Tag Archives: Friends

My Weekly Adventures: Holiday Celebrations

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weekly adventures

The last Weekly Adventures of this year everyone!

It is going to be a really happy one full of holiday celebrations and food and family. Its hard to imagine that its New Year’s Eve and I’m sure not a ton of you are sitting around looking at blogs but still, I’m keeping to my normal routine to share this. I have something to get done hopefully today as well if New Year’s Eve cleaning and dinner party prep doesn’t take up too much of my time.

Winter Solstice Festival

Dinner

Winter Solstice Festival was celebrated a day later so it was just the day before our Christmas Eve gathering meaning that we had a few days of lots of eating. This festival is more of a Chinese celebration between family. My mom made some turkey and as usual made more food than the amount of people since she also invited one of her friends as well. It was delicious and fun. My husband was occupied with watching NFL football match while I chatted with my mom and her friend. It was really nice.

Christmas Eve Family Gathering

Our annual Christmas Eve gathering was at my in-laws this year. The whole taking turns to celebrate is a pretty nice. Everyone showed up as well as some close family friends and their loved ones. Its always a fun time to see everyone and just have a good laugh, eat lots of food and do some gift exchange. The adults are usually just simple little things so we actually brought a bunch of stuff that I had bought from the haul in the previous weekly adventures and did a little pick your prize style so everyone got to just close their eyes and put their hands in the big christmas bag and see what they got. It saves me the trouble from figuring who wants what and they have a little surprise element. I just hope that everyone liked their little sweets.

Friends Holiday Gathering

I forgot to take a picture of the food at this gathering. However, this is part of what I brought. I also brought dessert, pumpkin cookies. (recipe HERE). My meal though was finally putting the many goodfood boxes to use and added my own little twist from something I had learned from those recipes in their one pan recipe. This had squash, brussel sprouts, nantes carrots and chicken thighs and some garlic. Lots of fun with my girl friends and their other halves. This year did make our gatherings less frequent than previous years so we have agreed to try and make things happen more frequently in 2019.

Game Warp Podcast – Year in Review 2018 (plus new audio format)

Gatherings and family is a big deal but in between all that, I did manage to get our big year end episode for Game Warp edited. These episodes are usually mammoth tasks so I did procrastinate a little and pulled two evenings of working hard and got this one done. Hopefully you have time to check it out and enjoy. On better news, Year in Review 2018 is also available audio on Himalaya FM now. I can’t figure out how to embed the player but you can find it HERE. I’m still exploring this Himalaya thing so hopefully things will get better.

Cute Kitty Pic

Kitty Cat

This wraps up the last 2018 Weekly Adventures!
Hopefully I’ll be back with an overview of 2018, if not, I’ll talk about 2019 plans tomorrow.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVE CELEBRATIONS!
(and Happy New Year if you already have past midnight)

My “Weekly” Adventures: Fantasia and More Events

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Are you ready? This past month was so busy that I’m still trying to get grips and find back all the energy. Its why well…a lot of things have been behind. The one thing that we haven’t left behind is the heat wave because its still as present as ever. Not really a bad thing because I can now have time to go back into the pool once I catch up a little more. This post might be a little heavier on the Instagram since its easier to do that than to just keep uploading photos. Its going to be heavy on pictures on the things that happened. To be honest, Fantasia took up most of my life so not all that much happened.

Let’s just jump right in!

Fantasia Festival

Boy was this a festival and a half this year. I pushed really hard and covered 5 more movies than I normally would. Of course, I had work because if I didn’t, I would be at the screening rooms and covering even more. However, this year was a really nice selection of films. Most of the films delivered fairly well. There were some odds and ends that didn’t quite land as well for myself. I probably will still do some sort of Fantasia wrap-up within the next week. Its a little after the event but I still would like to highlight some of the films.

As for my Instagram game, I even impressed myself when I went to do some press work and took pictures of the directors and cast and such whenever they were present.

So yeah…A lot of fun times here. I didn’t take any pictures with the cast and crew although you could, except for the director of Big Brother but then my shyness came out since I’m really a behind the scenes person (except when I do Game Warp, I guess). That picture is just for myself since I looked like an elephant. The roster of lists from when I posted the Weekly Adventures a month ago definitely did end up changing a little since I ended up missing a few other films but adding in some other titles.

You can find all the reviews now. The full roster of films: A Rough Draft, Big Brother, Bleach, Cam, Fireworks, Knuckleball, Laplace’s Witch, Lifechanger, Nightmare Cinema, The Nightshifter, Our House, The Outlaws, Playing Hard, Pledge, Rondo, Searching, Tigers Are Not Afraid, Under the Silver Lake, The Vanished, The Witch in the Window.

Wedding in Toronto

Wedding

One of my best friends had her wedding in Toronto. It  was absolutely lovely despite the heat with both the church and the dinner reception. These moments also have the time to see everyone dressed at their best and partying together and wishing happiness for our dear friend as well. It was a great time. Of course, it helps that my husband also was able to be there. I talk about that a lot but thats because my husband used to work the graveyard shift so now its always grateful to have this new shift where he can live normal human hours and do things and attend events.

Some people take for granted how amazing it is to spend time with the ones we love but sometimes different situations make it hard but hey, you work through it and it all comes together in the end. Rambling again…

Brossard Festin Culturel

Mon Ami Restaurant – Korean Food

Street Monkeys – Cambodia Food

Mucho Burrito – Mexican Food

Every year, the last weekend is always a busy one. We would hit two festivals. This year, we decided to not head out to the Matsuri Festival. A few key reasons is honestly the crowds and the parking and the traffic going out since road works are ridiculous right now. So, we went to check out earlier the Brossard Festin Culturel  which is a cultural festival in the Montreal suburbs. Its primarily a family event and this year, it moved locations so we wanted to see how it all went down and actually this new location works really well, even better than before. We tried out some cool restaurants also and enjoyed the sun a little and walked around. Fun times!

 

Matinee Movie Date

I feel like every time that I tell you all about going to the theatre it will be for some popcorn flick where its not outstanding terms like Oscar films but just a pure entertaining film. Most of the films that I look forward to and will watch in theatres (aside Fantasia) is honestly films that I feel the big screen will make a difference. Just to be clear, my suburban theatre only offered UltraAVX and 3D had more choice in times than the normal which had one showing only. Either way, I don’t really regret it at all. The experience for The Meg was quite unique since I honestly really got into the film and had some moments where I literally was startled and jumped back in the seat. Its a pretty awesome shark film experience. I know this movie has its issues. Either way, my review will be going up. In the meantime, we did a Movies and Tea After Hours kickoff show reviewing The Meg that literally just went live today.

I’ll still reblog the post tomorrow or something but just to have a fun listen!

Tranquil Dreams on Facebook

In case you missed the announcement post a few weeks ago, we are officially on Facebook! It was meant to happen eventually but you know circumstances changed  for Facebook linking here so I got that set up quickly. Head over and give us a like or follow! I’ll share random stuff there every once in a while so it’ll be a fun time. Check it out HERE.

That’s it for this adventures! 🙂
Things are getting back on track. Hopefully summer has been treating you all fantastic!

My Weekly Adventures: Family, Friends & Events

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Its been a month everyone! I had to make the executive decision to skip last time because well, the end of June was kind of sad with not much going on. Seeing as the first part of July had just enough to pair it up, here we are!

A note for some things below. Events are in town and in the next two weeks, the main focus going into August will be on Fantasia Festival. However, you will see that I have other posts planned that aren’t all about movies in case you followed this blog for some of the other hobbies that I have and share around here! I have a lot of stuff planned from books to TV series to gardening and other cool stuff. Plus, most of the projects are still going on so busy but fun stuff coming up! 🙂

Let’s check out whats been going on this past month!

Family Visit

Le Cartet

Last month, I had some family come to visit. We ended up going to one of my favorite breakfast restaurants in Old Montreal called Le Cartet. I’ve probably already talked about it before. Either way, they loved it and its always a great time. Most of my family has moved away from Montreal so its always so fun to have visit and catch up.

Battle of Ingredients: St-Jean BBQ

battle of ingredients

Check out the full post HERE.

Our first summer BBQ of this year was on the St-Jean Baptiste day for Battle of Ingredients. We have decided to lower the frequency just for less stress however, it still a ton of fun to get together and hang out. I actually have some fun ideas for next time if it happens to BBQ again (which I believe it is for now). It was a tad rainy this long weekend but it didn’t bother us too much.

Canada Day, Heat Wave & Pool Time

Pool time

Shameless selfie time! Sorry about that but I didn’t really take a lot of pictures of swimming. Haha! Good news is that the pool is FINALLY opened after last year’s absolute nightmare. Everything seems to be going well and all the credit goes to my husband figuring it all out. Lucky because it was a record-breaking weekend hitting well above the 40s degrees Celsius. We don’t have air conditioning system so we just rigged our unit with a fan to get the cool air around the house. Luckily it worked pretty well. Along with time in the pool, it was a lot of fun! I’m one of those people who love water. It makes me so happy when I’m just in water or near water hence why I love hiking and being near rivers, lakes, creeks, streams, and especially waterfalls!

Montreal Comiccon 2018

Montreal Comiccon

You can the recap of Montreal Comiccon HERE.

I am so grateful to get the media pass again this year for Montreal Comiccon. For the first year, I angled one week of my vacation here so I actually went for all three days of the comiccon weekend. It was a ton of fun. Maybe a little crazy to get all the coverage done in a timely fashion for That Moment In but it all was finished and I thought it turned it pretty alright. There was a lot of see and the Q&A was absolutely awesome. I actually am still working on getting some of the Q&A audio edited for my own channel but if you want to hear the audio for Shadow of the Tomb Raider Q&A and understand French, its on the Game Warp channel and for your convenience, the video below.

Dinner with Friends

La Fuschia

Vacation is the perfect time to catch up with friends. The first dinner was a meet-up with Phoebe and her family before the opening film of Fantasia Festival. We finally had my husband go try out their best-kept secret restaurant called Fuschia at Lasalle College. Its never disappointed and let me tell you, the meal was fantastic. So I’ll have that post go up finally since I’ve been respecting their desire to keep it a best-kept secret but they gave me the okay for this time. 😉

Restaurant Bohemia

Second dinner was just yesterday. My monthly hangout with the girl friends have been a lot less this year because everyone is just so busy with different transitions and personal life and whatnot. We finally met up for a dinner at this little Czech restaurant called Restaurant Bohemia. I’ll have a full post on it also going up soon. It’ll be little things to cut between all the movie reviews in case you aren’t here for that.

Fantasia Film Festival 2018

Fantasia Film Festival Fantasia Film Festival

Fantasia Film Festival is officially in town. Like last year, I had a media pass approved and so incredibly grateful for it. I have a fairly intense schedule the starts up next week. I only managed to fit in two movies as I try to get a lot of my house stuff done before the intensity really kicks up. You know, real life needs to be taken care of. I felt a little bit bad of skipping out a lot of the screenings this weekend but life doesn’t stop for this even if I love it so very much.

However, two reviews have already been up. You can check it out below

Nightmare Cinema
Playing Hard

The next two and a half weeks is going to be intense. I plan to review about 20+ films in total so next week alone, there are currently 11 screenings planned tentatively so if it all pans out, it’ll be my busiest week of the festival and I’ll get the reviews uploaded. All reviews will also be over at That Moment In. Actually, we are aiming for almost full coverage at That Moment In because of some arrangements. So head over there and check out what David has going on over there as he reviews some other movies at Fantasia that I won’t be able to make it to like this one:

La Nuit a Dévoré le Monde (The Night Eats the World)

I will retweet all of those reviews so either subscribe to That Moment In to not miss out or just follow me on Twitter @tranquildreams_

As for what’s planned, here is a list of the movies I’m aiming to go see in alphabetical order :

Anna & the Apocalypse
Big Brother
Bleach
Cam
Fireworks
Kasane
Knuckleball
La Quinceneara
Laplace’s Witch
Luz
Nightshifter
Our House
The Outlaws
Pledge
Searching
Under the Silver Lake
The Vanished

I’m hoping to fit some more in there but I doubt that sounds remotely possible as my actual paying job will be hitting some crazy work phase by the end of July. Gotta pay the bills after all 😉 Still, I’m more than happy with the schedule here and if it all works out, I’ll already be super pleased! I have a rule to have quality instead of quantity so excuse me if some double day film watching days have a little delay in the review going up.

Cute Kitty Pic

cat

Thats it for this “Weekly” Adventures!
What have you been up to?
Any cool events going on where you are? Some fun summer plans? Perhaps vacation in the horizon?

Battle of Ingredients #8 St-Jean Baptiste Summer BBQ 2018

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battle of ingredients

Welcome back to another Battle of Ingredients! Summer is here and our Quebec provincial day was this past weekend so what better way than to meet up and do a little barbecue with friends and get back into the Battle of Ingredients action, right?

Drinks

Alcohol

Main Meal

We’ve done a few barbecues now for Battle of Ingredients and to make things easier this time, my lovely co-host and friend Phoebe (Starry Traveler’s Road) took care of the meats saying that she found a spot near her that supports local businesses and we love to do that. This stuff is from Fruiterie Boucherie Longueuil.

They pretty much sell barbecue boxes and she tried the Econo Mix which is $90 worth of meats and potatoes and such. Here it is!

Now for the unpacking of what is inside and preparation she did. Here you go!

And the first batch into the grill…

And finally, the results of the taking turns of cooking between the husbands and Phoebe, while I took care of their little one and helped carry the umbrella as it was raining. My skill sets unfortunately don’t extend to barbecuing so I left it to the experts. Here is how it turned out – hopefully I didn’t forget anything.

BBQ

BBQ meats

BBQ

Chicken leg

BBQ

BBQ Foil packs

The box itself is a lovely assortment. The seasoned meat was really good. There was a good variety to share. It provided a lot of food. The meats were pretty fresh. It was a good choice to not have to worry about the preparation ourselves and just be able to get something ready to just pop onto a foil and cook on the grill. It was a smart and efficient choice for Phoebe and I’m totally supportive of it. She mentioned that there are other things to substitute in the boxes and other choices and whatnot that we could try so maybe we will talk about that in the next barbecue.

Dessert

Dessert

With that said, my job was desserts. I made some Rhubarb Apple Tarts. It was a super simple recipe. I bought tarts from the grocery store since making pastry is still one of those things that I haven’t quite figured out well enough yet. Its a work in progress. Rhubarb is fresh from the garden and I used Cortland apples. It was an attempt to balance the acidity of the rhubarb a little.

The recipe for the filling was taken from here: http://www.coffeeandcrumpets.com/apple-and-rhubarb-galette/

This recipe had more than 12 tarts worth of filling so if you do intend to try it out, just keep that in mind.

Battle of Ingredients

The tarts turned out pretty well. They were very cinnamon-y and I think it had to do with the fact that it wasn’t in a galette but used in a tart. Although to be fair, when making apple desserts usually, there is some cinnamon. I thought they turned out pretty good since I don’t have an issue with cinnamon.

Overall

This was a lovely choice. The BBQ box made our lives a little easier. The cooking still took a long time just with the sheer amount of items in it and the variety and different cooking times and such. However, it is a good idea. The tarts turned out how I wanted them to and I think in general everyone enjoyed it well enough. Fruit tarts are always tricky especially since we have an array of allergies to take into consideration between our friends, Phoebe and myself. Hopefully by the next BBQ, I will have more vegetable harvests to work with to give it even more of a personal touch.

Before we finish, you will notice that the Battle of Ingredients will officially decrease in frequency just a little which is already in effect, due to busy schedules and just the need to not overstretch our time. It was a decision I needed to make for myself. However, we are still chugging along and planning for the August meet-up after this one.

Have you started your grills and enjoyed the first BBQ?
What do you like to make?

My Weekly Adventures #63 What’s Up Revival!

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My Weekly Adventures

Nothing much happened in the last two weeks. Just some quick and easy stuff to go through!

Meals with Friends

Jack Saloon

Easter weekend was an eventful one. For one, it was my birthday. On Monday when I got back to work, lets just say it was really stressful in an eventful way also. My husband however had the week off and decided to hang out with some friends and we went out for dinner at Jack Saloon’s. Its been years since we’ve gone there and I went back to get a pulled pork sandwich. I can’t say it was as great as when I had it a few years back though. It was still pretty good but not quite like I remembered it. However, the company was spectacular and entertaining so that is what matters.

Marshmallow WandsThen the weekend afterwards happened. If you missed it, Battle of Ingredients also happened. You can find the post HERE. I made a few veggie dishes and this easy marshmallow wand dessert.

Le Cartet

As per tradition, one of my good friends took me out for breakfast. I need to spend some time to research a new breakfast place to go to but this place called Le Cartet in Old Montreal is just so delicious. This is called Le Canton or something like that and its absolutely delicious. I love it to actual bits. It also is quite filling so I really only have this for my birthday breakfast. Next year though, I’ll figure out somewhere else to try.

Kickstarter Rewards

Its been a week of rewards coming back. The first came in the mail just as I was looking through Twitter and saw a lot of people already received it but I hadn’t yet just to get home and find it in the mailbox. tis the Wayward Sister Anthology. TO Comics is now one of my favorite comics. I backed this project just because I had read one of their books and loved it so much. I recently also backed another one of their projects. I’m hoping to get to this one after my mountain of books and commitments are done, which might take a month but I’ll get there. When I need a change in palette, I go for comics/graphic novels.

Second reward I got back was for The Black Gloves, which is a film from the director of Lord of Tears, which was the first project I backed of his on Kickstarter. The review is HERE if you don’t know about the movie. Wow, 2013 movie and five years later and I’m now about to back his 4th film project (as soon as I work out some finances). I still have to review the last two films but Laurie Brewster (the director mentioned) has such a great eye for horror. Its a little odd and awkward but I love the tone that he sets and the atmosphere and just how he puts it together. Anyways, I know that he wrote that The Black Gloves is now available on Amazon so here’s the link if you want to check it out.

Snapchat Fun

My husband’s family loves to play around with Snapchat. I never quite got into it until recently..and boy was that a can of worms I did not need to open. It is pretty adorable and cute..the filters, not me. I’m not too into my own selfies so posting that kind of took some confidence. These posts is about what I’ve been discovering in life. I tell you, this Snapchat thing is quite hilarious, especially when its not for myself like the one below.

What’s Up Revival

It seems I have so many announcements in these things that I lose track of what is brewing up in my head! Anyways, this is the final one for a while. As I try to expand more content on my own Youtube channel since there’s no unboxing right now and its just sitting dormant, I decided that I’ll be reviving the What’s Up segment as a video format. That way, I can recap on films that I’ve seen and for those of you who subscribe, it’ll be an earlier capsule of things I’ve seen and usually an earlier short opinion of it. I’m about to film the first one soon (like tonight) so depending on the length since I usually go through movies and games and TV series, I might cut them into different segments to go up on different days of the week since I don’t want any part to be more than 10 minutes. I mean, who has more than 10 minutes to sit there and watch or listen to me ramble about these things, right?

I do want to eventually expand to some vlog stuff or opinion pieces and random thoughts but I never seem to have any recording stuff with me whenever I’m in those situations. I’m going to work it into my schedule slowly and we’ll get there. 🙂

Yet again, if there are any topics or whatnot that you have suggestions for what would be interesting content for the Youtube channel, suggest away in the comments and I’ll give it all a thought. I miss the days when I took recommendations for movies. It helped me credit others in this wonderful community.

Cute Kitty Pic

 

My Weekly Adventures #52

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Its Sunday and we’re halfway through the month. We’ve had a really good Halloween marathon run full of events and movie reviews and even managed to finally get a TV Binge out. The second half of the month will hopefully see those dwindling book reviews (for books I’m working hard on finishing right now) as well as wrapping up the Saw franchise and hopefully seeing a ton more movies. I absolutely have another TV binge coming up and maybe two if my second binge works as planned. Things don’t go always as planned here. The first half of the month crossed over with Thanksgiving in Canada as well as the actual Moon Festival. Its been a fun time especially since the last week, my husband and I have been on vacation, or more accurately a staycation, so we’re just chilling out, doing some fall chores to prepare for the season and having fun. Oh right, and we also happened to celebrate our 2nd wedding anniversary. Anyways, I’m getting ahead of myself.

Moon Festival Dinner

Moon Festival

The last Weekly Adventures ended with a look at the Battle of Ingredients which was Moon Festival themed and then even had dinner with my husband and my mom for the first part of Moon Festival. On the day of, I went over to hang out with my mom for Moon Festival. We made chicken and salmon and we had some lovely moon cakes. It was a ton of fun.

Pumpkinferno at Upper Canada Village

Pumpkinferno

Vacation started half day for myself on the Friday before last. I was supposed to have the full day off but I had to wrap up some loose ends. However, that is okay since I felt much better about going on vacation knowing the majority of the stuff was taken care of. There’s still some stuff to work on when I get back and its a huge deadline. However, vacation is always refreshing. The second day of vacation was the weekend and we had plans to meet up with family and friends to head to Upper Canada Village to see PumpkInferno. I had a post for it last week some time. If you missed it,  you can check it out HERE.

Visit from Friends

There’s no pictures but if you all remember, Butterflymumma used to be one of our fellow bloggers. She’s no longer in the blogosphere but she remains in contact with me. Whenever I head into her area, I’ll call her up and for Thanksgiving weekend, she came to Montreal to visit with her family. We had dinner and hung out a little. It was lots of fun. Its always a nice time to hang out with friends.

Theatre Visit: IT

IT 2017

Its always great to have a change in plans sometimes. We ended up losing track of time on Tuesday and ended up postponing hiking for that day and instead caught the matinee Cheap Tuesdays screening at the local theatres for IT. I’ve wanted to see that one for a while and had thought that I’d give it up due to finances but I’m happy to finally have that sorted it out and it work out and we got to see it. We did also see the preview for Jigsaw so we’re debating to see whether we want to see it by the end of the month and maybe add it to the horror marathon. It all depends. Anyways, you can expect the review for both the 80s IT and this new one soon.

2nd Wedding Anniversary

We’ve decided that hiking is our anniversary event. This year, we went out to Thousand Islands National Park to go for a hike. Its a pretty nice area and I’ll be posting about that very soon. It was a pretty flat path so there was no leaves changing colors to see. However, this year is cotton-themed. We gave pretty generic and useful stuff. My husband was great and he gave me a Teeturtle Cat Mom shirt. Here it is!

Belated Thanksgiving Dinner

We had my in-laws come over last week to celebrate a belated Thanksgiving. I’m not great at making turkey and it was a busy day of chores and catching up with the blog and editing so we ended up picking up the food to make from M&M Meat Shops which is a pretty cool place with some delicious food when in need for a quick meal to put together.

Noctambule at Granby Zoo

Granby Zoo is a place we haven’t gone back in a long time. This year, they added a Dinozoo area which is full of animated dinosaurs. Its pretty cool. I actually think its probably more effective at night than in the day.

Cute Kitty Pic

Upcoming:

–> MORE HORROR MARATHON/TV BINGES/FALL ACTIVITIES

That’s it for this Weekly Adventures!
I know it was a little overloaded. Its just because of vacation having more time to do stuff. 
We continue the horror marathon tomorrow!

Whats up with you?

My Weekly Adventures #44

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June is here!

The last two weeks of May probably was two of the most hectic but I can already see the next two being pretty eventful as well. I’m working on some housekeeping stuff for both Game Warp and Tranquil Dreams mostly. Work has taken a slight toll on me and I’ve been taking more time to relax, watch some videos and gaming streams. You should check out Splat Panda if you haven’t. These guys are awesome fun to watch especially as they now are playing games that I personally wouldn’t attempt but like watching others play (aka currently is Dark Souls 2 and The Surge). I’ve also been watching a few other people stream Friday the 13th: The Game. I’ve learned that I’m not suitable to play those games as they stress me out too much which probably will change with more practice so maybe I’ll eventually pick up one of these multiplayer games, perhaps when Friday the 13th releases their single player campaign which I think is in the works.

Either way, back to my last two weeks and what has been going on!

Day Off: Time with Family and Friends

I had mentioned that Victoria Day weekend had passed and I took a day off on the Friday so that I could spend some time with my mom and my aunt visiting from Australia. We decided to go out for lunch and I invited Phoebe and her little bunbun. It was a challenging day to say the least as bunbun was a little irritated by her teething issue. However, we still enjoyed our meal quite a bit. We proceeded to have a much longer than expected walk back to the bus station to catch our ride back to my place and do some gardening preparation. We ended the evening with a lovely dinner and also tried to show bunbun My Neighbor Totoro, at least part of it.

High School Friend’s Wedding

One of my high school friends got married on that same weekend. They had it at a pretty convenient location and the reception was done really well. There were a few familiar faces which was cool. The food was alright. I’m pretty snobby about Chinese food in Montreal because its pretty subpar however, we’re there to celebrate a happy event and that is what matters. I also luckily won the raffle right as I was stuffing my face with fried rice. It was super elegant. 😉

The raffle gift was a little egg-shaped toothpick holder which is pretty awesome. We’re going to put it to good use. And of course, my husband making faces as I attempt a selfie. It was cool and went much better than we anticipated. We didn’t stay too late either since Sunday was going to be a hectic day also.

Kick-off Marathon for my Friend & Other Sunday Events Already Blogged About

SSQ Longueil Courses Thematiques

Some of you know that I’m the backup driver and water support for my friend who has been training for half marathons. Its pretty cool because it forces me to wake up earlier and sit around reading or writing outside in some park while I wait for him to get back. Marathon environments are a lot of fun. I am planning on training for a 5 or 10km however my foot decided to join into my other issues and I haven’t been able to train yet. It is getting much better now so I should be 100% very soon (hopefully). My friend usually just jumps into the Ottawa Half Marathon but this year, he decided to do a warm-up and did a 10 km at the SSQ Longueuil marathon. He did pretty alright time-wise and it was a nice day and the site is pretty nice also.

He drove me over to meet up with Phoebe and her family as we were going to prepare for Battle of Ingredients and go to the greenhouse. You can see my gardening haul HERE and the Battle of Ingredients HERE. We had another couple join us for dinner as they always do. The evening ended with a dramatic event and some happy ones like co-op play in Broforce.

Since we’re talking about the long weekend, I might as well add in the Monday where we took it easy and headed out on date night to see Alien:Covenant. My review is right HERE.

Ottawa Marathon Weekend

As the last four years have been, I’ve gone away to Ottawa for the marathon. My friend now runs both 5K on Saturday and Half on Sunday morning. I pretty much hang about and have water when he’s done and make sure he gets to point a to b safely. Aside from that, I take it as a weekend away to relax: shop a little, eat a little and walk around to take in the city a little.

My companion PSP
My furry companion
New discovery: Butterfly Jasmine at David’s Tea
Canada 150 celebration at Byward Market
My new Animator’s Series haul
Candy haul at Squish

I dusted off my PSP for the trip and was playing through LocoRoco and just like every 30 year old should, I brought my Thumper with me. David’s Tea ran out of Dragonwell which is my tea of choice for the morning but I ended up trying out Butterfly Jasmine which was pretty smooth as well. During Saturday, there was some shopping like the Disney Story and Squish  for candy as shown above. I also picked up some hiking pants for my husband at Eddie Bauer which were 40% off, got some stuff at La Senza (40% off bras are a rarity) and my friend got me a Fuel Belt to motivate me to go out and train in the summer as a belated birthday gift. We also had a breakfast at a King Eddy’s Burger or something and I’ll be doing a separate short post for that soon since this post is getting a little crazy.

This weekend ended with the drive back so that I could make it in time to do recording for the 50th episode of MBDS hosted by Elwood, my Game Warp co-host and MBDS is his own movie podcast on obscure cinema.

New Shoes

I finally found some comfy flats suitable for work! Its taken me at least two years. I’ve been trying to extend the life of my last pair of flats and then ended up giving up and swapping between sneakers and running shoes but the fact is when the weather is really hot, it gets very suffocating to wear it and most importantly, its not very professional for the office. My office is semi-casual so these actually work really well and comfy also. I had originally ordered the whites but somehow I got these and I think that everything worked out for the better.

And that’s it! I think that was packed enough!
If you didn’t think so, I sure did because all I want to do is sleep all the time! 🙂

What have you been up to?

My Weekly Adventures #41

Posted in My Weekly Adventures by

2017 continues to fly by! The whirlwind of crazy is a ton of fun but it is getting a tad hectic. Gaming, writing, editing and still lots of behind the scenes stuff. I feel like a lot of it is the residual work from the busy month of March with the course and weekend away for Comicon. However, the gear is turned on now because as it gets warmer, I’m gearing up to train and go out for more frequent runs and hopefully go for a 5K run. Not too confident about a 10K yet. Aside from that, I need to step up the game for hopefully giving the Grade 10 piano exam a last hurrah. I wish I could pick up my courage and share some of that journey but I’ve come to terms that I’m a little too self-conscious to do it. Plus, I’m pretty sure that I’m ready for the most part in general, except all that gets affected by how much confidence I have in myself and I just don’t want to get shut down by all those horrible people that pop up to hate which is obviously not so much in the blogosphere as if I put it on Youtube. Way too much to justify that choice but still, that is my reasoning, rational or not.

Moving on.. Let’s get the recap going!

 Hanging Out with Friends

Erabliere au Palais Sucre

For those of you who missed it, I went out for a Sugar Shack thing with my girl friends. It was pretty cool. We don’t get every year like some people do  but this experience was much more pleasant that the previous one that we had. You can get the full details HERE.

The Friday after, I went out with my best friend who I haven’t seen for a few months. Growing up, grown up responsibilities, career and life changes all factored into this. Although we did text once in a while, we still had a lot of catching up to do. It was great to hang out with her as always. Its nice to know that there’s always the best friends in your life that are comfortable to be with no matter how long we haven’t seen or talked. Its a pretty awesome feeling. We had our dinner at La Cage which is a sports bar. We grabbed some drinks and ate some alright food.

New Furniture & Decor

I’ve been having an indoor plant issue because of the whole cat eating plant situation, a lot of plants had to all stick around the fenced bay window area. Its starting to get really crowded. When I took a trip to IKEA to pick up a replacement table for the basement that broke, I saw this beautiful bamboo plant stand and since its tall and small platforms, it means that I can fit plants and my cat can’t access it as well, plus it fit well with the orchids which she really doesn’t care much for. It was a bit of a hassle to put together but its done and working out great! Not to mention this spot in the house genuinely gets no sun but lots of light so it works for the orchid temperaments.

Of course, the final two pictures are also framed. My husband surprised me with these frames for my birthday and now they are sitting on top of my office so that whenever I doubt myself, i just looking up and it’ll remind me to keep moving forward. Most of all, its really because I love these art so much. Obviously, I do, or else I wouldn’t have bought it but so pretty. We just have one more wall to decorate in the office now. I suggested for my husband to pick up something at the Montreal Comiccon when we go this year (hopefully he will come with me).

Advanced Screening & Movies

Unforgettable

The review is already up for Unforgettable and I mentioned it briefly, but I saw this movie in advanced screening and the experience was fantastic. You can find the review HERE.

As this post goes up, the theatre broke down on Friday  night because of power outage and I ended up having my tickets refunded for The Fate of the Furious, however, fret not (at least more for myself), we are heading out to see it tonight (this post should go up Sunday). I’m pretty stoked. I know its over the top and the series is starting to spiral a tad downwards towards some really absurd phase but I still like them a lot for exactly the reasons that it might not work for others. Regardless, the review should be up next week some time.

Next Cook-off Gathering & Belated Birthday Gift

Its the long weekend as this post goes up! Last night, we had our second Battle of Ingredients dinner party thing. As I mentioned before, it was a maple syrup theme. If you missed the first one, you can find it here. As I said in there, this is a work in progress so the structure is not always a battle among us but rather a battle of how to use the ingredient and so this one is a collab effort to put together a full course meal in our own way. My husband and thanks to our friend who brought his little portable retro console over, had a blast of nostalgia and lots of fun. As for the food, the post will be up in the coming week. We have decided to make this a monthly event so should be fun.

My friend also gave me a DIY belated birthday gift. I love My Neighbor Totoro and she made a little jar or glass holder for it and its adorable. It actually matches perfectly with my new art on my wall and she didn’t even know about my new stuff.

Cute Kitty Pic

Upcoming:

  • New Segment: All About Adaptations (for real this time)
  • Reviews (Movies, Books, etc)

What have you been up to? How has your Easter been?

Happy Thanksgiving! Celebrating with Special Guests

Posted in Everyday Randomness, Movies by

Happy Thanksgiving, my lovely friends in the US! Hope you are spending your time with the people the matter in your life and being thankful for everything. Drew from Drew’s Movie Reviews (and also my awesome co-host from the 80s blogathon we hosted earlier this year!) graciously invited me to join into his joint point about why we are thankful for our blog and for being a blogger. It was a ton of fun to get this done! There’s never enough chances to say more thanks for just making this blogging experience last for so many years. As much as this blog is for myself to share thoughts, its amazing that anyone drops by to read!. With that said, a huge thanks to Drew for asking me to join in!

Drew's Movie Reviews

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today is a day here in the States that we give thanks for what we have and the people in our lives.  A time we gather around our table eating gravy-smothered turkey, stuffing, beats, and pumpkin pie.  A time we gather around the television, screaming and cheering at the football game.  A time we talk with those not seen often, catching up on lost time.  A time we remember those who are special in ours lives, especially those no longer with us.  No matter how Thanksgiving is spent, it is always with family and loved ones.

We all have something to be thankful for in our lives.  For me, this blog has become something extra special to me, way more than I ever imagined when I first started in the summer of 2013.  Now, I don’t know about you, but I am a horrible (great?) procrastinator.  At any…

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Grand Prix Weekend!

Posted in Montreal Events! by

This past weekend was tough. Lots of sad and tragic news.  In Montreal, it was also Grand Prix weekend. Much like usual tradition, I went out to walk around the events in downtown after work on Friday evening with some friends. There are usually cars on display, free tasting, loud music and lots of people.

People with fancy cars bring them out and same goes for some nice motorcycles.

Grand Prix on Crescent (and Peel)

As we were waiting to cross the street to the festivities, this motorcycle caught my eye. I have to say, its unique.

Motorcycle

Heading into the festivities is always a surprise even if we always know its going to be packed with people.  What was nice was that the sun decided to show up despite it raining almost the entire week. It was definitely cooler than usual and the weekend only got chillier.

Grand Prix 2016

This year, the cars were sparse but here are the ones that caught my eye between the two streets and the cars parked in front of Ritz-Carlton Hotel for what I assume is a function. This year the star was McLaren.

Fiat 124 Spider
Dodge SRT 10
Dodge Charger
McLaren
McLaren
Alfa Romeo

Palm Bay Free Sample

Palm Bay Grand Prix 2016

I usually don’t try a whole lot of stuff but apparently I could try Palm Bay which is a sparkling alcoholic beverage. The one I got was the Cherry Lime flavor. It felt a little like drinking Smirnoff but with a bit more zest because of the lime flavor in it. Its not too bad. Probably not my choice beverage based on personal preference but if I was back in my university days, this would be totally what I’d go for.

Music

Grand Prix 2016

No idea who the band was on stage but they were definitely rocking it out. Usually, I’m not a huge fan of the artists they choose but this year was alright. I enjoyed it! Although, we only walked by and didn’t really stop to listen or anything.

That was Grand Prix! We took a short walk and the other street was mostly Porsche’s and its there almost every year so nothing special. There was lot more VR gaming booths this year for racing stuff.

Its always a fun little event to go to just to get in on the action a little even if we don’t go see the actual race. Its also a good reason to hang out with friends since everyone has work and/or school, and whatever other obligation that just limits the time we have to see friends more frequently.