Ugh. I have had some sort of critter in my kitchen for the last week. I thought it was a mouse, but have not caught anything yet in the covered snap traps I’ve set. I usually get one or two mice inside during fall, catch them quickly and that’s it. This time, though, the signs are different from usually mouse activity. It’s a lot louder, I haven’t seen any droppings, it’s not getting caught in the traps and yesterday I finally found what I’ve heard it gnawing on. I had a rotting gourd in my compost bucket and I noticed that a good portion of it is gone. This morning I was awoken by the loud thump of something falling onto the ground. I thought it was an apple from the kitchen table, but when I went downstairs noticed that it was a gourd in my front entryway. And the pumpkin on the table had bites taken out of the fleshy part and the stem and there were gourd shards everywhere. I’m starting to think that my friend is bigger than a mouse. Maybe a rat, a squirrel or a chipmunk? Gross! I’ve only had rats once years ago in an apartment and my upstairs guy neighbor took care of them for me and my roommate (set the traps and disposed of two rats that were caught). I’m going to have to get a larger trap this morning at the hardware store. Yuk. This would be a good time to have a boyfriend or husband. I get tired of dealing with everything on my own.

In money news, I have the third week of my finance class on Wednesday. We each pulled our online credit reports and will be reviewing them this week. At first glance, mine looks fine. I’ll also get my credit score. I’ve tracked my spending for all of October so far and will develop a spending plan based on the final totals.

I was going to make some food for the week yesterday, but I ended up having a lazy day and I’m not very motivated to use my kitchen until I catch the critter. I have a can of Muir Glen southwest bean soup that I’ll take for lunch today with a piece of bread, so I won’t have to eat out. And last evening I was dying to go buy a Newman O’s frozen pepperoni pizza and some Ben & Jerry’s ice cream (both are on sale which made it very tempting). I managed to help myself stay home and have a can of Muir Glen chicken noodle soup and some bread instead, saving myself $8.98 and a bunch of calories. Yay!

I walked for 30 minutes three days last week and 50 minutes on Saturday. My goal this week is to walk 35 minutes at least four days. I also joined in CreditCardFree’s purge challenge (clear out 27 items a day for 8 days) and got rid of a bunch of papers from my desk and junk from my bathroom.

Off to the hardware store. Sigh.

Who is eating my fall decorations?