A few months ago I bought my first french coffee press. A lime green Bodum.


Let me tell you... the coffee you brew in a french press is the richest boldest best tasting coffee ever! I go to Starbucks to get a bag of their Pike Place Roast, which they grind for free for a french press. (or any other coffee machine you own.)


I've used drip machines over the years, but the french press brewing method comes closest to tasting like you got your cup of coffee straight from a Starbucks Barista! It's very fresh, rich and bold tasting coffee. I love it! Plus it's an easy/affordable way to get my gourmet coffee fix at home!

And it's so easy to do. You heat some water, while the water is heating you put your scoops of coffee grinds into your french press. Then you pour the hot water directly into the pot with the grinds and you let it sit for about 5 minutes. Then you press down on the plunger of the french press and tada! Fresh hot coffee! The metal screen/strainer keeps any grinds from getting into your cup when you pour.

How do you brew your coffee?

(I got my french press at Target for $19.99 but Amazon.com is also selling the same model for the same price!)



(I do use Amazon Associates, but not because I've made any money- because I haven't! lol! But I like that I can show a picture/link with a product when I'm blogging. Plus I do recommend Amazon.com for their low prices. That or Ebay!)

Since it's October 1st today I decided to put on the Sally Hansen Salon Effects in Spun For You. They are hard to find in stores so you might have better luck getting the Halloween designs on Ulta! (I just ordered 1 more of the spiderwebs & also the red/black design).


(And thanks Shannon for letting me know they had Halloween Designs out!)

I found the Coffee-Mate Pumpkin Spice creamers on Friday, so I broke one of those out today! (and froze the other.) Yum! It's definitely fall now! :-)

 

Yesterday was the 1st day of fall, one of my favorite seasons. Unfortunately it did not feel like fall AT ALL. There was 94% humidity and it was sticky, humid and rainy. I'm very much over hot and humid weather. It's been an unusually HOT spring/summer this year. I'm ready for cooler weather, hoodies, jackets. Hot pumpkin spice latte's!

At least the stores are stocking with fall and halloween items already! Picked up some baby pumpkins yesterday at Giant Supermarket. I love baby pumpkins! I got 2 orange and 1 white one this year. For some reason though it turned into a real hassle during check out... it took 2 clerks & a manager (who all appeared annoyed) to ring up my 3 for $2 baby pumpkins?! Really?! Sheesh...

I use Retro Camera for Android

I also found one of the new seasonal creamers from Coffee-Mate! Brown Sugar Maple Latte. I had some this morning, it's good. I love maple syrup and it has that flavor.


Shannon posted on my Facebook the other day because she found Halloween Sally Hansen Salon Effects designs! They are too cool looking! She found hers at CVS, so I checked 2 CVS's on Friday. I got the skull ones & there was only 1 silver spiderweb one left! I had a $1 off coupon, but CVS must double coupons because I got $2.00 off my purchase and $5 in coupons for my next visit! (The clerk at CVS was checking out my nails too- hahaha. I had Sally Hansen Insta Dri: Lightning with OPI  black shatter over it. She had never seen the crackle polish in person!)

Photo Credit

So excited to wear them in October! If you haven't tried the Salon Effects- do try. They last 2-3 weeks without chipping! And when they do chip, they start chipping at the base of the nail, not the tip. They are awesome!

I hope everyone had a nice holiday! I had off from work on Friday so Thursday night I baked butter thumbprint cookies using this recipe. I made some with strawberry preserves and others with milk & dark chocolate Hershey kisses. The strawberry preserve ones turned out amazing! I want to make more sometime with strawberry and raspberry preserves.

My Anniversary & Christmas gifts arrived from my husband. He sent me a Hello Kitty wallet. I wanted one from a cheap stall in the Philippines but he got me a nice one from the Sanrio store over there. A little stuffed mouse and a jade bangle, but unfortunately my pretty bangle doesn't fit. :(


Decorated the rat cages this year for Christmas with some Dollar Store decorations. (All of the pictures are here.)

(The ratties got yogurt raisins and yogies for Christmas!)

Christmas eve I stopped up to visit my cousin Jessica & drop of Christmas gifts. Christmas Day went with the family to the Chinese Buffet. This was the first year we did that and I think we're going to every year now. We had a light dinner exchanged gifts and watched movies on Netflix. I signed up for the free 30 day trial but I think I'm going to keep it because it's only $7.99 a month and I don't really watch TV at all so it's nice to be able to watch movies on my laptop. Plus we can stream through the PS3 to our TV.

My parents got the cat and dog Santa outfits for Christmas. My Dad's dog was excited about it but our cat Tansy was pissed!

Tansy

Homer

Ivy (She's a big squish hehe!)

I got lot's of stuffed animals for Christmas, haha. I've always wanted sock monkey's! And I got a Panda Pillow Pet and a "Pillow Pet". Hehe! I also got a Kangaroo Keeper for my purse and some supersized Dr. Pepper lip balms. Ooooh and a huge bag of Starbucks ground Christmas Blend Coffee! (The best!)


Don't forget to enter my Holiday Giveaway! Deadline is December 31st, 2010!

May not have work tomorrow. A snow blizzard started this afternoon and it's supposed to snow into Monday. We may be getting 8-12 inches of snow. I really hope they close work because so far the trains are delayed by almost 40 minutes and some bus service has been suspended. The mayor of Philadelphia declared a snow emergency that will last until 1pm Monday. Let's hope this is the only major snow storm we get!

My cousin Jessica & I went to see The Nutcracker at the Philadelphia Academy of Music today!

We woke up quite early and hit Starbuck's before our train downtown. Finally tried the Gingerbread Latte. (Still love the Peppermint Mocha though!) Our train stopped at Suburban Station.

We had an idea of how to get to the Academy and there was a "map" on our printable tickets so we set off down 16th street. After we walked about 2 blocks we thought it might be better to stop in a nearby hotel and make sure we were going the right way. The security guard pointed us in the direction we wanted to go. After a little while we were still a bit confused we weren't running into the street we needed. We stopped in the The Art Institute of Philadelphia to ask at the front desk. The lady there gave us much better directions! We were only about 3 blocks away from Broad street! It was freezing out today too! Only around 36F! (2.22C).

The ballet was great! It was 2 hours long with an intermission. Everything was beautiful- photography wasn't allowed during the show but I got some pictures of the theater during intermission. The chandelier was gorgeous! It would actually raise up into the ceiling during the show and lower during intermission.

Philadelphia Academy of Music:






After the show we headed back to Suburban Station to catch the 1:35pm train because my other cousin Chrissy, Jessica's sister was visiting from Georgia with her husband and we wanted to meet them for an early dinner.

On the way back- City Hall in the distance:


Oooh we saw Tiffany & Co. on Walnut Street, but we didn't have time to go in and browse. I sooo want something from Tiffany's someday from their $100 & under section online, hehe.



We also saw Love Park across from Suburban Station but didn't get to visit this time around.


After we got back on the train we headed up to see my cousin & her husband. We went out to Chili's for dinner. Had a really long but nice day! And fun getting to play tourist in my own city again, lol!

Our work campus finally made the big downtown move. We are near 30th Street Station now. (Patty- all your NYC tourist stories- I have one! We were walking along & some guy was telling his wife or female friend, "Yeah they got rid of 30th Street Station years ago!" What the?! Obviously he hasn't been to Philadelphia in years because I've been through there every day this week for work!)

I am not liking commuting so far but I don't really have a choice. Driving home in Center City Philadelphia traffic would probably take longer than the hour I'm on the train. My biggest peeve is the train being late to or from work. Or switching tracks at the last minute. I guess eventually I'll get used to it. It's just I've been spoiled. I've been driving since I was 16, I've never really taken public transportation. My commute to work for the past 8 years was only a 10-15min drive! So having to commute an hour each way every day is something that's going to take awhile to get used to.

In other news- my back is so much better! The 1 week of bed rest and steroid's made everything heal up quickly. I'm still a bit stiff in the mornings and at night but I'm pretty back to my old self. And all the walking with commuting now has definitely healed & strengthened my back. I'm just happy to not be in pain anymore. I'm stubborn about going to doctors and I usually wait much longer than I should before I will go.

And because it's my 1 year anniversary tomorrow and Christmas is next week! I wanted to do a Holiday Giveaway for all my blog readers!

I will be giving away 2 Bath & Body Works products. Twisted Peppermint Handibac lotion and Winter Candy Apple Pocketbac Gel, 1 sample sized package of Starbuck's ground Christmas Blend coffee (I am in LOVE with this coffee people, it is so bold & rich!) and also a cute Christmasy pen!


This giveaway is open internationally & also to family & friends. All you have to do to enter is leave a comment telling me:

What is your favorite Christmas food, candy or drink?

For extra entries:

-Follow my blog on Google Friend Connect. (You can find the 'Followers' link under 'Contents' on the right hand sidebar. If you follow already you automatically get an extra entry if you answer the mandatory question). 

-Follow me on Twitter: @tunaynamahal82 (Include your user name in the comments. If you follow me already you automatically get an extra entry if you answer the mandatory question).

-Tweet about this giveaway (Include your link in the comments).

Giveaway Ends: December 31st, 2010.12AM EST.

And yes, I am pushing the Twitter thing. Why? Because if it helped me win a giveaway it might help you too. ;-)

Every time I've made iced coffee at home, it's pretty much sucked, lol. Then I became obsessed with the cold liquid creamers from the supermarket like Coffee-Mate and International Delight. So many different flavors! (Trying to cut back on Starbucks, lol!) I decided to give another go at making iced coffee and finally came up with something that is close to coffee house iced coffee!

What you will need:

1. 16-20oz glass.

2. 8oz cup of hot instant coffee (I prefer Maxwell House.)

3. 3-4 packets of sweetener (I use Sweet & Low.)

4. Flavored Liquid Creamer. (Whichever flavor you prefer.) I usually use Coffee-Mate Hazelnut, Peppermint Mocha, or in this picture International Delight Hershey's Chocolate Caramel.

5. Ice (Obviously, lol!)














I fill my 16-20 Oz. cup with ice just a little under halfway. (See picture above). Then I add my liquid creamer to the top of the ice. I usually use 3-4 packets of sweetener. Double what I put in a normal cup of coffee.

You need more creamer and more sweetener for iced coffee, because the ice will dilute everything. That's the trick I discovered to good homemade iced coffee! (I don't prefer regular sugar because it is not as sweet as the sweetener.) Toss the sweetener in with the ice & creamer.

Make a 8oz cup of instant coffee. You will be pouring the hot coffee over the ice, creamer and sweetener. It will melt most of the ice, but once you stir your coffee it will be cold! Enjoy!

It’s already Wednesday December 16th here at 2am. (My blog settings are still on my home time.) We are down to just 3 days until the wedding… and even though I’ve been in the Philippines 3 weeks now, it’s the week of my wedding I come down with a cold!!!

Sunday afternoon my nose started running and by the evening my throat was really sore. F.B.’s dad had some leftover cold medicine so that held me over until we could get some more medicine on Monday. Early Monday morning F.B. went to the grocery to get me some Gatorade and menthol cough drops. (Menthol candy here in the Philippines!) Today my nose has just been running & I've been sneezing!!!

Monday we had to go to the Cainta municipal hall to pick up our marriage license. We dropped it off at the mayor’s office for our wedding on December 19th. I also mailed some Christmas cards and we picked up more cold medicine, soup and Listerine at the grocery. We went to Robinson’s Galleria that evening and had dinner at Tokyo Tokyo and Starbucks afterwards… hot coffee feels so good on my throat right now!

Last Saturday we went to Mall of Asia in the afternoon and had lunch at Chow King. I discovered I could get the Peppermint Mocha as a light blended frappucino, yay! F.B. had a toffee nut frapp.(These pictures are especially for Shannon! Sorry, lol!)

Afterwards we met up with F.B.’s parents at the Manila Hotel so we could confirm the reservations, etc for the wedding buffet dinner on December 19th. I was happy because there was free wi-fi at the hotel. I recently had to pay my cell phone company an exorbitant amount of money for blackberry roaming charges, blah. So now I can only use internet on my phone when there’s free wi-fi.

Some pictures of the Manila Hotel:

I thought I would share what our invitations look like all done up:

And these are the favors we are giving away at the wedding. They are in heart shaped boxes. It’s a keychain with our wedding date and an American flag on one side and a Philippine Flag on the other. (A big thank you to F.B.’s family for all of the wedding planning, reservations, favors, etc!)

Our titanium wedding rings!

After the Manila Hotel we decided to go to Trinoma Mall for dinner but it was sooo mobbed with weekend Christmas Shoppers that we just ended up at Big R near F.B.’s house for dinner. We tried a new Japanese restaurant named ‘Kitaro’. I had a chicken teriyaki meal and F.B. had “yakiniku” which was a beef meal. (I told him it looked like Philadelphia cheese steak meat without the cheese!) We also had our favorite sushi, California Maki. Which is just cooked crab meat & mango, mayo. (The USA version has avocado instead of mango.) Kitaro’s had little fish eggs on top too, but it was really good. We will definitely be having dinner there again sometime.

I got some more keychain mice at the 85 Peso store in Robinson’s Galleria. I’ve got a whole collection now!

We also found these weird sunglasses there- I bought them mainly because F & I thought the the “English” on the package is hysterical. I think I may have to submit them to Engrishfunny.com. (Click to make the pictures larger.) Most all of the items from the 85 Peso store are from Japan.

F.B. was excited to have Ruffles the other night, he hasn’t had any since before the flood. I was excited to find plain Snyder’s Pretzels at SM Marikina’s supermarket! (Since I'm still doing my pre-wedding dieting. Which is mainly no junk foods and smaller portions.)

F.B. likes to create sandwiches. Here’s his 3 layer salami sandwich from last week! He and my brother Seth will definitely get along; Seth likes to make 3 layer sandwiches too.

Mugwort was hanging out in front of F’s house the other night he made himself at home on the decorative stone.

Dinner at Gerry’s Grill last week:

Just hanging out at the house:

Saturday morning 12/19 we will be getting married at the Cainta Municipal hall by the mayor. (Which means at home in Philadelphia it will actually be Friday, 12/18 at 9pm!) Around 2pm we will have to check into the Manila Hotel. We are staying 2 nights as a gift from F.B.’s parents. 6pm-10pm will be our wedding dinner. It’s going to be a long day so I will probably be doing a blog sometime the week after the wedding. You can always check my Facebook page for more current updates!

NOTE: If you are getting married in the Philippines and you are a US citizen these requirements from the US Embassy in Manila Philippines, will be helpful: Getting Married in The Philippines.