Last week I had difficulty falling asleep before midnight but I found an excellent way to fall asleep.

1. Close my laptop at 10:30pm
2. Read a book in my cozy bed

within 20 min, I’m ready to go to bed. See- I’m the type of person who can never sleep in. I usually get up before 7am without an alarm clock. This applies to weekends, vacation days, summer holidays, you name it. I don’t like lying in bed when I’m not sleeping either. When I get to bed I fall asleep almost instantly and when I get up, I get out of bed equally right away. I utilize this side of me and used it to make myself go to bed early and it worked out marvelously!

After a good night of rest, my head is so much clearer and I focus better at work. I feel good, too! Such a win-win situation, don’t you think? Not only I get to catch up on my reading as well. During school I never seemed to find enough time between classes, group projects, social life, and work. I thought this situation would improve once I start an adult life. Now that I work full-time, I’m disappointed to report that my reading hasn’t expanded as much as I hoped. But now I have a way to make reading my daily routine.

Currently I’m reading Walden by Henry David Thoreau and Yalta:Price of Peace by S.M.Plokhy.

Walden- I feel I’m a little lost so far as to where the author is going:) But definitely a good read whenever I feel tired of this busy city life.

Yalta- I’m thoroughly enjoying it. I took courses on Russian history from late 1800s to all the way up to the collapse of the Soviet Union (and a bit of aftermath), Fascism in Europe, as well as on Jewish history during my university years. As a commerce graduate, from time to time I felt my major to be a little dry and superficial. I appreciated what I was learning but I needed more from my university experience than just balancing debits and credits. To me, these three courses were an oasis. It really brought out the emotional side of me, made me think of human nature as I often placed myself alongside of the individuals from the past events and thought about what I would do if I were them. I don’t want to lose my curiosity and passion to learn history. So I’m glad that I found this book.

Hope everyone is having a great saturday morning!

Don’t get me wrong. I love Starbucks. I like the atmosphere, its omnipresence (there are three in 3 minute walking distance from my place and work), the consistency, and free wireless, etc. I’ll probably be going to Starbucks more than I go to any other places. But for this coffee date and for many more to come, Mandy and I agreed that we need to branch out and explore more of Toronto’s hidden gems rather than relying on the international chain for our daily caffein dose. So here was our first stop- the Bulldog Cafe just off Carlton street in the downtown core.

I couldn’t believe how close this place was as it was less than a ten-minute walk from my place. The cafe was small, warm, and bustling with neighbourhood charms! The cool-looking baristas certainly added to the magic as well. The menu wasn’t as diverse as Starbucks but I didn’t expect it to anyway. I ordered soy chocolate chai latte and Mandy’s pick was something mint latte (I don’t remember!) But I thought latte with mint flavour was pretty cool!

The baristas drew us cool latte arts with chocolate syrup:) cute!

Over coffee we chatted about our work, books, relationships, New Year’s resolutions, and all kinds of random things, including how to use ‘Bump’ app in our Iphone. It’s always nice to catch up with her. She is the type of person you walk away inspired and feeling warm. We decided to make our coffee date a monthly event, each at a new local coffee shop. Another thing to look forward to this year.

On this nice, relaxing Sunday morning I started it with toasts and Sarabeth’s plum and cherry jam I just bought on Saturday. I’ve heard so much about their jam and I really wanted to try it. The jam was very fresh and full of flavour rather than tasting like sugar and pectin in jams I normally buy.

This weekend has been truly relaxing so far. I’ve loved every minute of it. I got sufficient amount of sleep, worked out, read books, watched shows (they’re back!), hung out with good friends,and ate good food. What more can I ask! Hope everyone’s having a nice first weekend of 2012!

I moved again a few weeks ago. I found myself still getting this weird feeling. Excited but detached, ever missing my hometown, and people I love. I think it’s quite normal so I am trying to accept. Do I want to ‘move on’? Of course not! I am happy that I loved my experiences in the past enough to be still missing those times. It’s a very special feeling.

I hope I get to love this city.
Have you been to the CN Tower in Toronto? If I remember correctly, it’s the second tallest standing structure after the one in Dubai. It’s my first time there. My family ate at their restaurant at the top. What an amazing view! The food was just okay- nothing memorable, definitely expensive for what you get. But you get to beat the line for the elevator since the restaurant operates its own. Also, you get to enjoy this spectacular view! I would highly recommend this to all those visiting Toronto. It’s fun.

And I finished watching the last season of Gilmore Girls. It’s one of my top 3 favourite shows of all time. I watched most of the episodes or bits and pieces of each episode. Last year while I was waiting for the internet installation at my place back at school, I watched the entire seasons 2 and 3. This time I watched the last season from the start to finish- also waiting for the internet. Life san internet sucks to be sure but it helps you focus especially if you are like me and enjoy having 3 windows and 17 tabs open at the same time and actually use them all.

Gilmore Girls ends with Rory graduating Yale, finding a job and leaving her mom and her home. It’s such a witty, heart-warming story and I adore it. I think I enjoyed it even more because I could sympathize with Rory’s life.

I’m facing my own challenge right now and it’s both exhilarating and nerve-wrecking! But I’m grateful of all these amazing opportunities.

Hope everyone’s having an amazing Wednesday night. We’re on halfway to TGIF!

Currently I’m listening to Good Life by OneRepublic.

I’m also re-reading this book, which is fitting given the times I’m going through.

and this- to remember Harry and his friends’ courage and love and also to remind myself that love is the most important thing in the world.

and this- to take pleasure in Jane Austen’s delightful expressions.

I can’t forget to kiss as much as possible to our black beauty: our puppy dog who is not a puppy anymore but will always be one in our heart.

I feel much rested now and ready for new challenges. Still a bit sad that leisurely summer’s gone but my love for fall outweighs such sadness. Welcome September!

The girls arrived around 8pm. I love how it’s still bright at 8pm. Gotta love summer.
After much hugs, giggles, and occasional screaming, we headed out for a nice dinner at my favourite pizza place called Woodenheads.

I made my own pizza with marinated mushroom, boccocini and Italian sausage! Absolutely delicious. My two friends Sarah and Kristen both had some kind of vegetarian pizza with marinate mushroom and artichokes and Alex had marinated mixed mushroom salad! A few glasses of wine and hot chocolate along with our meal nicely complemented the already fabulous meal.

On the next morning, we all lied in bed, casually reading some Cosmo articles…

A nice stroll to downtown for brunch! What a perfect day.

Brunch included salmon plates, french toast and lots of coffee.

O- also bread basket:)

Dinner at a sushi restaurant.


The next morning, the girls had to leave pretty early as they all had family events for Father’s Day. After eating some homemade chocolate chip banana bread, they left! I know I’ll see them again soon but I couldn’t help myself missing them the moment they left:(

The weekend was full of sun-bathing, eating, laughing, shopping, and loving. Hope we can repeat this a few more times before summer ends. Love you girls<3

Smores cookies, originally uploaded by Vanilla Morning.

My girlfriends are visiting me from my hometown this weekend. And I am excited beyond measure. Summer used to be our time to come home and spend a few months of good time before we go off to school again–but it seems that we’ve all grown up quite a bit and we’re going off our own way even during summer.

We still have a few more days to enjoy. Even though I can’t talk to them all the time, I feel so blessed to have them in my heart every moment.

Anyway I baked these cookies for the girls. These turned out drier than I would’ve liked my cookies to be but still taste yummy. Most of all they look fun.

Hope everyone is having a sweet Friday:)

Saturday I woke up, listened to songs on YouTube all morning feeling the morning breeze through my window, went to the gym, had lunch, walked through downtown, shopping, sipping some kind of iced berry tea, went into a bookstore to avoid summer rain, came home, watched “Wives and Daughters” by BBC all night and fell asleep. Couldn’t have been better.

This morning I went to a little local cafe for the second time. It’s right across from Starbucks which I’ve been going for the last 4 years of my uni life. I’m not sure why I didn’t go there more often! There I spent the next hour or so reading my favourite book while enjoying a cup of French roast. I absolutely love this shop. I should stop going to Starbucks and start coming here instead! So this was a great find!

I can’t believe it’s Sunday night already. Another week ahead. I’ll probably go to bed early!

Hope all of you had a happy weekend:)

Is it really already Friday? And is it really almost mid-June? I celebrated this cool summer day with a few glasses of chilled white wine, listening to some of my favourite songs (gotta love YouTube), looking up recipes…It’s been awhile since I baked. I was pretty bogged down with work that I really couldn’t imagine going to ingredient shopping, actual baking, and let alone post-baking clean up!

But today is different. It’s Friday. So I decided to bake Honey Roasted Peanut Thumbprint Cookies. These cookies were so simple and lovely. The cookie base is not sweet at all. So those of you who don’t like sweetness of most cookie recipes would love these. It is really the jam on top that adds sweetness to them. So you can definitely tailor to your preference depending on which kind of jam (sugar-free anyone?) you choose.

I think I’m going to catch up on my blog reading now:) Hope you are all excited for the weekend. Have a lovely evening!

I do have one at home but since I will be spending a significant portion of my summer here, I thought this might be a good idea. I already found some really good books. I know a lot of you have read/seen Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, well that’s one of them. So much better than the movie. Especially the Italy part! I skipped the India part, so I can’t speak for that, but her adventure in Italy was a really fun story. She is a very down-to-earth person. Her honesty towards her feelings made me honest with myself while reading. O- and she is very funny, too.

I have some other ones, one about First World War and a few others by Alain de Botton. I am excited to read this weekend.

Hope you’re having a lovely Thursday evening.