy. Not good. Saturday we did our normal weekly shopping, some cleaning. In all honesty, I don’t really remember all the goings on. I do remember going to Petco and buying an obscene amount of cat food. It was all on sale and we also had a 10% your entire purchase coupon. So we stocked up. And were almost tempted into adopting another cat. I also remember having lunch at Beefeaters on Saturday afternoon. Adam had a caramel apple martini at 12:30 in the afternoon. We both also got dessert. Simply scandalous! I watched Arthur while Adam was occupied by football on Sunday afternoon.

This past weekend wasn’t too exciting. On Saturday we took my car in to get new tires (can you hear the money flying out of our account?) We then went up to Appleton to do a bit of shopping. In case you were not aware, this past weekend was national adoption weekend at the local pet stores. We figured there was no harm in stopping by Petco to see if Saving Paws or the Humane Society were there with additional cats. No such luck, but we did pick up an adoption application for the Fox Valley Humane Society. We went back home for a bit, looking at some cats online. We then went back up to the humane society to check them out. We originally went in to look at a calico cat named Callie. She was in a room with three other cats: one big orange tabby who hid in the corner, a large black cat who growled every time I got near him, and a gray tabby named Carly. We liked Callie, but were soon taken in by Carly. She happens to already be spayed and front paw declawed. And she adores Adam. He picked her up and she snuggled into his arm. So cute.

So we amended our application and turned it in. They called our references Monday morning. They made us jump through additional hoops that I think we probably could have avoided if we’d gone with another Saving Paws cat. We had to get Ted and Conner up to date on their rabies shots. Given that we’d made very little progress in our ability to get them into their carriers, we decided to go with a vet that does house calls. It wasn't more expensive than our regular vet and it was more their problem to get to the cats. Sweet deal. The vet was a nice guy and it was an interesting experience. JC was no problem since he likes pretty much everyone. Ted and Conner weren't having any of it though. They hid under the couch and wouldn't come out. Eventually Adam got them each in a corner and the vet poked them from wherever he could reach. Whatever works. We turned in that additional paperwork Wednesday evening and Adam went and picked her up last night.



She immediately hid under the couch. JC hissed. It was a night of interruptions. Every so often it seemed like JC remembered she was in the house and would find her and hiss. She hisses right back and growls. Hopefully they'll get along eventually. And hopefully this will quell Adam’s desire to increase our brood.

In other news, I did get called in for jury duty on Tuesday. I headed to the court house, watched a stupid video, and sat in the jury room for two and a half hours. And then the case settled. *sigh* Oh well. I’m done for another four years. That just added to my chopped up work week. I was out Tuesday morning, had vacation Wednesday and Thursday afternoons, and I'm off all day today. Nice. Not too much planned for the weekend. That I'm aware of anyway. I'm trying to catch up after another busy month-end.

Conspiracy Theories (and a new number)

Out of curiosity I took a slight detour on my way home for lunch. I drove over to our polling place – the police station – to see how the crowds looked. As I approached I really didn’t see too many cars. I figured I may as well check out the line to see if I could get it done over my lunch break. I walked into the building and made a right (as I remembered doing last time.) I was greeted by a woman in a blue shirt and ABSOLUTELY NO LINE AT ALL. Not a single person in front of me. In fact the guy with the book looked a little bored and two of the other ladies were doing some stretching exercises across the room. I had been kind of worried that I had decided to vote today rather than via absentee early vote. I was hearing/seeing all these stories on the radio and in the paper about horrendous lines and how they had police officers to help with crowd control. Either these accounts are severely exaggerated or our ward sucks voter turnout-wise. Or I just have really good timing. Or maybe this is the (insert political party here)'s way of scaring off voters who may vote for (insert the other political party here.) Lines! Aaaah! Ahem. In any case, quick in, quick circle filling, quick out. And I remembered to grab my sticker this time. Civic duty done.

Oh, and John McCain called us this morning. OMG!!! (Ha. Ha. Ha. Cannot wait for the robo-calls to stop!)

On a related note, due to some confusion over our switching from Time Warner to AT&T, we lost our phone number. We're thinking it's TW's fault, but who knows. In any case, we have a new phone number (Yay! I could barely remember the last one!) If you need it, email us/me.

The Results Show

I got my report back from the evil biometric testing I underwent in September as part of the new mandatory Kersh deal at work. I was wary to open it since I expected it to say something like "Death is imminent, make preparations." Instead I was pleasantly surprised. I could stand to lose some weight (duh), my blood pressure's a little high (as it has been every time it's taken), but everything else looks fine. Even my cholesterol is in the acceptable range. Whew! That's not to say it's all wine and roses (or whatever that saying is.) I know I need to be more aware of the crap I eat and make a concerted effort to move around more. But it's good to know I'm not a complete medical catastrophe.

Mundane stuff (and random cat pictures)

An interesting week thus far. Monday night I handed out our party invitations at bell practice so hopefully a few of them can come this year. We play for the first time on Sunday. At 11. When no one will be there because the Packer game is at noon. Excellent. We regained a member at the last practice. Julie, who had been out since the end of the 2006 season due to medical reasons, has come back. As long as she remains in good health, she plans to continue to ring. This is a good thing. She took back her spot next to me so I no longer bounce between positions. Nancy can take the big C and D and we have all the bells covered.

Tuesday morning was the IMA breakfast meeting. We had 15 people and a mountain of food from Festival. The speaker was perky for it being 7:30 in the morning. She spoke about New North, a multi-county economic collaboration in northeastern Wisconsin. I got ambushed by the nomination committee to be VP of Administration next year (hence, president the following year.) I wasn’t really expecting that. I turned them down, but offered to be VP of Membership since I do pretty much everything under that office anyway. I get the feeling this isn’t the last I’ll hear of this. I have no desire to take on the president role. Ever. But we’ll see how things play out. I guess it might look good on my resume. *sigh*

We went to see the Capitol Steps last night at the PAC. We went out to dinner at Good Company. It had been awhile since we’d been there. Our waitress was kind of flaky and I had forgotten how spicy their onion petals were. Other than that it was a good time. We stopped at Intermezzo, a tiki-themed bar in the Paper Valley Hotel, for a drink before the show. We had box seats again for this performance, on the second level, right side. I have a feeling I’ve either seen this group before or heard them somewhere. The backwards talk (kind of like deliberate spoonerisms) seemed familiar. In any case, lots of smart political satire.

The rest of the week is pretty empty. Month-end starts again on Friday. Office trick-or-treating is that afternoon. I believe Neenah’s trick-or-treating is that evening. I hope to be able to take a drive down to a Marshall’s or two on Saturday. It’s been a bit since my last trip although Adam’s gone solo a few times. Sunday is bells and football.

Next week is, of course, the election. Hallelujah! I don’t plan to vote early, but will head to my polling place on Tuesday morning (Adam already voted.) Hopefully it won’t take a ridiculous amount of time. We also have our annual enrollment informational meeting next Wednesday. I can’t wait to see how much insurance will be increasing. Ha. Our assumption is we’ll continue to enroll as singles on our separate plans for the coming year.

Looking ahead there’s not a lot of exciting things going on here. We have our Very Important Meeting With the Lawyer on the 13th, after which we can both die in peace knowing we’ve signed our paperwork. :) Potential jury duty, Thanksgiving (which has yet to be worked out on the Paalman side – they don’t really plan ahead.) Our next PAC program isn’t until the end of December. I have some vacation I need to burn, but really no good time to do it. Same old stuff.

And now, a montage of how the cats insist on ruining many of the pictures I take of them...

by not looking at the camera:




Or by doing something...inappropriate:




Or by walking out of frame as the flash goes off:


Gah!

No Title. Because my brain hurts. That's why.

For what was supposed to be an uneventful week…

Dinner on Monday was fun. It’s too bad Adam couldn’t come because I think he would have liked the restaurant. Hopefully we’ll have a chance to go back again and bring him along. Catherine (the sister) called my dad to wish him a happy birthday as I was preparing to head back home so we spoke a little. Kind of. I’m not a telephone person.

I didn’t get called in for jury duty on Tuesday either so not only was I stuck with the auditors, but I also got another letter in the mail putting me on the list for the week of November 10th. We’ll see what happens in round two. As far as the auditors go, it was only a two day deal. It’s difficult to explain the archaic methods I use to value our inventory. It’s even more difficult when the person you’re trying to explain things to isn’t getting it. I wish we could have the same guys each year. It would save us both a lot of time. All in all it wasn’t too bad of a visit. I did end up in the basement pulling invoices from 2005 though. Hopefully they got what they needed.

Wednesday was another day with the auditors. By the time I left for the day all I wanted to do was go home, feed the cats, and sit on the couch and veg. So when I got home, hit the garage door opener, and nothing happened, I was kind of ticked. I figured perhaps the battery had died. So I got out of the car and punched in the code. Still nothing. I called Adam. I got into the house through the front door and discovered that the garage door opener engine had most likely died. Fabulous. I fed the cats and then headed up to meet Adam. We went to Menards and found a “whisper drive” opener that was on sale. On the way home I stopped and picked up some dinner while Adam called his dad. They installed the new opener and all is good. Such handy guys. It really is a lot quieter than the old one. Not so excited about the unexpected $200 expense though.

Thursday was a better day. A relatively unstressful day at work and we went out for dinner. Adam had been noted that we never go to Mexican restaurants. Since I’m not really into that cuisine it’s not necessarily on the top of my list when I schedule a night out. But I figured we could try it. We went to Zacatecas downtown. It was not crowded at all, which was nice. Some free chips and salsa and a couple margaritas got us off to a good start. I usually avoid the salsa because it’s either too hot for me or has cilantro in it (or both!) I ordered the night’s special – chicken fajitas (resisting the urge to order it as fuh-ji-tas as Adam (mis)pronounces it) and Adam got some seafood enchiladas. Delicious all around. And as Adam observed this morning, it must have been good Mexican food since neither of us had a terrible mid-night bathroom experience. Heh. We caught up on some DVR programs when we got home.

The weekend didn't have too much going on. We got some wood and closed off the bottom of the box spring in the guest room since the cats had started tearing that one apart. We also had Lakshmi’s dinner party yesterday evening. Lots of spicy Indian foods - a very interesting experience. Today is pretty much free. We had the AT&T installation this morning, but that’s it. We plan to sit by the fire and do nothing for the rest of the day. Of course how often do things go as planned? So we’ll see what actually happens. I baked some cookies and made another cake (with some help from my friend Betty) this morning. Adam found a drunken chicken recipe that we’ll try on the grill for dinner.

I took new pictures for my frame at my desk so I figure I can post some updated ones here as well.

Here's Mo


and Einstein


JC attacking the cat scratcher


Ted eyeing me suspiciously


Conner looking all intense


Ted and JC hanging out on the box spring. They tipped it over about 2 minutes after I took this picture...


JC by Adam's Taz slippers

Moving On

This past weekend was draining, in all ways possible. Last night was tough. Adam took the dog back up to Appleton. Her sister, Sugar, was there and from what he tells me they were delighted in their reunion. This, in some ways, makes our decision seem like the right one. She needed to be around another dog, not cats who loathed her. He also stopped and returned as much of the dog stuff as he could. We got back about half of what we shelled out. We gave most of the toys to Katie and Chris. We gave the puppy food to the next door neighbor. We declined to take back the adoption fees from Savings Paws because we felt so terrible about the whole thing. Adam told them he hoped that someone could take both puppies together and to use our check to give the adopters a deal. All in all, four days I’d rather erase from my memory.

So I find it somewhat fortuitous that I ran across this website this morning. Seeing as how our cat has a propensity for hanging out in the sink




this site made me smile. And a smile was definitely needed.

I was summoned for jury duty this week. I wasn’t on the list for this morning but I have to call back tonight to see if I need to report tomorrow. As fate would have it, PWC auditors will be in town tomorrow and Wednesday. Wouldn’t it just suck if I ended up being gone both days performing my civic duty? Totally.

Tonight I’ll be heading down to Sheboygan to go to dinner with my dad and Cheryl for his birthday. Adam still works until 6 these days so he won’t be able to make it. Although if rumors are correct, he’ll soon be moving to east coast accounts and will switch back to a nicer 8-4:30ish schedule. This coming weekend there’s a dinner party on Saturday that I’m still trying to convince Adam to go to with me. On Sunday we’ll have AT&T U-Verse installed. Nice, the way it worked out to have our installation on the Packer’s off-week…

There are a few other things coming up: IMA breakfast meeting, Capitol Steps at the PAC, Halloween. Before you know it Thanksgiving will be here and then we’ll be fighting with the cats to keep ornaments on the Christmas tree. I’ve got some vacation days coming up and I’ve still got two out there to schedule. With month-end, year-end, and the crappy SAP schedule that has people out of the office a lot, it’s going to be difficult. Compared to last year, it’s strange having all these days and nothing to do with them. Perhaps we’ll have to try and plan a more extended vacation next year to use the days up. So far this year I’ve used 7 vacation days, 3 sick days, and worked 184 days. Kind of depressing when you look at it that way.

Onward and upward.

An Expensive Mistake

I had reservations about even posting the last entry since things were not going well and we kept going back and forth about even keeping the dog. She kept chasing the cats, making messes, she pooped in her crate three times. She started biting us this morning after howling again for a large portion of the night. We ultimately decided that our house and situation is probably not her ideal placement. She needs constant companianship and would probably be happiest in a house with multiple dogs. We called the foster home back again this morning (we had already called them yesterday to ask for advice) and told them we felt it would be best to return her to them and let her find a more suitable home before any of us got too attached.

We feel horrible about this, but I guess this was a hasty decision that likely needed a "let's sleep on it" pause. It is a costly decision both financially and emotionally: almost $600 in adoption fees and supplies, with uncertainty as to how much we'll recoup, and the guilt of letting an adorable puppy into our home and then kicking her out again. We don't know if we'll head down this dog road again. I know I'm definitely a cat person. But if we do, we'll aim to make a wiser, more informed decision before we leap before looking again.

It's a Girl!

I don’t even know how this whole thing started, but a while back I mentioned that if we got a dog, I’d want a cute, small one. Preferably with floppy ears. Maybe a beagle. This inspired Adam to immediately go onto Petfinder.com and search for adoptable beagles in the area (can we say “impulse control?”) We even filled out an application for one in Manitowoc and went down there on a Saturday (the dogs were all quarantined so we couldn’t see them). We didn’t hear anything back, and had already begun having second thoughts anyway so we figured it was a sign to wait.

Then I heard about the Saving Paws Halloween fundraiser earlier this week. When I asked Adam if he wanted to go, he poked around their available pets and found that they had some beagles. Wednesday night while I was at IMA he went to their foster home to meet them. Although her teeth somehow found a way onto his chin, he was taken by Tinkerbell even though we originally thought we’d be more interested in Sugar, her sister. On a side note, he doesn’t seem to have much luck with meeting pets – when we first met Ted and Conner he was scratched by both Conner and another three-legged cat that was wandering around. Anyway, Thursday night we went back up together to check them out. And being the big softies we are, please meet the newest member of the Paalman household:



She’s 10 weeks old. A beagle/hound mix. We shortened her name to Bella since Tinkerbell was just too much for me. Plus, isn’t she cute?

We introduced her to her cousin Lulu on Thursday night. While Bella was eager to play, Lulu apparently isn’t much for doggie interaction and took to flopping on the floor and rolling on her back. Whatever works. We also stopped up at Adam’s parent’s house. His mom is still laid up a bit from her hamstring injury, but they both got some puppy love. We spent some time in Petsmart getting all the things a dog requires. We met Rachel, the dog trainer Katie and Chris recommended (we start puppy training November 15th), and she helped us pick out the crate and food. Bella charmed her by barfing at her feet. Awesome. Since there hasn’t been a repeat performance we figure it was nerves (or maybe the random food that was on the floor that she ate.) After spending a ridiculous amount of money we headed back home.

I got home before Adam and started unloading the car (we had taken two cars since I drove up to meet him after work.) Then Adam passed the leash off to me and I walked her around the backyard while he assembled the crate. She got cold after a little bit and although she seemed to enjoy attacking the leaves, I brought her into the house to warm up. JC was standing in the dining room when I let Bella in the house. He eyed her suspiciously, crept towards her. She was bouncing around, apparently oblivious to the fact that she was being hunted. She paused for a moment and JC sniffed her and then bonked her on the head with his paw. She was unaffected by this assault and just ran around the kitchen. JC hid under the table. Ted and Conner were nowhere to be found.

We got the crate arranged, took her out once more and then said goodnight. She whined. She howled. She barked. She cried. But after about 15 minutes she quieted down. An occasional sad yip and then nothing. She was quiet until about quarter to six this morning. Pretty impressive. Adam was afraid he’d have to sleep with earplugs.

When we got up yesterday morning, Adam took her outside while I arranged her food and water. She had managed to last the whole night without making a mess in her crate. She bounded back in, a ball of energy. She continued to explore the house while stopped to grab a mouthful of food every once in a while. JC once again warily followed her around for awhile and hit her once or twice. She really doesn’t seem to mind. She sniffs him and then moves on. She did have one accident on the carpet by the fireplace, but it was relatively easy to clean up. Much easier than cat poo… I took a shower while Adam occupied her. He took her for a longer walk around the park. When I was dressed and eating breakfast Adam hopped in the shower. I was kept busy trying to keep Bella from eating the cat’s food. I took her out once while Adam was in the bathroom since she started whining by the door. She peed outside! Yay!

I left for work, leaving Adam to deal with her final trip(s) outside and confining her for the day. He called me a couple times this morning. Apparently Bella met Wags, the cute dog from next door and their new dog, a golden lab.

I went home for lunch since Adam called to tell me that he forgot to put the cat’s food back on the floor after moving it up to prevent the dog from eating it. I had also forgotten to bring the wad of cash I collected at IMA on Wednesday that I needed to deposit into the bank. I had to go into the bedroom where the crate is so I probably made the dog a little more hyper than she might have been. She was still howling away when I left to return to work. JC was hiding under the table again. He definitely doesn’t like the dog noises. Conner, on the other hand, was sleeping at the foot of our bed, completely unaffected by the ruckus. He’s getting to be such a mellow cat. I stopped to use the bathroom before leaving and as I walked by he just lifted his head a bit, (in my mind, said “oh, it’s you”) and went back to sleep. This with the dog freaking out in the background.

Last night was a little rough. I got home from work and went to get Bella to take her out. Between when I checked on her at lunch and when I got home she had managed to crap in her cage and roll around in it. I took her outside for a while wherein she managed to get all wet (it was raining) and jump all over me, covering me in wet dog and poop. I carried her back inside to avoid too much of a mess and took her directly to the bathroom. I gave her her first bath, unofficially since we didn't have shampoo yet. She wasn't thrilled and kept trying to jump out of the bathtub. I dried her off as best I could and let her out. She was crazy. I put her dinner out, which she completely ignored. I fed the cats except none of them would venture out past the barking. Bella was more interested in their food than her own. JC kept trying to get into the dirty crate. I was getting increasingly frustrated, so I called Adam and asked him to come home early. Which he did.

He took her for a walk. I cleaned up the mess she made when I stuck her in her room for a few minutes so I wouldn't commit a crime. I started to clean up the mess in her crate but soon realized we'd need to take it downstairs to the utility sink to get it clean. We decided to feed the cats after we put Bella in her crate for the evening. She finally calmed down a bit and we were able to watch a couple of the shows on the DVR. All three cats appeared at some point in the evening. None of them have gotten very close to the dog, but they're aware of her presence. We put her in her crate around 9. She barked again. For four hours. Then we got about three hours of quiet and then she was at it again. We finally gave up and got up around 5:30.

Adam took her out for a walk around the block while I got her food ready. This morning has been ok. Not spectacular. She's spent some time chewing on things, taunting the cats, being annoying. She peed a bit in the hallway. Adam took her up to Petsmart again to get a few things we forgot and was able to chat a bit with a vet who was there. We're now armed with bitter apple spray and chew toys.



It's going to take patience though. I know I don't do well when I get little to no sleep. I have a constant headache and I get crabby. We'll see how it goes.

Help Saving Paws!

If you're from the area (or can get here) consider going to the Saving Paws fundraiser. This is the shelter where we got all three of our cats.



They are wonderful people working for a wonderful cause.

Two, two, two weeks in one post!

I swapped out Amadeus for the Sex and the City movie. Since last Saturday afternoon was pretty much shot with a plethora of sporting options for Adam, I figured I’d have plenty of time to watch it while he was otherwise occupied. And watch it I did. It was neither spectacular nor horrible. I read lots of reviews and comments about it when I was wrestling with whether to see it in the theater or not. Many were over the top in either direction. I think my review would have been more mid-excitement level. There were some funny moments, some stupid moments. Overall I think they tried to jam too much into one movie and therefore missed out on any kind of meaningful, coherent plot. Oh well.

Otherwise, Saturday was shopping in the morning, sports in the afternoon. I made a macaroni and cheese for dinner that made us both sick and ruined any going out plans we may have had. Oops, my bad.

Sunday morning we lazed around in bed for an hour. That’s unheard of in this house! When we finally hauled ourselves out of bed, I made pancakes for breakfast and we read the paper. Then we got to work cleaning down in the basement. It had gotten kind of out of hand with recent additions and the hasty rearrangement that was done back in June when we had the sump pump issue. So now everything is organized (at the expense of many spiders) and we got rid of some stuff at Goodwill. Did you know they take Christmas trees? Awesome. We also stopped at Menards while we were up in Appleton so Adam could find some cheap carpet to cover the floor in his workshop when he paints things.

We got home just after the game started. Another horrible game. With interceptions. Boo. Eventually we stopped watching that game and flipped to the Brewers instead. Much happier game there. With champagne. We ordered Chinese food for dinner and watched the previous night’s "SNL". It wasn’t even the slightest bit funny. It actually kind of sucked. They need to work on that. We also watched premieres of all the new shows on Fox. Throughout the whole evening Adam was online checking out AT&T U-Verse since apparently we no longer get Fox since the local channel couldn’t reach an agreement with Time Warner (well, ok, they gave us a cheap antenna so we kind of get it.) We’ve got an installation appointment scheduled for a couple weeks from now so we’ll see what happens. I think we’ll probably switch even if WLUK works things out. AT&T has more HD channels and is cheaper than Time Warner (even with the $10 you have to pay for the HD channels. Take that, puppies.) We can even switch our phone number over.

This past week kind of sucked. Wait, let’s try and put a positive spin on things. Monday wasn't bad - a normal day with handbells. But it turns out all the new people aren't actually joining so we're down a person instead of down one, up three. Tuesday was inventory day. Ugh. Wednesday was day one, the day I usually stay late. But it was also the first of our PAC performances – Hamlet. I left work at 5:30 and we picked up dinner on the way to Appleton. We had our usual box seats, one level down. The play was...bad. Weird lighting, a Hamlet who yelled all his lines, an over-acting ghost/player, a Polonius who had memory problems. Add to that the fact that I had to be at work at 6(ish) the next morning, and leaving at intermission was an easy decision. Thursday was day two and I got to work at about 6:15. I had my estimate (due at 10) to Katie by about 10:10. But the rest of the day was challenging. I told Karen, the payables person who sits next to me, that I felt like Sisyphus. I brought home some railcar and silo paperwork and did that at home Thursday evening.

The best thing about working at home:

The worst thing about working at home:

Friday was more of the same although I somehow managed to finish WIP, raw materials, and finished good valuations. I brought home some of the reserve files to work on this weekend. I haven't looked at them yet, but the day is still kind of young. And there's a lot of sports this afternoon to occupy Adam's attention.

We hit our new favorite spot - The Monkey Bar - on Friday night. It was, once again, completely not busy. Kind of strange, although the bartender (the same as last time) said it was still kind of early. Another couple came in a while later and we had a good time. I told Adam on the way back to the car that we should have gotten their phone number. They seemed to be in a very similar place in life - recently married, just bought a house - and were a lot of fun. Are there dating sites for couples? (And I don't mean that in a weird sexual way - I'm being serious...) It's hard these days, with all the people our age having kids and being boring. *sigh*

Saturday was networking day. As in Adam spent the whole day pulling wires and setting up a monster network throughout the whole house. I got to stick my hand through walls, pull on a coat hanger, hold a spool of cable, hold a flashlight up so he could see when wiring, yell up when I saw lights blink, and be generally helpful when possible. I also baked a cake. With some help from Betty Crocker. Ok, a lot of help. After dinner (crockpot beef roast! yum!) we did some shopping. Dropped some major coin on pet supplies and a new safe.

Today we lazed around again. Seems to be a new Sunday tradition. We ate breakfast, read the paper, and then Adam went to Menards to get his workshop furniture. I vacuumed. And here we are.

In hair news, I went out and got some smoothing, anti-frizz gunk to put in my hair. It seems to be doing its job and so far I haven’t noticed a rash or incredibly greasy result. I also bought hairspray. Yes, I didn’t even own hairspray. Gasp. I’ve been playing with an off center part, going back and forth between which side I like better. Lately though I've chosen to part it on my right side in an attempt to cover up the huge gash in my face. Last Friday night JC decided to fall off the bed in the middle of the night and scratch me on his way down. It's almost gone, but it made me look great!

And as if there needed to be something else mundane that the cats freak out about, here's JC with the box from the buttload of ramen we got last week:

Randomosity

Hrm. Still not sure about this hair thing. It’s all wavy and weird looking. I guess I might have to cave and buy some styling stuff. We’ll see.

I mentioned it a bit ago, but I watched Penelope a few days ago. It’s a cute movie, but nothing particularly original. I’ve always like Christina Ricci so it was easy to watch. Kind of a lame moral, but I suppose it’s supposed to be kind of fairy-tale-ish anyway. I also watched Amadeus last night. Adam was up in Green Bay attending to some family drama so I had the house to myself. Surround sound is cool.

This weekend looks to be another boring one. We opted out of the wedding. We decided against going to the drive-in even though it looks like this might be their last weekend of the season. I’m not sure what we have on our to-do list other than our normal shopping trips. I don’t even have any baking to do. I’m sure I could come up with something, but I’m thinking it’s better to not make things because when I make things, then I eat them. I lack self control.

On a kind of related subject, we’re trying to plan our Christmas party well in advance so, I don’t know, PEOPLE WILL ACTUALLY COME TO IT. Yeah, last year sucked, mostly blamed on the weather. We’re hoping to have better luck this year. I haven’t really started thinking about the menu yet, but I know for sure we’ll bring back the spinach-artichoke dip and the chicken wonton stars. I also know I’m going to add the cheesy corn bites we found this past summer. Other than that (and the requisite variety of cookies), I’m still poking around for ideas. I do have two crock pots (in addition to the little dipper) now so that opens up some possibilities for hot appetizer choices. We also recently got a roaster when there was a big sale at Kohl’s so I have that to play around with as well. So many possibilities! I’ll become a Martha Stewart one of these days yet.

In pet related news, I’ve been able to reach out and pet Conner quite a few times in the past few days. He approaches me and rubs against my legs a lot too. He still freaks out sometimes and eventually runs away when I pet him, but this is definitely progress. I can still only get to Ted when I’m feeding him. And JC seems to be going through a cycle of moods. For awhile he was sleeping in our bed, in between us. Then he moved to sleeping by my bathroom door. Then he was out in the living room with the other cats. Then he was on the foot of the bed. Then he was inside my bathroom by the toilet. Now he seems to be back outside my bathroom door with an occasional trip up onto the bed to bite my feet. Fabulous. Sometimes I’ll wake up and find Conner sleeping on the foot of the bed, which is kind of weird.

The New Me

Not sure if I like it. We'll see how it looks after I wash it tomorrow.

Three cats and a wedding

Adam had a coupon for an afternoon off that he had to use so I also took Friday afternoon off. We went out to lunch and then did some shopping. Mostly pet stuff shopping. We got two new litter boxes. The ones we had were almost a year old and were starting to show their age. Ted and Conner like to dig around and their claws were scratching the bottom. Also, cat pee must be very acidic and was actually burning into the bottom a little. Neat, but kind of scary. So we replaced them. With all the hamsters gone now we also did our room re-arrangement. We’re not so concerned about a cat versus guinea pig death match since the guinea pigs are much bigger than Howie was and their cages are more secure. The third bedroom is noticeably smaller than the second bedroom. It’s a squeeze, but we got everything to fit. Then we cut Mo’s unruly hair (which he thoroughly disliked), cleaned their cages, and vacuumed.

On Saturday we did the rest of the shopping. We also stopped at Kohl’s during their early bird small appliances sale to pick up Adam’s grandmother’s apartment-warming gift. (As an aside, why is it an “early bird sale” when it goes until 1pm? That’s not early in my opinion…) Anyway, we then drove up to De Pere to drop off said gift. His grandmother seems really happy in her new apartment. She’s definitely not a wallflower and appears to have made lots of new friends in the short time she’s been there. She took us out to lunch at a restaurant right down the street. Terrible service, but otherwise a nice place. We came back home and watched Chicago on the new TV with the new surround sound system. Not too shabby.

Sunday morning Adam headed up to Appleton to get new gutter covers. The tree in front of the house had been dropping all kinds of tiny flower things all over the roof and they’d been able to sneak through the old gutter covers and clog up the gutter. The swap out seemed to go pretty quickly. We’ll see if this new version works better. I baked some brownies, a co-worker of Adam’s having given me a Ghirardelli brownie kit. The caramel chocolates had melted a little in transit, but they still turned out pretty well. Very rich. We killed some time by watching She’s the Man. I went and swapped out Chicago for Penelope in case I got bored during the Packer game and wanted something else to watch. Mark and Pat, Adam’s co-worker and friend, came to watch the game. I managed to stay and watch the whole three quarters they were here. It’s easier to watch the game when someone else is yelling at the TV with you. Adam is so stoic in his TV viewing. I feel stupid talking to the TV. But it’s ok when two other people are doing it too. :) They left after the third quarter and we turned it off before the fourth was over. Not a good game. But at least it wasn’t Aaron Rodgers’ fault.

We got a last minute invite to Adam’s cousin Amy’s wedding. Apparently our invitation “got lost.” (Ahem.) We’re not going to go – it’s in Kenosha on Saturday – but we’ll send a card along with his parents. She didn’t come to our wedding either and although it might be fun to meet a few more people in his extended family, I’d rather not spend four hours (round trip) in the car and have to find something to wear to a wedding. Although it does sound like it’s going to be a big party. Hmm.

Not much else going on this week. I think I’ve decided what I’m going to do about my hair situation though. Heads of Time (the place we went for wedding day hair) has a $30 cut & style where they do a consultation prior to the choppage. This might be a good option because then I can get the professional’s opinion on what might work best. I’ll be paying a little more than my standard $12.95 Cost Cutters amount (yay for coupons!) but I think it will work out better for me this way. Now I just need to call for an appointment. Ugh. I’m still unsure of what style I want, but I guess I’ll just see what they come up with. It can always grow back if it turns out really horrible.

Kicking Butt...

The one game I can play on Adam's PS3. Although I maintain my controller was conspiring against me in the first round...

Yah, You Betcha

We DVR Saturday Night Live not just to skip commercials, but because we’re totally lame and are usual in bed before it even starts. Shut up. We’re old.

Anyway.

The season started last week with Michael Phelps as host. The first (and really only) political sketch was the opener, with Amy Poehler as Hillary Clinton (albeit a noticeably pregnant one) and Tina Fey as Sarah Palin. Being the politically apathetic person that I am, I do know who Sarah Palin is but I hadn’t really listened to her much. So when Tina Fey’s take on her made her sound like she came from Fargo, I was skeptical. But I caught a clip of an interview a few days ago and man, she really DOES sound like she’s from Fargo! What’s with that? Isn’t she from Alaska? (As an aside, Conan had a take on this same subject on his show on Thursday. Great minds...) Between McCain’s generally obnoxious whiny voice and Palin’s accent, it could make for a long four years, having to listen to them. And that doesn’t even take into consideration the actual subject content of their speeches. Ugh. Then again Obama tends to yell and Biden, well, I don’t really know about his speaking voice. Haven’t heard too much from him. I guess it’s not a good idea to use their speaking voices to choose our next president, but if that were the competition, it would be a hard one to call, dontch’a know.

RIP Howie

At the beginning of this week, seemingly out of the blue, I discovered Howie had a humongously puffy eye. It was huge. I figured perhaps he had gotten some bedding stuck and it had gotten infected. As advised by some internet sources, Adam used eye drops and tried to clean it out and get rid of as much of the crap inside of it as possible. The swelling went down considerably, although he still couldn't really open the eye at all.

Yesterday morning I refilled his food bowl. He was sitting under his water bottle, chewing on a hamster food cheerio. I patted his head, thereby scaring him. As I closed the door for the day he hopped into his food bowl to scrounge around. I considered checking on him at lunch but didn't. When I went in the room to feed Conner after work Howie had found his way back into his house and expired.

So, again, not completely unexpected. But he had been acting pretty normal all week so we thought maybe he'd pull through. He was the first of our stable crew of critters. Now we've just got the two guinea pigs. That's kind of nice because now we can move the cats into their room and keep all the pet stuff in one spot. That's our weekend project.

Short, Numbered List

Not a long one here. Just a few things:

1) I managed to catch up on my cooking blog. Finally. Until tomorrow, when I'll be behind again.

2) Adam got a nice gift from work for having a great quarter. Now I can know the joy of Spongebob on a 37" HDTV.



3) I finally went and got some new containers for the flour and sugar. Our old sugar canister hasn't had a good seal since, well, we got it. So it was time. And these were on clearance. Go me! I also got one for pasta while I was at it to free up some space in the pantry.



(Yes, we eat Reese's Puffs cereal. You got a problem with that? It's good!)

Random Stuff

Still no progress made on my hair conundrum. This weekend I’ll really need to go get it trimmed, if nothing else. I don’t want it to get too crappy while waiting for me to make up my mind.

We’re almost done with our marriage property/power of attorney/living will stuff. Adam called the lawyer yesterday to firm up our plans for our enormous amount of wealth if we both die. Ha. They’ll revise the paperwork and then we get to go back in to sign things and pay them money. Fun stuff. We’ll definitely need a bigger safe now though. Between these new legal documents and the house stuff (which is in a drawer by the computer now, not even in the safe!) we’ll probably end up getting one of those file drawer safe things.

I watched another movie last night. I must have been on a Woody Allen kick when I added these titles to the Blockbuster queue. This one was Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Too Afraid to Ask.) Hilarious. Adam only caught the last two parts (he was out golfing), but even he was laughing a bit.

Tomorrow is a good day for our checking account. Adam gets his quarterly bonus (yay!), and I get some flex spending and expense reimbursements from work. Woo. Unfortunately, as is usually the case, we’ll then get to watch it all seep back out of the account. *sigh*

And because there's been a severe lack of cute and cuddly around here...

JC has gotten into the habit of hanging out on top of the window in the guinea pig room. You see, in order to keep the cats out of the windows since they were stretching out the screens, we have been opening them from the top. This is just JC's way of saying, "Ha ha! Not as smart as you thought you were, eh?"



The cooler evenings and days have meant more open patio door time. And the cats love that. They can get up close and personal to all the nature in the backyard.



Apparently sleeping in pants isn't limited to JC or my pants. Here's Ted in Adam's pants.


All three cats sit in the same position and they all get that same "you with the camera, go away" look.



And finally, here's JC, relaxed and just hanging out.

The Beat Goes On

Another boring weekend here and gone. We hit Seafood Fest on Friday night. We went a little early to beat the crowds and managed to find a parking spot in the parking lot. Sweet. We had dinner, were attacked by wasps. I hate eating outside. As I was finishing up our onion rings a bug fell from the tree above us making me scream and scare everyone around us. Awesome. We were also serenaded by a local high school band. Ah, memories of bad band music at football games.

Anyway, we stopped at Walmart on the way home. Saturday morning Adam left to go help his grandmother move and I did the rest of the shopping. I also went to Shopko and managed to find a couple of shirts on clearance. Yay! I made the white chocolate-strawberry bars which Adam says are addictive. Sunday was pretty boring. Football, racing. I made a chocolate cake that turned out so horrendously that I refuse to even take a picture of it. It tastes wonderful. It just looks like total crap. I’ll attempt another one at some point in the future. I need to regroup first though.

I made some honey-mustard chicken and potatoes on Saturday night. They were meant to be grilled but I baked them in the oven instead. The potatoes worked out fine, but the honey in the chicken ended up burning and stinking the place up. Oops. We had quinoa and vegetables last night. The quinoa is teeny tiny and Adam says it looks like baby fish eyes. Appetizing… The recipe I used was pretty easy but I might cut the tofu up in smaller pieces next time. It seemed to overwhelm everything else.

My testing this morning was pretty quick, but not painless. I never seem to be able to get by the blood pressure thing in one try. Only two times this morning, but last time I went to the doctor I had two tries on both arms before they got it. The blood taking, ugh. My veins are apparently sneaky fellows and luckily the nurse got one on the first try this time. Last time both my arms got jabbed while hunting for one. But then I started gushing blood when she went to tape the gauze on. Grr. My arm still hurts, but at least it looks as though I’ve avoided an ugly bruise. That was pretty much it. I got some apple juice and was sent on my way. I don’t know what kind of information I’ll be getting back from this effort, but at least they can’t kick me off the insurance plan for non-compliance. Woo.

The rest of the week looks boring. A few new dishes on the menu, the start of the Packer’s season.

Movies (post Oscar)

After finishing the Oscar movie list I kind of forgot to keep up with my quasi movie reviews. We/I’ve watched a few in the last couple weeks:

The Simpson’s Movie – We didn’t get around to seeing this in the theater and didn’t get around to renting it until now. It was the first Blueray movie we got to make sure the PS3 player worked correctly. Not having an HDTV, it really didn’t make the movie-viewing experience better, but whatever. The movie itself was pretty funny. I’m thinking it’s similar to other “tv-shows-turned-movie” wherein some things are only funny if you’ve seen the original show. Having only watched it once I’m sure I missed many references. I caught enough to appreciate the nerdy-ness of Matt Groening and the other writers. How it is possible for people to remember so many previous things and be able to throw them into a new storyline? One of my friends from college had pretty much every “Simpsons” episode memorized and could spout off dialogue in an appropriate context. While it was kind of creepy, it still amazed me that he could devote so much of his brain capacity to a cartoon show. Oh well. I thought the movie was pretty good even though I seem to recall that the overall reception of it wasn’t too stellar.

The Graduate – Also kind of amazing that I had never seen this movie considering how much of a classic it’s supposed to be. I must say I was kind of surprised. Everything I’d heard about the film didn’t really prepare me for what the actual plot turned out to be. It’s much darker than I anticipated (dude, he totally stalks the poor girl!) And man, Simon and Garfunkel really got on my nerves quickly. It’s an interesting movie with some interesting camera work and sound editing. I’m not sure it’s the masterpiece I expected it to be, but it was better than the semi-related Rumor Has It. Ha ha.

Miss Conception – Ok, so this was probably a bad choice on my part, but this movie was awful. Heather Graham plays a lady who can’t agree with her boyfriend on when to have kids. After kicking him to the curb, she finds out she only has one egg left and will thereafter be as barren as the Sahara. And she ovulates in two weeks so she’d better get moving to find herself a baby-daddy. Oh Barf. She and her two classic side-kick friends (gay male friend, bitter female friend) come up with a foolproof, three-prong plan which (of course) doesn’t work. But wait! This is a comedy! Everything works out in the end even though it negates the premise of the entire film. *sigh* Absolutely nothing redeeming about this film at all. It wasn’t even that funny. And it just makes me nuts when females are portrayed as sperm-hungry mommy wannabees with raging biological clocks.

Scenes from a Mall – I appreciate most of Woody Allen’s work. And Bette Midler has her days as well (although she can tend to get kind of shrieky sometimes.) So I figured this would be a fun movie. While I admit it did start to get tedious towards the end, overall it was a good movie. I want to congratulate whoever came up with the idea of giving a surfboard as an anniversary gift in the first 10 minutes of the film and then requiring the characters to carry this neon green thing around for the rest of the movie. The mime character kind of got on my nerves, but I’m guessing that was kind of the point.

Superbad – I’m afraid this falls into the Napoleon Dynamite category. That movie was so popular and everyone raved about it. I watched it and thought it was boring and had no plot. Now Superbad has a plot, but I really don’t see what all the fuss was about. Entirely too much unnecessary profanity and dirty conversation which takes away from the finer points of the movie (not that there were many.) I mean, the DVD even has a counter feature so you can keep track of how many cuss words and sexual references there are. I suppose this appeals to a certain demographic (hello adolescent males!) but I’m not it. I was just put off by the swearing and the ridiculous storyline. I never went to parties like that in high school. I can’t relate. And unlike American Pie (the original), I just didn’t care whether the guys got any or not.

A Hairy Situation

I'm having a problem making a decision. I've been procrastinating on getting a haircut because I'm not sure what I want to do. Adam pretty much always tells me to just shave my head but that's not happening. I like longer hair, but it gets to a point where unless I devote more attention to it it just looks like crap. It's to that point now so I need to regroup.

So I went online to look for one of those things where you upload your picture and can see what you'd look like with certain styles. What do you think (just ignore the hideous color - it was the closest to red I could find)?



Or how about this one?



Bwahahaha, just kidding.

I suppose the only way to go is shorter, but it looks to me like layers might be too much work for me. I'm a wash, towel dry, run a comb through it kind of person. I don't even have a hair dryer or hairspray. I do have a flat iron, but even that has gotten very little use. I was hoping it would eliminate frizz, but it didn't really do what I wanted it to. I also have some leave-in conditioner spray but that makes my hair greasy. I'm totally lazy and don't really want to add 10 minutes to my morning just to arrange my hair. I'd be thrilled if I could get something that takes no additional effort on my part.

So I'm looking for opinions. Ideas. Suggestions. Something I can take to Cost Cutters and hand to the hair cutting person.

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.