A Few Rainy Days, TV Addictions and Delicious Meals

Sorry for the late weekend personal post!  I spent a lot of time hemming and hawing at figuring out what to write today but here it is…

This past week has been all about water falling down onto the earth.  My grass is waiting to get mowed as it gets longer and longer after a whole week of rain.  My trees are patiently sitting there awaiting its next trim so that it looks all beautiful and round, instead of having a bad hair day.  The best part in all this is that my flowers are all budding.  After looking at Marilyn’s gardens with her colorful irises, I was longing for mine to eventually bloom as well.  It probably might happen next week. YAY!

These beautiful flowers have started blooming though. They usually end up covering the whole tree with wonderful pink flowers.  Its always nice when the yard is looking extremely green. I snuck out in the pouring rain to get a few pictures of it!

I started on Thursday with trying to catch up on all the season finales that are happening.  I am TV addict.  I have a queue list for ones that are waiting to be started, another one for currently in progress but a season or two off track or just finished, and another one to keep track of the ones that are up to date.  Now there is even a list of upcoming fall season new ones to track.  This season has to be pretty good.  Its just about ended for most of them and I’m already done with New Girl, Vampire Diaries, Bates Motel (as of last night) and Elementary (as of today).

Next up is Criminal Minds and Grey’s Anatomy.  I’d still need to search up whether they have their finales out yet but I’m excited. However, those ones are going to take longer since I only watched a few episodes and maybe Grey’s Anatomy, I managed to get to midseason finale and then I stopped.

Whats nice is summer is the time to catch up on all the miscellaneous TV (like Glee, The Mentalist, Grimm) and some already ended ones (Flashpoint, Gossip Girl) plus the awaiting to start list (Arrow, Sherlock Holmes, Downtown Abbey, The Following, Once Upon a Time, and more) since I only watch True Blood during this time.  Can I just say I’m super excited? There’s still a few weeks but its my guilty pleasure.

There is nothing deep about it and most of the time, I get frustrated with Sookie’s ugly disgusting accent but Bill is officially batshit crazy and Eric is super hot to look at.  Now, if we get in a few more stupid comments from Jason and then get Alcide back in the pictures, I think I’m ready to watch vampires and werewolves crazy go on ;).

On top of all these, I have about 4-5 Hong Kong series to catch up with and months upon months that I’ve fallen behind on those dramas. Maybe the occasional Taiwanese series since I’ve heard of a few that are interesting and silly fun 🙂 Lots of TV planned..now I just need to find the time.

Yesterday after dragonboat practice, I went out to dinner with a friend at our neighborhood joint which is a very good little homestyle restaurant of Chinese French fusion food.

Garlic Shrimps with Rice and Salad

Tonight I went there again to celebrate a meal with one of my long time friends.  Here are some pictures of what I had and the dessert is my boyfriend’s 🙂

Beef and Vegetable Soup

Fried Chicken Leg and Spaghetti with Tomato Sauce

Cheesecake with Ice Cream

This place is called Mrs. Amigos.  The owner is a super nice lady and the staff is agreeable and friendly. I love going here! If you ever are in the Montreal area, I urge you to drop by for a meal.  They may be a small joint but they offer very delicious food 🙂 I love the dinner meals like the one I had.  The shrimps were super delicious and the chicken leg with spaghetti is one of my absolute favorite meals EVER!

Plus, I was with great company.  We had a lot of chats and laughs throughout the night.  Nothing beats hanging out with awesome times with friends 🙂 It certainly made my weekend!

How is your weekend so far? Sunnier than ours in Montreal? Maybe more relaxing? Any weekend addictions? How about TV series other than my growing list that you’d recommend to me? I’ll always find a way to fit it in…

Daily Prompt: Quote Me

Daily Prompt: Do you have a favorite quote that you return to again and again? What is it, and why does it move you?

Quotes are awesome! There are so many inspirational ones out there, some that are inspirational and meaningful but I think are completely pointless because I don’t believe in them, and a few that I completely believe in and those when I first heard has impacted me.  I have two that has especially had that effect.

The first one I had referenced before in a previous daily prompt about Forever Young.  You can check out the post HERE. Here is the quote itself: “Life is like a passage. Too bad it’s a one-way trip. Good thing is, there’s no need to return.”- Wait Til You’re Older.  Technically to me, this means to live life without regrets and that everything happens for a reason.  I believe in that.  Every choice you make impacts you in the way your life will go and it takes you on a journey.  I don’t know if everyone out there is part of the generation that remembers those Choose Your Own Adventure books, but I was.  The joy of those books was that different choices you picked would lead you to different endeavours and therefore, a different ending.  Whether they were bad or good choices, also taught you about thinking out your options in real life because who knows where you’d end up.   I really have to try and find some of those books again, I wonder if they still sell it in bookstores or maybe its just in antique book stores now.  Just out of curiousity, anyone have any ideas?

Back on track, the second one that impacts me a lot and I own a notebook with that quote on the cover now.  I also did an anniversary video for my boyfriend two years ago or something based on that. Its unknown where this quote is from: “This is my wish for you: Comfort on difficult days, smiles when sadness intrudes, rainbows to follow the clouds, laughter to kiss your lips, sunsets to warm your heart, hugs when spirits sag, beauty for your eyes to see, friendships to brighten your being, faith so that you can believe, confidence for when you doubt, courage to know yourself, patience to accept the truth, love to complete your life.” To me, this is a sweet and happy quote.  It fills us with hope because unless you’re evil to the core, I’m guessing you wish that for most of the people that you care about and love.

Writing this post made me think about Grey’s Anatomy.  I’m not sure if you know what it is but if you don’t, its a tv series thats currently in its 9th season I think.  I used to follow it but then I couldn’t do cliff hangers so I’m one of those crazy people that binge watch it by the season.  That’s besides the point.  The point is Grey’s Anatomy has lots of memorable quotes.  There was a time that I could relate to a lot of what they are trying to get across, so of course, I went hunting for the quotes online to add to this post.  The source of the quotes below are at greys-anatomy-quotes. Some of these may seem a bit depressing but then it does still have a point and I’ll try to explain a bit how I see it.

“Its one of those things people say. ‘You can’t move on until you let go of the past.’ Letting go is the easy part, it’s the moving on that’s painful.  So sometimes we fight it, trying to keep things the same.  Things can’t stay the same though.  At some point you just have to let it go.  Move on.  Because no matter how painful it is, its the only way we grow.” – Meredith Grey ‘The Girl with No Name‘ The reason behind why this touched me can be linked to a post that I wrote in early December (which surprisingly had a lot of views) about when it is okay to move on. You can find it HERE if you’re interested in reading it.  Its a bit on the depressing personal post as I write about a personal issue I have so if you’re not in the mood for that, then just skip it.  The whole concept of keeping things the same, moving on and letting go is something I’m still working on.

“You know how when you were a little kid and you believed in fairy tales? That fantasy of what your world be.  White dress, Prince Charming who’d carry you away to a castle on a hill… You’d lie in bed at night and close your eyes and you had complete and utter faith.  Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, Prince Charming.  They were so close you could taste them. But eventually you grow up.  One day you open your eyes and the fairy tale disappears.  Most people turn to the things and people they can trust.  But the thing is, it’s hard to let go of that fairy tale entirely ’cause almost everyone still has that smallest bit of hope, of faith, that one day they’ll open their eyes and it will all come true.  At the end of the day, faith is a funny thing.  It turns up when you don’t really expect it.  its like one day you realize that the fairy tale might be slightly different than you dreamed.  The castle, well, it may not be a castle.  And its not so important that its happy ever after, just that it’s happy right now.  See, once in a while, once in a blue moon, people will surprise you.  And once in a while, people may even take your breath away.”- Meredith Grey ‘Save Me’ I love that last part starting at “At the end of the day…” It has a very nice point here is that reality hits us eventually and we realize that who knows how long happy ever after is but the most important is to be happy right now.

I could dump more quotes on you but I think thats enough for now.

On that note, I think tonight sounds like its time for me to run off and binge watch some Grey’s Anatomy Season 8 (last season) and catch up.

My FIRST: One Lovely Blog Award Nomination

I’m still feeling a bit dazed and confused right now.  My first award…its been about one year and 10 months that I’ve been blogging and I’ve read millions of posts about others getting awards and it never occurred to me that it’d happen to me…and it has.  Give me a few moments to wrap my head around this…I’m just happy!

First of all, I’d like to thank Aan at Sigoese for the One Lovely Blog Award Nomination.  I haven’t followed his blog for a long time but he has some amazing content that goes up. You definitely need to check it out.

These are the rules below, as copied from Sigoese for the nominees to follow:

1. Thank the person who nominated you
2. Add The One Lovely Blog Award to your post
3. Share 7 things about yourself
4. Pass the award on to 15 nominees
5. Include this set of rules
6. Inform your nominees by posting a comment on their blogs

Seven Thing About Me:

1) I love music a lot: I play the piano, sing, and am learning guitar (very slowly) and I listen to music every single day.

2) My love for Dragonboat is the reason and motivation that I exercise and train.

3) I am a collector of  Disney(Pixar included) movies and Hayao Miyazaki animations.

4) I have a digestive disorder that makes me sensitive to caffeine, lactose, MSG, and a whole bunch of random vegetables and foods.

5) I believe that crafty DIY gifts mean so much more than any store-bought gift.

6) I watch too many TV series that I can’t possibly catch up anymore (Criminal Minds, Grey’s Anatomy, The Mentalist, Vampire Diaries, True Blood, Vampire Diaries, and some other guilty pleasures like Gossip Girl, etc.).

7) I hate having a cellphone (even if its a necessity) because I see it as a tracking device on my whereabouts.

Now, on to 15 blogs I’d like to nominate:

1. Thirdeyemom
2. Lead.Learn.Live
3. Head In A Vice
4. 50 Year Project
5. The Wish Factor
6. Crazy Train To Tinky Town
7. Sethsnap
8. Homemade with Mess
9. Bucket List Publications
10. Ali Does It Herself
11. A Word in Your Ear
12. Ridha’s Kitchen
13. Salt and Serenity
14. Modern Home Kitchen
15. A Nature Mom

If you are interested in movies, recipes, photography, crafts, travels and adventures, at least one of those blogs will fulfill.  Thanks again to Sigoese for the wonderful nomination!