Accidental Accountant

Remember that one time I became an accountant and I didn't know it?!

Sarah + Numbers = CHAOS!

When I accepted my current position (which I have a love/hate relationship with) I knew that it had a fair amount of budgeting/accounting/expense reporting associated with it.  I mean I RUN the program.  Like all of it.  And our money comes from many different places, one of which is the state.  Which you can imagine, if you follow the CA budget news at all, is quite a stressful, tenuous situation.  ie we never know if there will be money or how much.  And it also means that I have to keep track of and report accounting information to about 99 thousand places.  Yay bureaucracy.  All of this is good.  I do understand the purpose.  I support fiscal transparency.  What I do not support is leaving Sarah to figure out how to expense report and budget project on her own with no training.  But alas this is what is happening.  And today (if you had asked me last week I would have said something different probably) I am feeling like I am slowly (emphasis on the SLOWLY) starting to understand. 

That being said, I still don't want to be an accountant.  Never did.  Praise Buddha for calculators and excel spreadsheets or I would be in deep doo doo.  I don't know how the accountants of yore did all this nonsense by hand!  NONSENSE.  I resolve here and now to implement proper, continuous book keeping practices for this year’s program so that this time next year I will not be crying over my spreadsheets...  And today SP told me that I can quit my job if I want to.  Now that's real love I think.  But with an impending wedding and life dreams I think I'll keep spread-sheeting for a little while longer...

Other than the fact that I'm dreaming in excel formulas life is quite good.  Busy but good.  Busy is better than not busy probably.  Because it means you are alive and social and living every drip out of every minute.  This weekend was a fun one even if it was packed to the last drop.  We spent Saturday moving SP's brother and sister and law and super cute baby chunk into their new house.  A very charming little starter house, I'm very happy for them.  And am even happier that I'm not moving right now!  Moving BLOWS.  But it was really good to see them and snuggle a baby and help get them settled in.  Sunday was project day.  New media cabinet was modified to fit our insanely large cable box.  Seriously why is it so enormous? I can't imagine there is THAT much going on in there.  After a little bit of hole drilling (all SP, I'm not allowed near the power tools) everything fits in just perfectly and all the technology is fabulously (and cutely hidden).  And then...bum bum bum...I (somehow) convinced SP to let me paint our kitchen table an obscenely bright color.  This may not be all that shocking to normal people but if you know SP you know that she's not the biggest fan of color.  She's more of a grey, black, white kind of girl.  And the table is DEFINITELY not one of those colors.  Pictures to follow when the kooky project is complete.  Let’s just say that it is definitely going to be a statement piece.

AND THEN.  (I know right, how crafty are we?!) we carved pumpkins.  Free hand.  yeah.  Let’s just say SP's is adorable.  Mine not so much.  But its ok because I roasted up the pumpkin seeds, which is really the only reason I participate in pumpkin carving at all!  Yummy yum yums.

Mmm pumpkin goooo - note: no kitchen table in the background...

I forgot to mention that we did all this crafting (and some IKEA shopping, because sunday just doesn't seem to be complete these days without a trip to IKEA) on about 4.2 hours of sleep.  Nothing like waking up at 3:00am to the sound of your pipes SQUEALING like something is dying inside of them.  It was truly terrifying.  And just when we thought it had stopped we were awoken again to the gorgeous sound around the 6am hour.  At which point the horrible noise and vibration continued for about an hour when we called the landlord and told him he better send a plumber...and maybe an exorcist right quick!  And when the plumber arrived - no sounds!!!!

As it turns out, not our pipes but rather the pipes of the apartment next door.  Luckily the plumber who came to diagnose our pipes (and of course found nothing) went next door and did fix our neighbors pipes, because I’m pretty sure if that would have continued I would have scratched my own ears off.  And burned holy sage around the entire apartment...

This week we get to slow down a touch, no dinners or doggy lessons.  Just the normal stuff and I have to tell you, doing laundry has never sounded better...

Happy Tuesday peeps!  Here's to hoping you get to slow down too....

Oh the lessons you'll learn...

Important lessons learned this weekend/week:

• When you pick up a stray animal, the act of picking it up means that you have assumed responsibility for said animal.
• SPCA's don't really take strays
• Sacramento animal control is closed Mondays and Tuesdays (so don't pick up an animal Sunday night through Wednesday morning)
• 2 dogs and 2 people in 1 bed is too many bodies for any kind of sleeping
• If you put the Crockpot on high for 8 hours when the recipe calls for LOW for 8 hours your Crockpot will meet an untimely death (unless you like eating meteorites)
• Highlighters make good fake candles if you a) don't' have any candles b) the person being celebrated is in love with office supplies
• Trench coats are le awesome
• The check engine light is from Satan and is meant to cause immense panic
• I have a physical panic attack reaction when I see the hoarders commercials (like I almost cried/threw up simultaneously - hoarding = two things that don't' work well for Sarah, ocd and claustrophobia)
• I dislike Halloween (pls don't make me dress up) but I do in fact love Halloween decorations.  Or maybe I  love all decorations all the time.
• The one dollar bin at target is god's gift to cheap decorators
• I like rain?!!!!??? (wait what?!)

Overall it was a good weekend, it was just filled with a few things that SP and I definitely hadn't planned on.

I have so much more to say about life.  But in the mean time enjoy this fabu Halloween pic:

SP's gonna kill me ;)

Happy Pre-Halloween and Pre-Pre Thanksgiving and Pre-Pre-Pre Christmas (or other holidays that fall around this time that you celebrate)!  I love holiday season!