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Continue to Gavalia's website

I was a customer a few years ago but I recently signed up again using a different credit card # and shipping address so I could get another coffee maker just to keep at a friend's house. I've taken to avoiding going out for coffee to save money (unless it's a social thing) as it's not hard to spend as much on a drink as the entire pack of coffee costs. I compromise by making and enjoying good coffee at home.

If you decide to continue the program and have to pay full price, Gavalia's coffee is definitely not cheap (as compared to grocery store w/coupon). However, it is good and the foil packs do keep freshness.

I was very disappointed they were out of the Dark Chocolate Truffle when I signed up the other day, but I see it's now back, so I will definitely have to schedule that for the  next shipment.

Google Wave Free invite!

I have spare Google Wave invites yay!

Figured I'd share one as a way to test blog traffic, as this blog currently less than refined work in progress.

Since invite can be used only once, this is first come first serve as it will no longer work after the first person has completed sign up.

Happy Waving!

https://wave.google.com/wave/invite?a=pre&wtok=7ab4854462cdfbaf&wsig=ABk8uhR3MwxMcp9otr4WSAZCuzoIKM1NnQ

Twilight fonts and character handwriting

Twilight series fonts

Each character has their own "handwritten" font for sending letters and notes at various points throughout the series. Below are samples with the associated book and page numbers for comparison.

Book title

Font: Zephyr

Price: $20.00 USD

Source Foundry: P-22

License: Commercial http://www.fonts.com/FindFonts/Detail.htm?pid=4345376&/cgi-bin/MsmGo.exe?grab_id=0&page_id=41357&query=ZEPHYR&SCOPE=Fonts

Format:

Windows PostScript

Windows Truetype

Mac Postcript

Mac Truetype

twilight

new moon

eclipse

breaking dawn

Other sources:

http://www.mediafire.com/?v14k0bffwgx

Bella's handwriting

Font: Pablo

Price: $29.00 USD on fonts.com

Source Foundry: ITC - International Typeface Corp. 

License: Commercial http://www.fonts.com/FindFonts/Detail.htm?pid=203882&/cgi-bin/MsmGo.exe?grab_id=0&page_id=27029&query=PABLO&SCOPE=Fonts

Format: Mac & Win OpenType - PostScript Flavor (.otf)

$25.99 USD

Windows PostScript

Windows Truetype

Mac Postcript

Mac Truetype

Bella and Edward Quotes
Sample from Eclipse (Book 3) Page 88

The pilots are passed out drunk

Easy. I'd fly the plane.

Both Engines have exploded and

we're falling in a death spiral toward Earth

I'd wait until we were close enough to the ground, get a

good grip on you, kick out the wall, and jump.Then

I''d run you back to the scene of the accident, and we'd

stumble around like the two luckiest survivors in history.

Other sources:

http://bellaandedward.com/funfonts.php

http://www.twilightsource.com/fonts.php

http://www.mediafire.com/?1jkuwopuqep

Edward's handwriting

Font: Carmilla

Price: $18.00 USD on myfonts.com

Source Foundry: Scriptorium

License: Commercial http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/scriptorium/carmilla/

Format:

OpenType OTF

OpenType TTF

Windows/Mac OS X TTF

Mac PostScript

Mac TrueType

Windows PostScript

Edward Quote
Sample from Breaking Dawn (Book 4) page 119

I'm hoping you won't notice my absence, but,

if you should, I'll be back very soon. I've just gone to

the mainland to hunt. Go back to sleep and I'll be here

when you wake again. I love you.

Other sources:

http://bellaandedward.com/funfonts.php

http://www.twilightsource.com/fonts.php

http://www.mediafire.com/?o7tijr3uljk

Alice's handwriting

Font JoeHand 2

Price: 12 € on www.joebob.nl

Source Foundry: JOEBOB graphics 

License: Commercial http://www.joebob.nl/commercial-font/joehand-2#node-78

Demo available: http://www.dafont.com/joehand-2.font

Format: TrueType

Alice Quote
Sample from Breaking Dawn (Book 4) page 558

Don't Look for us. There isn't time to waste.

Remember: Tanya, Siobhan, Amun, Alistair,

all the nomads you can find. We'll seek out

Peter and Charlotte on our way. We're so sorry

that we have to leave you this way, with no

goodbyes or explanations. It's the only way for us.

We love you.

Other sources:

http://bellaandedward.com/funfonts.php

http://www.twilightsource.com/fonts.php

http://www.mediafire.com/?zwz4dtr6ht2

Aro's handwriting

Font: Lucida Blackletter

Price: $25.99 USD on fonts.com

Source Foundry: Monotype Imaging

License: Commercial http://www.fonts.com/FindFonts/Detail.htm?pid=206336&/cgi-bin/MsmGo.exe?grab_id=0&page_id=1687&query=LUCIDA%20BLACKLETTER&SCOPE=Fonts

Format:

Windows PostScript

Windows Truetype

Mac Postcript

Aro Quote

Sample from Breaking Dawn (Book 4) page 531

I so look forward to seeing the new Mrs. Cullen in person.

Other sources:

http://bellaandedward.com/funfonts.php

http://www.twilightsource.com/fonts.php

Charlie's handwriting

Font: Asa

Price: free

Source Foundry: unknown

License: unknown/freeware http://www.abstractfonts.com/font/13584

Format:

Windows/Mac OS X TTF

Charlie Quote

Sample from Eclipse (Book 3) Page 197

He said he didn't mean it, and that

he's sorry. He wants you to call him.

Be nice and give him a break.

He sounded upset.

Other sources:

http://bellaandedward.com/funfonts.php

http://www.twilightsource.com/fonts.php

Jacob's handwriting

Font: Almagro

Price: free

Source Foundry: unknown

License: Freeware http://www.fontcubes.com/Almagro.font

Jacob Quote

Sample from Eclipse (Book 3) page 4

Yeah, I miss you too. A lot.

Doesn't change anything. Sorry.

Jacob

Other sources:

http://bellaandedward.com/funfonts.php

http://www.twilightsource.com/fonts.php

http://www.mediafire.com/?grqnsj2iu8e

Zombie cupcakes

So I finally got around to making the zombie cupcakes I saw on Flickr. 

xsomnis did an excellent job with both the photos and directions.

Craft Store Supplies:

Brain Candy Mold

Wilton chocolate candy melts in white, brown, blue and pick

Wilton "red" and "burgundy" icing/food dye

Grocery Store:

Hershey's Carmel Topping

Duncan Hines Red Velvet cake mix - 24 cupcakes/box

        (need 2 eggs, 1/3 cup veg oil, water for mixing)

Duncan Hines Cream Cheese Frosting

Muffin Tin Liners

All the supplies laid out  - ended up only making one batch though

1st layer of brain chocolate.


I don't have a double boiler but pyrex rocks and works just as well over a pot of water. Be careful not to scorch chocolate as it gets all grainy and loses form.


Mix pink + white melts for brain highlight color.




Highlight color all dabbed around the brains.





Note: each mold makes 9 brainz so you'll need 3 batches to cover all the cupcakes and you'll have 3 brains left over unless you don't fill the last mold.

Brain grey color - 20 pink, 12 blue, 4 brown


Mine looks much more grey than xsomnis did but I liked it so stuck with same ratio, maybe microwaving alters color?

Finished zombie brain molds heading to the fridge for cooling.


Excess brain matter breaks off pretty easily if it's thin so my sloppy filling wasn't an issue.

Fresh Brainz! 

Hardened chocolate zombie brains ready for blood.

Mix 1/2 teaspoon red dye with 1/3 cup of carmel sauce, adjust color with a small amount of burgundy. It's very difficult to lighten color later except by adding a lot more carmel.


Be careful the dye will stain and the blood easily gets everywhere if you don't clean it off your hands completely.

I found it worked best to smear some blood on top of the brains first, then flip brain over and spoon it on the flat side before flipping it back over on the cupcake. 




This smeared the blood more naturally than drizzling it directly onto the cupcake and plopping the brain on top.

And the final results!


A total hit at the Halloween party but better looking and more fun to make than eat.


I will opt for a homemade mix next year as box cake mix was too dry despite being the "deluxe moist"


The texture and look of the carmel sauce was perfect but just too sweet for my taste, so I will have try to find a substitute. Otherwise, I may try something completely different, such these.

Flower Pot Garden

So, after a few weeks and a period of lots of rain my flower pot garden is doing acceptably well. Hanging tomato planter has lots of green tomatoes on it, pepper plant is much taller and getting ready to bloom and herbs (chives, basil, rosemary, parsley and mint) are growing like weeds.

The zucchini has more flowers on it and less foliage than before, but none of the flowers seem to be producing and it appears to be due to a lack of pollination...not many bees in my city back yard. I'd self pollinated the tomatoes to ensure they'd fruit and it appears I have to do this with the zucchini as well. The blossoms never really seem to open which makes it difficult for nature to take its course. Instead the zucchini blooms and then nothing, the flowers fall off and die including the tiny fruit on the female flowers. I'd made the mistake of not putting any holes in the bottom of the pot and it was drowning in over a gallon of excess water by the time I came back to pour it off. Since then some of the leaves died off and it appears less leafy over all. I'm eager for some edible results.

Enjoying fresh herbs

One of the reasons I love the internet is that everything is on it...or at least most everything. I decided I was hungry for comfort food involving chicken and wanted to incorporate some of my fresh basil. I have a few cookbooks but I've found the internet a much better place to search recipes when I don't know exactly what I want.
First I tried: casserole chicken and basil
I got something slightly interesting but not what I was looking for but it had goat cheese in it, which I happen to love and actually have on hand.
Next search: basil noodles goat cheese


and voila a Cooks.com recipe:
CHICKEN BREASTS STUFFED WITH GOAT CHEESE AND BASIL

CHICKEN BREASTS STUFFED WITH GOAT CHEESE AND BASIL Printed from COOKS.COM 4 boneless chicken breast halves, skinned 1/2 c. fresh goat cheese, about 4 oz. 2 green onions, thinly sliced 3 basil leaves, shredded or 1 tsp. dried, crumbled 1 egg, beaten to blend 1/2 c. dry bread crumbs 2 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Pound chicken between sheets of waxed paper to 1/4" thickness. Pat chicken dry. Combine cheese, green onions and basil in small bowl. Season with salt and pepper. Spread chicken mixture lengthwise over half of each chicken piece. Tuck short ends in. Roll chicken up, starting at one long side, into tight cylinders. Tie ends with string to serve. Dip chicken in egg, allowing excess to drip into bowl. Roll in bread crumbs, shaking off excess. Place chicken in an 8" square baking dish. Pour 2 tablespoons melted butter over. Bake until cooked through, about 20 minutes. Serves 4.

Sounded good to me and I had everything to make it on hand, except for string to tie the chicken rolls up. I also subbed in chives instead of green onions. Since it was just me tonight I decided to only use 1 chicken breast, butterflied it in half and made two rolls using half the filling. The other half of the filling I decided would sound good put over pasta with diced tomatoes. This worked out extremely well but required more filling for the amount of pasta I used. I garnished it with yet more basil and cooked up the egg used to dip the chicken. It turns out the chicken when cut thin and pounded did not need to be tied and stayed together just fine. The chicken was good, but the pasta was excellent, I will definitely make this one again as the pasta was super quick to make.
Pasta:
Goat cheese, basil, chives, salt, pepper - amounts to taste
1 can of diced tomatoes
Stir goat cheese into warm pasta after straining and add remaining ingredients to taste.
I probably used about 4-6 ounces of goat cheese for about 2 dry cereal bowls of egg noodles. Cooked it ended up filling a 1.5 qt bowl.




The presentation of the pasta is not spectacular, so next time I might try layering the tomatoes in with the pasta or topping pasta with tomatoes after stirring in herbs and goat cheese.

Poison Ivy day 16

Among the many things my house came with, was a front hedge full of poison ivy...yay, normally I'd just pay someone to get rid of it for me, but I'm not in the position to do that any time soon and as a new home owner I kind of enjoy that I have some new and interesting responsibilities and I actually want to be involved with them personally.

Prior to taking it on, I looked it up some online. I'd never really dealt with poison ivy, but I'd seen enough friends with a case of it and knew about it in my front yard from speaking to the next door neighbor...who got a nasty case of it last year.

Having never had an allergic reaction or known exposure, there was a chance I might be fine, but given my family and personal history with allergies I was unlikely to get that lucky.

I took some suggested precautions of:

- Clothing (long sleeves, long pants and gloves) even though it was a considerably warm day

- bagged everything and tied it off, putting all the bags together in a big black trash bag to let the sun finish cooking it until the trashmen picked it up

- came back in after about 2 hours of yard work, and immediately showered and bagged my clothes

And I thought I might be ok...I'd gotten touched by a little spot on my right wrist between where the gloves ended and the sleeves started. After a few hours everything seemed ok, the next morning a few spots finally appeared on my right wrist...seemed like no big deal.

After a few days the spot on my right wrist was getting large, and nasty...I'm actually kind of amazed at just how bad a tiny amount of this stuff can be...people are afraid of what artificial chemicals can do when there are plenty of equally scary things already in nature.

At 3-4 days down it seemed the poison ivy was still spreading, I now had it scattered up and down my left arm, all across my waist and random spots on legs. According to what I'd read, the blisters aren't contagious, but the oil is persistent so clearly I hadn't washed it all off in a few days of showering, or it was getting transferred back and forth with my clothes or sheets. Even though the work clothes are still in a bag yet to be washed or even touched. 

Frustrated I enlisted the support of my friends that has had considerably more experience with the stuff. He suggested I get this stuff called Tecnu...I'd never heard of it, but it was developed to clean off radiation poisoning and that it's use with poison ivy was discovered by accident. He also suggested I get Calagel, like calamine lotion, but no telltale runny pink residue gunk. It contains Diphenhydramine (generic Benadryl), an antihistamine which locally helps calm the itch a lot, I also took Loratadine (generic Claritin) and Cetirizine HCL (generic Zyrtec) since the package specifically warns against taking any other product with Diphenhydramine, orally or topically. I also swabbed the affected areas frequently with rubbing alcohol. It helped dry up the oozing parts, keeps everything nice and clean and the sting on the open areas feels much better than the itch, in my opinion.

I still have more poison ivy to get rid of, but next time I'll be smarter.

- longer gloves so there is no gab in the long sleeves

- swab skin with rubbing alcohol after I'm done/wash definitely touched areas with Tecnu

- take a cold shower when done (my hot shower opened my pores and made it worse)

- start the Calagel and allergy meds (Loratadine or Cetirizine) at the first sign of reaction instead of days later

- do not re-wear pj's or any other clothes until level of reaction has been determined

I've also sprayed the remaining areas with Round-Up for poison ivy...I'm really not fond of pesticides, but the only other non chemical method I found was plan salt, which will just kill everything and takes longer to get out of the soil making it more harmful to the environment than the pesticides.

I've neither washed nor touched the clothes I wore while removing the poison ivy, and frankly am not excited about dealing with them at all, but I don't want to throw them out either. I think next time I might put some  cheap painting coveralls on so I have an outer layer that I can throw out.