My Weekly Adventures: DreamHack and Family Time!

Its been a fairly quiet two weeks. Not a ton has happened. Well, one big event happened as you will see unless you follow me on Facebook or Instagram, I did do a quick share over there and here since I was working on Game Warp coverage mostly and vanished last weekend except for Game Warp Instagram and Facebook. Either way, its been fairly uneventful in some ways but that isn’t a bad thing since we’ll be heading into some gardening stuff soon and will be busy with that once the weather cools down.

Let’s go ahead!

 15K Marathon Boucherville (as a spectator)

Labor Day weekend, also was the Boucherville 15km marathon. Last year, my friend also participated in it and lets just say, I spent most of the time sitting back at the car reading because it was pouring rain. Its good for the whole cooling down during running but not so good for admiring the area it is held in, which is what I do as my friend’s running support. This year was very different. They started the morning okay and it got fairly hot by the end of the 15km. The marathon starts at the side of a river so its quite scenic as well. If you all don’t know, I love being around water so after the run started, I actually walked a little along the waterway before heading back to do some reading in the park. Nice relaxing morning 🙂

Childhood Memories

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The things we find when we help #declutter the #childhood #home. I even found my chewed up #sippycup. #memories #kidthings #cute #bowls #disney #lionking #childhoodmemories

A post shared by Kim (@tranquildreams) on Sep 3, 2018 at 3:38pm PDT

You know I’m digging for material when I’m using Instagram posts. BUT…my mom has been renovating her kitchen and because of that we had to empty out all of her cupboards and well, we aren’t particularly tall ladies so there was some little nostalgic treasures that I never knew that my mom kept. Not sure why, since we both have a hoarder mentality at times. I’m working hard to not do that anymore but then I don’t throw things out, I just don’t buy new stuff as much. Either way, those things in the photo were all stuff I used when I was a kid. Maybe up to 10 years old or something I still used the Lion King cup. I think the surprising find was my sippy cup.

DreamHack Montreal 2018

The big event of this Weekly Adventures has to go to DreamHack Montreal. I was swamped at work and swamped with Game Warp work. You can guess which I enjoyed and had more fun doing even if it was a pretty tiring event since it is also set in a further venue and well, Montreal is like roadwork galore phase right now so its hard to commute anywhere without taking more time than usual. I managed to get there in the Day 1 Friday evening with my husband and his nephew.

Day 2 and 3 was solo coverage for myself. It was pretty much a 9 hour day or something where I went to finish up the indie game zone coverage by playing some more games there. Also went to watch some e-sports and caught the cosplay competition. There was also a gaming triathlon and all that good stuff. I’m putting together a post and a video for it soon. Its late but I actually took a lot of footage so I’m sorting it out. Almost done 🙂

In-Laws Anniversary Dinner

My in-laws just celebrated (a week or so ago) their 45th wedding anniversary. A big deal for sure! My sister-in-law suggested and organized to have us all go downtown for a night out at Les Enfants Terribles on the top of the Place Ville Marie complex. It its just one floor (I think) under the observatory level so there is an outdoor terrace to see the Montreal night view. We had a fairly later dinner time so I had to eat before since I have stomach issues frequently, I don’t mess with eating time too much. So my mom and me ended up sharing a main meal together and we all had a cocktails. I’ll be doing a restaurant post here in a few days as well. So we’ll only touch on it briefly here.

Cute Kitty Pic

That’s it for this Adventures recap!
Its been a pretty quiet time. Family, gaming and calmer days..it feels good 🙂

What have you been up to? 

Unboxing: Meowbox – January 2018

Something short and sweet for today!

Its time for a Meowbox unboxing for the January 2018 month. A few goodies for my darling cat to enjoy with a New Year’s theme. Let’s check it out!

If you drop by here to watch unboxing videos, here’s a little notice for you. I’m taking a break from unboxing videos for a while as I aim to somewhat “declutter” my house slightly. We have too many unused cat toys and trying to get ready for some spring cleaning and see what I will keep and give away. I’ve been actually pondering getting foodie boxes instead. Meowbox will however come back probably later this year once everything has been sorted out and our home is not a one stop shop of cat toys and treats. While this is only quarterly, you’d be surprised how these things do pile up. Just a little notice in case you start wondering where its all gone.

The channel will however get some new style content that I’m thinking about right now. A few ideas will get test runs probably in February and see how it goes and we’ll adjust and adapt as the year goes along. As usual, any video ideas or content or even boxes you think I’d like that comes to mind, just drop a comment and I’ll try to make it happen.

Unboxing: Meowbox [October 2017] #unboxing @Meowbox

Happy Sunday everyone!

The Meowbox arrived last week and its finally uploaded and ready! Like last year, its Halloween themed, which fits perfectly into our Halloween month. Or wait…as Meowbox says, Meowlloween 😉

Thanks for watching! Hope you enjoyed! 🙂

Unboxing: Meowbox [January 2017]

We are here! 2017 and the first unboxing! I knew that Meowbox was on the way for January but the tracking didn’t arrive until the morning it was already out for delivery. Unless of course, its just lost in my many many unread emails. Point is, it got here.

I haven’t been in a show my face mood so very quick intros and wrap ups from me and a lot more of the unboxing and kitty play/fascination time.

Hope you enjoyed! Thanks for watching!

——-

***Ultimate 90s Blogathon is currently looking for participants to share their favorite 90s movies. Movie blogger or not, join us! See more info here.

Unboxing: Meowbox (October 2016)

Unboxings are sparse around here. I know. In fact, Meowbox being quarterly subscriptions works quite well. Plus, I’m curious what Halloween twists the team at Meowbox has in store for my darling cat. Also, a huge thanks to my lovely awesome friend who gifted this box to my little kitty for early Christmas and belated birthday gifts combined! Its a great gesture from her.

Lets open it!

Thanks for watching! 🙂

‘Neko Atsume: Kitty Collector’ Review: Cat Collecting Has Never Been More Fun

Check out my Gaming review of a cute little kitty collector called Neko Atsume. The pictures are mostly from my own game except for the big yard up there. I also recently updated mine but its doesn’t look like that 😉 I’ll insert the picture below 🙂

That Moment In.com

Developed by Hit-Point in 2014, Neko Atsume: Kitty Collector is a simple game. The goal is to fill your yard with cats. Its essentially a cat watching game. As the player, your task is to put out food and go back to refill it when its empty. You lay out toys and play-things for the cats. What happens next? You sit back and wait. In the real world, you turn off the application and go about your normal life. When you have a moment, drop by again and voila! There are cats sitting in your yard playing with a rubber ball or rolling around a ball of yarn, maybe they are scratching on the scratching post or maybe they are taking a lovely nap.

This game is simple and yet what makes it better is that there are various features to it. One of the main ones is that the…

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My Weekly Adventures!

After some intensely busy holidays, life feels like its tapering off into quiet.  Slowly but surely it is. The one thing I do notice in January is the immense amount of birthdays.  Not a complaint, of course.  I like being invited to parties, even the hermit in me likes to go out and have fun. The first half of January is a little slower than usual. You will see that this might be a rather short Weekly Adventures that isn’t really that adventurous but I still have a few things to talk about.

Cat Naps

Wait a minute! That’s not an adventure! I already told it isn’t but the first half of January was all about my cat napping and recuperating her nerves from all the unexpected visitors that invaded her safe home and once her purring starts, she makes me want to doze off. It was an endless cycle.

Family Dinner at the In-Laws

Last weekend, we had a proper feast at my in-laws with everyone in my husband’s family.  I drank a little too much of my father in-law’s heavily spiked punch and totally channelled all the French speaking me and tucked away all the self-conscious part of me. It was a ton of fun.  I think this picture is just missing the chicken wings that were still in the oven at this point.  Those were fantastically delicious!

Lifestyle Changes: Eating Habits and Working Out

Two years ago, I was great at this, maybe it was 3 years now.  Then, I got that eye infection that wouldn’t go away and it just kicked that perfect sleeping, eating and exercising routine out of the equation.  I get it back in the summer and if anything, I proved that in some pretty extreme conditions, I can still push myself to work out when I need to. Then winter rolls around and things get out of whack again. I didn’t mention it for the New Year’s post but its kind of a the past week decision to slowly make the transformation.

Consider this a new goal this year and I’m going to give you updates so I stay accountable!

I’m going back to a mostly gluten-free diet, working out (weights and cardio) 2-3 times a week and getting back a good sleeping routine, which means no more procrastinating and being much more efficient at organizing everything.

Revamping and Updating

I’ve posted during the holidays that I was updating the site and getting linked up and making sure the indexes were all good.  I did a bit of editing and actually finished all that up that day. But it also occurred to me that we’re approaching 5 years and I’ve been wanting to make a banner and reposition where I am. I have some funky connected Google+ accounts and I really just use social media for the blog except for Facebook but I don’t have a Facebook page.  Which reminds me? Should I set one up?

Either way, story is…if you happen to drop by any videos on any pages like vlogs or whatnot, they won’t work because while I was trying to work out some magic to transfer my Youtube accounts and change the connected Google accounted, I deleted my own Youtube by accident and there we go…all the subscriptions and likes and lists and videos are ALL GONE! It was my mistake in the beginning while setting up the Google + account and realizing it wasn’t done right and now, it was hard to fix it up. I’m not particularly skilled at technology so that didn’t help either.

Well, I do firmly believe that to revamp something completely, you need to break it down and rebuild it in some ways.  Just like when you want to clean something thoroughly, you first create a bigger mess and then clean it all back up. Maybe its a weird method. It works for me though.

With that said, its just an open invitation to clean up a ton of stuff on the site and fix the menu and widgets and all that stuff.  Expect to see some changes gradually show up over the next week or so. If anything doesn’t work, its because I’m messing around with it so just drop by again and things should be all good again.  It shouldn’t affect anything recent since I’m just relocating and evaluating posts from 2011-2012 mostly.

 Blogathon Announcement

In case you missed it, I’ve teamed up with Drew at Drew’s Movie Reviews for an upcoming Blogathon called the Ultimate 80s Blogathon to be held on February 15th.  For more details, you can check out the announcement post HERE! Its actually my first time to run a blogathon so its very much thanks to Drew who helped push me to do this one.  Even if you don’t normally write reviews, you are still welcome to do a little write up of your favorite movie. Even if you aren’t a blogger, we really looking forward to see everyone’s choices!

Mini Tribute to Alan Rickman

I don’t normally do much for the death of actors.  I did only once before for Paul Walker.  This past 15 days marked two influential stars passing away but just yesterday, we lost Alan Rickman, someone who my husband and I really love as an actor.  He is so talented and will definitely be missed. I feel it right to take a little moment here to look at some of his memorable roles to us.

Hans Gruber (Die Hard)

David Weinburg (Dark Harbor)

Colonel Brandon (Sense and Sensitibility)

Harry (Love Actually)

Severus Snape (Harry Potter series)

Event updates + Upcoming…

Events are kind of picking up again. I’m just trying to find time to get to them. I did go to one restaurant in Janvier a la Carte at Quartier Dix30, which is a little shopping/entertainment/dining complex in the suburbs of Montreal.  I’ve probably mentioned it somewhere else. Regardless, I will have a post for that going up.  I do want to check out another one if I have the time and company, but no promises on that one.  As I do need to make time to catch up on some movies at the theatres like The Revenant.  I personally want to go to see 13 Hours and later on, The 5th Wave. There are a myriad of winter festivals starting to pop up so I want to try and get to one of those as well, maybe see some ice sculptures.  I’ll fill you all in with an upcoming Events post very soon. I have some plans in the making for February and March weekend getaways if things work out well.

I’m going to keep this short since I’ll have something special go up in just a few days.

To wrap it up, upcoming posts…

• Special post with some announcements
• Netflix A-Z: D-G (at least) and catching up with more 2015 movies
• Janvier a la Carte Restaurant
• Baking Through Disney: Pinocchio theme Baking
• The Classics Adventures: Persuasion Book Review

Happy Friday, my lovelies!

My Weekly Adventures!

Sitting around looking back at the past week, its been consumed with my house, boyfriend, horror movie marathon, catching up on TV and writing posts and of course, work.  Time is really a scarce resource, my friends.

Still, I’ve learned a few thing this week even if its not even having to step out of my neighborhood 😉

Lets see what I’ve been up to, right?

1) Marathoning at the max!

October Halloween Horror month is what set off the blog in 2012 and its what motivates.  I know that a lot of you are interested in this genre so every year I try to up my game.  This weekend I had some crazy motivation and got through 4 films in the rundown.  I know, I know, a deserve a pat on the back.  Wait until you see what else I got done 😉

The movies were interesting to say the least.  I already posted up the Friday 13th Part 2 review this morning.  I pretty much have one more movie to watch to complete this week.  Although, I’m actually thinking about whether to do a few weekend reviews or just do a few double review days.  I usually try to avoid weekends since the posts never are popular because we’re all generally busy with our own lives.

2) TV time!

Who’d have thought after watching so many movies, I’d still have time for TV, right? Well, yeah, sacrificing sleep or just pure insomnia week is where I’m at.  So I’m finishing up Arrow Season 2. I only have maybe 5-7 episodes to go which should be land me right in time for Wednesday for Season 3.

 

Other than that, I started Vampire Diaries Season 6.  Its interesting to say the least.  From how Season 5 ended, I figured everyone would be yet again grieving in their own separate ways (and this time, its pretty literal). I’m not a hard audience to please when it comes to Vampire Diaries so I was relatively happy with it.  I do hope that things intensify gradually because I can see things getting a lot worse before they get better as is always the case with Vampire Diaries 😉

I do intend on eventually checking out How to Get Away With Murder and Gotham. Before that, I’m going to work on Arrow 😉

3) House: New Lights

One of the biggest successes this week is finally having the basement done. Its just having my two DVD shelves over and arranging all the stuff into it but in general, its painted, the new wall lights (from Rona) were installed, trimmings done, furniture arranged and even bought a floor lamp (from IKEA) to help with lighting up the room a little.  Its feels pretty good to know that almost everything is in place for the basement.  I even managed to rearrange the storage in shelves and started putting a video games away.  Its rewarding to look at the basement and be pleased that its finally coming around.

Only one more room to do and thats the kitchen.  Along with my furniture to come in and a bunch of organization but its definitely coming along nicely 🙂

4) House: Cabinet decoration

Things are slowly coming out of the boxes and my room is looking more and more empty as things are boxed up at my  new place.  The first floor is technically done safe for what I mentioned before, organization.  Now that the garden is all transplanted with a few little decisions left and a whole lot of leaves raking, I was indoors taking care of pulling things out.  IKEA had a lovely sale on a glass cabinet and we bought that a few weeks ago so I couldn’t leave it so sad and empty in its corner.  Here’s how it turned out:

Yup, thats a Yuna from Final Fantasy on the top and yes, those are the original My Little Ponies at the bottom. Nothing is extremely valuable as in I’ll be able to sell it off and get back a lot of money but its valuable because of the memories it holds whether from person who I got it from, the travels or just parts of my life 🙂 Its not exactly done but I think its 90% there.

5) Yummy Lamb Chops

The weather gets cooler and my mom loves to make lamb.  Sunday night, she made lamb chops and they were absolutely delicious.  🙂

6) Cat Napping Time

Let me introduce you to a Saturday morning at 8:30am (because we all wake up at 7am to feed my cat), especially after a few late evenings away from home during the week.  The result is not only being waken up brutally early on Saturday morning but that when I crawl back into bed, she’ll finish eating and then comes back for her morning nap and usually is her obstructing me from getting up.  Apparently my blanket covered legs are extremely comfortable to sleep on.

7) Music!

There’s really nothing else that happened other than those little things so how about to end things off with some music that I love this week 🙂

Daniel de Bourg is an independent artist and this new single is awesome! 🙂 Plus, when in doubt, Jason Mraz is a sure fire 😉

How was your past week? TV? Horror marathon also? Any Halloween traditions? Also going through home renovations?

Happy Monday, my lovelies! 🙂

Late Night September Pinterest Therapy

What happened to August, right? It sped by so fast that I haven’t quite registered what happened, especially after Fantasia Festival ended.  All I know is I’m sitting here and realized how I just got so behind in blogging.  Its good though, because I did take a little break and my mind is now racing with new idea and projects and I’m outlining a bunch of stuff for next year.  I also accepted (again) that blogging actually  motivates me to do a lot of stuff so when I decided at the beginning of 2014 to become more focused and less versatile, that didn’t really work out and I’m slowly building it back to versatility but with some order 😉 Not sure how thats going to work but it will by the time my thoughts stop racing about frantically…

Either way, Pinterest therapy is due for this past week.  Work has been intensely crazy and it came pretty suddenly out of nowhere and I wanted to just wallow under my covers in bed and watch TV (and movies) all day.  Of course, reality is rather different.  The stress even caused some intense nightmares resulting in some sleepless nights. Seeing as Monday and this new week is just about to come around, I decided a late night Pinterest therapy is definitely the right way to go!

Lets go! 🙂

1) Priorities and Choices 

Just saying, I’m starting and ending with a quote that I found on Pinterest.  First one goes with my actual state of mind.  I’m reorganizing my priorities right now and its shifting stuff around so yes, I’m saying no to certain less important things in my life right now.

Totally feeling this quote 🙂

2) DIY Terrariums 

I’ve been completely in love with making a terrarium and I have no idea why.  Maybe because it just looks so cute and would be the most classy decoration EVER! Don’t you think?

Have you ever built a terrarium?

3) Importance of Staying Hydrated

I’m going to go right ahead and admit that drinking water and staying hydrated is so necessary (and I know that) but I fail miserably every single day.  I end up binging 4 glasses of water before bedtime and drinking next to nothing during the day. So yes, I’m starting to rely on eating a lot of fruits during the day to help with that.

Health is mega important so I’m working on being more proactive at keeping it up 😉

4) Avocado Fries

On that healthy note, I love healthy twists on food.  We’ll all heard of zucchini fries (and I’d like to eventually make that) but my undying love for avocado is definitely making this one go up on my to-do list.  It just looks so delicious.

5) Kitten pile!

Half of the reason I ever got onto Pinterest was for all the cuteness overload. I’m a cat or dog person but sleeping kittens and especially a kitten pile-up is just massively adorable! Excuse me while I got search up my cat and cuddle her in my arms a little…

…..okay, I’m back….let’s continue!

6) Cookie Monster Cocktail

On the whole line of cute, who doesn’t think cookie monster is cute? I can’t use healthy because I’m sure the health merit of this is close to zero… so lets just put that aside.  We all get to indulge once in a while, right’?

Well, unless I find some way to substitute some of these ingredients, this really only for your viewing pleasure 😉

7) Arrow & Stephen Amell & Emily Bett Rickards

I’ve been binge watching Arrow so excuse me when I’d like to say that I’m absolutely in love with Stephen Amell and you will know more about that in the post on Monday (its still Sunday in my mind even though its slightly after midnight as I finish typing this up) but Emily Bett Rickards’s Felicity Smoak is just the most hilarious character and she’s just so nerdy awesome! 🙂

8) Peanut Butter Stuffed French Toast

Isn’t that delicious? Seriously, that is food porn, okay?

I’ve been absolutely obsessed with learning how to make french toast and in a way that I can eat it.  Its one of my next baking challenges so I’ve been pinning French Toast of all kinds. This looks like I need to probably go do a 5 hours intense workout to burn and toss that whole proactive healthy living thing I was talking about earlier out the window, but this looks like it’s a party in my mouth and I mean like that bite where everything just melts into this absolutely out of this world awesomeness feeling.

9) Vibes

They do.  I get vibes from the people around me when I interact. Some people just give off a strong vibe of whatever it is.   Your vibe may not be all that accurate for anyone else but its a first impression and its a feeling that your body and mind (or maybe your heart) is telling you.  I’ve learned the hard way, that I probably should admit to those vibes more often 😉

Thats it for tonight! 🙂 I’m all relaxed, charged and ready for the coming week!

What have you been pinning?