Adventures & What’s Up – December 2022 + 2022 Overview

Hello everyone! As we enter the last day of 2022, its time for the adventures post which is honestly more of a general update. We will get through that quickly, jump into the What’s Up which is a little more and wrap things up with the 2022 Wrap-Up! A quick rundown just in case you are here for only the Wrap-Up for 2022. If you are, just scroll all the way down and skip all of my other nonsense. Let’s go!

ADVENTURES & Wrap-Up (More Like Updates)

Retiring of Photo Challenge Posts

For those joining now, this blog started out as a photography blog. I started most of my blogging doing daily prompts and weekly photo challenges. However, the years have gone by and my blog is running very low on storage space and trying to not buy more space, I have decided to retire the photo challenge posts. If you want to follow my photography (and other creative outlet), its on Avenue of Daydreams.

If you go there now, I haven’t posted since October 2021 but it will be back in 2023. I will talk more about that in the 2023 Upcoming Plans post.

Baby Update

Triple V entered his 6 months in December. As he goes through some funky times with what we think might be the beginning stages of teething and some random babble, he’s definitely starting to recognize people more and realizing when he sees strangers aka family that we haven’t seen frequently and feeling either shy or scared. He’s starting to be stronger with more tummy time and baby gym activity time, a pretty routine sleep schedule even if he doesn’t sleep throughout the night very often. He even started with eating starter cereals and beginner purees.

Time sure flies by as we watch him grow up day by day and becoming curious with everything around him. It sure feels like those baby safety gates are going to be put up soon as well as getting on with babyproofing the house.

Christmas, Gifts & Boxing Day Haul

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Christmas celebrations happened before the main event this year as we couldn’t go for the evening festivities due to the early bedtime for Triple V so only dropped by for the afternoon at my in-laws. We celebrated with my mom on Christmas day for lunch as well. Still, it was pretty neat to see family since we’ve been keeping to ourselves since the pandemic started then my pregnancy in pandemic times so this year, while we were cautious, we still wanted to keep in our family bubble since Triple V isn’t vaccinated yet.

There’s no surprise that Triple V was the main winner in this department with new clothes from the grandparents and a generous collective gift of a jumperoo. On our front, we got the reasonable gift of some French storybooks since we have an abundance of English ones handed down from me. He also got a new walker from his grand aunt. On my front, I truly felt like a mom as all my gifts are very grown-up from my mom gifting me noodles (it was a joke so that we could fluff up the Christmas tree to look like it had more gifts to have better pictures) and a Christmas tablecloth (which I actually don’t have one considering all the Christmas decorations we have) and a white wine (which is currently in storage because I’m not really drinking yet since I’m still breastfeeding).

Boxing Day this year, much like Black Friday, was a huge disappointment. There wasn’t any incredibly good deals. We basically only picked up things that we needed and had some type of discount. As for other things, we kept those expenses at a minimum. We didn’t actually do any day off shopping since we only went to the grocery store to restock.

• Michael’s: Picture Collage Frames *3 (for the new family/baby photos)
• Roots: Baby Clothes (for Triple V and gifts)
• Yves Rocher: Skincare products
• Steam: Cris Tales, Emily is Away <3, Far From Noise, Oure
• Playstation: Just Shapes & Beats
• Amazon (caught the tail end of the Boxing Day sale): Sippy Cup, Bodyweight Scale, Cat Water Fountain, Diapers
• Google Play Pass (super sweet deal for first month free and 3 months after that at 69 cents/month)
  

WHAT’S UP

BOOKS

• The Very Best Christmas Present
• Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
• Alvin and the Chipmunks: Merry Christmas Mr. Caroll!
• Mr. Snow
• Mr. Silly
• A Grouch’s Christmas
• Mr. Sneeze

Currently reading: City of Ember

Surprising that its all children’s books, right? Of course not! That’s all my reading time is nowadays. As you can see that I’m trying to get back into some normal reading as I did start City of Ember.

MOVIES

• The Blob (1988)
• Highwaymen (2004)
• Dazed and Confused (1993)
• Warriors of Future (2022 Review)
• The Sparring Partner (2022 Review)
• Big Brother (2018 rewatch, Review)
• John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017 rewatch, Review)
• Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (2022)
• It Takes Two (1995 rewatch)
• Into the Deep: The Submarine Murder Case (2020)
• Pulse (2006 rewatch)
• I Believe In Santa (2022)
• Scrooge: A Christmas Carol (2022)
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966 rewatch, Review)
• Christmas With You (2022)
• The Christmas Chronicles (2018 rewatch, Review)
• A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965 rewatch, Review)
• The Small One (1978 rewatch, Review)
• Mickey’s Christmas Carol (1983 rewatch, Review)
• The Polar Express (2004 rewatch, Review)
• Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022, Review)

An absolutely fantastic movie viewing month. Not so much a great writing month as writing reviews seem to be getting harder and harder or its just I’m picking the wrong movies. A lot of rewatches this month as well. I’ve been trying to keep on top of the Netflix new releases so those reviews will go out even if its in 2023. However, I was so excited after watching Glass Onion that you can already check out my thoughts on that.

TV

• Snack vs. Chef
• Crime Scene: The Texas Killing Fields (Limited series)
• Wednesday (Season 1, 2022 rewatch)
• Too Hot To Handle (Season 4)
• Cook At All Costs (Season 1)
• Dance Monsters (Season 1)
• Emily in Paris (Season 3)
• Line Walker (使徒行者, 2014)

Currently watching: Meteor Garden (rewatch), The Circle S5

Trash TV, cooking and reality shows seems to be the highlight of December. However, Dance Monsters is a super fun show that just got its finale right at the end of December. Snack vs. Chef is pretty fun as cooks replicate popular snacks and candy bars while Cook At All Costs was pretty fun as well. On the contrary, Emily in Paris felt like a lot of the same which is still fun but its getting a little repetitive. If they get a Season 4, maybe the finale of the 3rd will change the dynamic. We continued with watching the latest Crime Scene which looked at The Texas Killing Fields were was a pretty good documentary. These limited series always uses a case to cast light on a bigger societal problem. Finally, as of today, I finished Line Walker which is Hong Kong series from 2014 which I of course missed since I haven’t watched HK series in many many years. This one is seriously really awesome ( you will see how awesome in the recap before).

I’m taking a little break from Chinese variety shows right now as I started too many and need to sort out which I want to continue watching.

GAMES

• Tricky Towers (Single Player Trials) – in progress
• Lake (2021, Review)
• Doors: Awakening (2019)
• Pinball FX

Currently playing: The Gunk, Doors: Origins

I’m slowly getting back to some gaming here and there. While my PC died, I was into playing Tricky Towers (Single Players Trials) and I’m still working on that but its fairly sporadic so there’s not really an end to that one, much like Pinball FX which doesn’t have an end either.

Putting the Google Play Pass to work, I finished playing Doors: Awakening and working through all the Doors games on mobile which I had played before but they were only partially free and charged money for the second half of the levels. I don’t like that mobile game business model so I never entertain it. So now, the situation is a little different with the Play Pass. Its a fun puzzle game

Finally, I played Lake which is something of a postal worker simulator with story and narrative choices. Its honestly a hidden gem since it blends in a lot of relaxing moments and dives into a pretty fun small town story. I did start The Gunk and is probably about halfway through (based on my playtime and the How Long To Beat average) but its a really good one. There’s some exploration and resources and crafting and adventure. I’ll talk more about it after I’ve finished, possibly in a review.

2022 WRAP-UP

Much like last year, we are foregoing the blog site statistics. Let’s face it, its not going to look pretty with things going back to normal, the numbers so a great drop before steadying again and I never really did it for the numbers. Plus, life changes with a newborn in mid-June did throw off the rhythm even more than when I was going through my pregnancy and choosing sleeping earlier over stressing out over blogging at unreasonable hours. The posting rhythm is coming back slowly but I’m pretty sure it will never be where it used to be a few years ago.

With that said, lets look at some other numbers:

• TOTAL FILMS WATCHED: 213 films (2 less than last year only!)
  • 34 rewatches
  • 41 short films
• TOTAL BOOKS READ: 17 books (majority of it are children’s books)
• TOTAL TV SERIES BINGED: 92 seasons binged (3 rewatches)
  • Japan: 1
  • Hong Kong: 1
  • Taiwanese: 2
  • Korean: 3
  • Documentary: 12
  • Mainland China: 13
  • Chinese Variety Shows: 14
  • American Reality Shows: 20
  • American: 26

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Top 10 First Time Watches

1. Knives Out
2. Deep Rising
3. Turning Red
4. Time
5. Profile
6. Underwater
7. Tokyo Godfathers
8. MexZombies
9. Waitress
10. Love and Leashes

Top 10 TV Seasons

1. Light The Night
2. The Silent Sea
3. Wednesday (Season 1)
4. Line Walker
5. All of Us Are Dead
6. Who Rules The World
7. Shining For One Thing
8. Mr. Bad
9. Boo, Bitch (Limited Series)
10. Mom, Don’t Do That

Overall, it was surprisingly steady in terms of numbers. Last year I didn’t do the specific breakdowns so not sure whether short film to full length ration was similar. Books increased a lot mostly because I read tiny short children’s books but then I did read a Dr. Seuss compilation books and that’s 13 stories as 1 book entry. I’m not here to get all picky with the numbers. I didn’t expect anything to be even close to these numbers so that’s already shocking enough for me.

A quick look at last year’s plans/goals:

1. Goodreads Reading Challenge: 15 books surpassed at 17 (even if I did cheat a little with children’s books)
2. Podcast launch: Did not happen (will address that soon)
3. Partial Revival of Disney and Studio Ghibli project: Mostly did not happen, only one post for Porco Rosso went up
4. Personal Goals: Eat healthier is slowly getting there, Did not stream at all, 98% done for nursery and 90% done for office (just some filing left to do)

In the foreseeable future, streaming services will be my best friend and I will be focusing on new releases on Netflix, Shudder and Amazon Prime with Netflix being the main priority. However, these are considered upcoming plans and I will talk about more of that tomorrow!

Remember to head back for the Upcoming Plans 2023 tomorrow!
Happy New Year’s Eve!!

What’s Up & Adventures – May 2022

Welcome everyone to the May 2022 recap for the What’s Up & Adventures! Honestly, there’s no adventures at this point. My life is very much just getting ready for the new arrival to our family. Of course, there was 2 little things that did happen which was rather fun but most of it was just trying to do a lot of restructure to our home (which I won’t be showing here) including a lot of deep cleaning throughout the weekends. So, as usual, we will start with some little “adventures” and then hop into the What’s Up portion which should be a lot more entertaining, I suppose.

Annual Garden Haul

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While we struggled in our decision between whether to have a garden or not this year since we have no idea what to expect in the coming summer months, we eventually decided that we would do a little container garden! Its a step down from the normal which would be to raised garden patches but we figured this would at least be in our face and easy to maintain plus when things get hard, we can add self-watering systems to it. Plus, we chose pepper, patio cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, romaine lettuce and leaf lettuce which are all fairly low maintenance from past experience. We did also pick up a rose that has yet to go into the garden. If we do have time though, we are shifting around the berries, notably the blueberries were are getting murdered by these rogue vines that we just can’t seem to get rid of.

Baby Shower

I’m not going to bore everyone with the details of the gifts since we had a little family gathering for the baby shower. The highlight of the day did go to my sister-in-law who made us this beautiful cake from scratch and it took her a whole 4 days to put it together from the cake to the fondant decorations. Its pretty impressive and a lot of appreciation for what she did for us.

WHAT’S UP – MAY 2022

*Highlighted titles are my recommendations*

Books

Currently reading: Nevernight

Not going to lie that reading isn’t on my top priority as I shift back to working from home a little bit more. Plus the wonderful fatigue is back to visit me so its been a little hard to focus. It doesn’t help that I was having a hard time getting into Nevernight so the game plan right now is to put it down and start something else since I wasn’t supposed to but still ended up picking up 2 books as a little treat for myself. I will probably start one of those shortly.

Movies

• Uncharted (2022, Review)
• Lupin the Third: The Castle of Cagliostro (1979, rewatch)
• Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020, Review)
• Only (2019)
• Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind (1984 rewatch)
• SPF-18 (2017)
• Last Moment of Clarity (2010)
• The Outcasts (2017)
• Basic Instinct (1992)
• Kate (2021)
• A Perfect Pairing (2022)
• Agatha Christie’s Crooked House (2017)
• Lie With Me (2005 rewatch, Review)
• Deep Blue Sea 3 (2020)

May has been a decent movie watching month as I got through some of more unknown titles on the list as I continue trying to work through some non-Netflix films in case they happen to leave. Unfortunately, nothing too exciting for the most part although The Outcasts was a pretty fun discovery for a teen coming of age film whereas Last Moment of Clarity was a real disappointment. I did catch up with 2 films that I’ve been meaning to watch for a while: Basic Instinct and Kate and they were pretty good as well. Much like Deep Blue Sea 3 actually was a silly but still rather entertaining sequel compared to the second film (which isn’t that hard to beat since that one was pretty bad).

TV

• Conversations with a Killer: The John Wayne Gacy Tapes (2022)
• Who’s The Murderer (Season 7)
• Love Death + Robots (Season 3, Review)
• Who Rules The World (2022)
• The Circle (Season 4)
• Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (Part 1, Review)
• Stranger Things (Season 4 Volume 1)
• Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (Part 2)

Currently binging: Yes I Do (Season 3), Infinity and Beyond, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (Part 3)

This past month’s TV adventures has been pretty decent. For the most part everything was very entertaining. With the release of Love Death + Robots Season 3, which was a fun ride and over at Movies and Tea, we’ve already released our latest After Hours episode for it HERE, and then the month ending with Stranger Things Season 4 Volume 1 (2 more episodes to follow on July 1st), its been one heck of a trip. The Circle USA Season 4 was a real trip as well with some fun little twists added in much like Netflix acquiring a really good Chinese drama Who Rules The World that is very much worth the watch. As for a end of month little binge, I started up Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and working through all the seasons. Who knows, it might be a first step before going back to continuing Riverdale next…

Games

• Unpacking

Gaming was fairly tame. While not listed here, I’ve been playing Crazy Diner on mobile which reminded me of the nostalgic days when I used to play Diner Dash on PC. At the same time, I’m working through the Xbox Game Pass catalogue and finally got around to playing Unpacking. I am trying to get a review up for that on Game Warp’s blog but I really just wanted to see how an unpacking game got all these nominations especially in terms of narrative. While I can see where a lot of it comes from and the deeper meaning to it and it is surprisingly easily to get sucked into it where I finished it in one sitting as its 3-4 hours long, the experience is really not for everyone and probably some people might find it rather pointless perhaps.

That’s it for this month’s Adventures & What’s Up!
What have you been up to?

My February Adventures

In a blink of an eye, February is over! A tad late, much like everything else in February. Its really unbelievable probably because the first two months of every year is just a pile of deadlines overlapping each other for work so I don’t really know what’s going on in actual life. Work is just taking a real good hit on my energy accumulated from the past year, so I just gave up on forcing myself to get some crappy post up and taking longer to release better content but less frequent. Hopefully you all have been enjoying the little content that I have posted up.

With that said, Montreal is definitely looking much more like winter in February. Some lower temperatures and a few snow falls and one or two snowstorms. With curfew still in place and things gradually opening back up more, its been rather mixed feeling on the whole situation in Montreal about how its improving on the pandemic front. The numbers sure look better but…as this post goes up, spring break (aka what started up the pandemic last year) is also happening.

With that said, all the everyday life stuff caught up, here were some few highlights of February! There’s not a lot as you can probably imagine but still, here we go!

Valentine’s Marathon (kind of)

Like past years, I tried to get a Valentine’s Marathon going! Try being the key word here. It was probably the last amount of posts and the furthest from the actual tentative schedule that I had initially planned. Still, I tried to do the most I could. I still managed to get my highlight post to end the marathon done and less movies meant some better picks overall. You can check it out HERE.

Ultimate Decades Blogathon 2021

We’re halfway through Ultimate Decades Blogathon currently (well, in the last week of it). The changed format is pretty cool and the selections by our guests have been very interesting for sure. If you haven’t caught up with it, you can check out the entries HERE.

Chinese New Year Celebrations

Chinese New Year came around on a super busy phase and with the pandemic, it was a very simple version. I did manage to pick up some beautiful flowers. The bouquet split into 2 vases: one just tulips and the other of the rest of the batch. My mom also gave me some forsythias. The flowers did give the house a nice burst of energy and aliveness.

International Packages Arrived

I don’t know what I was thinking when I decided ordering online was a good idea. BUT, everything arrived after the expected over 1.5 to 2 months time. The first from Hong Kong (ordered at end of November) as I had this weird rush while browsing through an online store in Hong Kong to find a film and ended up picking up three movies, 2 of them that still hasn’t popped up on any online streaming service over the span of the wait. I can’t wait to watch them.

Next is a bunch of T-shirts from QwerTee (ordered end of December) which I didn’t take a picture of when I got the package so here’s a few of them. I have a Digimon Agumon Digivolve that’s currently in the wash and I also got my husband a FF7 Continue screen. It might have taken a while to get here but the quality is pretty nice. They do have some pretty good designs.

Update: Tranquil Dreams Podcast

As some of you may have noticed, Tranquil Dreams Podcast has been far and sparse and that mostly has to do with the real life job that’s taken over my life. With that said, as much as I wanted to do the podcast, I just took into consideration that there was no way that I could do it. However, instead of going back to the old written format, which I did for 3 weeks, I’ve decided that podcasts will aim to be weekly but if they aren’t, then the podcast itself will cover the missing weeks, just for my own organization sake and not having to flip back and forth as its a bit crazy some times to track. However, it will not exceed every 2 weeks.

You can check out the most recent episode HERE.

Cute Kitty Pic

My work companion when I’m working from home
She tends to sleep and snore a lot so its really just moral support that she offers

That’s it for February adventures. Nothing too exciting!
What have you all been up to?

Toronto & Fan Expo Canada 2019 Haul

On a much needed weekend getaway, Toronto and Fan Expo Canada 2019 was a really great time to say the least. Arriving in the early afternoon on Friday, we all had the day to just get into town and settle into the Airbnb. My to-do list had quite a few things including Vaughan Mills to check out a few stores and stock up on stuff on sale as well as hit T&T Supermarket for groceries like breakfast and snacks and stuff to bring home and of course, taking a stop at LCBO to see what there is new there to check out.

Uniqlo

Some very normal stuff here. I was at Uniqlo looking for T-Shirts and found one. I don’t know any of the manga that they were doing T-shirts for but I liked this one the most. Other than that, I was looking for tank tops and whatnot. Its a really good selection over here so I picked up some stuff that I think will be good.

Disney Store

While there was a lot of cool plushes at this Disney store, there was no doubt that Sebastian was the one that caught my eye mostly because it was the 30th anniversary new arrival that the sales rep said just got to the store that week. Plus, I already have a lonely Flounder sitting next to my bed and have been meaning to wrap up The Little Mermaid collection.

LCBO

We also make a stop at LCBO (or whichever provincial alcohol store) whenever we head out of town to try and find something that we can’t find here. One of the things is the VQA Niagara Peninsula always has more choices and then there’s a lot more selection for the ciders. We bought a few more than these three but over the time on the trip, it was consumed between us. I had the Queen Street 501 that I had already written about before on a Wine Recap and we also had the Molson Cider as well as a few flavors from the Crazy Uncle collection other than the root beer, an orange crush version, cream soda version and lemonade version. These three are what made it back: Smirnoff Sangria (red – which means I won’t be drinking it but might give it a sip to try), Thornbury Village Craft Apple Cider and a Riesling white wine.

FAN EXPO CANADA 2019

If you didn’t catch my Fan Expo recap, I didn’t have a lot of time to do much wandering and shopping during the event so really only went through the North Building and didn’t look at any of the retailers or artist alley in the South Building.

Black Fawn Distribution

I realized that Black Fawn Distribution was going to be there really close to when I decided to head out. Luckily, they were in the North building and we had time to do that on Saturday and they had the movies that I was looking for since they haven’t been to Fantasia in a year or two (I think). We did talk to them and they are hoping to be at Fantasia next year so crossing my fingers for that. Either way, they had a whole signing thing going on so I managed to sneak back during the afternoon between some lining up to get The Heretics signed but didn’t realize that on Sunday they also had signing for I’ll Take Your Dead so that one only has the director that signed. Looking forward to watching these as always since I’ve always liked Black Fawn films and appreciated what they’d do for indie horror films.

Myth Hawker Travelling Bookstore

What’s really impressive about Fan Expo is the amount of authors and books that are sold there. Some big publishers are there also. Its incredibly amazing which makes me want to slap myself a little for not trying to find more time to go through South Building but then, where we were had a lot of choices too and they had this one: Myth Hawker Travelling Bookstore which had a lot of books that looked and sounded really good when I read their synopsis. In the end, I went back to pick up this Asian sci-fi and fantasy anthology called Where the Stars Rise. The premise and such caught my eye right away so I’m excited to check this out after my string of reading commitments is done.

Aside from this haul, we did get a free poster of The Fanatic from the advanced screening. We also each got a free Fan Expo T-Shirt from past expos that were given out. I skipped sharing T&T Supermarket stuff as there’s nothing too extraordinary except that I bought moon cakes in anticipation for the upcoming Midautumn Festival and stocked up on some drinks and such.

That’s it for this Toronto/Fan Expo haul!!
Did you go to Fan Expo Canada?

Montreal Comiccon 2019 Haul

Montreal Comiccon is come to an end! As our final wrap-up piece after all the coverage, its going to be the fun shopping haul!

There was quite a few really nice vendors this year. They may have been there previous years but I just missed it because if anyone has been to any Comiccon, you know that its just a world of everything and information overload. I went back to the Artist Alley every single day and I kid you not that I always noticed something different that I didn’t in the previous day. Lots of creativity going on which is something that I love to see. It took quite a bit to restrain myself from buying everything that I liked (just take a look at my Day 1 on all the Artist Alley that I liked HERE).

Regardless, here is the shopping haul! If you follow my Instagram, then you probably have already seen it.

Ruin World by Derek Laufman

One of the things I’ve loved to find during Montreal Comiccon is the books and comics/graphic novels from indie artists and authors, because they are really interesting to see plus its always nice to discover something new. I’ve been into cute things lately (well, always have) so not only did the art attract me over to Derek Laufman’s booth in the first place but then I saw the colorful cover for Ruin World and just loved it. I’m really looking forward to reading it soon (and then I’ll have a review for it go up as well).

Fairy Bell/Fairy Glow Necklace by The Emerald Cauldron

The Emerald Cauldron first caught my eye because of its pixie light necklace, which they call Fairy Glow on their site so I’ll use that. Of course, the debate behind that is battery power and when would I want to wear a necklace that glows in public. In the end, after a chat with them, I decided to get a smaller size pendant (sadly did not have a rose gold or titanium finish, which I would have preferred) so went with a silver finish and then chose the sacred heart shape along with Fairy Bells instead which just ring a little instead of glow. This option at $30 came with a replacement Fairy Glow LED light, which I honestly didn’t want so I asked to change it to another replacement fairy bell (which she asked for $5, which was fine since practicality mattered more than getting something I wouldn’t use). Still, she was great and still threw in a blue LED fairy glow. Service and patience here was fantastic. Not to mention, they had a good choice of colors both for the chimes (and some glow in the dark options) as well as LED light colors (and one that changes colors slowly). Anyways, I got the blue chime and the mint green chime with a sacred heart cage with a silver finish.

Pins by Art by DaDa

Seeing as I already have a lot of art and we are running out of wall space for any more prints to hang up and I wanted to support a college friend and her business, I went to Art by DaDa and got two pins. I’m a big fan of Lilo and Stitch and Fox and the Hound so these worked fine for me. I like them a ton. Plus, I think that her Disney art concept is brilliant and so creative. I always look forward to see what else she comes up with. Those pins went right onto my bag (which I use for work and going to cover events).

Tea by Sense and SensibiliTea

I honestly think its the first year we’re seeing tea booths at Montreal Comiccon. Being an Austen fan, the store name caught my attention right away. While I didn’t get any Austen themed tea, I did end up getting an Absinthe-flavored Green Tea, which is derived with ingredients from the vintage Absinthe mix which turned into this blend. The tea smells really good and I love green tea so it seemed like a good choice. When I was drafting up the Artist Alley highlights for Day 1, I landed on their Facebook page which talked about their new modern tea called Demogorgon’s Bane. I also happen to be a fan of Stranger Things so it was a decision between this one and their Princess Peach Tea (which smells like a fruit garden tisane). I’m not going to lie that I wanted to buy both but then I’m not a huge fan of tisane and who can resist the raspberry chocolate flavored Ceylon black tea, which is what Demogorgan’s Bane is. I have yet to try either of them but fun fact, all the teas are vegan which is nice for myself who has lactose intolerance.

That’s it for this shopping haul!
Definitely toned down from previous years but I think I made some pretty awesome purchases!

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.

My Weekly Adventures: Let the Gardening Begin!

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

Gardening Hauls (over 2 weekends)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Battle of Ingredients

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

Ottawa Day Trip & Haul

Disney Store: Steamboat Mickey

LCBO

KT Tape

T&T Supermarket

Eddie Bauer

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

Gardening Update

Bee Garden

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

Cabbage & Marigold

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

Lettuce

Lettuce

Geranium Citronella

Kale

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

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

Restaurant: Yunnan Rice Noodles

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

Cute Kitty Pic

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

My Weekly Adventures: Birthday Post!

Welcome to the weekly adventures!

I’m 33 today! Just taking it easy like every other year. Some plans are postponed to next week and some keeping to this one. However, this post might seem a bit long although very suitable that its a food heavy post seeing as I love to try new things and hang out with friends over meals.

Festival G: Perles et Paddock

Kicking off was the replacement for Battle of Ingredients in March and we went to check out Perles et Paddock and their menu for the Festival G, a new festival in Griffintown area of Montreal. I’ve already talked extensively about it in a post before so I’m not going to talk too much about it.

You can find the post HERE.

Casino de Montreal: L’Instant

My office move finally happened after much delay. Its a whole lot of adapting and such. I have no pictures as I don’t really want to share that part of my life. However, after that early start, things wrapped up a tad early as well and my friend who eats some expensive meals at the casino wanted to redeem some points so picked me up from work and we went to eat at the deli there called L’Instant. I hadn’t been there since it had been renovated. I got the pasta quattro which is a fairly good deal at $15.95 for pasta (where you can choose out of 4 types of pasta, 3 kinds of sauce and 4 groups of ingredients), soup, garlic bread and a drink. I like the whole having a choice to DIY your own pasta.

March Birthdays Group Celebration

Last Saturday, we had a big family party as the whole in-laws side (almost) has their birthdays in March, just like myself. We got together for a delivery chicken meal like previous years and spent time just catching up and chatting. Its always a nice time with family to just hang out. We’re all busy with our own lives so we take these moments when we can.

Plattsburgh US Grocery/Snack Haul

Market 32 by Pricechoppers

Walmart

Target

Last Sunday, I headed out with my friend to Plattsburgh to do a little grocery run. It was more for snacks and such and it was to pick up some goodies for the husband’s birthday. We had an early start so came back fairly early as well. We went to Target where I stocked up on some Spring & Easter Oreos, Easter Lindt bunnies, some L’arabar flavors that we don’t have in Montreal and some Pressed Coconut Coconut Water. The coconut water isn’t here either the last time I checked. Next stop was Walmart where I kept it fairly tight as I picked up unfrosted Pop Tarts (which I don’t get why isn’t in Montreal), Birthday Oreos (they are my husband’s favorite), and some Love Crunch granola which are super expensive and much smaller package. Last stop was Market 32 by Pricechoppers where I picked up some discounted Kind bars. They were $10 for 10 which is, even after exchange, a better deal. I’m stocked up for snacks for at least 2 to 3 months now.

Restaurant: Le Belle et La Boeuf

For the husband’s birthday, I took him out for a long-awaited date together. We rarely go eat out together unless its for film festivals or something so we wanted to go try something new. I already posted about La Belle et La Boeuf HERE.

Birthday Breakfast & Marché Jean Talon

Every year for my birthday, my friend takes me out for a big meal. Although I get to choose any breakfast place, I can’t seem to get past going to Le Cartet which is super delicious. My fave is their Brunch Canton which I absolutely love. The ham is so awesome and the sausages are good. Its really great. I probably talked about it in previous posts but still, if you are in Montreal, like breakfasts and want somewhere delicious in the Old Montreal area, this one is definitely one to consider and probably go to.

Marché Jean Talon

Westrose

After that, we had some parking left so we headed to a new bakery that opened around the corner that I walk by to go to work called Westrose and picked up a loaf of bread for my husband. We took a quick run to Marché Jean Talon. I haven’t been there since at least 15 years ago. I remember going when I was really young so it was nice to head back. I didn’t buy a ton of food since we still had stuff at home but got so beautiful looking brussel sprouts and since I can’t eat most cakes and don’t want to bake a cake for myself, I decided to pick up a strawberry-rhubarb pie at Creations Madeleine. Its a really delicious pie.

Its my Birthday so shameless selfie time 😉

That’s it for this Adventures post!
It was a bit overloaded with stuff but hey, promise April will be much less adventurous!

My Weekly Adventures: Recharging

Welcome to this Weekly Adventures! I’ve been in recharging mode before the crazy April work month starts. I took a day trip with the husband and then just finished off a few days off this past week. Its been all about recharging (and burning some of my leftover vacation time from last year).

Ottawa Day Trip – Shopping Haul

Lush – Shampoo Bar

T&T

Disney Store

LCBO

I was super stressed at the beginning of the month and needed a day out of town as a little refresher. After some debate, we ended up doing something familiar to us and headed to Ottawa for a day trip. It was the normal rundown with a stop at Rideau Centre, a stroll through Byward Market and then a grocery run at T&T Supermarket. Above is a little haul that I had.

Sugar Marmalade & Herbal Jelly

I have been having these skin breakouts (hence the partial reason there has been no vids) and changed up my skincare routine and eventually gave up and went to Sugar Marmalade to have some herbal jelly which technically helps counteract the effects. I haven’t had it there but it was done pretty well.

A Beautiful Bouquet & Old Navy Haul

This last Saturday was the first day of a 5 day weekend and the first mini vacation in a while. I celebrated by buying some tulips at the florist to revive some springtime feeling in the house. Its a pretty nice mesh of colors. Its a nice burst of colors as well.

After that, the husband and I went for a little shopping time together which sparked by buying some cat snacks and accessories because its our darling cat’s 9th birthday. We did end up seeing that Old Navy had opened there and caught a decent sale. I managed to find some pants for half price and for a buy one get second one half price, a t-shirt. Mine was the Sonic the Hedgehog, which I think its so awesome.

A Date with my Mom

To kick off the time off, I had promised my mom a few weeks ago to take her to the buffet at the Casino de Montreal so that’s what we ended up doing for lunch. I’ve never been there at lunch so it was interesting to say the least. The selection was alright and the food was pretty decent as well. Although I couldn’t eat any of the desserts other than the meringue and biscotti, the last platter is my mom’s and she enjoyed it. There was pancotta, creme brulee, lemon cake roll and a sugar tartlet. We did end up going to play some slots and walk around a little before heading back home. It was a nice afternoon out to say the least.

Ultimate 2000s Blogathon Done

Finally, the last thing that happened was the almost 4 weeks of Ultimate 2000s Blogathon concluded officially yesterday. If you missed any entries or didn’t know it happened and wanted to see the reviews or check it out, you can find all the links to the entries HERE.

Cute Kitty Pic

That’s it for this Weekly Adventures!
I had a good time recharging and probably will have a few more days to recharge to fill in a week off combined.
It’ll be nice since April is going to be the hell month!

Boxing Day Haul 2018!

Lets start off right away that we are trying hard to keep our spending in check so this might not be the most exciting segment. This year’s boxing day sales started earlier than boxing day which is a tad odd but then at the same time, the deals weren’t exactly spectacular either so a lot of these were made after some thought. I have a certain measure for say games and movies as to what price tag I am willing to pay and how worth it it is to pick up.

With that said, boxing day is kind of a pre-boxing day and boxing day haul to pad things out a little. 😉

Pre-boxing day sale

Playstation store

• Fe
• Unravel 2

Fanatical

• Sonic Mania

Adidas (50% off deal)

All my gaming stuff was bought pre-boxing day sale mostly because Playstation and Fanatical both have these weeks and deal days set before the holidays and I ended up landing on these three games. All of them are games that I’ve wanted to play and it is in a price range that I’m pretty happy with.

Other than that, I got a new bookshelf from IKEA, the LAVIA for $24.99CAD. I’ve been trying to reorganize my books since right now they are running out of space and all over the place. I can’t say my new system is any more organized but I kind of like how it looks. It rounds out the look of my den. I’ll talk about that more once its less than a mess as the book organizing is still in progress as this goes live.

Boxing Day

Amazon

• Always and Forever, Lara Jean (ebook)
• Instant Pot 6qt 9 in 1 (waiting for shipment)

I’m not sure if Always and Forever, Lara Jean was a huge discount but I’ve been looking forward to reading the third book in To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before series, especially since the Netflix sequel got confirmed, I’m even more excited to finish up these books.

Walmart

• Kong: Skull Island

Best Buy

• Pitch Perfect 3

I wasn’t planning on buying any movies but these two had pretty good deals, especially for Blu-Ray. Plus, I really liked Kong Skull Island so looking forward to watching that again, while I haven’t seen Pitch Perfect 3 but I have the other 2 so why not, right?

Michaels

• 4 Frames (Buy 1 Get 1 Free Deal)

I always look out for this deal at Michael’s, especially this year since we wanted to get all the artwork framed that we had bought earlier this year. I’ll do an update or something once we get that all figured out.

Finally, we wrapped up Boxing Day at IKEA which was surprisingly not so busy. At least in the evening when I went. I ended up picking up a lamp since the one in our den was broken a few months ago. Its a little dimmer than the other one we had but it still does the job. I mean, this was $10 so what more could I ask for, right?

That’s it for this pre- Boxing Day and Boxing Day haul.
Its turned out to be a good few things to recap but still, it didn’t break the piggy bank too much so I’m fairly happy with how it went.
I still maintain that this year’s deals both Boxing Day and Black Friday weren’t particularly impressive but maybe its because I’ve become pickier on pricing and what I buy, which isn’t a bad thing.