weekend tidbits

- I finally treated myself to a manicure & pedicure on Friday, and picked OPI Gargantuan Green Grape... new fave, for sure. it's a lot lighter and more pastel than it looks in the picture from OPI's website - it would probably take a million coats to achieve that! 

via OPI

- we ran errands on Saturday and did some serious shopping for house stuff.

• we bought tons of random things at Target that we've been meaning to get... like a garlic press, a tiered shelf for spices, and a new bath rug. 
• and then we hit Home Depot for even more randomness... potting soil & new planters, a raised garden bed (for veggies, which was on SALE for about $40), a quart of paint, and a door knob. 
• finally, we ended our day at a lighting store, where I stumbled upon the coolest lamp ever. the only one in stock was the display, so I snatched that sucker up. I LOVE it. it really brings a good amount of light to our living room, and it's got that funk factor I've been looking for. 

- we have big plans for the landscaping at Casa de Quinn this year. this week we're going to pay my brother to come in and tear out all the ugly bushes that surround the house (and subsequently hide it) so we can plant flowers and put in our raised garden bed. AND he'll be completely demolishing our existing deck so that we can install pavers in it's place. I'll be getting outside after work today to take some "before" pictures to show you all, although it's slightly embarrassing. 

- since we picked up potting soil at HD, I finally planted the herbs I bought to go in these planters (which I mentioned here). I'm pretty excited, considering it's my first planting adventure.

- I wrote a 1500 word paper yesterday comparing Nora from A Doll's House to Daisy Buchanan from The Great Gatsby, discussing their abilities to exert power as women. I have one more paper to write this evening for my final exam and then I am done with my English class. I CANNOT WAIT to be done, but I'm thrilled to take new classes in the fall.

- I just finished reading Love The One You're With by Emily Giffin and was utterly disappointed in it. I guess I shouldn't have expected much, since I'd heard that her books got progressively worse as they went on, but I was hoping that it'd be a least worth a 4 star rating. it wasn't terrible, but it was way slow in the beginning and I felt like the ending was rushed and cleaned up a little too nicely for my tastes. 

- this is what I wore out and about on the gorgeous day we had here on Friday. not pictured are khaki capris and white flip flops. I love my mustache necklace, which I got as a birthday gift from Kaley.

- running and working out has unfortunately taken a back seat in favor for school work and house work the past couple days, but I hope to get back into the swing of things this week! 

Happy Monday!

fill in the blank Friday [& other happenings]

happy April 1st, readers! 

luckily, I haven't had any pranks played on me today. 

but that could change... it's still early! 

I wore my new mustard top today just for Kaley. it's lovely. 

I've got a busy weekend ahead: 

girls night this evening which includes dinner & a movie; 

errands, housework and a 3rd birthday party tomorrow;

and dinner with my in-laws on Sunday. 

oh, and somewhere in there, I have to write

a 600-700 word essay on the theme of love within 

Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. 

awesome. sauce. 

but for now, I'll fill in some blanks over at the little things we do with Lauren! 

if you'd like, you can join in on the fun here!

1.   The best prank I ever pulled was  telling Sean's mom one year that I was pregnant. I thought it would be hilarious (yet, kind of an obvious PRANK), but she thought we were serious and was genuinely disappointed when she realized it was a joke. 

2.  The best prank ever pulled on me was    Christmas 2009. we always get scratch off lottery tickets in our stockings from my dad... I mean... Santa. I scratched off my lottery ticket, and after staring at my card dumbfounded for about 4 minutes, realized that I had matched the 3 icons that resulted in a win of $10,000. I screamed out loud, saying things like "oh my god, is the gas station even OPEN on Christmas?" and "shit, there's no way they carry $10,000 in cash to hand out, I'll have to mail it in or something?!" I turned the card over to find out how to redeem my moolah, and discovered that in order to claim my cash, I had to mail it to the Tooth Fairy, who was located at 123 Gumdrop Lane or some shit. it took me a minute to realize it, but it was a fake lottery ticket. I was SO pissed. 

 

 

oh... and the whole thing is on video. thanks Dad. 

3.  A day without     laughter    is a day wasted.

4.  The most important things in life are     the people in it.

5.  I dream of      having a handful of kids that I can spend everyday with, thanks to my successful design business, where I establish my own style through the spaces I create, traveling with my family, enjoying my marriage to the fullest, and maintaining awesome friendships with my favorite women. 

6.  I dread       the day that I have to say goodbye to my father.

7.  A discovery I made this week was      despite Lily's weight, slight heart murmur, and lovely peeing habits, she's as healthy as she can be! no cardio, kidney, or viral issues, which is a huge relief! now to figure out why she's peeing right outside the litter box. =/

holly freaking homemaker [late post]

yeah, that's me. at least this week. ;) 

NOTE: Blogger hates me and did not automatically post this on Saturday, even though I had it scheduled to. 

I've decided it's time to be a grown up... meaning that I've got to start pitching in with cooking dinner and keeping up with the house. which means... no more waiting until the weekend, only to spend an entire day cleaning the crap out of my house. no more leaving dishes in the sink until I feel like washing them. no more unhealthy (yet incredibly easy) meals for dinner. no more buying crap food for lunch everyday at work. 

I'm proud to say that I haven't bought lunch at work in two weeks! it's amazing how much money you save when you just bring your own food to work everyday. this whole concept is completely foreign to me, but I think it's been a success so far! 

everyday when I get home, I try to do one or two small things around the house... like scoop the litter boxes or vacuum the hardwood floors. when we're finished with dinner, the dishes get washed and put in the dish drain, and the put away the following day. I'm cooking dinner at least 2-3 times a week, and I'm loving it. 

keeping up with the house work/chores and cooking meals together every night has proved to be awesome for Sean and I. we get that time in the evening to bond with each other instead of going our separate ways and fending for ourselves for dinner. unfortunately, we had been guilty of doing that in the past. teaming up to make sure the house is always in order is an automatic ego boost for both of us and we feel awesome about it. 

we decided we wanted to have our friends Kaycie & Adam over this Sunday. the Caps play at 12:30, and then of course, there's the Superbowl on later in the evening. since they'll be at our house pretty much all day, I decided to go all out and have a feast throughout the day. I've been searching allrecipes.com for good appetizer recipes, and I think I finally have a set list of dishes to make. 

let me just mention that I am not a chef... I typically do not cook and I certainly don't cook appetizers. so this is a first for me, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they turn out well!

Sunday Funday Menu

APPS

• Homemade Meatballs with Kaley's secret meatball sauce ;)
• Dill Veggie Dip, served with baby carrots, sliced cucumbers, broccoli florets, and cherry tomatoes
• Sweet Fruit Dip, served with sliced apples, bananas, strawberries, and cantaloupe
• Bacon Wrapped Shrimp (I'm substituting the BBQ sauce for a pre-packaged McCormick's marinade)

DINNER

• Garden Salad with Italian dressing and garlic croutons
• Baked Ziti, served with cheesy garlic bread

DESSERT

• Chocolate Candy Bar Dessert (using Oreo cookies instead of wafers and Snickers candy bars)

so there it is, my first ever multi-course dinner menu! I'm pretty excited about all of this, to be honest. I actually cooked Sean's chicken Parmesan (his favorite) as a belated birthday meal a few weeks ago, along with the chocolate roll cake. I honestly just kind of winged it for the chicken Parm, so I guess I can't really post a recipe for that, but I do have pictures. if I have the time this weekend, those posts will be up! 

I'm also still working on a book review for The Help, but I'm having a hard time finding the time to put sufficient energy into it. I'm in the middle of reading 3 different books right now, but all is being put on hold for The Hunger Games. I've had multiple people tell me (just this week!) that they couldn't put it down and they read it fairly quickly (we're talking a day here), so I figured I'd go ahead and pick it up. I need a page turner right now to distract me from my English class. 

I think that's all for now... at least all my brain can handle at the moment. I hope you all are doing fantastic - I'm working on catching up on your recent posts! have a happy weekend, everyone!  

UPDATE: I went out with Sean and his friends last night and got completely way too drunk, resulting in the worst hangover known to man. I've spent the majority of the day in the bathroom puking my brains out. the only dish I actually cooked today was the meatballs... Kaycie and Sean cooked everything else. and for the record, my meatballs were delicious. 

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!

randomish

Happy Friday, my loves! 

hopefully I'll have some good posts after this weekend. 

I finally received all my packages from Target, 

which contained nothing but holiday decor. 

every reindeer and mini christmas tree are in place,  

pillows are on the couch,  

stocking holders are waiting for their soft friends, 

and the gifts are wrapped. 

all I need to do now is put our fucking tree up. 

see, we have contractors at our house right now, 

makin' a big old mess 

in the area where we normally set up our tree. 

so I've decided there's no 

sense in putting it up until they're finished... 

but it is KILLING ME to not have our tree up right now. 

I usually have it up the day after Thanksgiving. 

I'm really excited to have our house completely

finished of renovations. 

our kitchen cabinets are now painted white, 

and after next week, the walls will be grey

and we'll have new baseboard covers. 

our balcony will also be 100% waterproof so that

we don't have any more of THESE incidents (see Thursday).

andplusalso, brand new ceiling say whaaaat! 

sneak peek of the cabs:

in LOVE. 

and you know Bear was just the friendliest 

little kitty when the men were working the kitchen. 

he must have tried to help, because I came 

home to a slightly brushed Bear cub. 

see his tail? normally not white.

anydoodle. 

I'll have lots of cute decor to post after 

I get a chance to photograph it 

(I have to dust first, haha) 

this weekend. 

I'm also having a MUCH needed 

girls night out this weekend, 

so I'm sure I'll have some funny 

slash embarrassing 

stories to share with you all.

what are YOU doing this weekend? 

any decorating or girls night outing?

second day hair

I took the hour long spin class on Thursday evening, which totally demanded a long hot shower afterward. unfortunately, my hair looks like complete SHIT if I sleep with it wet, which I did, so I decided to wash it again on Friday morning. I didn't even brush it for the day... I just scrunched a little product in it (CIBU Spring Roll Shaping Creme, if you were wondering) and went about my day. I spent Friday evening at a friend's house with a bunch of awesome girls for a little wine night. 

that wine night left me with a slight hangover the next morning, and I didn't feel like washing my hair just to do it all over again. so I just pulled it back and we made our trip up to AACC. we went to meet with advisers because Sean wants to take classes in the spring to get his certificate for a computer program, and I decided I might as well go back to school as well. yes, you read that right... this girl is going back to school for interior design. I cannot wait to get back into the swing of things and eventually get my degree. more on that later.

oh and also, I wore my new mustard sweater on Saturday while running errands, accompanied by a cute shirt that Kaycie passed down to me last weekend. I really need a full length mirror.

anyway. back to the point of this post. we decided to attend a little surprise birthday party for one of Sean's friends Saturday night, and by the time we got back to the house from running errands and grabbing lunch, I was exhausted, and the last thing I wanted to do was wash my hair. so instead of just throwing up it messy like I normally do, I took the curling iron to it. it turned out wonderfully! I love the look of curled hair, and since I don't normally have time to wash, dry, and THEN curl, it worked out perfectly with my second day dirty hair. sorry for the crappy cell phone picture.

so there you have it. an entire post leading up to me telling you I curled my hair. good day, sir.

weekend recap!

I hope everyone had an amazing Halloween weekend! we don't get trick-or-treaters where we live, so I saved my thighs by not consuming 10lbs of candy. hallelujah! 

FRIDAY

Friday evening, Sean and I went up to the mall to see a movie. we grabbed some Chick Fil A in the food court, and because we had time to kill before the movie started, we browsed around a little bit. since I'm not allowed to buy anything for myself until Christmas, it kinda sucked to walk into various stores and have to walk right out... especially after seeing these boots! va-va-voom!

despite our strict shopping ban, we decided to go into one of our favorite stores, Buckle. I made a Buckle wish list not too long ago, remember? well I went to send that very wish list to my mother-in-law last week, and to my disappointment, almost all of the items had sold out already. 

I mentioned this to the sales associate, and she informed me that if I ever see an item sold out online, I can just call or visit the store to see if they can find it at another location. again, HALLELUJAH, I say. I asked her to look up this sweater for me, and there it was, in another store. so this baby is now en route to mi casa, along with a pair of shoes that Sean was coveting. 

after we broke our shopping ban, we went in to see Paranormal Activity 2. holy crap. scared the piss out of me... I was seriously, TERRIFIED. I liked it though - much like the first one in the beginning, but got creepier and creepier as it went. I did NOT like that we were literally the oldest people in the theater and that we had to listen to stupid tweens/teenagers talking and laughing the whole time. I actually yelled "shut up" twice to those kids.

SATURDAY

Saturday morning, I got up semi-early and headed back up to Annapolis to run some errands and get my hair done (finally). it's been months since I've had my hair cut and dyed, so it was well overdue. I decided to stay away from dying it red again, because it ALWAYS fades super fast and I find myself disappointed when it turns to copper within a few weeks. instead, I did my normal black all-over dye job, along with caramel colored highlights. 

I also got it trimmed (I'm trying to grow it out), and made a super huge change - BANGS. I was nervous at first, since I haven't had bangs since middle school, but I love them! I think they look chic and sophisticated, and it definitely adds a little more dimension to my otherwise plain jane haircut.

when I got home from the hair salon, I laid around the house for a bit before packing a bag for the night. we packed the truck with our overnight bags, Halloween costumes, and the cooler and headed down to meet our friends at the hotel we booked for the night. 

to my surprise, my friend Kaycie walked in, not dressed like her normal self (or as a pirate as I thought she would be), but as ME. she applied temporary tattoos to her left arm, her neck, and her foot, and even bought a fake nose and lip ring! it was HILARIOUS. I think that she played a better Mandee than I do.

from the hotel, we met up with Kaley and her family at Red Robin for dinner before heading out to the party. we stopped at the liquor store on the way back to the hotel to get changed. after getting all ready in my Cleopatra get up, we hung out in the hotel and pre-gamed for a little bit. we consumed some beverages and then hit the road. 

this is the only picture I have of my costume so far, and it was taken in my mirror at home on Friday night, when I decided it would probably be a good idea to try my costume on.

the party was a blast! I'll have pictures tomorrow (hopefully) of everyone's costumes. we played flip cup, sang lots of tunes, took pictures, and devoured Joey's mom's homemade rice krispy treats. we took a cab back to the hotel at the end of the night, and then crashed as soon as we got home. well, Adam and I stayed up talking about god knows what. he was drunk and I was on Ambien, so I'm sure it was an interesting conversation. the night was full of one-liners that we'll always remember, that's for sure! 

SUNDAY

yesterday morning, we struggled to get up and get ourselves ready to check out. the four of us stopped for breakfast and then went our separate ways. I was pretty much laid out on the couch all day, dozing off between football games (boo Lions!). 

Sean snapped this picture of me on his cell phone. please note that I am surrounded by ALL four cats... Mama Cat sleeping on my chest, Bear on my legs, Lily & Pheobe on the couch behind my head. folks, this is my life. 

NOTE 

Kaycie's "Mandee-isms" of the evening included:

- "I love my cats! they're so cute!"

- "ugh, I have to meet with my trainer tomorrow."

- "FUCK YOU, SEAN!" 

it's scary how well she knows me! 

Happy Monday!

Day 18/30

Day 18/30 - whatever tickles your fancy

I know I promised more honeymoon pictures (specifically, those taken from my cell phone during our trip), but I'm not really feelin' that today. I know you're extremely disappointed. HA! 

instead, I'll tell you about my very busy weekend. like that's so much better than pictures of beaches in Hawaii.

FRIDAY.

Friday evening, the husband and I had a little date night. now we go out to dinner pretty often (about once every two weeks), but we NEVER go to the movies. the last movie we saw in the theater was Shutter Island, and before that, it was the new Halloween movie. typically, I hate going to the movies. I hate paying $10 a ticket to sit in a room full of annoying ass people who can't sit through a movie without talking on their cell phones or texting. and THEN I usually get lucky enough to sit in front of the asshole who kicks your seat the whole time. 

whew, anyway. so we had dinner at TGIFridays, and then walked over to the theater to see The Town. thankfully, we got there in time to get good seats right in the middle of the theater, and I didn't sit behind any seat-kicking-morons. the movie itself was GREAT. I loved the whole setting in Charlestown, and the plot was fantastic. it didn't hurt to stare at Ben Affleck and Jon Hamm for two hours either. :) 

SATURDAY.

Sean went to work for a few hours in the morning to get in a little over time. he has decided that since I bought new clothes, he wants to get some... except his taste is much more expensive than mine. so he worked some over time in order to have the extra moolah to get some new fall digs. smart man.

I woke up early (well, early for me on a Saturday) at 8:30AM and before I could get in lazy mode, I got dressed and went to the gym. I didn't get a chance to get in a workout on Thursday or Friday, so I knew I had to force myself to go Saturday morning. I just planned on getting on the treadmill for about 30 minutes, since I had plans to meet Kaley for lunch and pedicures at 11AM. 

unfortunately, when I got to the gym, all the treadmills were taken, so I settled for the elliptical. I was only on there for about 5 minutes before a treadmill opened up, so I grabbed my shit and moved over. now, since I was in a hurry to get to the gym, I only had time to eat something quick before my workout, which just happened to be a banana. 

for some reason, this banana (and maybe the fried green beans from the night before) were not settling right in my stomach. I started to get the pains in my loins that told me I wouldn't make it through my workout. I was getting the walking farts, and I knew I had to do something before it turned into something worse. so I left my water and my keys at my treadmill and booked it to the bathroom. after relieving myself in a much more violent manner than I intended to do, I got back on the treadmill and continued my walk. 

I wanted to try and switch up my "cardio" (or lack thereof) so I set the treadmill to do an interval program instead of just manually walking the whole time. after about 10 minutes, I realized I was NOT ready for all that shit. I went back to manual and just walked at a 3.5 with a 5% incline for the rest of the time.

I felt pretty good after only 30 minutes of exercise, so I headed home and took a shower to prepare for the rest of the day. I showered and got dressed, and headed down to Charles County to meet up with Kaley for lunch and pedicures. 

we just picked up something quick at Chick Fil A and then went over to the salon to get our toes did. our friend Jen met us there, so we had plenty of girl talk. I picked a deep purple OPI color, but I cannot remember the color name to save my life (edit - Suzi Says Dal... thank you OPI website), but luckily, I took a picture! I had pretty much the best pedicure of my life, but it was a little gross to see how much dead skin was scraped from my feet. 

on my toes. 

 on the Interwebz.

after our pedicures, I had to rush home to get ready for a wedding with our friends Kaycie & Adam. we were invited by the bride and the groom at the last minute (Thursday) when they had two family members back out. we met up with Kaycie & Adam at their place and then made our way to the wedding from there. because the venue (the groom's uncle's house) was on the end of a peninsula, we had to park at a local mart and take a shuttle bus. the house was on a prestigious piece of land, almost completely surrounded by water. it was absolutely breathtaking. unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera, but I'll be sure to post pictures once Kaycie uploads hers. 

 Sean & Adam looking like cool guys. 

the bride & groom during their first dance.

this is where the wedding was! can you just imagine that view? 

the wedding was beautiful - the groom teared up as soon as he saw his bride come around the corner, wearing a dress to match her daughters, who were the flower girls. there was a tent set up for the reception and the bar was fully stocked. we had a blast! we danced and sang and toasted to the happy couple all night long. we were originally going to go out in downtown Annapolis at the end of the evening with everyone, but we were exhausted when the party ended after 11PM, so we headed home to sleep in our own beds. 

SUNDAY. 

hangover. horrible hangover. I didn't even really get drunk at the wedding, despite the many alcoholic beverages I consumed, so I was pretty surprised to wake up feeling like complete crap. we went over to the in-law's house to watch football and have Sunday dinner. I was secretly happy with the Ravens loss to the Bengals, but I didn't let that show for my Baltimore loving husband to see. dinner included a roasted turkey, fresh green beans, twice baked potatoes, stuffing, and rolls. it made me wish Thanksgiving was right around the corner! we had homemade cheesecake for dessert, and then we tuned in for the Redskins game. 

I was shocked to see them score so many points against Houston early on, and then obviously disappointed when the Texans came back to beat us in over time. it was a great game though, and my Skins looked fantastic compared to last week's joke of a game against Dallas.  although, I have to blame our loss on Houston's coach, who called a time out after the snap, which resulted in a non-counted field goal. Gano missed the second field goal after the time out was over. but a win is a win, and Houston just happened to fight a little harder for the win. 

all in all it was a wonderful weekend filled with friends, family, relaxation, love, and football. as much as I enjoyed everything I did this weekend, I'm ready for a weekend where I have NO plans, so I can concentrate on getting my house put together! unfortunately, we're not going to have a plan-less weekend for a while, so I'll have to suck it up and enjoy being surrounded by people I love. 

how horrible! ;)  

30 Day Challenge right here!