My Weekly Adventures: Let the Gardening Begin!

And May has come to an end! Man, this year is flying by. Its hard to imagine that we are almost at the half year mark. I’m not sure how to recap the last half of the month, probably in frequent garden oriented content. As mentioned before, Gardening updates might just stick to these updates now since I don’t really have too much on the schedule once festival seasons start and such (depending on situation and work, of course) so to keep things interesting, I’ll be tracking some other stuff in this segment starting with this Adventures post. 🙂

Gardening Hauls (over 2 weekends)

1st Haul: Geranium Citronella, Green Lettuce, Kale, Foliage, Monarda, English Lavender, Cabbage, Phlox

The first haul was quite disorganized. The main thing was that I wanted to go but had a lot of unformed ideas and unset plans on the whole landscaping aspect. Plus, the weather was still a bit too chilly for vegetables be in ground, without risk of losing the crop so I stuck with some safe choices and perennials. You may notice that I picked up cabbage when I had completely planned on getting brussel sprouts and only realized when I got home that it was the wrong thing. Oh well, guess that’s my experimental crop for this year.

2nd Haul: Marigold, Snapdragons, Phlox, Campanula, English Lavender, Thyme, Sedum, Aster

On Victoria Day, after some debate and discussion with the husband to clear my mind a little, we decided to go back with a solid plan on how to take care of the the bee garden plans I had wanted to do. We settled on where to plant it and how to set it up and then what flowers to get along with getting the final pieces to my mosquito repellant container garden as well.

3rd Haul: Eggplant, Cherry Tomato, Cucumber, Zucchini, Red Bell Pepper, Green Bell Pepper, Carmen Pepper

The weekend after, we went again for (probably not the final) time to get the vegetable plants. We decided since the last visit to get a hanging tomato plant (which might not be hanging anymore after some observation) and a bunch of other ones: the husband’s must-have is cucumbers and peppers, my must-have is zucchini and decided to try another variety of eggplant, hoping that its the type that I like.

Battle of Ingredients

We finally got back to Battle of Ingredients with the whole gang and trying out our new barbecue. The husband was the grill master while Phoebe and I got all the food prep done. You can check out the recap post and some of the marinade and recipes HERE.

Ottawa Day Trip & Haul

Disney Store: Steamboat Mickey

LCBO

KT Tape

T&T Supermarket

Eddie Bauer

Ottawa marathon weekend happened last weekend. While I don’t go with my friend to help with the racing anymore, my husband and I do head down to check up and hang out on the Saturday before his 5K and 10K race in the morning and leave in early afternoon. We also go because Eddie Bauer usually has great sales to replenish some hiking gear. This year, I ended up being the big purchaser and getting some new long hiking pants. I only had capris, which made the last hiking a bit complicated as I had to go in my jeans. We stopped at LCBO to pick up some Ontario Ciders and the husband wanted to get more Hard Root Beer. I went to Disney Store because to add another Disney plush to my collection. While there was a heavy debate between Timon (The Lion King) and Steamboat Mickey, the latter won the debate mostly because its price tag matched its size and Steamboat Mickey adds to my Mickey collection. I should do an Instagram post of all my Mickey plushes. We also went to the running convention to get some tape and ended up picking up KT Tape. The husband needs it for hiking while I need it for running. One of the main reasons that my running season hasn’t started yet. After that for the final visit is always T&T Supermarket to get some hot food for dinner, get some fun snacks and pick some cute stuff. We tried out this very interesting concept of heat-conducting hot pot sort of cup noodles. I’ve seen it in TV series before so was interested about how it works. It works fine except they only have extreme spicy varieties so we ate two pieces, had a bowl of ice cream to wash away the burning heat in our mouths and threw it out. If you like spicy things, its pretty cool though just to watch the process and then have this cool eating experience.

Gardening Update

Bee Garden

The bee-friendly garden has gone next to the vegetable garden. Its a good spot because its next to the blueberry and the echinacea which are also bee-friendly plants that was already there. We left some space for all the perennials to grow into place while leaving room to swap around the annuals every year as I like to other bee-friendly flowers. I still have some grass and weed removal to maintain this space but I’ll get around to it soon.

Cabbage & Marigold

Since I got the cabbage with not a whole lot of knowledge, I did some quick research and found that it companions well with marigolds so hence, these containers are now all over my garden. The hope is that the cabbage will grow well and have enough room. If not, it’ll be leaves I guess and beautiful flowers. I do have some cabbage going in ground so we can see which works where better.

Lettuce

Lettuce

Geranium Citronella

Kale

Much of the same as last year. I have some lettuce in hanging basket and some hanging off the back patio. This year, we are changing up the garden as well so where I put my kale is where I’ll have more container gardening while also opening up a raised garden.

That’s the update for now! I’ll be doing more gardening to finish getting everything planting this weekend.

Restaurant: Yunnan Rice Noodles

Not going to say too much about this restaurant visit but a new(ish) restaurant opened up on the South Shore of Montreal and I went with my friend to check it out. I’ve never had this Yunnan Rice Noodles which is quite unique in how its presented especially the traditional rice noodle variety. I will do a recap post on the experience very soon (probably next week)!

Cute Kitty Pic

That’s it for this adventures post!
What have you been up to?

South Burlington Haul

Its been a few months since our last haul. I’m trying to cut my expenses in the past while. Overall, its been alright, plus it was a nice chance to give ourselves time to declutter and whatnot. However, you will see that this one is mostly groceries.

If you didn’t drop by because of My Weekly Adventures teasing it earlier today, I went to South Burlington, Vermont for a quick day trip since my friend had to run an errand there and I had discovered something at Trader Joe’s and it was the closest one that we have. Give it to buying food to make me cross into the border, it always does the trick.

We made a few stops, some for his errand and others just for checking stuff out which ended up being three spots that I had a little haul from.

First Stop: Trader Joe’s

• Trader Joe’s Speculoos Cookie Butter
• Trader Joe’s Speculoos Cookies
• Trader Joe’s Organic Super Fruit Jam
• Trader Joe’s 72% Swiss Dark Chocolate
• Trader Joe’s Cold Pressed Juice – Red
• L’Arabar *2 (Apple Pie and Cherry Pie flavors)

Since I did go to Trader Joe’s, I tried to pick up  mostly things from their own house brand since the items are guaranteed to not only represent what it offered but also unique to their brand and I couldn’t get it anywhere else. To be honest, a lot of cool products there that were organic and had very healthy ingredients. I’m definitely impressed. As of now, I’ve only tasted the Cookie Butter, the Red juice and the Super Fruit Jam, plus the cookies. Cookie Butter is absolutely delicious as well as the Super Fruit Jam which has officially gotten me back into the jam mood. The Red juice was odd at first with this overpowering beet and celery flavor, not surprising since it has those two ingredients to start but then a few more sips and you get the acidity from the lemon juice and the apple juice. There are some other fruits and veggies in there, ginger and cucumber if I remember correctly also are listed. I can’t say it tastes bad but it tasted healthy because it is. As for the cookies, I’d expect that is what the cookie butter is made from and they are quite delicious. Its supposedly a traditional European cookie which are thin, crisp cinnamon flavored from Belgian. I’m a sucker with cookies with this texture and just enough cinnamon-y and this was pretty great.

Second stop: Barnes & Noble

Next stop was Barnes & Noble. I’ve only ever heard of Barnes & Noble since we don’t have those in Canada. I love books so bookstores are fascinating to me. Barnes & Noble is pretty special. Not only did I walk into the front door and see a bunch of hiking books on sale, which is right up my alley for more hiking destinations. I walked around and saw a whole area of unique board games and then around there was also an entire cabinet full of Studio Ghibli items and collectibles. I wanted to take them all home but of course, I didn’t. Instead I went to the back and saw some cool puzzles. The ones I liked were in a 4 pack so I ended up getting it since the price was pretty economical also. I haven’t done puzzles in a long time but it is something I want to get back to.

Walmart

Last stop before heading back home was to check out the Walmart. Its not really like we don’t have Walmart at home but Walmart in the US stocks brands and items that we don’t have. My favorite is to unfrosted Pop Tarts. They had a limited choice in this Walmart but I still appreciate it. There are usually cool Oreo flavors that we haven’t gotten yet. I think Lemon is in Canada but I grabbed it in case and then caught a glimpse of the chocolate creme Oreos for my husband. Toss that keeping fit out the window for a moment, right? And then I saw the Ritz Summer Limited Edition, which had me curious but I found out that it is really just four individually packaged Ritz crackers but its essentially the same thing. Finally, it hit me at Walmart that I’ve heard so many people talking about La Croix and I said I would go down to get some and then I only remembered at Walmart so obviously got it there. They only had two flavors and I decided to try the Cherry-Lime Flavor. Its actually not that bad. I’m not a huge fan of Sparkling Water but I did enjoy it especially since cold water is not my jam but flavored cold water is decent. Hopefully I’ll remember to check out Target or something when I head down to Plattsburgh which is in the planning since its also not that far away.

That’s it for this haul! 🙂
A quick and not that expensive trip, even considering the crazy exchange rate.
Some nice cool discoveries and I do like Trader Joe’s so if I ever come across another one, I’ll definitely check out more items.

My Weekly Adventures #65: The Endless To-Do List

Well…it seems after crazy time comes a lot of not free time but calmer times. I had a debate about whether to post for this Weekly Adventures but I figured I should at least do a short one. I mean, what do I do? Talk to you every time about weeding? You know when things get halted in conversation, the fall back is weather so…let’s do that.

Montreal has had some fantastic weather. Honestly, its been two awesome weekends. I’ve gotten a lot of prep work in the garden done and it still feels like a long way before I’m anywhere near ready to start planting next week. Its gotten me motivated to get back into my own groove and get back into this positive mood that I actually haven’t felt in a little while. I’m having my own mental struggles over a ton of stuff and sometimes, its hard to explain to others how I just enjoy my own little space to do my stuff efficiently and connect with my own thoughts, because some people don’t function that way. A topic for another day to dive into.

The last two weeks was a lot of housekeeping for the blog and my house and my life. I’m trying to get things back on track, find back my own positive thoughts and just think a little about improving. One of the latest things I did was finally update my  About Tranquil Dreams page in the menu which I realized wasn’t updated in 2017. Oops~ You can check that out as well, especially if you are new here and want a snapshot of the versatile amount of topics. You can find it HERE.

Before we begin, the last few Weekly Adventures have been about a lot of behind the scenes stuff going on and segment revival and recaps. I promise you that after this Victoria Day weekend, things absolutely get busier with Montreal events and such.

Gardening 2018 has Begun!

The first Gardening 2018 post has gone up. Lots of plans and lots of things to accomplish to get to the final goal. The last two weekends (and some weekday evenings) was all about getting ready for our Victoria Day long weekend to get things in ground and in pots. You can find that post here.

To be honest, this week has no update because 75% of my gardening stuff this weekend was making sure the vegetable patch was grass-free, finding new perennials that came out in the sea of grass so that my husband knows to not mow over my plants and a ton of weeding. So much weeding and so much more left to do. The only update are the blooms and no worries, an update is coming very soon! 😉

Avenue of Daydreams – Changing its Look

For some of you who are new here, I used to do a ton of photography and writing when Tranquil Dreams first started. However, that faded in the background. However, in the spirit to channel a more creative outlet rather the reviews and lifestyle stuff I do here, I opened up another blog called Avenue of Daydreams. Its really sporadic content but the previous theme had issues of not being a mostly photography blog so it wasn’t showing up stuff as I wanted so in the last two weeks, I stopped my procrastinating and got around to changing it up. I might change it again but so far, I like it better already.  Its clean and nice. So in case, you want to see a lot of more artsy pictures that I take with my phone and my DSLR and the sporadic writing piece, Fifty or maybe edited Nanowrimo past novel, that is where you will find it all. I might revive the Out of This World Travels segment but just working on the time allocation first.

You can check out (and follow if you enjoy) right here.

Getting Into Shape – Segment Revival

I didn’t write about resolutions this year but I wanted to get back into working out so much. Feeling fit and strong and healthy makes me feel good. Working out is painful but also challenging and rewarding. The positive vibes that comes with focusing on getting a workout routine done or pushing to go that extra kilometer in the run is honestly irreplaceable. As I fit working out back into my schedule, things are shifting around a little bit more. You may notice the sporadic posting schedules and that is just a preliminary side effects. Things will settle down once it becomes a part of my routine.

With that said, its the revival of the Weekly Workout Roundups. They go up every Sunday afternoon (or whenever I finish the Sunday workout). You can find the first one from last week HERE.

Overdue Dentist Appointment

Its been at least 3 years since I’ve been to the dentist. To make a long story short, my dentist basically retired 3 years ago and between getting married, his retirement and our procrastination and then red tape of acquiring dental insurance from my husband’s insurance from work, its been way overdue and boy, do I know it? My friend referred me to a new dentist. The technology now is astounding when I first went in for exams and teeth cleaning. I came out of that with 6 cavities, meaning two visits back to the dentist. The first visit was more urgent and done as this post goes up. Definitely a good experience since funnily enough, I’m more nervous of the pain from the anesthesia needle than the actual cavity filling process. Man, am I happy that I have insurance now! The grown-up moments in life, right? One more visit to go and more frequent cleaning sessions to make up for the last few years to hopefully get my teeth and gums healthy again. Yet another stage to taking care of my own well-being.

South Burlington, Vermont – Day Trip

Hello Vermont (for a day). Recently, I learned about something called Cookie Butter that is sold at Trader Joe’s. To my knowledge, we don’t have Trader Joe’s in Canada and my friend told me about his trip to South Burlington, which happens to be where the nearest Trader Joe’s to us is, so I tagged along for a quick trip across the border to the US. We went to three places and well, I’ll tell you all about it in this afternoon’s post (because this one seems to be getting a little too lengthy).

Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day kind of was a bust for us. My in-laws were supposed to drop by to celebrate but only my father in law made it since my mother in law wasn’t feel too good so wanted to rest. We understood that. However, we still got some family time as my husband helped his dad get his car ready for the season. We had gotten groceries to get a little barbecue going. Honestly, we only barbecue when we have ample time put out since as my husband puts it, “we don’t have a proper BBQ”. Either way, we had three people so we made 6 foil packets. 3 foil packets included sausages, zucchini, bell peppers, garlic and Portobello mushrooms) and the other ones were garlic butter sliced potatoes. We got our sausages at Charcuterie Frick. They were two different flavors, so we used one of each. The first was Quebecoise, which is ham and maple syrup and possibly one of my faves from this place. The second was my husband’s choice and it was basil chicken with sundried tomatoes. Both were really delicious and the foil packets, which was a little oversized were pretty decent. We enjoyed the lovely weekend together and that is what matters. We did give our father in law a basket of flowers and Mother’s Day card to take back with him.

Cute Kitty Pic

That’s it for these adventures!
A lot of segment revivals and updates and housekeeping in general!
Its been really busy with little things and adding healthy habits into my life.
Hopefully in a few weeks, it will be a part of my routine. We will see, won’t we?

What have you been up to?

My Weekly Adventures #46!

 And we are back to another Weekly Adventures  segment! If things have gone as I wanted and you are seeing this post, I am currently away on vacation and have managed to keep up with posts. I’ll be home soon and will have another week of staycation so it will be fantastic to catch up on everything from personal projects, blog backlogs and Game Warp. 

Lets not get ahead of ourselves and look back at the second half of June. 

Pointe-Claire Half Marathon & Bakery Visit

My friend who runs all these half marathons I go to had his next one at Pointe Claire Village. It was by far the hottest weekend we had, hitting the high 30s Celsius in the late morning with the humidity. While I waited for him, I went looking for some much needed tea because I had an early 2am airport dropoff and found the bakery I went to the year before called La Mie Bio.

La Mie Bio is a cute and friendly bakery with a nice selection. There are lactose free and gluten free baked goods. I ended up taking these spelled croissants. They were really delicious. 

Magog Day Trip & Haul

We had our St. Jean Baptiste holiday (pretty much our provincial birthday). As it was on a Saturday, my office had Friday off so my husband and I headed out to the Eastern Townships. If you remember, we went to Festival des Vendanges last year and got a coupon book so we wanted to start checking out. Our first stop was Bleu Lavande, one of the first places we went to when we started dating. Above is our haul. Two of the sprays was a promotion free with our purchases. We bought the hand soap for my mother in law and kept the vase and soaps for us. It was rainy and the cooler weather meant the lavender hadn’t bloomed yet so onto the next stop.

Next stop was a free tasting of two chocolates at Chocolats Vanden Eynden. My husband tried two milk chocolates and I had these dark chocolate selections. 

We ended up picking up a few other chocolates. I even picked up a bag of dairy free chocolate chips for future baking projects (probably next week).

A few quick stops but still a lot of fun. Plus I had to get back for a dinner with my girl friends.

We had dinner at Zibo at Quartier Dix30 in Brossard. It was pretty good. We took a quick walk afterwards.

Family Hangout

Long weekend and birthday celebration for my husband’s nephew meant a family gathering. They wanted to head to our place so we hosted a quick afternoon and dinner gathering. There were hamburgers and hot dogs, some wine and beer for the adults along with soda for the kids. We had a passing downpour which was quite the adventure but the sun eventually came back.

I was off dessert duty so my sister in law got me some dark chocolate and everyone else had the ice cream cake as birthday cake. 

Overcooked Hype!

Following E3 and Summer low season for gaming here, Playstation had a lovely sale and we finally got Overcooked. It finally put our second controller to good use. Good, fun, hectic and awesome fun! 

Vacation!!!

Due to work deadlines, I had to start vacation midweek and only had a few days overlapping my husband’s vacation. However, as I said at the beginning of this post, we are on vacation at the moment and am heading home very soon. I’ll be posting up the travel posts next week once I sort through the pics. 

Cute Kitty Pic

Upcoming:

• TV Binges
• Travel/Vacation recap
• And more…Game Warp, gardening update..etc