My Weekly Adventures: Fun Times & Long Weekends + Upcoming July Plans

Half of 2019 is officially done! Can you believe how fast time has flown by? How is your year shaping up to so far? Our last two weeks was properly busy with work, home, seasonal things, catching up with the blog and life stuff in general just all coming at us in all directions. Something had to give and unfortunately, there were some gaps in the blog that was just inevitable. I’ve moved past the having to post daily to fulfill a quota and refuse to put something that I’m not happy with in terms of formatting and content so there were a day or two here and there with nothing but I think overall, it held up quite well when I went back to look at it just now.

Weather is looking up now and July is always my busy month so I’ll talk a bit about it to keep everyone updated as there are some changes in July. All that is at the end. For now, let’s start from  what happened over the last 2 weeks!

Pointe Claire run & New Discoveries

As usual, my friend went out for a run in the Pointe Claire races at the Pointe Claire village. Its been a tough season so despite a shorter race, I went along to make sure everything went alright. Sadly, the shop that I like at Pointe Claire village was gone but I did end up visiting a little store called Epicerie Prette which had a lot of different beers and more importantly, a good selection of kombucha. Definitely something to go check out again if I’m ever in the area.

My Best Friend’s Wedding

I did a little bit of hauls and talks about preparing for my best friend’s wedding as one of her bridesmaids. It was a great time there. A lot of our college friends were there as well and she had arranged a lot of fun stuff and hired a very fun host plus an award-winning magician. The ceremony was memorable and the weather was perfect especially for all of the bridal party to go out for pictures at the park and then the meal was very good and before we knew it, she got the speeches going and gone so I could enjoy my meal and get drinks without worrying about too much. It was a beautiful evening. I have some photo booth pictures but not sharing those here.

Hiking: Parc National de Frontenac

It was the long weekend for us as Monday the 24th was our provincial holiday St-Jean and had a day off. We headed out for a hike and decided to go to Parc National de Frontenac, which we had looked at before but it wasn’t opened completely yet before but was all good now. We ended up deciding on the Le Massif de Winslow trail. The recap for this one is coming up very soon!

Gardening Update

The garden is doing pretty good. We’ve managed to harvest some lettuce and cherry tomatoes so far. The cabbage has now settled and is growing really well (at least the ones in the pots are) especially since maybe the marigolds are really helping in the companion gardening concept. Peppers, zucchinis, strawberries and raspberries are all starting to bear harvest but not completely ready just not. The cucumbers are doing well and the bee garden is also growing quite well now also. The flower bed in the front is starting to have a nice cycle of flowers blooming giving the front yard some bursts of color here and there.

July Events

July starts tomorrow and I have a few days to get everything in order before things start up. If you have been following since last year, things are pretty much the same hectic craziness this year as I’ve gotten confirmation on all my press passes that I applied for. The first event to roll around is Montreal Comiccon on July 5th to 7th with coverage going up for both Game Warp as well as Panel recaps, Cosplay and Artist Alley highlights over here.

Starting the week after on Thursday is Fantasia Film Festival. I usually try to get about one post a day up for that one. Its a 21 day festival so its going to be a game of endurance. The schedule was just released a few days ago so I’m still working out the schedule.

All reviews will go up on both here and That Moment In. Fantasia runs all the way through to August 1st. However, no worries if movie reviews aren’t quite your thing because I should have some other posts going up (at least I’ll try).

Cute Kitty Pic  Shameless Selfie Time

That’s it for this Weekly Adventures!
How did June go for you? Lots of summer plans?
Any festivals happening around your area?

My Weekly Adventures: Fun Times, Celebrations and Bad News….

Talk about a packed two weeks which never quite felt that way. Busy times, Fun times, Celebrations, and well, what 2018 year would it be without some bad news, because lets just say, that is how life has been this year. I’m still trying hard to be positive but this year is taking a lot to stay happy about everything when we’re getting a lot of things to be worried about or be sad about. I spent a lot of yesterday reflecting hence why nothing got released. These things happen and its all about finding a balance between getting this space updated and also dealing with the personal life stuff, right?

Festival du Nouveau Cinema

Festival du Nouveau Cinema has come and gone through the first 2 weeks of October, ending yesterday. I had the wonderful opportunity to have ticket vouchers after I tried to sign up for media. I’m not a big site even if I’ve been around for a while so I’m still very grateful for having that especially seeing the situation I’ve been in lately. Its my first time at this festival and I have to say there were some hidden gems in there for sure. A lot of movies that I honestly thought were fantastic. Very indie and very deep and going for this profound feeling for the most part. There are a few exceptions to the equation but I liked most of my choices since I actually went into all the movies blind, no trailers and just read the description a little. With that said, I had some stuff to deal with and now I am still missing 3 reviews from the festival which will be released this week.

Being at this festival the first time, I think that everything is really nice. Its especially a great contrast to fantasy especially as it focuses more on dramas and thrillers and you will see the selection is very international. I don’t watch a lot of dramas but I might have filled up my drama quota in the past two weeks. I don’t really mind it as long as the story is worth it. However, this festival is a completely different beast because unlike Fantasia being held pretty much on the Concordia downtown campus, this one is in a general area where you can have films in on theatre and have to run to a theatre 15 to 20 minutes away. I had that for one time and lets say that I won’t schedule films 30 minutes apart from each other again because that was a nervewrecking experience especially when the showings sometimes did tend to start 5 to 10 minutes late. Not exactly a complaint but it added in some running. Either way, thats all I have to say about it.

Here were my final movie selections:

• Ash is Purest White (China, 2018)
• Burning (South Korean, 2018)
• La Version Nouvelle (Canada, 2018)
• Mirai (Japan, 2018)
• The Guilty (Denmark, 2018)
• Socrates (Brazil, 2018)
• Sticks and Stones (Denmark, 2018)
• Tourism (Japan, 2018)
• Firecrackers (Canada, 2018)

Cinema Recall Podcast: Movies We Love That Everyone Hates

The That Moment In podcast hosts sat down for a second round. This time, The Vern thought up a fantastic idea of discussing our Top 3  Movies that We Love That Everyone Hates. It was a fun time to hang out and hear all our choices. I’m sure these shows are a feat in itself to edit so many thanks to The Vern for putting this together and thinking up such a great idea, which you will see has various parts. The other ones I’m not a part of but you should follow Cinema Recall to not miss these shows and all the other ones.

As for this one, I can’t embed the podomatic player so I’ll just send you all over to the That Moment In post to play it. Here you go!

3rd Wedding Anniversary

Our cause for celebration this time goes to our third wedding anniversary that happened during the week. We follow the gift materials giving thing for fun so this year was leather. We had decided on fairly personal preference sort of items so on Saturday, in between our little adventures that I will talk about in the next 2 parts instead of a fleshed out post, we snuck in some free time to go do some shopping. My husband wanted leather gloves and we found them  fairly quickly. For myself, I wanted a new purse which took a few more stores to find because I’m picky about my accessories. Either way, we ended up finding it. Moving onto the adventures portion…

A Historical Visit Around Warden

Before we got to Sherbrooke for our little adventures, through some coincidence, we ended up going to Warden, which is a small town in the Eastern Townships. One of my clients has two properties there and it turned out to be some historical heritage behind it and he ended up showing us around his properties and telling us about his collections and stories and such. I thought it was really awesome and super nice that he took the time out for that. He showed us around for about an hour. My husband was a bit skeptical at first but he loves history so everything was right up his alley. Not to mention the area is absolutely gorgeous. It is private property so I felt it inappropriate to take any pictures there.

Public Market in Sherbrooke

After that, our first stop was at the public market in Sherbrooke. I won’t expand too much about it here since I am thinking of putting together a haul post so I can highlight some brands and products and stuff. It was a pretty neat spot.

Sherbrooke Met La Table

We skipped Sherbrooke Met La Table last year. I can’t remember why exactly. I think it was just a schedule issue and work issue and such. But we went back this year and went out of our comfort zone to try out some Iranian cuisine at a restaurant called Persepolis. It had a really awesome sounding menu. I have an individual post for this going up in the coming week as well. And that wraps up the general chat about our 3rd anniversary celebrations.

A Quick 2018 Gardening Update – Closing

On Sunday, perfect for after the bad news mentioned below, I went out for a day of closing the garden. I’m sorry that the gardening updates kind of fell off but consider this a wrap-up for the 2018 segment. I’ve done some massive trimming on the ferns and the hydrangea bush (look at the pile that I got rid of). I also did trim back the lilac and took down the barriers and harvested remaining veggies from the vegetable garden but forgot to take a picture of it.

A Family Passing

I don’t usually share a ton of private stuff here other than adventures and whatnot. However, this is still a blog so I’m keeping a part of it personal especially for this segment. If I happen to not post as much (although I have a lot planned still..its my way to deal with things sometimes), we got news yesterday that my grandmother passed away. She had a long life (over a hundred years old) and I’d hope to say a good and healthy one for a good part of it. It saddens me of course but I grieve very slowly over people so its not really showing just yet. However, it is weighing down on my heart and mind so things may get quiet or it might just cause a lack of motivation to write. We’ll see how it goes but I’m dealing with that right now. Here’s sharing a picture of 2012 when I went to Hong Kong to visit above.

Cute Kitty Pic

As a final note, posts might be a little sparse. I’m working on some stuff right now but I have a really bad habit of not grieving when I should so I’m going to take some time to you know, do that. I’ve been slightly trying to recuperate and just relax a little and not stress out. So, forgive me if both the Halloween marathon or the wrap-up for Festival du Nouveau Cinema takes me longer. I’m working hard to get it all done but still trying to make sure that I’m okay. Its been a rough year overall so its just getting back to a positive mindset.

That’s it for this Weekly Adventures!

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? 

My Weekly Adventures #62 I’m 32!

Welcome back to this edition of My Weekly Adventures!

This post comes a little later than usual. To be honest, I was just taking it easy since I took today off to relax and enjoy my birthday. I am getting older and this past week has been busy with new project launch and lots of catch up on stuff to be more on track and organized. Its been an uphill trek after being functional again a few weeks ago with the new PC. Luckily things are going very well now and I’m hoping it will go that way. Although, the last few days, the stats were absolutely meh but after so many years of doing this, I love just sharing what a little bit of everything so the stats don’t bother me anymore. Maybe its the enlightenment of getting a little older. 😉

This is going to be a really short one since there honestly isn’t much to recap. I was looking back and realized that the last two weeks didn’t have much going on. I debated about posting today but hey, why not! A little bit of something is better than nothing, right?

Getting Ready For Running Season…Very Slowly

The snow is melting away in our yard and I can see the tulips starting to come out and the strawberries are sprouting some new leaves as well as some other plants here and there. Which means that as the weather gets a little more stable and mild, I’m getting back to running season. I haven’t ran in a year. In fact, working out has been so sparse in the past year and a half that I really need to get back on track to just basic exercises. With that said, I started scheduling in little improvise workout programs for myself at home, just like 30  minutes of Zumba routines from Youtube 2 times a week. Its going okay…can’t say that I’ve been incredibly disciplined but working out is definitely always in the back of my mind and I make a solid effort to get even 20 minutes in when I have the time.

I’m hoping to start actually running somewhere like mid to late April depending on how much overtime I have at work and how that affects my own calendar.

The Husband’s Birthday Weekend

My husband, better known now as a contributing factor of Game Warp as Stunt Gamer had his birthday last weekend. Yes, our birthdays are a week apart. You haven’t heard the weirdest part yet when it comes to coincidences and our families other birthdays. Either way, for his birthday weekend, he got to relax like crazy and over the Saturday and Sunday, I made it a full day of meals pretty much, there was a brunch, a dinner and a birthday dessert. I posted last week about the dinner HERE. And well, above are the cupcakes (because the cake version of this would be crazy) that I made for him. It was a Chocolate Cupcake with Nutella Filling topped with cupcake icing and a Ferrerro Rocher.

I’ll share the next two recipes very soon. We also went to go see Tomb Raider for his birthday and while the theatre experience has me really angry, the movie itself was pretty fun. I’ll have that review going up very soon as well. Lots of upcoming stuff, right?

New Project: Movies & Tea Podcast

If you missed it this week, my awesome Game Warp co-host Elwood and I started up a new podcast and the debut episod went live this week. We apparently hate free time. Thats our running joke. Between us, we have too many projects and who are we kidding…we love it! Movies & Tea sparks from the idea of each season looking at a different director and their movies. Of course, some will have more than enough movies but we will pick a selection or batch together a few so that the season will be about 6 to 8 episodes long. Right now, we are looking at releasing on a biweekly or once every three weeks or something. We are pretty flexible with the schedule. This is a fun and casual project since we love talking about films off air during production meetings and stuff.

The kick-off director is Paul W.S. Anderson and this episode looks at his directorial debut full length feature, Shopping.

You can follow us over at the blog where you can catch all the episodes HERE.
Like us on the Facebook page HERE.
Thanks for listening!

Turning 32!

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Spending my #birthday at the #DreamworksAnimation #exhibit at @canmushistory #HistoryMuseum

A post shared by Kim (@tranquildreams) on Mar 31, 2018 at 12:11pm PDT

How about that? Time sure does fly and I’m 32! Honestly, I don’t really feel that different. If anything, with all the projects going on, its making me feel very energetic and youthful like never before. I kind of have to be since it is the gaming scene and embracing new stuff and new game ideas and same goes for the movie industry and whatnot. I feel like the past year, I’ve grown a lot as a blogger and podcaster among many other stuff that I love to do. With that said, I usually don’t like to make a big deal of my birthday so its just been a relaxing day with my husband. We headed for a little day trip out to check out the Dreamworks Animation Exhibit in the Canadian Museum of History before it ends next weekend. Its a ton of fun since other than that exhibit, there’s some permanent ones there about the full Canadian history and its like 4 floors of stuff to look at and its paired with the Children’s Museum as well as includes a Dreamworks film which we missed since we got there too late and it was a decision between seeing exhibits or seeing the movie and just one exhibit. Plus, the movie was Shrek 4 and I stopped watching Shrek after the 2nd one so it wasn’t particularly intriguing. With that said, the exhibit was very unique and I loved seeing the art work and all the sketches and music and more. Super cool stuff.

No worries! I’ll do a coverage/recap post some time next week. More upcoming…

Cute Kitty Pic

That’s it for this Weekly Adventures!
Hopefully, I’ll be reporting back with some more exercise progress next time (if work hasn’t drained me).
You already know whats upcoming for the next week or two with all that I talked about up there. 
What have you been up to?

We’re 7! [Vlog]

Hello all! Today is a special day! Tranquil Dreams turns 7 today! 

According to WordPress, my blogiversary is actually in October but I launched the blog officially back in 2011 on January 17th as I started up the mission to be positive and from there, its truly expanded into a slightly imperfect, most times disorganized, full of procrastination and a journey full of lessons and new things sort of versatile little world.

I’ve wanted to do a vlog for my blogiversary for at least the last 3 years but always bailed out due to not liking it so much. After 3 takes and still not being too satisfied with it after a ton of editing, I decided to just upload it! Its slightly longer than I would like, but I tend to ramble, more so when I’m sick apparently, so forgive me if this gets boring. The idea is that I’d like to thank you all for being a part of this Tranquil Dreams journey!

Thanks for watching! 🙂

At least you can see here why I shy away from vlogs so much or any video content with myself talking..haha!
However, I am serious about the idea to have more video content and probably things less lengthy at about 5 to 10 minutes.

My Friend’s Wedding Part 3!

I’m totally loving posting about my friend’s wedding! Weddings are just so happy and fun! Being part of the wedding party also means that I don’t get to hold my phone so there are chunks in between with no pictures.  You’ll see where it is (as you’ve seen in the previous sections) but when I had my phone, I tried to get in some shots, either with the DSLR in the hotel suite or with my phone during the day 🙂

5am: My alarm went off!

As I was brushing my teeth, the knock came and I let in the make up artist with my mouth full of foam and she kept asking me questions.  Talk about embarrassing. Anyways, before long I was sitting in her lighted setup with her lamp and all her equipment and having a full on makeup.  I never put on a lot of makeup and honestly, I know very little about it.  This is what I looked like after the make up session.

After make-up session

And the shameless selfies start! 😉 I’m telling you, I looked in the mirror and I was like, “Is that me?” After that I sat around while the one next up was doing hers and we got to enjoy a beautiful sunrise, or its just watching the sky go from dark to bright.

Tulips with the background

Brightening morning sky

Between this and finding time to get us some liquid fuel downstairs, such tea, coffee and juice for our  unscheduled breakfast, eventually we all woke up by the time the hairdress arrived a little after 7am. As I did make up first, I also went first for hair and that was crazy because I have A LOT of thick hair.  Plus, the bride made it a point that I shouldn’t cut my hair or thin it before the wedding, so here I was, sitting for what seemed like forever, and I’m pretty sure putting all the girls behind schedule because of my ridiculous amount of hair.

Lets go to see what I look like with my second transformation:

After hair stylist

I’m going to get sick of seeing myself after this post.  I promise, at least 3 months with no selfies..or I’ll try 😛 Oh, and excuse the pyjamas…

Before long, time was running short and we ended up telling the groom and his group to wait outside as we did the final preparations for the bargain and door games. No pictures there because I was busy setting and organizing and talking.  The rundown looked something like:

1. Bargain ($389 was the final settled amount)
2. Contract (by the request of the bride)
3. 1st part of marriage: Sweet –> Hersheys Kisses Cookies n Creme
4. Acrostic Name Game with the bride’s first name
5. 2nd part of marriage: Sour –> peeling and eating a lemon
6. Group Yoga Poses
7. 3rd part of marriage: Bitter –> Condensed Black Coffee
8. 4th part of marriage: Spicy –> Hot Korean Cup Noodles Instant Soup
9. Serenading the bride with a Cantonese Love Song (supposed to be one but the bride requested a second one)

I don’t think anything turned out too be too hard. It should have been worse and more cruel but we were REALLY tight on time. Yoga poses were a bit funny since no one could stay still for even 10 seconds.  The singing had to be the best and I think the bride will have a blast watching the video afterwards. 😉

Next up is the tea ceremony from the bride’s side which was in the hotel suite.

The bride and groom waiting for tea ceremony preparations

Such a sweet picture, right? Well, they can tell me to take it off if they think its too much.  Either way, the bride is in the traditional Chinese wedding dress. After this, we had to go down to the reception hall to proceed with the bigger groom’s side of the family’s tea ceremony.  I had to hold mine and the bride’s bouquet as she did this so no pictures.  During the tea ceremony, the older family, especially parents usually give gold and/or pearl jewellery to the bride and groom as gifts.  The more gifts they get, the more loved and cherished they are.

My maid of honor bouquet

Next part, also I have no pictures is the actual wedding ceremony. I really wanted to have a picture of the bride’s gown since her friend designed it for her so its absolutely unique. Moving on, the ceremony was great. Everything went as planned except for two reading and speech that was taken out.  Me and the best man was the witness to the wedding.  Then it was pictures with the couple and cocktail, where we got to breathe just a little before heading into the reception.  Also, the bride and groom actually sang All I Ask Of You from Phantom of the Opera and I almost burst into tears.

The reception was done beautifully and the banquet hall was in a lovely shade.  Also, the wedding was special because there was a theme of space and masquerade for their love of Spaceballs and Phantom of the Opera (hence the song for the ceremony). And we walked in to Masquerade.  Totally cool! 🙂

My gift, mask and name card

At this point in time, I’ve had exactly one cup of tea and one glass of punch in my body so we’re moving on to the banquet lunch! WOOHOO! 🙂

Pasta with Tomato sauce and something with cheese that I couldn’t eat

Salad

My main course: salmon

My boyfriend’s main course: steak

 

Dessert trio: Chocolate mouse, sorbet, something I don’t know

buffet in the back: pizza table plus everything behind

a part of the sweet table

As for the speech that I was only notified 2 days before, it ended going through this weird phase of the bride telling me that we were not doing and then after I had started drinking with some new friends (a vodka shot and this thing called Fuzzy Ripple, I think), and she came back and told me that the speech was back on, which was short and a bit weird in afterthought, but hey, you know what, it doesn’t matter.  They know that I wish them the absolute best and that they have my blessing 🙂 After that slightly embarrassing moment, I went back to drinking and had this improvised Jagerbomb (not sure if thats how you spell it) and  then it was this shot with banana liquor.  Weird, eh? I don’t usually drink so much and I was still alive afterwards.  Not bad, eh? 😉 And to top it off, I got a cranberry vodka to finish off the evening.

This was the first big event that my boyfriend and I have attended together.

I really love this picture! 🙂

My friend’s wedding was just so beautiful! It was fun. I meet a few new friends and got a few additional friends on Facebook.  Plus, I reunited with some school friends: university/college.

Overall, a beautiful morning, afternoon and weekend.  It may have been sleepless and put my schedule all over the place but it was priceless 🙂 Reminds me also that I need to reconnect with friends since I’ve been quite the hermit these days but with work, who has time,right?

I don’t know about you but this year seems to be wedding bombs all over the place.  I have two more wedding invites this year already.

How about you? Any weddings to attend this year? 

Happy Year of the Snake!

Happy Year of the Snake! Its finally arrived!

Last night my best friend had me over for Chinese New Year`s dinner at her house and it was super fun because I got to catch up with her.  We’ve both been so busy so all we have time to do is just text each other randomly.  It felt great to have someone to talk to and just enjoy some relaxing times together.  Her parents treat me like their goddaughter so its always heartwarming to be in that environment.  Feels like home.  However, I was having so much fun that I didn’t even think about pulling out my camera and snapping pictures.  But I kid you not…we had 10 people altogether and 20 plates of food and it was all SO AWESOME.

Earlier though, I had gotten up extra early to run to the store to get some fresh flowers.  Its tradition and even if my mom isn’t here, I thought I’d get the celebrations on by myself.  Not to the extent that my mom does it, but you know, just keep the New Year traditions going at the minimum, give the house a fresh look to bring in a new beginning.

My mom did decorate the house before she left and with the flowers I bought, its just beautiful! Here’s how it looks around my place now 🙂

Almond Cookies

Strings of Gold

Gerbera and Light Pink Lilies

Pussy Willows

Pink flowers

May all Things go your way!

Welcome New Year!

Chinese New Year is all about doing things and decorating and eating things that have good symbols whether its it the sound of the words or whatnot.

Usually we decorate with banners with different proverbs (??) that wish for good fortune, say with the typical Gong Hei Fat Choy! By the way, my mother tongue is Cantonese. We have little dangling wishes from the ceilings like up there wishing for everything to go as we wish during the new year.  We welcome the new year with happiness all over the house. Everything is red before its what we believe is good luck.

When choosing flowers, we pick the ones that have sound and represent good wishes.

So here, you see the flowers I chose:

The yellow flowers (not exactly what they are actually called) since these are from the garden, but we call them Strings of Gold. Give me a bundle of those, I know 😉 This year I matched those with pussy willows which we call in direct translation Silver Buildings (give me a 1000 bundles of those..haha). So for lilies, its name in Chinese is wishing togetherness and harmony in relationships.  And as for the orange/red Gerbera, its a bright color so it works with the tradition! Do you like the flower arrangements? I only practice once a year *blush*

Yesterday I reposted a past recipe I did last year for New Year’s so I made it again.  The pictures are right up there for the batch for this year! Almond Cookies are just awesome!

More posts to come up today (most probably)! Its Chinese New Year! YAY! Wishing everyone fortune, prosperity and lots of happiness! 🙂

What Chinese Zodiac are you? I’m a Tiger (or should I say Tigress? )

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I’m sitting at a party right now and remembered some of you are already in the new year!
I’d like to quickly wish everyone a beautiful 2013!

HAPPY NEW YEAR MY WONDERFUL FRIENDS IN THE BLOGOSPHERE!
I will see everyone in 2013 with bigger and better things. Thank you to everyone for stopping by!

All the best wishes to everyone and wishing you lots of happiness!