meet flannery, the new foster.

I am pretty sure I've complained about our lighting situation in our apartment in here Montreal.  To sum up, we have no natural light. If you turned off all of our lights in our apartment, it would be pitch black, no joke.  We have a "train car" style apartment, with only 3 tiny windows, each too far spread out, that the light from the windows has no effect. Plus, two of those windows show into our fenced patio, so.... not much light to be had.  I hate using flash in my photography - I keep away from it at all costs. However, with having fun with the husband's new Canon 60d, we put on the flash and experimented with some indoor flash.  I was quite surprised and delighted to see that our apartment no longer looked like a yellow dungeon, but rather, the flash seems to help quite a bit with our lighting situation. So... without further ado, a crapload of cat photos.

poor weasley being freaked out by eric's reflecting.

This is our new foster kitten, Flannery.  She is a mini Weasley.  This cat is hilariously cute and active, and I kind of wished I had named her Parkour because she loves jumping off of things.  Here's her adoption profile if you're interested.  There's a lot of photos on here, I know.... but hey - cats are fun to photography. If you want to see the whole set, click here.  If you haven't fostered a kitten/cat before, I highly recommend it. Whether you have another animal or not, it's just fun to have a temporary pet every once in awhile. It's a great way to get free entertainment!

birthday cake

Thursday was the husband's birthday and we celebrated fairly quietly this year but it was still a lot of fun.  There were homemade birthday morning doughnuts (blueberry old fashioned), presents, indian food, and   more. We decided to extend the birthday over a day because I had planned on making him a birthday cake as well - but with lots of doughnuts, it didn't make sense to eat all of that in one day. So I made his cake the day after.  His favorite cake is "chocolate prune cake." Why? I'm not sure. You can buy it at a bakery in his hometown, but other than that they don't make it too many places.  So, I scrounged and found a suitable recipe for the cake that actually turned out quite good. Why prunes? I guess it makes the cake really moist. Don't worry there are no prune chunks - you puree those things as long as humanly possible - at least that's what I did.  The cake turned out a little girly because the decorative candles I thought I had I couldn't find in the apartment, so I had to improvise.  However, I did get to use my edible glitter, by a UK company Gemz.  I got mine in a super awesome gold glitter.  It wasn't too expensive on Ebay UK.  

And then something amazing happened.  Big Weasley and little Flannery turned super adorable. They went from cuddling, to kissing, and then to fighting but I didn't take pictures of that.

three months and counting

Well folks, it's been quite a while since I've blogged on here - over three months to be slightly more precise.  It's unfortunate too - it's not like my life's been boring or anything, but full time schooling (how does a literature major handle reading when she's watching tv all the time?) and photography - and I haven't really had the energy to want to blog.  BUT! This week is my university's "reading week"/spring break and I am determined to blog to my heart's content and possibly redesign the blog.  It definite needs a fixing - doesn't it?  As for news, this is what's happend to me lately.

1. I dyed my hair in that 2010 trendsetting "ombre" jumping onto the bandwagon while everyone else jumped off.

2. We got a new foster kitten - a mini Weasley, and we named her Flannery (like O'Conner).

3. I've gotten on quite the beauty/makeup kick (posts to follow)

Well that's it for now. But I promise a new post is coming QUITE SOON.

It's a good day

Although it's been a very stressful week (only a week before finals now!) I had some good news peppered throughout that helped my sanity.

First, our dear foster, Ferrell, got adopted! He'll be picked up this Sunday. I'm going to miss him a lot but I know he's going to a permanent home which is what he deserves. This morning I woke up to find him snuggling with me, first time ever! He is not a lap kitten - UNTIL now.  Well, at least he's working on it...  Which means I want to keep him now, ha!

And finally, to put a wonderful end to my week, today I received my oxfords from Golden Ponies!

I do not have good feet.  Basically, I am a sucker for cheap shoes, like Target, Urban Outfitter's, etc... BUT, after wearing tons of cheap shoes, either it took a toll on my feet, or I just had bad feet to begin with because now, I cannot walk an hour without having serious foot pain.  It's caused an issue, because now I have to research comfortable shoes that aren't disgusting in looks, and now I can't buy those cheap deal shoes...

I, however, couldn't resist Golden Ponies.  The shoes are "cheap," in price, but they are great! The leather is so soft and comfy, and the craftsmanship is definitely apparent, I honestly do not know how she makes these awesome shoes.  I've been walking around my apartment and so far, they are extremely comfortable.  Maybe later on I'll put in an insole for safety, but for now, awesome sauce!

I went for a neutral look, with light brown and beige for my two colors. If I am ever in need of another pair (which I will make myself be..), I'm definitely trying lavender or the bright blue! The price is a steal for what you get, and I'm so happy with my new shoes, they came in perfect time, because my favorite oxfords basically disintegrated from overuse.

I recommend everyone buying a pair!

{Another blessing was that a final paper that I had stressed about and well, thought I had failed, I actually got a surprisingly good grade, but I don't expect that to happen often...}

meet our new feral foster kitten

Unfortunately I don't think I truly understood what "feral" meant, until I received our new foster kitten.  But don't worry, I got the meaning RIGHT away after they had to slide him out of his carrier.  This is our 3rd foster kitten with Eleven-Eleven, but our first feral kitten.

As soon as he was in my apartment, he found fortress in a sweater-wrapped Letter "U," an old set piece from my Anthropologie store in Portland.  He stayed there for quite a while, accepting small doses of neck massaging and photo-taking.  This lasted for about an hour, until Eric came in from the other room, and the kitten darted underneath the couch.  For the rest of Friday night, it was quite a tragedy.

The night unfortunately did not end so well, Eric and I moving furniture around, trying to get the kitten into a carrier, so that we could make his new temporary home in our bathroom.  Around 1:30 am, we succeeded, although he bit me pretty, terribly, hard.  The poor kitten was terrified, and I really felt for him.  Once we established him in our bathroom, with a shoebox full of litter and a bowl of fresh water, we left a night-light on, and proceeded to leave him be.  The next morning (Saturday) we had to evacuate him from his home, so that each of us could shower and get ready for the day, then we arranged him back in his home.  At first he hissed and hated our presence, but soon, after the husband's efforts, he actually got the kitten to purr!  Well done for a gentleman who says he hates cats.  Anyways, the kitten's progress has been off and on, I've been bitten once more, but definitely not as bad as the first one.  He's eaten, and even used his shoebox litter, thank goodness!  Weasley does not like him one bit, but I think starting tomorrow, we'll try to see how he'll explore outside of the bathroom.  I haven't picked a name for him yet, he hasn't really shown us his personality.  I've started calling him "Friday" since we got him on Friday, but perhaps it'll change.