I don't mind the rat race but I could do with a little more cheese.

SCA: I received the final Virginia Doomsday report last night. Of course, this was after finally making that group's third quarter report balance after month's of banging my head against it and then walking the branch treasurer through the fourth quarter report and the year-end report. WHOO HOO! Now I get to consolidate all the branch reports into a Virginia spreadsheet and send that up to Kingdom.

Phone: Still in love, or at least like like. I've got my apps where I want them and, before working with the above exchequer, I got the personalized ringtones attached to contacts. Call sound quality is good and the microphone is, according to the recipient of my call, excellent. Not bad considering the phone was a couple of feet away from me on the sofa during the call. The only downside -- you knew there had to be a downside, didn't you? -- is that DecalGirl.com doesn't currently support the Rezound. Poop. I wanted to get a phone skin to match my iPod and Kindle. Oh well, I found a cute case that will do the trick and follow a similar color scheme as the skins on my other devices.

Bike: There are several bikey events coming up.

Stop, Swap, & Save on Sunday, February 12, 9a-2p. It is an indoor bike swap and consumer expo in Westminster, MD.

WABA 2012 Vasa Ride on Sunday, March 4, 7:30a-1p. Per the site, "four hundred riders of all ages and experience levels will gather at the House of Sweden on the morning of Sunday, March 4th for a noncompetitive ride to brave the coldness of winter and traverse DC and Maryland's terrain." There are 59-, 31-, and 15-mile routes for this event. Scott and I are signed up for the 31-miler.

Plus, the Bike Me DC Meetup group has several events scheduled such as a maintenance course this coming Saturday, a "Lost Blossom" tour of lesser known cherry trees at the end of March, and a tour along Skyline Drive, as well as spur of the moment bike tours of the C&O, MVT, and other scenic areas around the DC area. I'm looking forward to the maintenance class. Hopefully, it'll make me less of a bike hypochondriac and more empowered when I know how to fix the squeaks and squawks coming from my beloved velo.

And last, but certainly not least, Snow: Wombat is back in town and has brought inclement weather with him. His snow voodoo has faced a terrible-to-some jet stream but it may get the upper hand this afternoon. I think The Powers That Be don't want to potentially strand him so that he misses Mardi Gras as one of the Sirens of New Orleans' sailors as that troupe dances in parades for the Mystic Krewe of Nyx and the Krewe of Orpheus.

Saturday was a long, long day spent at Unevent in Southern Maryland. For those not in the mid-Atlantic region of the SCA, this is an SCA officers' event where we spend a full day training, reviewing, and talking about our offices. The event usually includes order meetings as well, but this year it was all about officers. My passenger Cassie and I avoided the congestion on 210 and took the faster-paced 5 to 301. We arrived two cars ahead of friends who left NoVa an hour before us (and had gotten caught in the backup on 210).

Anyway, I did a review of books for one of my local treasurers and then helped another treasurer trouble-shoot her third quarter report. Two hours later... the report didn't balance and we found inconsistencies in her second quarter report. psallite kindly fetched lunch for me which I was able to wolf down during the Seneschals & Exchequers meeting. I tried trouble-shooting another third quarter report during the three-hour training session for exchequers. Unfortunately, I didn't have all her paperwork to effectively review her report and find the sticking points. I had a broken report from yet another group, but I did not have the brain cycles left to work my way through that one.

At the end of the day, I passed a couple of people who exclaimed, "I had no idea you were here!" Yeah, that happens when one spends all day in a classroom or a meeting room and doesn't get out to socialize. Ah well. At least I got a review of books completed.

Dinner with friends afterwards was pretty fantastic. Much laughter, tasty drinks, and rejuvenating food. Bless. If you ever get the chance to listen to Ceridwen South's bus stories, don't pass that up.

Cassie and I sang along with Weird Al on the trip home and made pretty good time despite my being so tired that I took the wrong exit off the Toll Road. Oops. It did give us more time to sing with Al.

Nothing's been happening in the costuming department. All my grand plans have fallen to the wayside as I focus on improving my fitness level. Plus, I decided against putting a lot of work and decorating into two dresses which will swallow me whole with the loss of another thirty pounds and then another. No point, really. Maybe it's a little bit defeatist. I'm pretending that it's me looking forward and saving my energy for when it will make the most impact. Yeah, that's going to be my story.

I do need to start and complete a particular sewing project, though. Mom will be here in three short weeks and I need to sew curtains for the craft/guest room so she can have privacy and relief from the Eye of Sauron in the common area out back. I've got the fashion fabric, I've got the blackout fabric, I've mostly got the know-how, I've even got the time. It's a matter of sitting down and actually doing it.

The other project I need to finish is the Virginia year-end financial report. That's numero uno on my list of projects for this weekend. The spreadsheet WILL be in carthew's in box by Monday morning.

Good gravy, how'd it get to be noon-thirty? Must be all that work I've been doing. No conference calls or firedrills to disrupt my groove. What a delightful change of pace.

Second quarter exchequer reports are rolling in. This makes me a very happy regional officer. I think half of my groups have reported as of this morning and we're five days ahead of the due date. Whoo hoo!

Mostly lazy weekend. I wanted very much to start staging camping gear in the dining room, but I knew that it would drive me bonkers if all the gear were piled up for a week. It's not like I need to hunt things down anyway. We have a shelving unit which is devoted solely to camping gear in the basement. Everything stays packed in its respective bag or box until it is used. Well, everything except the bedding. I went ahead and piled the wool blankets and duvet cover on the dining room table. And a couple of pillows. Oh dear. I'm not sure where the sheets are. I'll need to find them tonight. I usually keep the sheets and featherbed in the blue trunk, but the fabric I purchased at Gulf Wars is still stowed there. (Yes, I know.)

Oreo has become a better pet. He still gnaws on the protective cord covers, but he hasn't destroyed anything in several weeks. I'm even able to hang the toilet paper roll the correct way without him unraveling all the paper. He snuggles with me in the morning while I hit my snooze bar over and over and he pays careful attention to my morning and evening beauty routines. I'm so glad he's a part of our family.

I have most of the Virginia fourth quarter and year-end reports in hand and/or have soft copies with promises of hardcopies in the next couple of days.

Our federal and state taxes are filed and I expect our delicious refund to hit my bank account in the next couple of weeks. Home improvements, ahoy!

I had a jam-packed fun weekend, and I'm pretty much shattered by it. If ever I'd thought I might be an extrovert, this weekend confirmed that I'm definitely, absolutely not. Oh, everything went well: I had a grand time Friday night, Saturday afternoon, and Sunday; but being "on" for so long left me feeling hung-over and fragile. I'm working from home today so I don't have to be around people.

(Note from Saturday, psalite has been well and truly enabled with BPAL perfumes. Ha ha. Coldie and I loaded her up with a dozen or so imp vials. Coldie and I also swapped imps and bottles between ourselves: my Knecht Ruprecht and Blue Moon 07 for her Chaos Theory IV: CDLXIX and Hexennacht 08. Sweet!)

It's the fiscal end of year for local exchequers and I spent much of the weekend cleaning reports for people. I'm kind of nervous that I've heard from so few; this week could be madness as procrastination catches up with folks.

There's a light covering of snow out front and we're supposed to get some showers or flurries later today and tomorrow. Wednesday looks like it'll be nasty weather-wise. I can't wait!

Friday was the perfect day for skulking through the woods and shooting paintballs at coworkers (and Hubbyfinks; we wound up on opposing teams, heh heh heh). I was much more aggressive tihs year and am now sporting some fairly spectacular bruises on my hip, collarbone, ribs and back. Yes, someone shot me in the back. And the worst part of that attack is that the balls didn't break so I didn't have to leave the game, but it hurt so badly that I very happily trotted back to the dead zone with my hands in the air so I wouldn't get shot again.

Also? Thank heavens I've been running on the elliptical for a few weeks. I might've dropped dead out there, otherwise.

Got a call from the vet saying that all three kitties are in good health. ( Some TMI. )

Hubbyfink and I roused ourselves early on Saturday so we could head down to Front Royal for Atlantian University. I'd planned on wearing my red kirtle, but decided to go with my now-loose Norse ensemble so there wouldn't be anything pressing in on the afore-mentioned bruises. duchesssimone completed Reviews of Books for Stierbach and Sudentorre as I watched from the side (except for when tattycat and I had a quick BPAL swap; she took my unloved Carpathian Mountains and I walked away with Mechanical Phoenix). My class (Exchequer 101) went fairly well: people asked lots of questions which I was mostly able to answer and I covered all of the information on the handout. W00t. Afterwards, rwday and I worked on the Marinus reports and finally got them to balance. Whoo hoo!

Hubbyfink went to a WMA practice on Sunday and I finally prepped the front garden for winter. I love my new hedge clippers. I felt a bit like Edward Scissorhands while attacking the bushes out front. Sadly, I am nowhere near as talented so the boxwoods and whatever-the-other-two-bushes-are are not in whimsical shapes. I put mums and pumpkins on the front steps and replaced the blossom wreath with the indian corn and broom. The pots the mums are in got rather funky during the past year, but a coat of black spray paint made them look so good that Hubbyfink thought I had purchased new pots.

After dinner and a hot bath, I attacked the craft room and got it looking mostly decent. Clothing and accessories are in their proper homes; that made a HUGE impact on the state of the room. I also finally got this year's regional exchequer files under control and in the right places. Now I'm all ready for the third quarter reports to come rolling in.