happy birthday Bear!

I cannot believe my handsome Bear Cub is 3 years old today. it seems like it was yesterday when my co-worker sent me a text message with a picture of two teeny tiny kittens, asking what to do. she brought them to my house, and it was love at first sight with that little grey kitty, who resembled a dust bunny more than an actual animal. 

he was so small he could fit in the palm of my hand. he would eat and then nap in his little box that I kept him in... taking him back and forth to work with me everyday for about 6 months, because he was too tiny and not self sufficient enough to leave at home.

always givin' Mama kisses

milk coma with his little dirty milk mouth

Bear is our "special" kitty, as I'm sure you've noticed (and the reason behind the blog name). we rescued him when he was 2 weeks old after his mama abandoned him and his sister in a dumpster. he was so little and weak that he had to be bottle fed every few hours. he had to be taught everything... from how to eat, how to go to the bathroom, and how to walk.

see that little paw sticking up? that's half the reason we named him Bear... they looked like little Bear claws

the bottle nipple could barely fit in his teeny mouth

kissin' hims cute wittle FACE

the first vet we took him to see told us to put him down because he had an inner ear infection and neurological issue in his brain, which caused him to walk in circles (which he still does), and that he most likely had rabies. we ended up seeing another vet, who created some miracle concoction of a medicine that helped his balance issue enough to where he could walk semi-normal.it was a rough couple months for him (and us!) with all the feedings, medicine, and learning how to be a normal kitty. we're pretty sure he still doesn't know what it means to be a cat.

he used to have blue eyes!

walking around on my desk at work... fat little milk belly

Bear & Lily, for size comparison

I'm SO thankful every day that we got a second opinion. I couldn't imagine our lives without him. he is so grateful for us and he shows it every single day - he gets excited when we get home from work, he kisses Mama's face, and truly loves us as his parents.

givin' kisses when we got home from vacation

he used to LOVE snuggling under the covers

napping with hims Daddy

just hangin' out @ work

happy 3rd birthday to my Mister Bear Nugget. 

you are the coolest cat ever. you make me laugh on a daily basis with your "talking" to me whenever I so much as look you, and I love that you think you are a human. even though it drives me batty, I think it's hilarious when you soar out of the litter box and look at me like you didn't do anything wrong. your constant affection is the best feeling in the world for kitty parents, and we love you more than you could possibly ever know. keep doing Bear Cub things, cause you're awesome.

and to the rest of you... 

Happy Friday!

weekend recap (shopping goods included)

the hubs and I had to drop the Tundra off for 

regular maintenance on Saturday... so instead 

of waiting in the service center for hours 

(yes, hours... it took them FIVE hours to perform 

the scheduled maintenance,  

even though we had an appointment... 

don't even get me started on how pissed I am with them), 

we decided to do a little shopping.

first stop? Buckle, of course! 

to be honest, I wasn't impressed with the majority of the items in the store. 

luckily, on my way out of the store, I realized I had 

missed an entire rack right in the front, 

which held all of the things I ended up purchasing. 

here's what I got:

 

Daytrip Babydoll Dress

I thought this was a top until I tried it on and realized how long it was. it could definitely be worn as a dress (but I'd only feel comfortable doing so with leggings because of my height), so I plan on wearing it as a top. it's really flattering and the chiffon overlay makes it more interesting than just a plain grey top. 

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Daytrip Drop Waist Dress

I was nervous about this one, because it's a basic rayon and spandex blend, which means that it hugs just a little bit, but it's still got that stretch. surprisingly, probably because of the drop waist, it fit well and was actually pretty flattering to my body type. I love the vibrant color too - it can be dressed up nicely with the right jewelry and shoes! 

and bonus... it has pockets. I love pockets on dresses.

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Rusty Peyote Strappy Dress

perfect summer dress. it has a bit of black embroidery at the top, which gives it just a little more detail than the basic black dress. the elastic waist allows for a little give and slack so that it doesn't have to be worn skin tight, which I love. and again, it has pockets, which made it an instant win. 

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the last top I got was impossible to find on the Buckle website, but it looks exactly like this:

super small photo from this ebay listing

yep, it's mustard. surprised?

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I also made a stop at Victoria's Secret, because I desperately needed new bras that actually fit me properly. I bought one of the Bio Fit bras in a black/nude lace, which is amazingly comfortable. I also purchased two cotton push up bras (which were on sale - 2 for $45) - one is navy blue with white polka dots, and the other is a basic heather grey. VS was having a major pantie sale as well, so I picked up 7 pairs of cotton underwear for $25. 

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other than our impromptu shopping trip, we had a pretty low key weekend in the FoFandee household. I did literally a million loads of laundry, went grocery shopping, did a little cleaning and we caught up on some DVR'd shows. did anyone else catch the Shameless finale last night? I'm so hooked on that show - cannot WAIT for next season! I also did a bit of cuddling with the Bear cub yesterday between loads of laundry. 

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oh, and I started reading The Book Thief by Markus Zusak last week - I can't really get into it. I'm not sure if it's the format of the writing or if I'm just burned out on fast reads. has anyone read this book? most reviews on GoodReads are raves, but I'm just not feeling it. I'm going to give it another good effort before I decide to put it down... after all, I'm only about 50 pages in, so it could definitely just be a slow start. 

Happy Monday, ya'll!

kitty mish mash

Lily is my baby. she was the first pet I ever had on my own, and she was spoiled rotten as a kitten. not that much has changed in that department. she is the queen of the house and the worst part is that she KNOWS it. large and in charge, I'm tellin' ya.

she's my BIG girl - she weighs about 14lbs. it seems like all fat, and she's got a pretty gnarly FUPA on her, but she's actually got a substantial frame on her too. yep, she's big boned. she sleeps in the funniest positions, and she looks so comfy that I just want to snuggle her and motorboat her belly. 

I'm submitting this photo over at Tara's place for her Friday photo challenge. this week's challenge is "orange." I've always loved Lily's orange mustache, so I thought this would be the perfect representation for it. :)

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Bear & Mama Cat were lookin' comfy on the couch too, so I photographed them as well. I cannot believe Bear is going to be THREE years old next month... blows my mind!

Hosted by Cecily and Lolli

I told Sean I wanted to get this for Bear's birthday, but he was not havin' it. so instead, Sean just bought me the book of kitty wigs to let me get my fix. I'm obsessed. I am not even kidding when I say that if I had the money, I would gladly spend $60 a piece on wigs for my cats. imagine the photo possibilities!

I wish Pheobe were more photogenic, but she hates having her picture taken, hence why there are only a handful of pictures of her on the blog. she's my stubborn girl! maybe she'd let me take more if she were sporting a pink wig.

god, I can't wait to have children so I can dress them up in ridiculous outfits.

I hope everyone has a fabulous weekend! I know I'm not the only one out there that's ready for spring to be here already! 

Happy Friday!

 PS - I'm working on adding links (maybe I'll even be fancy and create buttons!) to the main page of my blog, but if you like to see me on other sites, you can follow me HERE on Twitter and HERE on Pinterest.

homemade lasagna [recipe]

we had Kaley, Adam & Kullen over for dinner on Saturday evening. I made my first ever homemade lasagna and it was SO delicious, I knew I had to share it with you all. if you've been around here for a while, you know that I am no chef, so this was quite the accomplishment for little ol me.

as always, the recipe was found at allrecipes.com. I'll note the changes I made to the recipe in bold below. sadly, I didn't take ONE single picture of the dish, so you'll have to use your imagination to picture how wonderfully mouthwatering it was. 

Kaley was kind enough to make salads and garlic bread, which perfected the meal. Sean made these mint brownies, which were dangerously delectable... I'll be writing a post all about those this week, since I do have a picture of them on my camera!

World's Best Lasagna 

[Facts]:

prep time: 30 minutes

cook time: 2 hours, 30 minutes

ready to eat: 3 hours, 15 minutes

[Ingredients]:

• 1 pound sweet Italian sausage (I don't like Italian sausage, so I substituted with a pound & a half of ground beef)
• 3/4 pound lean ground beef
• 1/2 cup minced onion
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 (28 ounce) can crushed tomatoes
• 2 (6 ounce) cans tomato paste
• 2 (6.5 ounce) cans canned tomato sauce
• 1/2 cup water
• 2 tablespoons white sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons dried basil leaves
• 1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
• 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 4 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley (I used dried parsley flakes = 4 teaspoons)
• 12 lasagna noodles
• 16 ounces ricotta cheese
• 1 egg
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 pound mozzarella cheese, sliced (about 18 slices)
• 3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

[Directions]:

1. In a Dutch oven, cook sausage, ground beef, onion, and garlic over medium heat until well browned. 
2. Stir in crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, tomato sauce, and water. 
3. Season with sugar, basil, fennel seeds, Italian seasoning, 1 tablespoon salt, pepper, and 2 tablespoons parsley. 
4. Simmer, covered, for about 1 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally. 
5. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Cook lasagna noodles in boiling water for 8 to 10 minutes. Drain noodles, and rinse with cold water. (see notes below)
6. In a mixing bowl, combine ricotta cheese with egg, remaining parsley, and 1/2 teaspoon salt.
7. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
8. To assemble, spread 1 1/2 cups of meat sauce in the bottom of a 9x13 inch baking dish. Arrange 6 noodles lengthwise over meat sauce. Spread with one half of the ricotta cheese mixture. Top with a third of mozzarella cheese slices. Spoon 1 1/2 cups meat sauce over mozzarella, and sprinkle with 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese. 
9. Repeat layers (noodles, ricotta, mozzarella, meat sauce & Parmesan). 
10. Top with remaining mozzarella (I just added another whole layer of mozzarella slices) and Parmesan cheese. 
11. Cover with foil: to prevent sticking, either spray foil with cooking spray, or make sure the foil does not touch the cheese.
12. Bake in preheated oven for 25 minutes. Remove foil, and bake an additional 25 minutes. Cool for 15 minutes before serving.

[NOTES]: 

the directions were originally combined into about 5 steps, but I like it broken out more by actions than components of the recipe, so I got a little ENTER key happy. 

Sean accidentally bought the "no boil" noodles, so we eliminated step #5 that required cooking and draining the noodles. they actually turned out to be a little chewy, so I will probably use regular noodles next time. 

I made extra meat sauce and added an extra layer, which turned out to be too much meat for my tastes. next time, I'll probably add more ricotta to level it out, but that's just a personal preference.

this recipe fed five adults and two children on Saturday night, and we had two servings of leftovers for lunch on Monday!

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just so this post isn't completely photo-less, here are some that I took with my cell phone over the weekend:

this is the hard work that Bear contributed to the super duper cleaning of the house this weekend.

I got this shirt for $10 at Woot! and I love it. the shapes that make up Poe's face are ravens.

Happy Tuesday!

your Bear fix.

the gym, working late every night, keeping my house clean, school work, and The Hunger Games have completely ruled my life for the past week! so until I have the time for a substantial post, you'll have to look at this cute kid. I know, how horrible of me. 

it was nap time. speaking of nap, excuse the nappy hair. it was day 3.

I've mentioned before that he thinks he's a human... this is just a smidgen of proof. there's ice water in that cup.

"RAWR! I am manly and ferocious. I am a BEAR!"

Happy Tuesday!

love letter to Kitty Paw

a few weeks ago, Ashley announced the beginning of her very first contest. she is now accepting love letters to her meow-face, Kitty Paw. being the crazy cat lady I am, I was entirely too excited about this.

so without further adieu, here is Bear Cub's letter to Miss Kitty Paw: 

Bear worked very hard on hims letter to his dream girl, and he hopes that she'll say yes! yes, he knows that Valentine's Day is over, but he's a hopeful and optimistic cat.  he's also a procrastinator.    
  

random tidbits

- you know those Chevy commercials that show the Rockies and the theme song says something like "like a rock"? when I was a kid, I thought the words were "lock her up." dumbass. 

- after my horrible hangover last Sunday, where I admittedly spent at least 6 hours at or on the toilet, I couldn't poop for a week. IT WAS TERRIBLE. I can say it was honestly one of the worst weeks of life. I've always had a pretty regular digestive schedule, so the sudden bout of "I have to poo, but I can't" really fucked me up. 

- I met with our accountant over the weekend. thanks a huge financial decision we made early last year, we now owe the federal government $5,000. not cool, especially since I was counting on that refund to get some things done around the house. ya know, maybe buy a dining table? maybe some chairs for the dining table? looks like we may be refurbishing the old set in the garage after all. 

- my Bear cub is the cutest kitty ever. 

don't mind the eye boogers... he's been getting them a lot lately.

- thanks to the suggestions of many people, I started reading The Hunger Games last week. started on Friday, finished on Thursday. started Catching Fire (the second book) on Friday, and I should be finished with it this evening. 

I AM HOOKED. I'm pretty sure there's crack in the pages. it's such an odd and morbid concept that it makes me value the government of our society, as corrupt as it may seem. I'm also considering naming my first born Primrose. thank you, Suzanne Collins. I will be posting reviews of all three once I finish, which shouldn't be long! 

- yes, I still have The Help review to finish and post. slacker. 

- I'm actually really liking my English class this semester. I'm not big on reading pieces of literature and analyzing/interpreting them, but unfortunately, that's the gig for this class. professor seems really laid back though, so that's awesome.  and the other classmates seem really nice and supportive.

- I'm going to email everyone who donated to the Miss Chow Fund and get their addresses. a happy ending like this one deserves proper thank-you notes.

- according to Bear, this is his couch. 

Happy Tuesday! :)

wordless Wednesday

tidbits & some Friday photos

sheesh. I have been horrible about blogging this week. I feel like all my posts lately have been fluff, so I apologize. I need to get back into the swings of things. my spring semester class starts tonight, but it's a 13 week class, so I won't be as stressed out as I was over the winter semester with that damn sociology class.

I'm going to make an effort to take better photos, and in doing so, I'm going to try my hand at participating in as many photo challenges as I can. I hope they encourage me to work harder at taking nice photos and being satisfied with them enough to publish them here on the blog.

there's a lot going on at the FoFinn household lately. we've recently reaaaaally started to budget ourselves and cut back on frivolous spending. I'm proud to say that I have not bought lunch at work one time this week, and it feels great. we're allowing ourselves a certain amount of cash to spend every week, and we can do what we please with it. I decided that instead of buying lunch everyday, I'm going to save my money and buy myself a Vera Bradley agenda calendar, haha.

this is a lot of text, so I'm going to break it up with some photos. I took my camera out the other evening and got some good shots of the meows, so I thought I'd share them for my fellow crazy cat ladies, along with a few shots from a Mardi Gras themed party I attended over the weekend.

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the prompt for today's Foto Friday challenge is Reflections. I took this at a friend's house over the weekend. a good friend of mine turned 30 on Saturday, and visited us from Louisiana, so we threw her a Mardi Gras themed bonfire party. it was the coldest day we had in a long time, so I made sure to bundle up!

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this week's challenge at Living Every Moment is "anything." any time there isn't a specific task or item to photograph, the kitties get the spotlight. this is Bear's ALERT!!! face.

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the awesome ladies who hosted the Mardi Gras party on Saturday night did an amazing job with the favors and little trinkets. there were beads, masks, and the birthday girl even got a boa to wear all evening. I took this shot using my 50mm lens, and I was really impressed with how it turned out, so I decided to use it for this week's Give Me Your Best Shot challenge. 

(for some reason, the button for GMYBS is not working, but the link is!)

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and since GMYBS and Photo Story Friday are linked together, I'll go ahead and post that one as well. this is Lily's spot on the couch. she will fight for this cushion, and the other meowers know not to even think about parking their asses here.

Hosted by Cecily and Lolli
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last weekend, I decided to implement a weekly meal plan for dinners in our house and I really think it's helped us to stay on track. we were spending SO much money at the grocery store on a weekly basis on a bunch of crap that we didn't need. having a specific plan for meals has forced us to only get what we'll need for that week and is therefore saving us money each week. now... this only started last week, so I'm not an expert at this or anything, but it's working well damnit. 

as you can probably tell from my sidebar, I've been doing a lot of reading as of late. I made myself a rather ambitious goal to read at least 50 books this year, and I've already finished 3 books this year, and we're not even out of the first month yet. I completed The Help yesterday afternoon (three cheers for a snow day!), and it was such a good read. I'll be writing a lengthy review over the weekend, so stay tuned! I picked up 19 Minutes by Jodi Picoult last night and I'm hooked already.

I'll be back later today with a Fill in the Blank Friday post!

Happy Friday, ya'll!

the bokeh.

I haz it.

mucho thanks goes out to Kaley @ rogue poags, who showed me a little trick on how to get a good bokeh photo. now I can be in the cool photography club. 

I hope you all are staying warm wherever you are. we got some snow yesterday and last night, but needless to say, I was pissed when I woke up to only a few inches on the ground as opposed to the BLIZZARD we were supposed to get. 

I'm going to try an upload my holiday recap pictures tonight, so stay tuned! let's just say I am obsessed with my new camera lens. ;)

happy Monday, from le Bear.

paint paws [part two]

he seems so sweet & innocent, right?

yeah. not so much. 

but look! his profile! it's so handsome and perfect!

oh. and there he is... biting the paint out of his fur. crap, that can't be healthy. 

I should just use him as a paint brush from now on.