I Adopted a Polar Bear

When I was three, my best friend was the grey, pot-bellied cat that my parents had rescued from the SPCA. During the summer, I would follow her around our sunny backyard, taunting her with leaves and having epic swordfights--waving twig versus madly flicking, crooked tail. During the winter months, I'd feed her milk that I'd warm in the microwave and fall asleep to the sound of her incessant meowling.

When I was six, we added a German shepherd to our family--a female, because my mom was of the opinion that a female would be smaller. She may have been right, but, since the dog grew to be over a 100 pounds anyway, it probably didn't make that much of a difference.

Sunday Social Report

Ahh … Summer’s most definitely showing its face. I no longer have to pack my jacket all over the place (though my umbrella’s still a necessity), it’s staying light out until nine o’clock, and it’s actually sunny, rather than being “cloudy with a chance of sunshine.”
 

So, of course, I’m sitting on the living room couch, typing up a blog post for the enjoyment of others.

"We Spent HOW much?!": Tips for Affordable Food Shopping

About a month ago, the tom cat and I blew our food budget so badly that many government agencies would have been dumbfounded.

Sunday Social Report

Monday
Movie night! The movies in question were Zero Dark Thirty (which was, typical of a movie based on true events, rather long and with a somewhat wandering plot) and the remake of the 1984 fictional-war-drama Red Dawn. Which not fantastic, it had Chris Hemsworth in it, so it all evened out.

$10-ish for the rental of two movies.

Cooking Tips for Anyone who Hates Cooking

Recently, a friend left who follows my blog left a photo on my Facebook page in response to the chili recipe I posted a few weeks back. We joked about the photo and the recipe, but I realized that she had a good point – cooking sucks.

It’s a lot of stirring, straining, sautéing and smushing to just prepare the meal, and all of this work normally results in a debacle of sauce-smeared counter tops, crusted-over frying pans and chopped-up vegetables rolling about the kitchen floor.

Sunday Social Report (Kind of)

I've already admitted that I don't have the most exciting social life, and that's one of the things I would like to change now that I've made the big move to the big city. So, when school let out back in April, complete with unofficial-pub-graduation-ceremony for the many successful friends I'd made over the years, I thought "great! Time to switch things up!"

Then the internship came around.

Home-made Hash Browns.

Next time you’re forcing a metal buggy with a busted wheel down the freezer aisle of your local grocery store, stop by the iced-over glass door that hides the hash browns. If you look closely enough you’ll notice a few things: one, that the price isn’t really all that great for what is essentially a pound of potatoes and, two, there is somehow a lot of salt per serving.

Unfortunately, hash browns also taste absolutely awesome. 

Fortunately, they’re really really easy to make.

Sunday Social Report

After reviewing my week, I've decided to include the dates that the tom cat and I go out on. If I didn't do this, my social life would seem way too sad  and that won't do. 


Monday
Night in.

Tuesday 
A buddy of mine came over for a few hours. We hung out and... didn't do all that much.

$1.50 for the bag of salt and vinegar chips.

Wednesday
Night in.

Thursday
Night in.

Friday
Night in.

Saturday
Saturday doubled as both a date-night and a chance for my car, which has had the plates taken off because we don't actually need two cars, to be driven around for a bit. 

After leaving the city behind, we made our way to one of the area's many seawalls. We walked along there for about an hour before deciding that we should go see a movie in on the the big city's theaters.

Which didn't actually happen.

$35 for temporary car insurance.

Sunday
The reason why I'm only able to post my Sunday Social Report on Monday can be summed up in two words -- Iron Man. A surprisingly good movie (at least, when considering the previous two films) involving iron, men and stuff blowing up.

$37 dollars for the 3D movies tickets and accompanying candy.
-$25 from the gift card left over from Christmas.
$9 total cost.

“We need to talk”: Conversations to Have When Moving in Together

We were heading back from a family function at the tom cat’s sister’s house out in the suburbs, our sleek little hatchback vibrating as she shot down the highway like a dirt-smeared silver bullet. I fidgeted in my leather seat, stared out of the passenger-side window and fixed my gaze on the silhouette of a distant mountain, hazy-blue and dotted with snow patches. Shifted my eyes over to the tom cat, fidgeted again and cleared my throat.

“I, um… We need to talk about something.” I confessed awkwardly, fingers twining in my lap.

Sunday Social Report

First Ever Budget-Bust

Well, we’ve managed it already. We blew our budget. 

Intent on making sure the money situation was under control, I was sitting on one of the bar stools in the kitchen a few days ago, adding up the food receipts that were beginning to amass on the fridge. I noticed two things:

Beef (or not) Chili

About a year ago, I came across a deliciously delectable recipe for everyone’s favourite country-turned-hot-and-spicy-dinner. It’s filling, healthy and (as I’ve already mentioned) wonderfully flavourful. Plus, it’s super easy to make extras, which means that you’ll have plenty left over for tomorrow’s lunch.

Of course, was time passed by, the aforementioned recipe slowly morphed into some strange variant of its original form, resulting in the following:

Letting the Cat out of the Bag - Budgets

I think we can all agree that moving to a big city is not a decision that should be taken lightly. After all, big cities are major hubs for, well, everything. Big, crowded city blocks filled with honking cars and Ferraris with huge engine, business people in suits on their lunch breaks, art galleries and crowded nightclubs, neon lights that never turn off, comedy clubs where the next Jeff Dunham might be spouting off-colour jokes to a laughing audience. In a fifteen minute walk – the amount of time it would have taken me to make my way to the nearest bus stop – I could find all these people and places, and probably repeat the process before lunch, too.

A Night Out to Remember

There are a few major reasons that I don’t normally go out on Saturday nights – one, that I don’t know the great places from the not-so-great and I can’t stomach the idea of waiting in line for hour to get into a sleazy bar filled with 40-year old perverts and, two, a busy school schedule leaves me with little time for cultivating social life. 

Fortunately, the semester ended this week, ridding me of the latter. 

Small Kitty, New City

I have to admit that I don’t live the most exciting lifestyle. While I may be a 20-something student living in a big city, I’ve never been one for poorly lit clubs, filled with guys wearing too much cologne, girls wearing not enough at all and music throbbing  so loudly that my ribs vibrate.