August 2015 – Page 3

Internet Addiction: Do We Have It?

August 11, 2015Health, Life, Social Media, TechnologyLeave a Comment

Today I read an article about people who were so addicted to the internet they needed to go to rehab for internet addiction. It was an extensive article and by the end of it I started to wonder if I have a type of internet addiction.

4 years ago, I wrote a post where I admitted that I wouldn’t give the internet up for $50 million. I still think that way. In fact, social media has become an increasingly big part of our lives. It’s hard to make any changes unless we decide collectively as a society. It’s now legitimately part of my paid full-time job and a tool that has helped me with opportunities, friends and adventures.

Despite this, I’ve made an effort in the past year to put the phone down whenever I’m with other people (except for the occasionally Instagram with food). I try to not to check feeds when I’m out and enjoy the company around me. I think working with social media as a profession has changed what I do personally in my off hours. I relish the time where I’m occupied with other things. At the same time, I do feel the urge and the obligation to be writing and publishing (at least this blog) every day.

What’s important though is that I know I don’t have a serious addiction and there are two main points that rule out if your internet browsing is problematic:
1) Is it affecting your school work or job?
2) Is the time you are spending on the internet affecting your relationships with people in a negative manner?
3) Does using it/not using it significantly affect your mood?

If you said yes to any or both of these things, you might want to evaluate and control how much time you are spending online.

Exploding Kittens

August 10, 2015Board Games, EntertainmentLeave a Comment

I finally received my copies of Exploding Kittens aka the most funded Kickstarter thing like ever. It is a game created by Elan Lee, Shane Small and Matthew Inman, who we all know as The Oatmeal.

I contributed more than $30 so I received both the regular and NSFW set (which is actually a great deal). I also received a mini personalized poster.

The regular deck when opened up actually meows and reveals a photo of a cat vomiting rainbows. The NSFW deck is more of a normal box but the cards in sign are legitimately ridiculous.

Can you guess which cards are NSFW?

The instructions are fairly simple. Before you even finish unfolding the instructions they recommend you just watch a video. The object of the game is to not get an exploding kitten. Here’s that video:

See it’s fairly simple and the new greatest game ever.

Our First Lego Minifigs

August 9, 2015February 21, 2016Lego/Building, LifeLeave a Comment

When I was a kid, I didn’t have much lego. They were expensive so it wasn’t something my parent’s prioritized in buying us. As an adult, I love to build (and collect) things and Lego appeals to all ages. We randomly bought some Lego Simpsons mini figures (I love the Simpsons).

Nash and I ended up with date night Marge and Smithers! But now this has started an addiction and I actually compulsively ordered the Lego Simpsons House on Amazon. I can’t wait to build it. Building things together is an awesome date idea and my order can’t come soon enough!

Crazy Beard Apple Ale

August 8, 2015Drinks, FoodLeave a Comment

I love our selection of local beers, especially when they have crazy designs like this Crazy Beard Wild Apple Ale brewed in Ottawa, Ontario.

Despite having apples, Crazy Beard is not a cider, it is a malt barely ale. The sweet apple taste does make it resemble a cider and it goes down super easy. The art might be a bit crazy but it’s super delicious!

My First Trip to MUJI

August 7, 2015August 8, 2015Shopping1 Comment

It’s not often I blog about going into a store, but I couldn’t resist this one. Japanese store MUJI had opened up last year but I didn’t follow the hype. Plus, they were so popular that they were completely out of stock for the first few months. I finally paid it a visit today because I was looking for a small shelf for my make-up. MUJI was known for having household goods that were affordable.

When I walked in, I was impressed by the “lack of branding”. It’s part of MUJI’s mission statement to not have branding slapped all over their products. They really do focus on being minimal. In the above photo, these tiny squares are actually T-shirts and towels. How a towel can fit in a cube, I do not know.

These lotions and soaps look so plain, it’s almost amazing in our North American branded world. I guess when you really think about it, their lack of branding IS the brand.

There were so many cool (but totally unnecessary things). Take this beautiful CD player you can hang on your wall for example.

My favourite section was the stationery section. They had a wide selection of notebooks, paper, pens and post-it notes shaped as cats. It was all affordable! I dragged myself out of there before I bought everything.

I did end up buying this notebook with recycled paper. The paper actually feels smooth, unlike the newsprinty stuff you get here when notebooks are eco friendly. It was only $2.50

I also purchased this random hexagon shaped pen.

And.. I did find the perfect mini-drawer for my makeup!

Tada!

More trips to Muji are in order soon.

Life is Sweet

August 6, 2015August 6, 201530 Day Challenge, Food, LifeLeave a Comment

View this post on Instagram

Bear claw + creme brûlée ice cream 😘 #nofilter #toeats #food

A post shared by Tiana Feng (@tianafeng) on Aug 6, 2015 at 5:34pm PDT

August just started and I think for this month I want to continue the optimistic outlook on life that I strove for in April. My life is sweet right now and I’m happy with how things are. I have had so many adventures and there are still many more to come in the next few weeks.

Tonight, I’m just chilling and having ice cream with the boyfriend! Everything is perfect.

Building a Ferris Wheel

August 5, 2015Art, Crafts/DIY, Health, LifeLeave a Comment

I love The Bloggess because she openly talks about her issues with anxiety and depression in a rather funny manner. Not too long ago she shared how she builds random mini ferris wheels as a way to relax. So I hit up Amazon and found my own.

The set arrived in a flat envelope in the mail. It was much smaller than I thought!

Inside were two metal sheets of pieces and instructions. Everything was self-explanatory, just a bit tedious and time consuming.

It took me a while to delicately remove the pieces. There were extra parts of carts but not the main frame of the cart itself, so I broke like 6 while trying to fold them in the exact position for them to hang on the ferris wheel. Halfway through I realized tweezers made things way easier. I had bought pliers prior to receiving this, but didn’t realize everything was so tiny.

This was probably 2 hours into the project. It took a while to properly understand how to delicately fold things so that they stayed in place. Once I got the hang of building carts, I was in a groove. It was hard to concentrate on anything else while holding such delicate pieces so it was such a relaxing activity to do. To literally be forced to forget about everything else!

There may have been missing carts (because the broken ones were impossible to superglue) I thought my final product was a masterpiece! I’m super proud to have dedicated time to building something super random and actually completing it. It was the offline break my mind needed.

I totally want to do this again and am already researching other sets (there are some super geeky ones). They’re inexpensive enough to be okay with screwing one up or leaving them on the sidewalk for a child to find.

Passing 200

August 4, 2015Inspiration, LifeLeave a Comment

DSCF2228 — Here’s a random photo of Teddy to celebrate

Today is the 216th day in a row that I’ve been blogging. I zoomed passed 200 and didn’t even notice. I also happened to have passed the 200 vlog mark!. Both are amazing feats.

Last year, I never would have dreamed to even go one month blogging everyday. Now I don’t really see an end in site. When I started vlogging (though I’ve slowed down a little now) I was very camera shy and didn’t really like speaking to camera, now it comes a bit easier.

I recently read an article about how someone wrote a haiku every day for 100 days and she learned some very similar lessons as I have. I learned to put myself out there even if some posts are dumb and there are frequently mistakes. No longer do I have a notebook or lists full of ideas that went no where. I made them go somewhere, I hit publish, even if part of me thought some things were unfinished.

I’m really excited to continue doing this every day. I feel like there’s enough in me to find something everyday. You really do have time to do the thing you wish you did “more” of, whether it’s writing, drawing, reading etc. Start by setting a goal. To do it every day.

Terre Bleu Lavender Farm

August 3, 2015PhotographyLeave a Comment

Yesterday, my parents and I visited Terre Bleu Lavender farm near Milton. Unfortunately, a cold winter and late frost in May has stunted their growth so they weren’t as long and purple as they could have been.

What did grow was still a beautiful purple and spelt wonderful and relaxing. I took a tour of the facility and learnt a great deal about the healing properties of lavender.

The place has only been open to public for the past 2 years. A beautiful wooden shop acts as the main entrance.

There were a few different types of lavender for different uses, cooking, oil production etc. It takes many rows of lavender in order to create a few millilitres of oil, which explains why pure oil is so expensive!

They also had their own bee hives, which were seeing a decrease in bees due to spraying of pesticides. Terre bleu produces it’s own pure lavender honey.

After the tour ended, we had some lavender ice cream from the shop. It was delicious!

Teddy loved the smell of the fields.

Here are some more random photos and selfies.

Eating my WayHome

August 2, 2015August 3, 2015Food, StreetLeave a Comment

Who needs a food truck festival when music festivals have just as many? WayHome festival last weekend was no exception. I ate my fill of street food. In addition, Drake Hotel also had an area set up with different vendors in the VIP section with all sorts of different items. I ate my fill of things just from this section alone.

First were these fried fish and shrimp with tartar sauce. They were generously seasoned.

I refreshed myself with a raspberry icecream sandwich. It was like a smoothie in between two cookies.

This shrimp salad was a refreshing snack. I also had a watermelon feta salad that was lovely (but I wolfed it down before I took a photo of it).

Lastly they had fresh raw oyster with various dipping sauces. On the final day they had 3 for the price of the previous days so I sort of went crazy and had 12. I had never tried raw oysters before but they went down so well with their sauces (named after headlining bands of the day). Sam Smith was a sweet pomegranate sauce.

The Vitamin Water sponsored section had “clouds” that you could taste in many different flavours.

Afterwards, you were rewarded with some Vitamin Water icecream which was a bit odd.

I love Buster’s Sea Cove’s truck and I always get something every time I see it. I opted for their lobster roll which had generous chunks of lobster.

I also couldn’t resist their keylime pie in an adorable jar!

Hank Daddy’s BBQ served up this beautiful pulled pork parfait. Don’t worry there wasn’t any ice cream in it, just mashed potatoes, BBQ sauce, pulled pork and beans!

Umami Bites filled my belly with these Pork Belly Wonton Tacos.

Lastly, I had these delicious ribs from a place I can’t seem to remember the name to, which is sad because I’d love to eat these ribs again in their brick and mortar restaurant which they mentioned was on the Danforth! If you happen to know, you’d make me the happiest person.

Update: I found out through the app that it was Uncle Smoke BBQ who bring St. Louis style BBQ to their delicious meat.

I realized that I forgot to post the food of Field Trip and Bestival this year so those will be coming soon in a round-up post. Eat with you again soon!