TV Binge: The Big Flower Fight (Season 1, 2020)

The Big Flower Fight (Season 1, 2020)

Hosts & Resident Judge: Natasia Demetriou, Vic Reeves, Kristen Griffith-Vanderyacht

Ten pairs of florists, sculptors and garden designers face off in a friendly floral fight to see who can build the biggest, boldest garden sculptures. – IMDB

Netflix comes up with a lot of reality competition shows and a lot of times, they do work for the most part and then sometimes, we have shows that make us wonder whether there is an actual market and who else is watching it? The Big Flower Fight is one of those shows where I did enjoy watching it because I’m a big fan of flowers, plants and gardening in general but then I’m wondering how many of us have that ambition to go and make some relatable garden sculptures like these 20 people are doing over 15 hours. However, what makes its fun is that competition element and the whole different themed weeks which bring in different types of flowers and plants that give it that educational element.

If we take a look at the hosts Natasia Demetriou and Vic Reeves, they do have a nice humorous charm in their hosting style. There’s a lot to love about how they approach each stage. Sometimes, its a big over the top but it does feel like its in the context of giving this tense competition process some kind of relief. I think other than the hosts themselves, the judges themselves deserve some discussion. I’m not an expert at these renowned event florists and landscapers and horticulturist so none of these people mean anything to me and they could be saying anything in terms of their vision and what is being done to judge it, but if anything, it goes back to expanding our knowledge in this field. At the same time, they also share a lot of knowledge on the different plants available in the nursery that fit the theme on hand. The resident judge, Kristen Griffith-Vanderyacht is also quite a fun addition because he has some charisma and character that it brightens the show and his views are rather interesting as he looks at each of these sculptures.

Just like baking shows and whatnot, while this feels definitely more of a niche market, it gives a platform to a different group of people around the world who has a passion for different types of planting from urban indoor gardens to event florists to artists as their outlet and a chance to show the world their skills. For that, The Big Flower Fight does a really good job. Life’s about learning new things. Just like a fraction of anyone is going to join into Hyperdrive or Ultimate Beastmaster, the same goes for The Big Flower Fight where its mostly a learning process. In the end, garden sculptures is something of an art/exhibition piece. Everyone’s interpretation and execution as the show goes along sheds some light on how they use their plants and the whole process of giving them alive. I’m not going to go and plant a garden sculpture anytime soon (or ever) and while I question how popular this show actually is and how many people are turning this on, its a unique angle to focus on and one that I’ve had a rather fun time watching as its not only about plants but also about the engineering behind each of these structures and sculptures and the balance that it achieves. There’s quite a bit of finesse, knowledge and skills needed to do all this.

Have you seen The Big Flower Fight or at have an intention to watch it?

My May Adventures

Its hard to think that May is over with and at this point, its been more than 2 months in lockdown mode. Montreal is getting into reopening phase so we’ll see how all that goes probably in the June recap as it hasn’t completely started yet, really just starting up. With that said, I still worked from home in May. Things have slightly slowed down but there’s a shift in my own responsibilities and whatnot. Its been a bit crazy, not just the general situation but the weather went from some light snow in the beginning of the month until this last week of May hitting the 30+ degrees Celsius mark so its insane. Not a whole lot to talk about in these adventures but I’m mostly following up from last month’s Adventures post with podcasts and gardening, etc.

Movies and Tea Update: We’re on YouTube FINALLY!

Last month’s adventures, I had talked about working on moving the audio podcasts to Youtube as a new platform to see if we can get some more audience there. After an entire month of trying to do it but never quite getting it done, I gave myself a kick in the pants and did it. The first episode of Season 1 of our archives is finally on. The plan right now is that archives once a week until our current season ends and then I will upload Season 5 in between of putting up archives in between. That way, the old stuff is going up and the new episodes as well.

I’m debating on whether to do some more content after all the main business is done! All up for discussion with my awesome co-host, of course…because as we always say, we hate free time. 😉

Garden Update

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#gardencentre #haul from last weekend at @jean_francois_dauphinais is all transplanted into the #garden and #container. #flowers #fuchsia #bacopa #marigolds #basil #lemongrass #cucumber #squash #butternutsquash #delicatasquash #peppers #hungarianwaxpeppers #snapdragons #lemonthyme #dianthus #containergardening #gardening #annuals #perennials #veggies #vegetablegarden

A post shared by Kim (@tranquildreams) on May 30, 2020 at 11:45am PDT

There’s probably more to update here. There are a few more containers as I also did try to grow almost all the seeds that I had in the house. Some came out and some didn’t but its still somewhat of a waiting game other than the butterfly garden flowers, which seem to be doing fairly well in both of the containers. I will probably share a picture of it once it has more progress than baby leaves.

The trip to the garden center was also decent. Its more that, probably because of COVID-19 and the later season and unstable weather, there was a very limited assortment of vegetables or plants or whatnot. For example, the zucchini was not even grown from seeds and I wasn’t going to take the risk so skipped it. All of this year’s vegetables are new trials: Butternut Squash, Squash, Delicata Squash, Hungarian Wax Peppers and Marina Cucumbers (which we’ve had before but never grown..my mom has though). It’ll be interesting to see what comes of it all. More updates next month.

The whole staying at home as given a whole new motivation to weeding though so hoping to take advantage of the nice weather and the extra time from working at home whenever I can to get the garden back up to how I’d like it to be.

Game Warp Podcast – New Episode

If the lockdown did anything for us, its getting us back into our Game Warp groove. I’ve definitely been gaming more even if its not for actual podcast recordings but its built up some backlog for game reviews and mobile game roundups to potentially go up as its all in the works right now. Above is our latest episode that you can give a listen!

Online Battle of Ingredients Group Hangout

No pictures here since I like to respect everyone’s privacy and online names and whatnot. We didn’t forget Battle of Ingredients and are waiting for this whole social distancing to go at some point to resume normal operations. We have thought about doing some online edition but its my fault mostly that work and changing seasons has added a lot to the to-do list so not a ton of time to think about it. However, the crew did get together for an online dinner together and then a Jackbox party together so it was a lot of fun. New times calls for new measures to still hang out with our friends and stay in touch.

Cute Kitty Pic

That’s it for this May Adventures!
Its mostly little updates on the different projects right now!

What have you been up to during this lockdown period?
Is your city reopening gradually?

My September Adventures: Halloween Horror Marathon & Festival du Nouveau Cinema Coming Up!!

September is now behind us. Its hard to imagine three-quarters of the year has gone by. However, it is the case. With July being hectic and then August being more of a laidback and recharging phase, September comes back with a little back to normal balance. Getting things back on track, events big and small and such were all in the plans.

Let’s check it out!

Dreamhack Montreal 2019

Dreamhack Montreal happened over the weekend of September 6 to 8 at the Olympic Stadium. It had some changes but this venue is still very suitable for this event overall. It was a bustling weekend with a lot of last minute changes that swapped my schedule around quite a bit. However, all the media coverage is over at Game Warp Blog. Everything is live now as we covered Day 1 and 2 as well as the Indie Game Zone. You can find all the posts below:

Day 1 Recap
Day 2 Recap
Indie Game Zone

IT: Chapter Two & Lambcast

We’ve really kept the theatre experience to a minimum this year except for special commitments that lead me to go. This time, it was for Lambcast recording of IT: Chapter Two that gave us the kick in our behinds to go check it out. We really did enjoy the first one so had it in our plans to see the second one anyways (just probably not on opening weekend initially). I’m not sure when we’ll be heading to the theatres again this year but it might happen again, who knows? I’m not quite on top of the theatre new releases as I should be.

You can check out the Lambcast show HERE.
You can find my written review HERE.

Moon Festival

Moon Festival happened on September 13th. Wonderful that it clashed with Friday the 13th because I have to say that it was a pretty okay day compared to the rest of the week prior to that. It was also full of sickness and a lot of cough-filled nights. Either way, I ignored my cold (which won’t go away and seems to keep morphing) and ate some moon cake as well as stood by the window and stared at the full moon for a little while, reminding myself that life is beautiful because I’m breathing and looking at those nice little moments of nature and nightscapes and such.

Friend’s Bachelorette Party – Dinner Out

One of my girl friend’s bachelorette party happened the Saturday on the second last weekend. She had it in two parts: the first was dinner and the second was an after party. Due to some other commitment (see below), I only went for the dinner party which was at Ichigo Ichie (which is the restaurant part of ramen place I like, Yokato Yokabai).

You can check out the restaurant recap HERE.

Festival du Nouveau Cinema Starting Soon

Much to my surprise, today’s announcements also include a press approval for Festival du Nouveau Cinema! Last year, I only got the 10 vouchers to go see 10 movies which had some pretty great films, with one or two that left a little to desire but didn’t fail on being artsy or creative. It will be exciting to see how many we can catch this year as well as what the movie lineup will be as that only goes live tomorrow (Oct.1). Keep an eye out for reviews during the festival from Oct.9 to 20th!

If you also are going, do tell me what movies have caught your eye so far?

Friend’s Wedding Day + Flowers Help Out

The last weekend of September was all kinds of crazy and lots of fun. Saturday was a day of hunting down flowers at various Costco. Between myself and another friend, we hit 5 Costcos in the morning. We met up in the early after to start making the “boutonnieres” for the groom and groomsmen and men of the families and then went along and made the bride and bridesmaids bouquet as well as a throwaway one. For myself, it was a learning experience since I had never done these before so it was all to help out.

 Sunday was her big day! We started out the morning to help with the door games (if you don’t know what that is, its part of Chinese weddings to pick up the bride, the groom and his groomsmen and other guys go to trials before he can pick her up). Then, we helped out with the set-up and mostly with the flowers to put together the vases. Yet again, I’m not too experienced with this so just helped out with my other friend. The picture on top is the centerpiece at our table with the flower arrangement. It was a ton of fun! I have a few more artsy pics going on Avenue of Daydreams at some point. It was a really fun night but we couldn’t stay as late as Sunday means work on Monday (aka today).

Announcement: Halloween Horror Marathon

As usual, September adventures wraps up with the official announcement of the Halloween Horror Marathon tomorrow (October 1st)! We’ll be doing double features as per the usual set up nowadays. At the same time, I’ll be trying to put in some horror TV series TV binge posts as well as horror book reviews as well. That’s the plan! While some movies have already been watched at this point (and probably/hopefully written up), I would love to hear what movies you suggest or movies you always watch for Halloween marathon and maybe I’ll see if I can add those in or push it up as higher priority on my list (if its there). All update of Halloween marathon posts will be updated on the page HERE.

On a side note, due to the festival approval, marathon might be slower in the middle of the month! I am working to get more posts done in advance but I do have other priorities as well as podcast recordings so I will do the best that I can before October 9th comes around and hopefully you will enjoy it!

Cute Kitty Pic

That’s it for the September Adventures!
Looking back, its been kind of crazy! I thinned out some less important bits.
Mostly two announcements and some recaps!
October is looking less varied but probably much busier, as always when there’s coverage to do!

My Weekly Adventures: Hiking, Grand Prix and Food!

Its mid-June now! Summer is just around the corner although the weather probably doesn’t really feel like it much. Its been feeling very spring lately, which is normal but its been a while spring has lasted so long. Either way, enough about the weather. With the season well underway, we’ve been keeping ourselves eventful while different events have been showing up as well. I’ll wrap up with a little gardening update.

Hiking: Parc de la Yamaska

June kicked off with our walk in Yamaska National Park. Its a casual walk along a fairly flat walk also set for cyclists as well. Its one thats great to kick off the beginning of the season. You can see the full recap HERE.

Grand Prix in Downtown Montreal

As usual, Grand Prix landed in Downtown Montreal last weekend. Its always a busy weekend. I ended going with my mom for dinner at Noodle Factory in Chinatown and then heading to see the stuff going on on Peel and Crescent Street. This year was pretty disappointing. It felt not very special with not a lot of cars in general being showcased. It was kind of boring..although the music performed on the Crescent stage was probably the best show I’ve seen so I believe the line-up might be the highlight.

Hiking: Mont Chapman

Being the hiking crazy people that we are trying to be and working hard to keep up with it as much as we can before any potential things with events all pan out in July, plus the weather being cooler works well for those long hikes. After some long debate, we ended up going to the Eastern Townships in the middle of nowhere on a mountain hiking trail that we found called Mont Chapman. I have a few good things to say about this, mostly how challenging it was and how I somewhat disagree on the difficulty level they put it as and well, some complaints as well about this location and warnings/suggestions I’d give on this hiking track. That is coming up very soon in the hiking recap for this one. 😉

E3 2019

As usual, we had our E3 2019 off site coverage over at Game Warp. I talked about it over at the What’s Up segment this past week. It did set the course off over here a tad bit but other than some late posts, most of what I wanted to do still stayed relatively on track. You can find all the written recap coverage on Game Warp blog HERE.

Shopping Haul: Prep for Bridesmaid Duty

Its a week until my best friend gets married. I decided to take care of my hair and make-up so I had to go hunt down some stuff since I don’t normally put on make-up or do my hair in any particular way.  I did also get a curling iron which was on sale. I have a general concept of how do it and its going to simple but still match with the dress. Anyways, lots of new things that I’m trying out here so I’ll have to do a test-run at some point before since its a fairly early morning.

Gardening Update

First part of the gardening update is planting in the flowers that I didn’t get around to plant the last time. Its not too obvious but I ended up putting the Hibiscus into the patch because I lost my chrysanthemums. And then in the other patch, I pulled up some of the other plants that was there that wasn’t looking too healthy and put in some foliage and the Monarda (Bee Balm).

Cabbage, Marigolds & Lettuce/Kale

Vegetable Garden

Kale, Tomatoes, etc

The vegetables are all in. The garden is now all planted. The cabbage/marigold containers are growing very well. At the same time, the kale and the lettuce containers are also growing incredibly fast and pretty much ready for the first harvest. As for the poor tomato plant that was supposed to be hanging, it looks so miserable even through the last few rainy days.

Restaurants

The restaurant that my mom and I went to was Noodle Factory in Chinatown. We got some pan-fried dumplings and then some fried handmade noodles. They were pretty decent.

Labothery

A new bubble tea concept place opened up in Quartier Dix30 called Labothery. I will do a more elaborate post for it soon. Its a neat concept but as with any customizable ideas, the price increases accordingly.

Cute Kitty Pic

That’s it for this Weekly Adventures!
Its been a fun two weeks even though a bit busy as I was working out some press pass application also! 
Events are coming up in Montreal so I’m hoping to get ahead with some posts.

Gardening #4: Signs of Harvest

Its taken a month to get the next gardening update in but here we are!

The main reason is that I haven’t done much gardening and there really hasn’t been much to update on. Most of my blooms from spring lasted quite a little while and now that summer is here, the garden is flourishing especially with the crazy amount of rain we got before the last few days of extreme heat.

Without further ado, lots to talk about. Let’s check it out!

Water Garden

Compared to the 4 leaves it had when I first got it, this lovely water garden (aka. my one water lily) has a ton of leaves and two flower buds. Of course, one of them is blooming. I was so happy to see that I wasn’t doing anything wrong and taking good care of it. Its so nice to see during the day when I wake up and look outside that its thriving.

Front Garden

On one side of the garden, my Dianthus actually is blooming finally. It took long enough. I probably am thinking of moving it and replacing it with a row of hostas or something because this spot just lacks so much sun and along with bad soil that is still taking time to be better, its just making this grow so slow. My neighbors’ hostas were blooming at least a week before mine and they look like a few times bigger. However, I’m still trying to figure out what my big reno work for the front yard is so I’m hesitant to just move a plant and then have to move it again the year after.

 

Another reason to redo the front is that my flower patch is starting to look really overgrown. I think its just that, in terms of flowers. I have flowers that open in spring, summer and fall which works great but then its so dense around. I just need to sit down and figure out what I want to keep. However, looking at all the flowers right now, I’m really happy. Obviously there is the Crimson Star as always but I do kind of want to move it now since its just out of control big.

Then we have these two. The roses were planted last year in this spot and I was worried that it wouldn’t make it but its small and cute but still managed to get 3 flowers bloomed. I’m so happy to see the touch of red. At the same time, the newcomer this year is this furry little plant and its also starting to bloom. I don’t think this is in the right spot but once I open up my side garden when its not suffocating weather for the bee/butterfly garden, this will go right in there.

Backyard

Not a whole lot of change with these two except for just growth. Yeah, look at the raspberries. Apparently trimming it makes it grow even more out of control. Sad part is that we never got around to the strawberries but we fed a lot of happy bunnies. I’m not too mad about it. I’ve just accepted that its a reality. We are thinking of putting in some fences around it but its not going to make a difference.

As for this little patch, I just opened up this year. Its actually looking alright. Everything is growing a little slow and I think it has to do with the soil quality. Nothing has died yet and I can see the little Cone Flower at the end still growing strong. Its not as big as the one in the back and nowhere near it, but once it adapts to its move, it should do much better next year (provided it survives).

Container Garden

Lettuce #1

Cucumber

Herb Garden

Cucumber & Kale

Lettuce #2

Kale & Lettuce

Bell Pepper

Kale

Mosquito Repellent Garden

Magnolia

Petunias

We are lucky that we got a ton of lettuces this year because after the first harvest, we lost two already from the cucumber pot. However, everything else, particularly the kale is thriving. I have some lettuce coming back. My new non-lazy watering strategy is making everything grow beautifully. The cucumbers are looking fantastic. Actually they have a lot of flowers and some cucumbers forming so fingers crossed that we’ll get some harvest soon-ish, but not going to count my chickens before they hatch. We literally have kale feasts now. Its just way too big and we can’t eat it fast enough. The biggest success is that the bell peppers experiment turned out the the container one is doing much better. The picture is dark but if you squint really hard, you’ll see that there are two bell peppers growing. At the same time, this mosquito repellent garden is looking the best in the last few years. I’m really happy with it.

Vegetable Garden

Blueberry

Cucumber

Swiss Chard

Cucumbers

Peppers

Zucchini and Cucumbers

In terms of the vegetable garden, I once again forgot a before and after picture. I just spent Canada Day weekend getting rid of all the horrible oxalis grass covering the entire area. Its one of the reasons I think that the cucumbers are looking yellow and sad. We did go to the Dollarama to pick up a sprinkler hose which is a great addition, except you might want to consider getting it somewhere a little better and more durable. Ours already broke twice so its already having a lot of duct tape fixes. What I can I expect with a $3 product? However, it lets me walk away to water the container garden while it just takes care of the watering for me. Zucchinis are the only one in this plot that has some growing. I’m hoping that it’ll all work out. Everything else is just moving along, except my herbs on the side. The lavender needs to probably be moved but my mint is out of control.

Overall & What to look forward to…

There been a ton of growth here. While there are some losses, its actually doing really well this year. I added in a watering system to the kale and cucumber container because it was just draining too much. Actually the watering systems work really well, especially the past few days when its been record high temperatures of 44 degrees Celsius or something. I do warn that the next update will be in August as we are coming up to Montreal Comiccon and Fantasia Film Festival. It might put a little stop in some stuff depending on the situation. However, I always have my first week of vacation coming up so hopefully we will have some more projects. I have a few goals. Maybe finally opening up my plot but we need something else to happen first which is in the works.

That’s it for this gardening update!
How is your gardens looking? Any harvest?

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?

Gardening 2018 #1: Cleaning up and Preparation

Time for the seasonal segments to slowly make their appearances. I might do a progress report on workout once the circumstances are back in my favor (which should be next week). For this weekend, it was all about gardening and probably so will some future weekends in May and June since we do have some big plans. I talked about them a little HERE. Hopefully I can keep up with these updates at least when I’m busy in the garden for the next month or two.

With that said, this weekend is about tidying up the garden. I’m not completely done and its going to be another week or so of just getting everything ready before we can get down to actual structural planning once we re-evaluate how everything is. As an afterthought, I should have done a before/after shot but oh well…what can we do now?

First Part: Front Yard

Here we go! The first task was to take out all the grass and weeds surrounding it which as you can see is mostly all gone now.

We had some torrential winds the day before so excuse my sad droopy tulips but if all goes well, they should bloom this week some time. I’ll post them on Instagram or something. My crimson star also made it out of the temperature dip last week. I have some yellow flowers that I haven’t quite figured out what it is yet coming out in the back and should bloom late spring.

The rose is also coming back to life as well as the summer geraniums and chrysanthemum variety (I suspect thats what it is since they came with the previous owners). I am hoping that my fall chrysanthemums are going to come back since they only did it for one of the batches and never did again and I can’t figure out if I’m doing something wrong or the weather is not working well for it. In any case, I might move something there from the backyard to fill in the space and just try it in another spot. Not photographed here is the garden in front of the front facade. One side is just ferns and bleeding heart.  I did also tidy that up and add some top soil and trim up the fern since the temperatures did affect one side of it. With that side breaking off, its actually opened up a spot which I might finally plant some daffodils since they are my favorite flower in the world and I don’t have them in my garden at all.

On the other side, I’m waiting a little bit on my hydrangeas and other perennials that I planted last year to see whats going. The partial picture above shows the only thing there right now, which are more tulips. On the right, you can see the clean-up that still needs to be done. I’ll exhibit the finished product in the next update.

Part Two: Vegetable Garden Tidy-Up

For those new to the blog (and I know there’s been a few of you over the last year or so), my previous owners didn’t have much of a green thumb, or maybe they did but just wasn’t interested in it. Whatever the reason, when I got the house 4 years ago, the soil was horrible and the garden here was all grown with grass like the part where the hose and rhubarb is. After a summer of craziness, we managed to pull out all the grass for a decent plot and over the next three years, we just improved on it. But anyone who has dealt with grass removal knows that its not exactly going away because grass roots spread far away and they are resilient. So, thats what I did with the original plot and that is to clean up the dead annual veggies and take out all the grass.

Whats alive right now from last year’s additions is:

Blueberry #1

Blueberry #2

Herb: Lemon Mint

Herb: Italian Oregano

I’ve been trying to get herbs to grow but I never bury them deep enough or migrate them a little too late in the season. So its really nice to see them make it out alive. Which comes to our plans for this plot. Looking at the top picture, in the looking forward plans I mentioned in the previous post, the grass area is going to have all of it taken out which as you can see, I’ve started. I actually decided to jab it to aerate the ground a little and hopefully loosen the soil so its easier. We’re drafting out what we’d like to plant and see whats available at the garden centre we go to.  However, we are still waiting to see if the ground cherry will come back as well as the asparagus (which is in its third year if it does and should technically be ready for harvest). Fingers crossed! I’m also hoping to get all that grass removed by the end of next weekend.

If that plot is in fact done and good for gardening, I may actually move the blueberries over, just in anticipation of how much space they may need, as well as ground cherry and keep it my “mini” fruit patch.

Third: Raspberry & Strawberry Patch

Excuse the mess in the front of the patch, I’ll talk about what I’m doing for the containers. As for this patch, there wasn’t much to do here. Just more of a progress report. I tidied up some weeds mostly. From this picture, its kind of given me the initiative to go take care of some of the dead branches. Strawberries are going to probably be the first to have any fruits since they are starting to have flowers bloom.

One of the old residents of this patch is this lily. It gets suffocated by the raspberry every year and still survives. The goal is to move it this year and as soon as possible before the raspberry gets too big. I have an idea to move it in somewhere in the front yard. Update next time! 

Aside from that, this fruit patch gets a ton of animals hopping and scurrying and flying by so we get weird flowers here all the time. Hence, these little calla lily looking plants which could be some shade plants as well. I’m waiting to see what it is. The first year we were hear, they brought over a sunflower. I don’t really mind because I can just migrate it somewhere else also, particularly perennials. Gotta love those neighorhood creatures, right?

Other Tasks in progress

What garden comes without weeding as the number one task? Of course, you could choose the lawn treatment path then you get someone else to do it for me. I’m not bustling in cash, in fact, I’m just swimming in loans so I’m the person who weeds all the time whenever I have time. With that said, between one task to the next, I just weed away hoping that little by little, it’ll help.

Aside from that, we have a few weekend trips in the works right now since for the above reason, we aren’t going away to any long vacations to save up for Hong Kong next year, hopefully. We’ve postponed it a few years already. In anticipation for that and the supposed incredibly hot summer we’re going to have (which hasn’t arrived yet), I’m working on some things that I looked at on Pinterest for container watering systems. I have tried the upside down wine bottle way. It works well enough and I’ll still do that for some of the pots but I’m trying out this water bottle way where there are holes poked on all sides and you fill it up from the top and its embedded inside the soil. In a long pot like this one, which I use for my leafy greens or herbs, I’m going to put two. Anyways, I’m trying to get some of the containers prepared in advance with partial soil in the next two weeks before I head out to the gardening center to have it all ready.

I am going to see whether water garden plants (like water lilies and those floating ones that the name escapes me now) are available this year. I’ve been hoping to have one in the yard so thats something else I’m looking at right now.

Thats it for this Gardening 2018’s first update!
Lots of research still 🙂
I’m hoping to have something like weekly updates if possible (or maybe vlog?)

Gardening Update #4: Rain & Harvests!

Welcome back to a long overdue Gardening update! It keeps getting bumped back and finally, now its time to report back after vacation.

Its been a rainy and gloomy summer. We can’t complain much because we live without the luxury of air conditioning in a bungalow so that means, when its hot, its boiling inside most of the time. Compared to last year, this is somewhat a heavenly situation especially on days where I need to record podcasts. However, plants and flowers aren’t like us and most of them need the sun and bees to pollinate in order to bear fruit aside from just water, which it also needs a lot of, of course. With that said, the garden is still doing pretty good. We started to have some harvests and the vegetables and flowers are all coming around.

In-Ground Garden

No blueberries or asparagus in these pictures as they are waiting for next year to have any harvest. However, they are so far doing quite well.

Here is the in-ground garden. Zucchinis are coming out now. The lettuce is actually doing worse than in the containers. You’ll see later. Cucumbers are also not doing as well as in the container however they are starting to form some cucumbers. Hopefully it’ll work out especially with all the rain. If only, there was more sun. One of the more solid plants are the Ground Cherry. The challenge so far is still actually getting it to ripen before it falls down. I had planted it two times before in containers with that same issue. Now I’m hoping planting it in-ground will do the trick so we can harvest some ground cherries soon. Its definitely looking strong.

On the other side is our trimmed but somehow still overgrowing raspberry shrub. Strawberries had their season and I would have shared the harvest but like a loser, I deleted all my pictures this past weekend off my phone when I was lining up for a Comiccon panel. Long story short, I don’t have it anymore and the season is over. We did have decent harvests but nothing as epic as what raspberry will be. We had two tupperware bowls already in the last two weeks, which is pretty impressive. As you see, there are still raspberries ripening so the rain and sun balance seems to work beautifully for it. Plus, raspberries are great to have as it also helps out the bees, which Canada has been acting on to encourage Canadians to plant more bee gardens. I got my bee garden kit, just trying to get the garden ready as it’ll be a raised garden that I’m trying to get ready.

Flower garden

In my flower patch, the flowers right now is my mini rose shrub and these yellow flowers. I have to remember to keep these in check as they spread really fast although they are super pretty. My cone flowers are also starting to bloom however, they are also super depressed because the rabbits now can’t access the vegetable garden and they decided that they’d snack on the cone flower leaves instead. They looked miserable for the longest time. And now there another one that I moved and suspect will have to move again. The flower garden needs to be restructured and organized. I’m pondering that at the moment.

Container Gardening

Herbs are doing fantastic. We’ve harvested some basil mostly and added it to our recipes. The others we keep fresh in the fridge. It gives us a reason to use fresh basil and make foods with it. As you may notice, my pineapple sage lost the fight with the storm and is not just one stem struggling to stay alive. At least it survived. I almost thought it was a total loss. The kale and cucumbers are doing great here. Pots do cucumbers miracles as they are growing well although, it won’t be successful until we actually get some cucumbers to harvest. Finally, there’s the eggplant. The over excessive rainfall and lack of sun seems to be affecting it the most as it gets more yellow everyday and its not really having anything yet.

Our lettuce harvests were probably the earliest. While they are growing slower now, they are still doing quite well. Especially since we have them in-ground and in two hanging baskets.

Finally, the last thing is our kale. Its been doing fantastic. We’ve really only been making kale chips out of them. I should really post up the recipes for it that we use. I promise I will soon. The kale has been treating us well. As this post goes up, I’ve been thinking of harvesting my next batch this evening and making some more chips.

That’s it for this gardening recap!
How are your gardens doing?

Gardening #2: Garden Center Haul & Organization

Oh how things have changed after only a month! I still remember the update last month. Now, the garden has grown, the grass has been removed from the vegetable garden and we just finish the garden centre visits as well as almost everything being in ground as we wait for a garden project to reinforce the veggie garden. Things are starting to look like how they were last year. There will still be improvements after this first phase is done during the summer but for now, one step at a time.

To start, our haul looked a little like this. You may have seen some of these during previous posts.

First visit was for flowers and herbs as the front yard and containers was ready to go.

Herbs: Basil, Oregano, Rosemary and Pineapple Sage
Flowers: Marigolds, Violas and Dianthus

Then we went to a visit to pick up soil and ended up with more flowers at Walmart which is primarily being used for hanging baskets and patio planter boxes.

The big haul is for the vegetable garden which was this past weekend as well.

Lettuce, Kale, Eggplant, Cucumbers, Zucchinis, Ground Cherry

Lemon Mint

Blueberry plant

The results of this haul at the time I am writing this post is below as we find a hopefully happy medium between container gardening which is for plants that need a lot of sun or partial sun and vegetable gardens. The flower garden is in the front yard. Hanging baskets are also on the patio.

Plants that aren’t in ground yet are the ones below.

You will notice that Phoebe has also gifted me a second variety of blueberry to help with cross pollination to hopefully get more berries. However, anything not in ground right now is mostly because we only have a makeshift fence up right now from last year and we are waiting for better weather to pick up a big trellis backdrop and figuring out possibly a bigger fence. That will be for the next update as everything else gets settled hopefully by beginning of June. 🙂

That’s it for this Gardening update!
How are your gardens looking?

4 Essentials for Breakfast in Bed on Mother’s Day

Breakfast in Bed is a rather novel and strange idea to myself. Why eat dinner in bed and make it all dirty because I might be the one to have to clean the sheets however, it is one of those lazy Sunday concepts that just warm up our hearts when we have the opportunity.

Coming from a Chinese family, breakfast in bed was non-existent. My parents, especially my mom, is an energetic and proactive woman. Even today, she doesn’t like wasting time in bed doing nothing. I still remember being a little girl and when I hung out with my mom on the weekends in bed, the time wasn’t wasted because she would take the time to teach me how to recite Chinese poetry.

Every mother is different however my mom valued the little things and she particularly likes to be frugal. With that said, this essentials for breakfast in bed is tailored to my mother specifically. Who says we can’t make Mother’s Day memorable without breaking our bank, right?

A Big Warm Hug

No Mother’s Day (or any day) can be free of a hug or hugs. What better way to start the day with one. It costs nothing and comes from our heart. Words of thanks and kisses on cheeks, the whole deal of love and gratitude for everything my mom has done for me. We might not always see eye to eye but she still is my best friend because I can’t help telling her everything even when I don’t quite know if she understands all the stuff in my life, particularly this blogging and podcasting thing. Still hugs are warm and loving and the perfect way to start the day. As I get older, we learn that there is no greater luxury that being able to steal a moment or two of doing nothing but relaxing in a cozy spot like our bed and its comfy mattress. If you are looking for a luxury mattress, consider checking out Leesa.

Fresh Cut Flowers from the Garden

Frugal comes into this. My mom loves flowers. In fact she is quite the gardener. Some days I wish I had half the skills she has however she never stops to teach me more. However, Mother’s Day is never without any flowers. The garden usually is blossoming with daffodils and tulips and if we are lucky, sometimes peonies are starting as well. This year being an exception because the weather is still lingering in the single digits (Celsius). This year’s fresh cut flowers will for sure be a bouquet of tulips from my yard.

Healthy and Hearty Breakfast

My mom is a health nut. Which has its benefit because as my husband likes to say, she is one tough cookie. She travels and in many ways, much more active than I am and competent in everything. My mom is quite the superwoman in my heart even if age slows her down a little bit now. Breakfast for her is all about being healthy. Its feeds and cleanses our bodies and prepares us for the day. When I lived with her, no matter how old I was, she’d always have something ready for me in the morning. Her choice would probably be plain oatmeal with assorted dried fruits and almond milk. That would be frugal option as we’d have all the material at home. However, if we were to go a little more traditional Chinese breakfast, it’d be congee with some rice rolls (like above).

Handmade Gift

via Pinterest

Finally, a handmade gift! What is more frugal than something that you’ve put your heart into. One year, my best friend and I celebrated a collaborated Mother’s Day gift where we did a photo story video with our own singing and put it all together with pictures when we were kids till grown up and took our families to dinner. It was a pretty fantastic gift. Both our moms loved it a lot and it was to thank them for what they did. I can’t share that video of course and since that idea is used, I’ll resort to making something either decorative and useful or even better, my mom’s idea of a best gift is something you can eat. She loves eating healthy snacks so what better than putting together a trail mix, right? A jar of trail mix so she can enjoy it for days to come while reading the newspaper or binging TV dramas.

Here’s my frugal version of Breakfast in Bed on Mother’s Day with these four essential components! 

What are your essentials for breakfast in bed for mom?