This Long Weekend

Brought Some Rays of Sunshine, Life, Musings

and a Yearning For Some Fun 😎

May 18, 2020

Wow! Who could help going out this long weekend? It was beautiful out there! The sun was shining, plants were coming out of their winter hibernation and it was starting to look a lot more like spring with green grass & leaves everywhere! Just gorgeous! It was so dismal and boring looking at these walls all the time, that it was nice just to get outside. To see neighbours across the fence and say hi, to give the dogs a bit of exercise, to see people out and about and enjoying themselves on their bikes, skateboards, rollerblades, pushing the stroller, or walking the dog/s. I didn't realize so many people lived in our area, until recently. 🏃

We got some more plants for our garden, besides the ones I mentionned on the blog the other day. This time I got some spinach, peppers, brussels sprouts and kale I believe. Plus I picked up some seeds for eggplant - they're supposed to mature in 88 days - which is less than 3 months. So they should be ready to be harvested near the end of August if I plant them now. The ones I bought as seedlings last year at a nursery weren't even half decent sized by the time we had our heavy frost last year, so they were still tiny. Apparently the seeds are supposed to produce big eggplants that can be harvested in less than 3 months after planting. So we shall see.  🍆

It looks like I'll be planting at least one full garden if not both this year, starting tomorrow and ending whenever I finish. But as I'm super susceptible to heat, and as we have only 2 seasons (winter & hell)  here with a couple of days of mild temperatures inbetween, I don't have much time for planting or doing much of anything without being severely affected by the heat. So it'll get done, when it gets done. 🌿

Normally this long weekend in May we'd be buying our plants to plant and if I didn't decide to plant them right away, we'd be going out to do things, like sight seeing, visiting friends or family, having BBQs, or looking for something fun to do, like going out to see a movie, or if there was a midway around, spending a couple hours and dollars there having fun (well it was mostly me having fun, because my husband's "too tough & cool" for that).  😆 Hey, what can I say? I'm still a big kid at heart. It was more fun when the kids were around because we had them as the excuse to indulge in things like that and to accompany me on the rides.  This year though everything's closed up tighter than childproof medicine bottles.  🎢

So the only "fun" to be had is of our own making. So other than buying the plants and taking a little drive and picking up a take out meal, that's it, but it doesn't quite do it. So I think I'm going to try to indulge in more online fun. Won't you come along with me? 🎥 🎶 🎪 🎨

Hit the World's Best Beaches With These 360-Degree Virtual Experiences Who doesn't love beach vacations? Being from NS myself and a few minutes walk away from an oceanside beach, growing up, I was spoiled. I love everything about the beach oceanside, or not, even fresh water lake beaches are fine. I love the whole experience of watching the tide come in, swimming, watching the tide go out, combing the beach for seashells and digging for clams, building sand castles, getting buried in the sand up to my neck, or just lying still on a towel soaking in the sun's rays. Of course the tide, seashells and clam digging won't be a feature from fresh water lakes, but if there's sand, sand castles and being buried in the sand is still a possibility. Kids and teens generally like to also play badminton, volley ball and dodge ball on the beach as well. Then there's making a day of it, and bringing a picnic to have on the beach blanket as well. Going to the beach (any beach) has always been one of my favourite things to do as I love swimming and all the rest of it as well. 🏊

ORBIT - A Journey Around Earth in Real Time [ 4K Remastered ]  Now how about this out of this world tour!?! It's an orbit around the earth in an hour & a half's time. I would imagine this virtual tour was made aboard the space station by one of the astronauts. Who is to be thanked for providing such a unique experience. It's probably the closest and only chance us mere mortals will ever have to orbit the earth without paying mega bucks to go up there personally. Now this alone will probably make up for everything being closed up tighter than childproof medicine bottles. 🚀

FLYING OVER NORWAY (4K UHD) 1HR Ambient Drone Film + Music by Nature Relaxation™ for Stress Relief  Music for stress relief included. Who doesn't need that these days? I chose this northern country to visit virtually because my ancestors from centuries ago are said to have been from there. So being the curious type I wanted to see why they'd leave there and head to other parts unknown (back then it was unknown to them for sure). ✈

FLYING OVER SCOTLAND (Highlands / Isle of Skye) 4K UHD Drone Film + Healing Music for Stress Relief You guessed it, if you guessed this was because my ancestors were from here, given that I'm from NS and my ancient ancestors were of Norse origins. Curiousity kills this cat and only satisfaction will bring it back. ✈

(4K) Breathtaking Colorful Birds of the Rainforest - 1HR Wildlife Nature Film + Jungle Sounds in UHD

Who can resist such bright beautiful plumage  as found on these birds? 🐦

5K African Wildlife - Kruger National Park in South Africa - 1.5 HRS Now let's go on a visual African Safari, while relaxing watching the animals. 🐘

The Kingdom of Bhutan. Aerial 360 video in 4K A mini exotic vacation in Bhutan. 🌏

360 video, Greenland. Island of Icebergs. 4K aerial video This would be a nice place to visit on one of those devillishly hot days coming up. Too bad we can't actually feel the cold through this video, that would be so awesome if we could. Then I'd be playing it all summer long. ☃

Detian Falls, China & Vietnam border. Aerial 360 video in 5K Another mini excursion in virtual 360 to some pretty water falls bordering China & Vietnam ⛰

 360°, The Golden Ring of Russia Air-Balloon Festival. 4К aerial video  This is mostly for blog visitors more than for me. I went up in one of those balloons. Many Canadians will know it as the Re/Max balloon. Once was enough - more than enough actually for me. I couldn't wait to get back down on the ground, because I kept feeling like I was going to fall out of the basket, because that's what it is. A basket, with the sturdiness of an actual basket made out of reeds under your feet. There's no solidness there. Then to top it off, the basket isn't even waist high and I'm not exactly the tallest person out there. So I spent my entire time clinging for dear life to one of the ropes that attaches the basket to the balloon itself, hoping I didn't fall out, before we got back down on the ground. I have lots and lots of opportunities given to me (that I would never be able to afford if I had to pay for them myself) and that one was the scariest. I was too busy trying to remain in the basket to enjoy anything to do with it. So never again, for me. But there are those who love the whole experience, to them, I say whatever turns your crank. 🎈

 360°, Carnival of Venice, Italy. 4К video In this virtual video experience you get to glide through the canals on a gondola, on your way to the carnival. The gondola trip is rather relaxing to watch. 🎭

 360°, Eruption of Plosky Tolbachik Volcano, Kamchatka, Russia, 4K aerial video Have you ever wanted to take a helicopter trip over a live volcano? If you have but didn't want to risk your life doing it, you can safely experience what it must be like here. 🌋

360°, Northern lights in Norway, 12К video

If you like the Northern Lights you'll like this video. Though I think it would've been nicer filmed in real time, for a half hour or so. So those who've never seen the northern lights can see how they really shimmer and dance in the sky.  🌌

China, Colourful mountains of the Zhangye Danxia Geopark, 12K aerial 360 video Very pretty mountainous area that I never knew about before. ⛰

St. John Trunk Bay in VR on the Rocks  A very pretty little beach on the Virgin Islands. ⛱

South Africa - Safari in Kruger National Park in 360 VR  Take a ride through Kruger National Park and see the animals.

Greece - Scooter ride Rhodos in 360 VR Virtual 360 degree scooter ride along scenic coastline and through villages 🚴

Experience Athens 360 video- A walk around Acropolis If you've ever wanted to visit Athens Greece, you can pay a virtual visit via this interactive video. 🏦

Ship Cemetery in Truk Lagoon in 360 format, Micronesia. 8K underwater video  Those who like scuba diving might enjoy this interactive virtual video. 🚢

Animals of Galápagos archipelago, Ecuador. 360 video in 5K I love those giant galapagos turtles, that's why I wanted this 360 virtual video. 🐢

Sahara Desert, Algeria. Aerial 360 video in 5K It's just curiousity about the desert, navigation through it, living surrounded by it etc, that induced me to try this video. 🐪

Hong Kong. City of Skyscrapers. Aerial 360 video in 4K If you've ever wondered what it was like in Hong Kong, but were never able to go and see it for yourself, this will give you a glimpse into it. 🏢

Jurassic World The Ride Front Seat (4K POV) Universal Studios Hollywood This might substitute in some small way for the missed midways this year. 🐲

[4K POV] NEW Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance Ride FULL EXPERIENCE (Pre-Show, Transport Ship, Ride)  Missed midway fill-in. 👾

Simpsons Ride - Full Experience at Universal Studios Florida This is something we'd have a hard time dragging our daughter away from, for sure.  💬

Studio Tour, Universal Studios Hollywood Instead of a midway, how about a tour of a movie studio lot? 🎬

VR180 Virtual Dive Great Barrier Reef | Underwater 5.7K for Oculus Quest Another virtual tour for divers - this time off the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. 🏊

Wild Dolphins VR / 360° Video Experience Maybe like an old friend of mine, you've always wanted to swim with dolphins. If so, this might give you somewhat of an idea of what that might be like. 🐬

Meditation VR - Temples of Angkor Wat in Cambodia (6K 360 VR Video)  Of course you can always meditate with this virtual tour, or you can virtually visit the Angkor Wat temples.  🙏

Cancun and Maya Temples in Mexico Guided Tour (360 VR Video) A scenic tour of Cancun and a visit to Mayan Temples in the area. 🗿

Discover Bangkok: A Guided City Tour (360 VR Video) Check out the beautiful temples while taking the tour.  🌇

It's Saturday! Time For Fun, & Good Food!

March 28, 2020

As our gov'ts have pretty much grounded us and we're not allowed out even on weekends, I've spent the day in my jammies and wandering the net, finding all sorts of fun & interesting things, from free epub and pdf books to fun videos and interesting articles. Like anyone else in this situation, I'm starting to go a little stir crazy, because the weather is still not good enough for planting yet. In fact we still have some snow in our yard, so I have to wait for that to melt at least, before I can go out and survey the damage the winter left, and clean it up. So since, I'm needing things to keep me occupied until then, I've been browsing the net, doing some reading, playing games on my iPad that a friend gave me. My daughter-in-law downloaded a few games for it for me including Sims Free Play and I used to love the Sims on the computer when my daughter got me hooked on it. So I've been killing a lot of time that way. But, today I decided to do something a little different by just randomly browsing the net, here and there and came up with a lot of interesting sites, some of which I'll talk about here, so others can fritter away their more lonely and bored moments too, if they wish. In any case, it'll serve at least as a back up bookmark file for me.  😉

Having talked about planting in the paragraph above, I found a link to a gardening site that might be of interest at Seed Savers How to Plan a Garden
It's an American site and so a lot of the vegetables I listed on my page about growing vegetables in SW QC is missing. Cantalope, for one doesn't seem to be there, several herbs and some other veggies aren't there either. For the most part though it seems to be pretty good, at least the basic information for beginning gardeners is there.


I was killing myself laughing watching a few funny pet videos this afternoon. I'm not sure if it's because I was laughing so hard or if it's the sound of the barks, growls, howls, meows etc that attracted Sweetie (our dachshund) to want to come and sit with me and watch too, but she sat on my lap and snuggled against my shoulder while watching some of these right along with me:

Adorable dog moments  - not only Sweetie, but my husband watched this one with me and thought they were pretty funny too.

These next 4 links are to YouTube "Funniest Dogs & Cats" videos:

Funniest Dogs & Cats Video 1
Funniest Dogs & Cats Video 2
Funniest Dogs & Cats Video 3
Funniest Dogs & Cats Video 4

Now I know that I and a lot of others are wanting to learn how to do new things with the free time we all suddenly find ourselves with, from developing current hobbies to learning new ones and cooking or baking and just learning new stuff for the sake of it (like a history buff that I know who loves learning new things about history). Or religious people wanting some religion related material to further their studies with. Or just wanting to enjoy the old classical literature and fairytales. I found sites of interest there too.

As previously posted one of the largest and oldest libraries on the internet with books in several languages dating back to the antiquities of all genres is Project Gutenberg

This site claims to have 50,000 free books, but I don't know what sorts of books those are, because my previous foray into that site left me wanting. I was looking for cookbooks and all I could find were ancient cookbooks using obscure equipment, measurements and language (like old English for example), so I don't really know if the "free" books there are worth any more than that or not, but maybe for a future excursion there when I have more time to kill, I'll mosey on over to Many Books.

The following sites have several genres of books and magazines, including novels, science, medicine, cooking, do-it-yourself, computer related, crafts, religion, and more in pdf, epub, azw3, mobi, etc . You're sure to find something of interest at one of these sites.

Ebook3000
Ebookee
Free Bookspot

Dinner Time

Dinner tonight consists of Souvlaki on Pita, but it can be served on rice if no pita or tzatziki sauce is available. It can also be skewered and grilled on the BBQ as a kebab and then served on pita or rice. Either grilling or frying the meat is acceptable. It's one of the simplest and quickest meals possible. Perfect for a lazy day. All that's required is marinating the meat cubes a couple hours beforehand and the marinade is super simple:

1-2 lbs 1 inch pork cubes - depending on desired servings - should feed 2-4 people
1/2 cup oil
1 Tbsp greek seasoning or Souvlaki seasoning
juice of 1 lemon

Combine all marinade ingredients together and then pour over meat, making sure to coat as much of it as possible. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours before cooking.

To make a souvlaki on pita, you simply spoon the cooked meat into the middle of a pita bread down the center, top with chopped onions, tomatoes and tzatziki sauce and fold pita together to form sandwich.  Otherwise just use it with rice or oven fried potatoes (with a squeeze of lemon juice on the potatoes and/or rice), with cooked spinach for a full course meal.

If you don't have tzatziki sauce you can make your own using this recipe: Tzatziki Sauce Recipe

If you're stuck at home as we all are, and need pita bread, you can use the recipe for Peppy's Pita Bread

If you're lacking the seasoning perhaps you can making your own mix using this recipe for Greek Seasoning Blend

Or if you would prefer to try to find another seasoning blend that you can make at home, all of their homemade spice blends can be found here: Homemade Spice Blends

A few more cooking related links to try to help you make the best of the food you have on hand to make delicious meals and stretch it as far as possible, since we don't know what's happening from one minute to the next these days and how soon it'll be before we're all locked down and no one can go anywhere, and having to stretch our food we have on hand for as long as possible.

All Recipes
Delish - Recipes Party Food & How Tos
Life Made Delicious
Canadian Living Food Section
SAQ's Cocktails Recipes
Crosby's Molasses - lots of recipe booklets & recipes
Schneider's Recipes
Saputo Recipes

All the Canadian sites listed from Life Made Delicious on down, probably have a French option as well. So for French speakers who'd prefer the recipes in French, you can probably get them in French by clicking on the Fr/French option.  All Recipes and Delish are both based in the US so I don't know if they have other language options, but I'm pretty sure the others do have at least an English & French option.

Here's hoping your Saturday was just as interesting if not more than mine was! Talk to you again soon.