Tag Archives: December

My December Adventures!

Posted in My Weekly Adventures by

Its the last day of December. Isn’t that crazy? I’m doing this on the last day instead of tomorrow since we have 2020 business to take care of then so shifting things up a little. We’re going through the very busy December and all kinds of recap and seemingly a bunch of shopping and gifts and fairs and outings, etc.

Fingers crossed that all will go as planned as writing in December has been a bit all over the place… (it hasn’t because this is going up much later than expected)

CRHS Annual Craft Fair (December 1)

DIY Christmas

You can see the post on it HERE.

Marbled Ornaments

Next up, I went along and tried out some Marbled Ornaments as well! Which was mostly a failed attempt in general but did decide that its a project to further pursue and figure out. Plus, its some nice way to use up old nail polish so that its not just thrown out without some form of recycling/repurposing. You can check my post on that HERE.

Marché Casse-Noisette & Mini-Comiccon

Marche Casse -Noisette took place from November 28 to December 8 at Palais des Congres which happened to overlap with Mini Montreal Comiccon held December 7 and 8 also at Palais des Congres just one was in the main hall and the other was upstairs. With that said, it made sense to go and check out both at the same time. While the haul wasn’t particularly a lot, it was a first time visit for both place for myself. Some nice discoveries to be found. I will definitely go check the Marché Casse-Noisette again but probably not the Mini Comiccon as its rather lackluster.

Salon des Metiers d’Art 2019

Salon des metiers d'art 2019

  • Coach House Shortbread Company: Dark Chocolate & Salt; Almond & Rose; Ginger
  • La Nougaterie: Salt Flower Caramel; Dark Chocolate; Christmas
  • Nutra Fruit: Chocolate Covered Cranberry; Dark Chocolate- Cranberry Spread
  • Cidrerie du Minot: Des Glaces
  •  Choco Chocolat: Dark Chocolate; Dark Hazelnut

A lot of the SMAQ 2019 sales is about the same as previous years, the exception being that I bought the spread from Nutra Fruit and the chocolate from Choco Chocolat, which I believe is a new booth this year at the Salon. Most of this stuff is for festival party time and gifts and whatnot.

Ottawa Day Trip

Mavericks Donut

We took a quick trip with a friend to go to Ottawa to do some quick errands. We had a nice lunch at Fatboys (post about our first time HERE) and then finally found time to go grab some donuts at Mavericks Donut, which they had 4 dairy-free flavors and the husband and the friend each chose 4 to get a dozen. After that, I finally brought home Pumbaa from Disney Store to join Timon at our place and then picks up some wine at LCBO and some food in preparation for NYE dinner plans at T&T Supermarket.

Holiday Festivities: Christmas Dinners & NYE Hotpot

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Christmas Eve dinner was a ton of fun with a lot of people at the in-laws. It was a fun little event with some surprise gifts for ourselves which we didn’t expect to get anything in the first place. My mom wanted to have a turkey feast (as shown above) so she held a dinner and invited us and some of her own friends for dinner and here we have the overzealous food galore. Everything was delicious as usual. NYE is a hotpot meal and part of the Battle of Ingredients festivities so a separate post will be done for that.

Boxing Day Shopping Haul

Boxing Day this year has been a little less exciting. It has to do a lot with the fact that we’ve been trying to decrease expenses and its truly changed the spending habits into being very cautious with our expenses. Its not going to seem it since we’ve done a lot of shopping this past month…seemingly..but then its all useful things or food. Either way, without further ado (as this is the last part before this post ends)..the shopping haul from Boxing Day.

  • Adidas outlet: Running Shoes
  • Dynamite: Sweater and 3-pack scrunchies
  • Steam Sale: Life is Strange 2: Complete Edition, Detention, Gris, The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker, Glass Masquerade
  • Playstation Holiday Sale: Overcooked 2, Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey
  • Amazon: Playstation 4 Controller Charging Dock
  • Walmart: John Wick 2

Cute Kitty Pic

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That’s it for this December Adventures!
How was your holidays? Had a lot of fun with family? Did you do some Boxing Day shopping?

My Weekly Adventures: Its December!

Posted in My Weekly Adventures by

Its been a month since the last post.  Right on time in my mind actually. I had started to draft a mid-month progress update adventures post but then I decided that I wasn’t really up to it.

Did a lot of stuff happen? Not really… but you know, nothing kickstarts brainstorming in everything else (aside from the novel) like NaNoWriMo month.

What do you say we keep a little structure here? We try to keep this at every 1st and 15th? If I have enough stuff to talk about… but at least it’ll make me try to go somewhere other than work and home and I do anticipate a few other events going to happen. Talking about that, I should be getting that seasonal post together for winter events that I’d like to highlight in and around Montreal 🙂

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves and get you all updated with all the fun stuff..its not really a lot 😉

1) NaNoWriMo — I DID IT!!

nanowrimo 2015

At the beginning of this experience this year, we got this personal achievement of whether we’re a plotter or a pantser. You know what, I’m kind of in between because I did have this idea before and I did some fifties over at my other blog, which is pretty much inactive for the past 3 months, but will revive after this. But, I’m definitely a pantser because my story is spiraled in a very spontaneous direction.  I think about it a lot but I never outline anything.  Maybe thats why week 2 for me was tough because I started feeling like road blocks were in view.  Its a scary thought. However, I’ve never been so calm and collected and actually confident about this novel.  Temporarily its titled The World’s End. My guess is I’d find something better later on.

nanowrimo 2015

On the third week, that’s when it all fell apart.  My husband had a week of vacation and I decided to spend time with it and I ended up being a week behind on the word count and it was crazy to try to build it back from there. On top of that, the road blocks actually appeared and I started feeling like some scenarios were pointless and ridiculous.  I ended Week 3 strong with a good word count, pulling the days behind a little closer.  Its also when I implemented personal word sprints and sprinting with live WordNerds sprints.  Those helped so much.  Thanks to that, I reached the goal of beating my last year’s ending time.  I finished just a little after midnight landing my winning on November 30th but hey, I wanted to finish it up and I did! For once, I feel like this is worthy of some time to edit and maybe I’ll post it up little by little.  I kid you not, there is a lot of hard work to put in to work on this one, maybe even some remapping of events but its going to happen 😉

But hey, that doesn’t matter so much but the significance is really that I will be catching up to everyone’s posts that I’ve missed out in the past month!

2) Sherbrooke met la Table/Sherbrooke Restaurant Week + December events

shrebrooke met la table

Thank you SO MUCH for being awesome with the MTL a Table coverage.  Its double as fun when I see those posts really working out. I have fun and it seems that a lot of you drop by to check it out and I’ve had a few new likes from other foodies.

With that hype going on, my husband and I decided to do one day of Sherbrooke met a table event in the city of Sherbrooke, which is about 1.5 hours drive away. I love driving down that area because its absolutely beautiful and calm.  Plus, we’re there to try new restaurants and eat a lot. It was so enjoyable to just spend time together there and talk about all sorts of random stuff.

If you missed those posts on the restaurants, its for two very creative and unique places called OMG Resto and Overflow Restaurant .

3) Christmas is here!!!

We got a bit of snow this week.  What better time than the last day of my NaNo sprint on the 29th to go pull out all of my Christmas decorations and put up the Christmas tree. But that’s just me. There’s still some hanging up lights around to deal with but a little sneak peek 😉

Christmas

Christmas

I’ll have a full home decorations thing up later on. We really stepped up our game this year so its just ton of fun.  I’m getting some crafty things done soon, just missing a few supplies.  Plus, we’re hosting the family Christmas dinner this year so that should be interesting. Its going to be a potluck and everyone took dibs on the actual meal so I have the task of whipping up some fantastic desserts.

What do you like to have for Christmas desserts? Is there a go-to dessert that you make?

4) What’s Up for December!

I know there’s not a lot going on to talk about for this month.  Mostly it was a lot of sitting down and finding time to get the novel writing thing down.  However, I did stay relatively on track with the Netflix A-Z! I do plan have a few new releases theatre visits.  Not sure how many. Star Wars tickets are bought so that’s a certain one.  Krampus is one I’m looking forward to also.  And I’d like to find time to fit in The Good Dinosaur.

Netflix A-Z is nearing its end.  We have X-Z left.  The goal is wrap it up with in the next two weeks.  After that (or simultaneously), I’ll start up the holiday themed month. The big question is what movies to watch.  I’ve reviewed a lot of Christmas movies before and now its just searching up movies from Netflix that are extremely random.  This month, I’m aiming for some more popular choices like Scrooged, Gremlins and some other horror with Christmas in it.  I can’t remember it. Its part of my husband’s movie collection.  I might need to add a little twist to this.  However, the goal is to bring back baking so expect some Christmas baking. I really want to put together a Christmas log so hoping I’ll get that done 😉

5) Music!

We’re keeping this short and sweet so I can plan out the rest of the week! I found this tune listening to a Youtuber (Gassy Mexican) on their livestream and it has a awesome tune! It just pumps me up and gets all my creative juices going!

Upcoming:

  • Netflix A-Z: Letters X-Z
  • Winter Events in Montreal
  • Snow White themed baking (getting at least one done so that I can focus on this project next year.)
  • A few independent book reviews (6 more books to go to complete the Goodreads Reading Challenge)
  • Christmas everything: Decorations, baking, crafts, movies (I’ll try to do everything)

Happy Tuesday, my lovelies! 🙂

Nothing can stop me now, I’m a winner! UPDATES!!

Posted in Everyday Randomness by

nanowrimo chartDecember is here!

November went by in style for me.  I can now calmly and tell you in full consciousness that I won NANOWRIMO. Woohoo! I validated my word count last night nearing 11pm with 50,104 words.  Maybe that doesn’t sound amazing to you.  I just screenshot the chart of word count for you.  Look at it!

On last Sunday night, I wanted to quit.  I had about 5,000 words written.  Let me tell you again. We need 50,000 words by the end of November 30th.  Seriously, it was crazy, only 10% was done.  Yesterday, even though I was still working really hard to catch up and make a last minute win, I still had doubts with less than 40,000 words done. Believe me, I had another blog already written in my mind. Honestly,  it didn’t matter at that point if I actually made it across the finish line and won because for one thing, my goal this year was to beat my 23,000ish words from last year.  I did that around Wednesday, but face it, even at 25,000, I was only halfway there with less than two days to write the second half of the novel. Seriously, I had the title of the post even if I lost.  It would’ve have been, “I Lost But I Won”.  You know why I say that? I was at 5000 words at the beginning of the week.  Even if I ended with 30,000 words, it basically took me one week to get this all down on paper. I have achieved the impossible in my mind.

Winner-180x180Now you know what? When there is a will, things will happen for you.  I put all my focus and energy on this.  I breathed my novel and every word of it.  I wrote standing up on a crowded bus and my brain was constantly thinking of scenarios for what to happen next.  So to everyone who thinks there are impossible things out there, some times you just need to step back and take it step by step. My novel happened with every 1000 words countdown and its finished! You want something to happen: you need to focus and strive for it! There were people who thought I was crazy but sometimes, you need a bit of that “don’t care what happens” attitude to make things happen.  That definitely happened yesterday when I managed to get more than 12000 words down to reach the finish!

I’m a Winner! Yay! This was a long week of self control and perseverance and now it deserves an intermission for a victory dance.

UPDATES!

On another note, Hong Kong month was the focus of November.  I tried post every day and for the most part, it worked.  This last week did stop me a bit from posting as much. I will try to finish off Hong Kong posts this weekend and on Monday, we start CHRISTMAS MONTH!! I already have a Christmas movie marathon with over 20 movies.  This time I’ll do it a bit different from the Halloween movies and try to review them all.  Of course, baking and cooking resumes now that I’m back at home.  I’ll head out in town to get some photography done and hopefully share some of Montreal’s Christmas festivities! Expect a lot more crafts near the middle of this month, I’ll be making gifts for the family once I figure out what to do exactly!

Just a short update for everyone!

Have a great weekend and I’ll be checking in soon!