Wow, this week went by really fast!
This week wasn’t exactly eventful but it did mark a few things happening and so much to be grateful about. I’m really enjoying this busy weekends and not so busy weekdays. Its nice to finally regain some form of balance in my life and any sign of negative and I just dodge it and bounce right back to being happy and positive 🙂
Next step: getting back to my working out more regularly 😉 Maybe I should do my workout posts again. What do you think?
Before we get ahead of ourselves, lets see what things I have to be happy about this week 🙂
1) FANTASIA FESTIVAL!!
Fantasia Festival has started and as I write this, I’m back from the third movie. I’m happy because I managed to get tickets for all the movies I wanted to see except one (other than the ones I had to skip because of scheduling problems). Things always work out in the end and you’ll see why. If you missed my post on the movies I bought tickets for, you can check it out HERE!
There is one movie not on the list. After Joseph @ The Cinema Monster dropped me a comment after seeing my lineup, he told me about two movies. One I couldn’t put into my schedule but I looked into The Harvest with Michael Shannon and decided to add that one in. Here is the trailer on the Fantasia Festival page:
http://www.fantasiafestival.com/2014/fr/films-et-horaire/80/the-harvest
A funny moment for you: I actually didn’t watch the trailer before getting the tickets and just read the plot. Lets say, I have a feeling I’m going to be pretty creeped out… I’ll tough it out though! It does look quite good 🙂
Final tally is now 11 movies and 14 tickets! 🙂 One more movie than I expected because I just couldn’t let go of That Demon Within. Nick Cheung has really grown as an actor and anything that he’s in cannot be bad so I just couldn’t resist, what else can I say, right? I still remember him when he first started taking up stupid roles in ridiculous movies that I didn’t laugh at. He’s really changed and does more sophisticated roles and its works out a lot better (at least I think so).
I have a good space between each group of movies so expect the reviews for Open Windows, I Origins and Cybernatural and tonight’s in the next few days 🙂
2) LEMON VERBENA & its flowers
I may or may not have talked about before in my many gardening posts but my lemon verbena had little bug issues and thats why its now living outside for the summer. It bloomed some cute littler flowers in the middle of the week when I went for a miniature gardening maintenance run 🙂 Bug issues are completely gone and the leaves are perfect. These little victories (and some that will follow) makes me slowly grow more and more interested in this gardening business.
3) BIKE RIDE TO OLD MONTREAL WITH FRIENDS
Old Montreal from the Concord Bridge
Downtown Montreal from Concord Bridge
Saturday was a busy day and it all started at 9:30am in the morning when me and two friends started getting ready for our Old Montreal bike ride. I do one of these every year at least once. Its a really nice ride with amazing scenery that reminds me of why Montreal is actually a beautiful city when you put all the stupidity aside. This year, I had company, making it so much more fun 🙂
Lobster Roll
And we even got to enjoy some of those pretty famous and extremely tasty lobster rolls!
4) ATTENDING A WEDDING FOR A LONG-TIME FRIEND (that I haven’t seen in a long time)
Weddings are a super happy event. I haven’t seen this friend in ages and being at her wedding (and the bachelorette party last weekend) makes me really honored that she thought about me enough to invite me to the happiest moment of her life. She was a beauty and a princess all night in the most elegant manner. The wedding was beautiful and it was so much fun. I saw a few people and reconnected with them, and even hit the dance floor all in good fun! The restaurant even had a window and terrasse facing the fireworks.
The couple themselves was just the symbol of love. It was also an honor to be there to witness two people completely in love with each other, go through all that they’ve gone through and finally get to this step in their life. I was so deeply moved by the event itself 🙂
5) COMPLETING THE FIRST FLOOR
Office done with new lights also 🙂
Suffice to say that I talk a lot about my new house, but I think it comes with being a homeowner. I’m almost all moved in except for a few things but I figured that as we get things in room by room, we’re getting every step closer. The first floor is all done! We bought some new ceiling lights last week for the office (brighter than the previous owner’s) and with the natural light and everything, the office is looking lovely. Next weekend will be spending time arranging how all the furniture goes while my boyfriend will take care of the painting in the main floor and basement. The main floor will be the hard part as its a bit more colors and more tricky. Progress, my friends! That makes me happy 🙂
6) SUCCESS WITH THE SELF-WATERING SYSTEM
Raspberry is happily hydrated
Raspberry plants are like overly demanding and easily dehydrated babies. It wasn’t happy with one wine bottle full of water so I added another one. Then it still guzzles the water in exactly the same speed. At least, my baby here is blooming some flowers at the top and maybe it’ll be a champ and grow me some raspberries 😉
Miracle squash/zucchini growth
My mom says these are yellow zucchini so I’ll take her word for it. This baby went through a lot. Its grew from a snapped stem repaired by green tape. And then I put in a self-watering system about 10 days ago and unlike my raspberry up there with a tantrum, I came back to a sudden growth of this zucchini right there. Its telling me I love you. And I love it back because its has so many coming out. I just hope it doesn’t get tangled in its own growing vegetables. I guess when that time comes, it means it time for harvesting! YUM! 🙂
7) THE STAR OF MY GARDEN: PURSLANE!
Purslane in full bloom
Coming home yesterday to tend the garden, the happiest sight is to see everything going well and then my Purslane is looking very beautiful with its little pink and orange flowers brightening up my deck! 🙂
I’m still trying to figure out what I can do with these purslane because apparently it is a herb or edible plant. I’m interested to know what use I can do with this. I’m taking it easy though.
8) LITTLE VISITORS IN MY GARDEN!
Bumblebees hard at work!
I haven’t put my work into my front yard. But thats starting soon. However, the previous owner’s left these rather bland looking flowers from afar but along with the fluffy fern things and my flowers and whatnot in the backyard, its attracting a lot of bees. I took a neverending weeding break to try to capture them hard at work. This is the best picture I’ve taken in a while 🙂
9) DATE NIGHT WITH MY BOYFRIEND
Evening sky in Montreal
My boyfriend and I work opposite schedules so we don’t see each other very often and we don’t spend too much quality time either. With the Fantasia Festival, its my way to just not sit at home and stare at my walls and just go out and have fun. Although I saw two movies by myself already, I was happy that my boyfriend agreed to see 3 of them with me. The first one starting at 9:30pm on Sunday. We drove out and was welcomed by lovely weather and a beautiful evening sky as we drove over the bridge. Romantic, eh? And made our way to see Cybernatural. He is my best movie viewing buddy because he always automatically discusses the movie with me afterwards. Its fantastic to ponder on it in my head by myself or even talk out loud to the walls or my cat but its also nice to have an answer some times.
Joking aside, we really needed a date night! He gets a break next weekend and the week after, he’s back on double duty for being my movie date 😉
10) FANTASIA LUCK!
I love Fantasia Festival ever since I went last time. This time, my biggest worry was to not choose the right movies. I mean, I only chose one that sold out and it didn’t even sell out on the screening I’m going to. Either way, I remained confident with my choices. I honestly have to say that, although there was some small issues, overall, I enjoyed all of them. 3 for 3 sounds like a good track record and it has be all hyped up. Last night’s was the first one where it was hosted by people related to the film. Director Leo Gabriadze and I actually think the other man was the executive producer Adam Sidman. There, they also had their supposedly first live Skype Q&A session. The first to join was the writer Nelson Greaves and producer Timur Bekmambetov. After 10 minutes or so, they even brought 3 cast members (which is pretty much half of the lot). First was the two girls, Shelley Hennig and Courtney Halverson and later, Moses Jacob Storm joined in after he resolved his technical issues. Its a pretty ingenious idea and matches how technology has really changed how certain things are done. I’ll talk more about it when I review them.
To be absolutely honest, I’m just feeling so lucky! Luck isn’t normally on my side often but I make the best of what I can. It is now and I’m enjoying every moment of it!
Things are going great, my friends! I’ve been having a blast this summer!
Before I leave, here’s a lovely quote I found and here’s the article you might want to check out for 15 Quotes about Life from Children’s Books!
Happy Monday, my awesome friends!
Tranquil Dreams 