Hello everyone! As we enter the last day of 2022, its time for the adventures post which is honestly more of a general update. We will get through that quickly, jump into the What’s Up which is a little more and wrap things up with the 2022 Wrap-Up! A quick rundown just in case you are here for only the Wrap-Up for 2022. If you are, just scroll all the way down and skip all of my other nonsense. Let’s go!
ADVENTURES & Wrap-Up (More Like Updates)
Retiring of Photo Challenge Posts
For those joining now, this blog started out as a photography blog. I started most of my blogging doing daily prompts and weekly photo challenges. However, the years have gone by and my blog is running very low on storage space and trying to not buy more space, I have decided to retire the photo challenge posts. If you want to follow my photography (and other creative outlet), its on Avenue of Daydreams.
If you go there now, I haven’t posted since October 2021 but it will be back in 2023. I will talk more about that in the 2023 Upcoming Plans post.
Baby Update
Triple V entered his 6 months in December. As he goes through some funky times with what we think might be the beginning stages of teething and some random babble, he’s definitely starting to recognize people more and realizing when he sees strangers aka family that we haven’t seen frequently and feeling either shy or scared. He’s starting to be stronger with more tummy time and baby gym activity time, a pretty routine sleep schedule even if he doesn’t sleep throughout the night very often. He even started with eating starter cereals and beginner purees.
Time sure flies by as we watch him grow up day by day and becoming curious with everything around him. It sure feels like those baby safety gates are going to be put up soon as well as getting on with babyproofing the house.
Christmas, Gifts & Boxing Day Haul
Christmas celebrations happened before the main event this year as we couldn’t go for the evening festivities due to the early bedtime for Triple V so only dropped by for the afternoon at my in-laws. We celebrated with my mom on Christmas day for lunch as well. Still, it was pretty neat to see family since we’ve been keeping to ourselves since the pandemic started then my pregnancy in pandemic times so this year, while we were cautious, we still wanted to keep in our family bubble since Triple V isn’t vaccinated yet.
There’s no surprise that Triple V was the main winner in this department with new clothes from the grandparents and a generous collective gift of a jumperoo. On our front, we got the reasonable gift of some French storybooks since we have an abundance of English ones handed down from me. He also got a new walker from his grand aunt. On my front, I truly felt like a mom as all my gifts are very grown-up from my mom gifting me noodles (it was a joke so that we could fluff up the Christmas tree to look like it had more gifts to have better pictures) and a Christmas tablecloth (which I actually don’t have one considering all the Christmas decorations we have) and a white wine (which is currently in storage because I’m not really drinking yet since I’m still breastfeeding).
Boxing Day this year, much like Black Friday, was a huge disappointment. There wasn’t any incredibly good deals. We basically only picked up things that we needed and had some type of discount. As for other things, we kept those expenses at a minimum. We didn’t actually do any day off shopping since we only went to the grocery store to restock.
- Michael’s: Picture Collage Frames *3 (for the new family/baby photos)
- Roots: Baby Clothes (for Triple V and gifts)
- Yves Rocher: Skincare products
- Steam: Cris Tales, Emily is Away <3, Far From Noise, Oure
- Playstation: Just Shapes & Beats
- Amazon (caught the tail end of the Boxing Day sale): Sippy Cup, Bodyweight Scale, Cat Water Fountain, Diapers
- Google Play Pass (super sweet deal for first month free and 3 months after that at 69 cents/month)
WHAT’S UP
BOOKS
- The Very Best Christmas Present
- Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
- Alvin and the Chipmunks: Merry Christmas Mr. Caroll!
- Mr. Snow
- Mr. Silly
- A Grouch’s Christmas
- Mr. Sneeze
Currently reading: City of Ember
Surprising that its all children’s books, right? Of course not! That’s all my reading time is nowadays. As you can see that I’m trying to get back into some normal reading as I did start City of Ember.
MOVIES
- The Blob (1988)
- Highwaymen (2004)
- Dazed and Confused (1993)
- Warriors of Future (2022 Review)
- The Sparring Partner (2022 Review)
- Big Brother (2018 rewatch, Review)
- John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017 rewatch, Review)
- Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (2022)
- It Takes Two (1995 rewatch)
- Into the Deep: The Submarine Murder Case (2020)
- Pulse (2006 rewatch)
- I Believe In Santa (2022)
- Scrooge: A Christmas Carol (2022)
- How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966 rewatch, Review)
- Christmas With You (2022)
- The Christmas Chronicles (2018 rewatch, Review)
- A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965 rewatch, Review)
- The Small One (1978 rewatch, Review)
- Mickey’s Christmas Carol (1983 rewatch, Review)
- The Polar Express (2004 rewatch, Review)
- Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022, Review)
An absolutely fantastic movie viewing month. Not so much a great writing month as writing reviews seem to be getting harder and harder or its just I’m picking the wrong movies. A lot of rewatches this month as well. I’ve been trying to keep on top of the Netflix new releases so those reviews will go out even if its in 2023. However, I was so excited after watching Glass Onion that you can already check out my thoughts on that.
TV
- Snack vs. Chef
- Crime Scene: The Texas Killing Fields (Limited series)
- Wednesday (Season 1, 2022 rewatch)
- Too Hot To Handle (Season 4)
- Cook At All Costs (Season 1)
- Dance Monsters (Season 1)
- Emily in Paris (Season 3)
- Line Walker (使徒行者, 2014)
Currently watching: Meteor Garden (rewatch), The Circle S5
Trash TV, cooking and reality shows seems to be the highlight of December. However, Dance Monsters is a super fun show that just got its finale right at the end of December. Snack vs. Chef is pretty fun as cooks replicate popular snacks and candy bars while Cook At All Costs was pretty fun as well. On the contrary, Emily in Paris felt like a lot of the same which is still fun but its getting a little repetitive. If they get a Season 4, maybe the finale of the 3rd will change the dynamic. We continued with watching the latest Crime Scene which looked at The Texas Killing Fields were was a pretty good documentary. These limited series always uses a case to cast light on a bigger societal problem. Finally, as of today, I finished Line Walker which is Hong Kong series from 2014 which I of course missed since I haven’t watched HK series in many many years. This one is seriously really awesome ( you will see how awesome in the recap before).
I’m taking a little break from Chinese variety shows right now as I started too many and need to sort out which I want to continue watching.
GAMES
- Tricky Towers (Single Player Trials) – in progress
- Lake (2021, Review)
- Doors: Awakening (2019)
- Pinball FX
Currently playing: The Gunk, Doors: Origins
I’m slowly getting back to some gaming here and there. While my PC died, I was into playing Tricky Towers (Single Players Trials) and I’m still working on that but its fairly sporadic so there’s not really an end to that one, much like Pinball FX which doesn’t have an end either.
Putting the Google Play Pass to work, I finished playing Doors: Awakening and working through all the Doors games on mobile which I had played before but they were only partially free and charged money for the second half of the levels. I don’t like that mobile game business model so I never entertain it. So now, the situation is a little different with the Play Pass. Its a fun puzzle game
Finally, I played Lake which is something of a postal worker simulator with story and narrative choices. Its honestly a hidden gem since it blends in a lot of relaxing moments and dives into a pretty fun small town story. I did start The Gunk and is probably about halfway through (based on my playtime and the How Long To Beat average) but its a really good one. There’s some exploration and resources and crafting and adventure. I’ll talk more about it after I’ve finished, possibly in a review.
2022 WRAP-UP
Much like last year, we are foregoing the blog site statistics. Let’s face it, its not going to look pretty with things going back to normal, the numbers so a great drop before steadying again and I never really did it for the numbers. Plus, life changes with a newborn in mid-June did throw off the rhythm even more than when I was going through my pregnancy and choosing sleeping earlier over stressing out over blogging at unreasonable hours. The posting rhythm is coming back slowly but I’m pretty sure it will never be where it used to be a few years ago.
With that said, lets look at some other numbers:
- TOTAL FILMS WATCHED: 213 films (2 less than last year only!)
- 34 rewatches
- 41 short films
- TOTAL BOOKS READ: 17 books (majority of it are children’s books)
- TOTAL TV SERIES BINGED: 92 seasons binged (3 rewatches)
- Japan: 1
- Hong Kong: 1
- Taiwanese: 2
- Korean: 3
- Documentary: 12
- Mainland China: 13
- Chinese Variety Shows: 14
- American Reality Shows: 20
- American: 26
- Knives Out
- Deep Rising
- Turning Red
- Time
- Profile
- Underwater
- Tokyo Godfathers
- MexZombies
- Waitress
- Love and Leashes
Top 10 TV Seasons
- Light The Night
- The Silent Sea
- Wednesday (Season 1)
- Line Walker
- All of Us Are Dead
- Who Rules The World
- Shining For One Thing
- Mr. Bad
- Boo, Bitch (Limited Series)
- Mom, Don’t Do That
Overall, it was surprisingly steady in terms of numbers. Last year I didn’t do the specific breakdowns so not sure whether short film to full length ration was similar. Books increased a lot mostly because I read tiny short children’s books but then I did read a Dr. Seuss compilation books and that’s 13 stories as 1 book entry. I’m not here to get all picky with the numbers. I didn’t expect anything to be even close to these numbers so that’s already shocking enough for me.
A quick look at last year’s plans/goals:
- Goodreads Reading Challenge: 15 books surpassed at 17 (even if I did cheat a little with children’s books)
- Podcast launch: Did not happen (will address that soon)
- Partial Revival of Disney and Studio Ghibli project: Mostly did not happen, only one post for Porco Rosso went up
- Personal Goals: Eat healthier is slowly getting there, Did not stream at all, 98% done for nursery and 90% done for office (just some filing left to do)
In the foreseeable future, streaming services will be my best friend and I will be focusing on new releases on Netflix, Shudder and Amazon Prime with Netflix being the main priority. However, these are considered upcoming plans and I will talk about more of that tomorrow!
Remember to head back for the Upcoming Plans 2023 tomorrow!
Happy New Year’s Eve!!
Tranquil Dreams 
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