Really, that's all I have to say... I flew down to Tasmania to see the family today. My bags missed the connection - yay!
See you in 2010!
Today (and indeed, every day this week) I've been baking Candy Cane Swirls, a tasty meringue-based recipe which has impressed pretty much everyone who's tried it.
TFC, I hope you can find some non-alcohol-based peppermint essence
2 Egg Whites
1/2 Cup Caster Sugar (TFC - Seriously, Caster, not Brown - just FYI)
1/4 tsp Peppermint Essence
Red food colouring
10 mini Candy Canes, Crushed
Method
Preheat oven to 100/120C (fan forced/not)
Line large trays with baking paper
Beat eggs to soft peaks, add caster sugar and beat (using electric beater) for another 8-10 minutes add the peppermint essence. It'll look like this:
Now prepare your piping bag:
fit with the 6-point flute
take a bamboo skewer dipped in the red food colouring - and draw it from one of the flute-points up the side of the piping bag. repeat for each flutepoint.
fill the bag with meringue mix.
pipe 3cm swirls on to the trays
For the record, I tried making some red&green ones (because they're more christmassy) Not a good plan - the green and red dyes mix and turn... brown. seriously unappetising - trust me.
I think I'm going to have to try some more cooking with Essences. and maybe even embedding chocolate in them... I have some ideas now about meringues.
Make heaps, they're pretty popular.
Are they serious? People need a workshop manual for that? notice that it says "16 years onwards, all models, shapes, sizes and colours."
...to upload photos of the tuna mornae. But work has blocked the compose page for vox! rotten sods.
...
...
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And right now I just don't care
Tomorrow we've got people coming for tea - I'm thinking Tuna Mornae for dinner... I'll post photos.
briefly - white sauce with diced onion, add some milk, add grated cheese, melt, add a 425g tin of tuna (drained) stir in, add frozen peas, stir till good, thinning with milk, thicken with cheese, serve over rice (pref with Corn, Peas and Capsicum)
so very tasty
First, we're happy to announce that the team has identified and fixed the issue with the YouTube conduit; you can now find and add videos from YouTube to your library and posts. As always, thanks for your patience!
The other news we have today is about a new addition to the Six Apart family: TypePad Micro, a new free level of TypePad that is streamlined for microblogging. We see a new form of blogging emerging that lives between the quick status updates of Twitter and Facebook and the long-form posts of "classic" blogging; TypePad Micro is designed to meet that need. You can read more about TypePad Micro in Chris Alden's post on the Everything TypePad blog.
A lot of the new capabilities we've added to TypePad this year were actually inspired by some of the best things about Vox: favoriting, member profiles, a dashboard to follow other bloggers, and easy ways to post content from other social media sites. But the things that make Vox different from TypePad are still there: Vox has always been -- and still is -- the best place for "friends and family" blogging, where you're in control over who sees what. TypePad, on the other hand, is built for the blogger who wants, no, craves, attention.
Do you have a passion or interest you want to share with people beyond your Vox neighborhood? If so, we'd love it if you tried out TypePad Micro. Maybe you've always wanted to start that obsessive blog that's just about waffle restaurants. Or want a place to share videos of your favorite band (Jonas Brothers, anyone? Anyone? ...). TypePad Micro's great for those topic-specific blogs. Take it for a spin and let us know what you think.
On the Vox front, our designers are working on some cool new themes (coming soon!). We'd also love to hear your thoughts about where we should take Vox in the coming year. What are the key things you'd like to see for Vox? If you've had a chance to use TypePad this year, what are the features there that we should bring over to Vox? And, if you're thinking big thoughts, how could we connect the Vox and TypePad communities in order to bring together bloggers and their shared passions? Your feedback is really important to us, so please leave a comment here, or shoot me a message.
And again, thanks for your patience as we found and fixed the YouTube bug!
~ daisy
Hi!
I'm not completely slack (well, maybe I am - but not intentionally!)
Life's been busy, there've been dogs, work and life in general to contend with, and I just haven't spent a lot of time on vox...
On the home front:
Big news - Don hit 40 last week! None of our friends were in the area on the day, so we've got a couple coming over on friday night and a couple arriving on friday night and staying for the weekend.
There are flights booked to Tassie! I fly out 2 Jan and get back on 17 Jan (starting work on 18 Jan... meh) and Don flies out 31 Jan, returning 12 Feb. His sister has had a baby (child number 8), and would like Don to be there to be godfather - ironically, Don doesn't believe in God, and has never been a father. I'm very much looking forward to seeing my friends and family there again.
The Dogs, Alva is still small, and Smokey is still gorgeous. They've developed some not-so-lovely habits though - I've had some clothes and shoes ruined, and Don's had a pair of thongs destroyed. The footwear is the larger dog - we've caught him in the act. The clothing we believe is Alva - the holes aren't big enough in diameter for smokey to have chewed them.
Also, right now I have a (I presume) drunkard over the road shouting "fuck off" and "come here" and I'm not sure whether it's into his phone, or to someone he's with - he sounds very agitated. I toyed with calling the police, but he was getting fainter, so there's not a lot of point.
Work:
I'm loving my job, I really am. The other school technician has left for a District Office job, so his has become available... I'd take it too, except that they've sent him on secondment, which means that if he's sick of his job, or he ever completes his contract and they don't renew it... I'm out. And while I'm sure Tannum would fix me up re secondment, I rather doubt that Gladstone SHS would put me on secondment, because then they have the same issues that Tannum is going to have filling the vacancy.
The people are great (in general) and I particularly enjoy my time with the Gladstone Technician. The worst thing is trying to get a staff of 90 people to do something properly. "Hmmm, if I flick this switch, I can turn off all the computers at once!" Yes, and you'll destroy all the hard drives in half the time hooray for warranty!
The enw house is going really well, it really suits us nicely!
See you soon!
"We are born as we are, but we choose our own path. Every man is born as many men, but dies as only one."
I just love stuff like this: we control our destiny to some degree, and the path we take is the one that we have chosen.
As many of you have noticed, the YouTube Conduit is not working. I am so sorry about this; I know how frustrating it is.
The team is looking into how to get this fixed and I will update you as soon as I hear something. In the meantime, not all is lost... There is a work-around for posting videos.
When you're in the Compose Screen, just click on "embed." Ignore the fact that it says "Widget" before everything because you can definitely use this to embed videos as well. You'll just need to input the embed code from the video, enter a title (if you want) and hit OK.
It might not show up perfectly in your compose screen, but when you hit "Save," your video should appear just the way you wanted it to.
Hopefully this will allow you to keep posting videos while we figure out what's happening on our end.
As always, thanks for your patience.
