Vancouver: FOOD

During the summer of 2021, every time I opened up Instagram, I was bombarded by a barrage of Instagram stories of delicious-looking food! Excitedly, I’d click on the location tag, and then be dismayed when I found that the beautiful restaurants that my friends were frequenting were all the way in Vancouver.

When we finally headed to Vancouver this past winter, food wasn’t much of a priority for us, with it being our first big getaway as a family of three. However, we still had some tasty treats, even though Claire Jr did occasionally disrupt our foodie plans.

Too Afraid to Leave the Country

Hello! I’m still here!!! I haven’t written a blog post in ages and I feel like I’ve forgotten how to do it.

Keeping with the theme of writing blog posts months after events occur, I’m finally hunkering down and recounting our first ever trip as a family of three! This vacation also marks our first time travelling since the start of the pandemic.

Don’t Go to Chillax Coffee

Cute brunch spots in York Region are hard to come by. If you’re thinking that a new cafe like Chillax Coffee is the perfect antidote to the ridiculously long lines at other Saturday morning brunch places uptown, you’re probably right, so don’t go!!!

Risen Motherhood: What Motherhood Has Taught Me So Far

If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you’ll know that I have the horrible habit of writing posts months after an event has already happened. It’s fun for my travel posts because I get to live vicariously though myself six months after having gone on vacation, but for this particular post, I’m a little sad about it! I meant to write a reflection on the first few months of motherhood and never got around to it (I guess I was busy taking care of my baby or something!), and now I can’t really remember all of the emotions and feelings that seemed to consume me during the fog of the newborn stage. Nevertheless, I want to record this in an attempt to remember, so I will try to imagine what things were like a few months ago when my baby was a completely different person and I was dying from lack of sleep!

The Second Annual Asian-Canadian Literature Challenge!

I only just wrote my wrap-up post for this challenge less than a week ago, but I’m so excited to share with you my plans for 2022’s edition of the Asian-Canadian Literature Challenge! For those who don’t know, the reason why I chose to create this reading challenge was to promote diverse Canadian literature. I decided to hone in on authors of Asian descent simply because of my own ethnic background as a Chinese-Canadian, and I love that the term “Asian” can encompass so many different identities. I read a lot of books by Chinese authors last year, but I hope to show how diverse the Asian-Canadian community is in this year’s edition of the challenge.

What I Read in 2021

It’s time for one of my favourite posts of the year: my annual reading stats! This was a pretty crazy year in general – COVID still very much exists and continues to (negatively) affect most aspects of life – but it was also an exciting year for my family as we welcomed our little baby, who will henceforth be known as Claire Jr. because I can’t think of a better pseudonym on here to protect her identity! With all of that being said, I still managed to read 54 books in 2021, which is a pretty standard number for me.

Asian-Canadian Literature Challenge: Year One is Done!

The first year of my Asian-Canadian literature challenge has come to an end! I started off the year fairly enthusiastically, reading a few books for the challenge right in January, challenged myself to read two books per prompt when Asian Heritage Month arrived in May, and then didn’t read much Asian-Canadian lit in the second half of the year and ended up not quite reading two books per prompt!

Book’d Out Nonfiction Reader Challenge

It’s late December, which means it’s time to start reflecting on the books I read during this crazy year of 2021! I have a bunch of wrap-ups that I want to post for all of the different reading challenges I’ve participated in this year. (Spoiler alert: I actually completed a few challenges?!?!)

I’ll start off with the Book’d Out Nonfiction Reader Challenge, hosted by Shelleyrae at bookdout.wordpress.com. There were three different goals: nonfiction nipper (3 books), nibbler (6 books), and know-it-all (12 books). I decided to try to fulfill as many challenge prompts as I could and just see where I ended up!

On Discharge

Am I getting too intimate on this blog?! I promise this post isn’t what it sounds like!

I’ve mentioned them before on this blog, but I am a really big fan of the First 5 app/website. I recently decided to dig into a book of the Bible that I rarely ever read: Leviticus. First 5 has it paired up with Hebrews to make it seem less daunting, and a couple of weeks into this devotional plan, I find that I’m gaining a lot more insight from this book of laws than I would have expected!

In this post, I want to talk about … the laws on bodily discharge (Leviticus 15). (Yikes!)

A Bakery in Barrie

A couple of weeks ago, Dangerous Dan and I ventured up to the city of Barrie for an impromptu day trip! (Our little girl also tagged along – still thinking of a fun pseudonym to call her on this blog!) We visited the farmers’ market, strolled along the waterfront paths at Heritage Park, accidentally walked through an anti-COVID protest while wearing our masks (yikes!), and had a delicious meal at Homestead Artisan Bakery + Cafe!