I think a hero is an ordinary individual who finds strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles...

- Christopher Reeve (1952-2004)

Taking advantage of the holiday season, went for afternoon tea at the King Eddy with Faye and Romz last Sunday evening. What an array of good food and conversation!!! We had such a fabulous time that we'd even chatted up with the server, whose name is Kenny. We'd made such an impression that when I'd went to the King Eddy again for Christmas Eve dinner with the nuclear family, Kenny happened to be our server as well...& he remembered me and all of our names!!!

Christmas Day was spent over a lovely dim sum brunch and then we all went to see Bombshell.
I'm not going to lie, even though the movie was a good filler of interesting information and good acting (especially Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman and John Lithgow), I found it a little too fast for me. One of those, possibly see again if I'm interested (I'm not tho…).

Yesterday was a busy and full day for me!
I had been invited to join in Eugene's birthday dinner celebration but then Karen had added a games play date at Snakes & Lattes in the early afternoon, how could I refuse?

Going to Snakes and Lattes was a fun experience with Karen, Eugene, Patrick, Vanessa and Cristina! Sure, it makes sense that everyone is charged a certain amount to be present and play the games...how else is money made?

We spent the afternoon playing 'Sushi Go' and Telestration.

Not going to lie, playing these games are fun but it also helps that I had a 'Boozy Coffee' (made up of classic coffee and baileys) as well! :)

After bidding our farewells when the games finished, I hung out at the Starbucks on the other side of the street waiting for Louie to pick me up so that we could head over to 'sauga for where Eugene's dinner at Astoria Shish Kebob House. There, I enjoyed a Mousaka (made up of ground beef in eggplant, rice and potatoes), finishing off with a slice of black sesame cake that had been purchased at Maxim's!
What I enjoyed most was that even though everyone had joined the party for Eugene's celebration, Louie was ceremoniously included in a belated birthday celebration as well (he's a boxing day baby!!!), yay!!!

I suppose that with the use of imagination (or not?), this would qualify as falling under hero status!!!

A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood!

Busy busy week counting down to the end of the year...and this is our neighbourhood Eaton Centre!!!

Went to see the wonderful Tom Hanks movie, 'A Wonderful day in the neighborhood' on Tuesday with Louie. It actually worked out well as I had we'd originally planned to see it in the morning BUT due to some appointments that came up for me, we ended up catching an evening show before dinner at Wendy's.

Wednesday's big event was attending the Mon Sheong Inspired Toastmaster's (MSIT) Xmas Party!
It seems that due to the fact that it was a party evening and so close to the Christmas time, there was not enough members to attend so it became a joined celebration with another toastmasters group.

Here is Kollin as Table Topics Master. He had passed around a pocket with slips of paper with random numbers or not on it. The slips with numbers signaled the person would go up to speak.

As Raymond was lucky enough to get a number, he went up to speak on whatever he pulled out of the cute santa claus bag. It was a nice photo showing the two presidents (past and present) interacting!!!

Coming up to the end of the week, Jordan and I went to dinner at Le Montmartre French Restaurant. Starting off with appetizers! He had escargots and I had the French onion soup!

Our mains included my order of Les crevettes Natasha (shrimps in a rose creamy tomato sauce with fresh basil on a bed of pasta) and Jordon's Les petoncles sautéed a la Nicoise (scallops flambeed in pernod, served with mushrooms in a delicate curry sauce).

Dessert ended with coffee (mine had a shot of bailey's, yah!!!) and we split a mouth-watering tiramisu!!!

In regards to television shows, I've caught Gwen Stefani's You Make It Feel Like Christmas special where bf Blake Shelton also showed up with the other performers; Miss America 2020 where Camille Schrier, Virginia was crowned the winner! as well as Howie Mandel's 5th Annual All Star Comedy Gala to name a few...

A wonderful week in the neighbourhood...

Christmas is a time for giving presents to me. Plz.

I got MYSELF a present....EARMUFFS!!!!
YAAAASSSSS!!! It's been so long since I've had earmuffs! These ones are burgundy red heart ears!!!

I saw this written on a Christmas card and thought it was the perfect comment to how I hope Christmas should be for me. ;p

So this week's been really busy going to job information sessions to the TTC, interview preparation and went to an actual part-time job interview this afternoon. This refers to my subject line as well...

Which brings me to a sticky topic for me...I've been in communication with a past colleague from my most recent work employment (6 months ago) and even though they know of my situation, the fact that they continuously bring up the point of mentioning looking for another job...this is a HUGE sticking point to me. Considering I've been unable to maintain a long term full time job employment.

But here's to the upcoming year...I have positive thoughts for this!

Winter has arrived...

So, spent the night watching the Christmas tree lighting at the 87th Annual Christmas at Rockefellar Center (my main criticism is that there was absolutely NO SNOW) AND the Jann Arden - One Night Only show!

From the xmas tree lighting, I enjoyed these performances and appearances!

Gwen Stefani - Feel Like Christmas
John Legend - Bring Me Love
Neyo - This Christmas
Brett Eldredge- Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!
Idina Menzel ft Billy Porter - I got my love to keep me warm
Tina Fey & Cast of Mean Girls - Jingle Bell Rocks
Skylar Austin & Alex Newell - Christmas Baby Please Come Home
Chicago - Winter Wonderland
Lea Michele - Have Yourself A Very Merry Christmas
Miss America 2019 & Nia Franklin
Derek Hough - Sock It To Me Santa
Idina Menzel - Sleigh Ride
John Legend - Merry Christmas Baby
Straight No Chaser - Santa Claus is Coming to Town
Brett Eldredge - First Noel
Neyo - Rocking Around the Christmas Tree
Julianne Hough & Jordan Fisher - All I Want for Christmas
Chicago - Let It Snow
Lea Michele - it's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year
Jon Bon Jovi - Unbroken
Radio City Rockettes - Christmas Lights
Gwen Stefani - Dreaming of a White Christmas
Harlem Gospel Choir - Joy to the World

Jann Arden's - One Night Only show, included her singing 4 songs: Insensitive, the Devil Won, Merry Christmas and Good Mother

minor detail:

I finally watched:

- Red Nose Day, the May23rd campaign with the mission to end child poverty by funding programs that keep children safe, healthy, and educated. Hosted by Terry Crews with performances by John Legend (Preach), Kelly Clarkson (Broken & Beautiful), Blake Shelton (God's Country), Sting (If You Love Somebody), Chrissy Metz (Standing With You), Coldplay & Game Of Thrones cast doing a Musical, Josh Groban & Hope Children's Choir to name a few of the highlights!

- This is Farrah Fawcett, also May 23rd.
**It's scary watching what she went through suffering from anal cancer because it's brought back flashbacks of my own cancer battle with colon cancer and the different outcomes between the two of us. It's scary how the biggest difference is in the time of cancer occurrence and where the research is in the cure for cancer.**

"Professor vogel calls this disease a terrorist. So unpredictable. Filled with hate and powerful enough to destroy all that is good and healthy. Cancer is my own private war. The strain, the nausea, the fever takes turns challenging my strength, my mind and my spirit. I must let go of my disease. And hold on to each and every moment of my life. Because it is, after all, mine. And I want to live. So with hope and determination I hold on and go on, flying on a wing and a prayer. "
Today, I've got cancer. But on the other hand, I'm alive! So I guess I'm great. Yeah, right now, I, am GREAT. My life goes on and so does my fight. And oh, by the way, how are you? What are YOU fighting for? - Farrah Fawcett

Telestration

I haven't had such a fun evening as I had last night in such a loooooooong time!!!! There was drama...good food AND so much fun with the game played afterwards!

It all began with Louie's personal invitation to join in a Christmas gathering with his and Karen's choir friends back in October. Accepting the invitation was simply the first step. Figuring out the logistics turned into a bit of a headscratcher as due to his mass commitments, Louie and Karen had originally decided that Karen would pick me up and we would hang out at her mom's place before he would pick us up and go to the party.

Turns out that Karen's piano commitments went much longer than expected and in the end, Louie came to pick me up. The traffic was pretty slow going and we ended up meeting Karen at Gill and Ron's house at approximately the same time. Their other friends, Mary and Flo had already arrived and were having appetizers. C'est la vie...

Gill and Ron's kids, Jordan and Marcus entertained us with the piano and their own games (they're both under 10 years) before we all dug into the wonderful potluck that we'd all brought to eat!

Afterwards, due to Louie's mass commitments this morning, he had to depart earliest but the rest of us (minus the kids who went to bed) began two rounds of Telestration...a new game to me!

Telestration is a party board game in which players are prompted to sketch a word listed on a card, then guess what the other players have drawn. My two hands that I made up 'my imagination isn't phenomenal' were: The cat is in the hat, which BECAME cat in the hat with thing 1 & thing 2 as well as Dime a dozen, which BECAME pacman eating money at 10:20pm!!!

I don't recall laughing so hard in quite a long time!!! It was SUCH a fantastic evening!!! I mean, I don't think I'll play this game ever again but it was fun while it lasted!!!