Thursday Things

PinSave

This post may contain affiliate links.

Time for a few Thursday Things.  A few eye-catching and noteworthy items this week include:

1. Rancho La Puerta in Baja California, Mexico.  Less than 90 minutes south of San Diego.

grassy side of mountain with rocks and people

They have everything from cooking classes to spa treatments, massage, Reiki, acupuncture

Tofu and stylized foods

Yoga classes, mountain hikes, and more.

Yoga class with people standing on blue mats

Not that far from San Diego and they do have some day trips/day classes.  I’d love to try a day trip sometime in 2012.

2. Speaking of travel and trips, we leave for Aruba very soon.  Like in 48 hours

Scott just got his passport back yesterday.  His passport was coming up on the 10 year renewal and he sent it in for renewal about two months ago; which should have been ample time.  Nothing like white knuckling it down to the wire.

The beach has my name written all over it and if his passport wouldn’t have come in time, we agreed that he’d meet Skylar and I down there so that we only would have only had to change one airline ticket (his) rather than three.  Thank goodness we didn’t have to cross that bridge!

Aruba beach and ocean shore

3. I made our 2011 holiday cards already.

But if you want to make photo books, calendars, and more using you Mac, you can.

iPhoto Print Products advertisement I’m all about the gifts that you don’t have to go to the mall for.

4. Homemade Kombucha Coffee

You need to first have be brewing your own ‘booch and have (an extra) SCOBY, but this looks interesting.

Homemade Kombucha Coffee

I’m going to try it with one of my extra Scoby’s when I get back.

Kombucha in glass jar
Kombucha in glass jar

Because once you use the Scoby for coffee, they’re done and you can’t use them for brewing plain kombucha anymore.

But that’s okay because they multiply like weeds like bacteria.

Barrel with tap and glass of kombucha

5. Backup your entire computer for less than $5 bucks per month with Backblaze

More info

Backblaze online backup website information

Questions Why Online Backup? It's not a question of will you lose your data—it's when. Whether it's a catastrophic event, such as an earthquake, fire, flood, or a mad panda that destroys your computer, or the more common virus, hard-drive crash, laptop left in a taxi, or coffee spill, your PC will eventually lose your photos, music, and documents. Can't | Recover Data From a Dead Hard Drive? Not if your computer has been stolen—and rarely even if you have it. Companies charge approximately $3,000 to attempt to recover your data with no guarantee that you'll glean anything from it. For $5 per month, Backblaze online backup will backup all your data for 50 years for the price of one attempted recovery. OK, But | Bought an External USB Hard Drive. Am | Safe? It's a good start, but as our vice president of design says, “better safe than sorta safe." Do you back up your data every day? Or do you sometimes forget? Are you sure you're backing up the right files? Are your computer and USB drive stored in the same place, making both susceptible to the same risks? What if you go on a trip and leave the drive at home? You can't backup or restore files while you're gone. And if you take it with you? Then you're more likely to lose both your laptop and USB drive at the same time! So, How Am | Backed Up with Backblaze? You download a tiny application that installs in three clicks and doesn't require a credit card or any information to start using it. This internet backup application automatically finds all your photos, music, documents, and other irreplaceable files—no matter where they are on your hard drive—and compresses and securely encrypts them. When you're not using your computer, it sends them over the Internet to the remote Backblaze datacenters. Learn more about how we built Backblaze online backup for your Mac. We also built a great online backup service for Windows XP, Vista and 7. How Can You Backup Everything Online For Just $5 per Month? We have developed a highly efficient storage system that enables us to optimize how we store data. And we're counting on some people having a lot of data and others not very much, but that it will work out on average. Look, I'm an Advanced User, and | Already Have a Set of RAID Drives with Perl Scripts to Copy My Files Back and Forth Between My 18 Home Machines that are in a Datacenter I've Built in My Closet. Why Do | Need Backblaze? Congratulations! It sounds like you're passionate about backup—and so are we. In fact, you may even want to send us a note on the jobs page. But we still think you should try Backblaze's online backup because it’s automatic, will save your data remotely, and is really inexpensive. Backup, before you wish you had.

 

6. I’ve posted about this before that I back up with an external drive but recently I attempted to recover a Word Doc from an older external drive of mine.

However, when I plugged it in, realized that the Word Doc that I needed ‘was not found’.

Silver external hard drive

Panic. 

What if you spilled coffee on your computer or your laptop was stolen or you got a virus?  What would you do about your lost photos, files, music, documents, and information.  <— Panic much?

And what about when external drives fail.  Because I just experienced a failure.

I researched more options for backing up my machine; all my files, music, and photos.

Some photographer friends told me about Backblaze.

It’s a simple download, it backs everything up, and it’s $5 bucks a month. Do yourself a favor and sign up.  What if you lost everything? Photos, music, documents?

The document I needed was not life or death but did cost me major scrambling and a total make work project but a lesson learned that external backup drives are not 100%.

7. Pumpkin Season is over.  A sad day, I know, for all the pumpkin fiends but please put down the pumpkin and pick up the Peppermint.  It’s holiday baking season!

 Mint Chocolate Coconut Snowballs (No-Bake, Vegan, GF).  Melted chocolate, coconut, melted coconut oil, and mint.  Scott loves these things.

Mint Chocolate Coconut Snowball
Mint Chocolate Coconut Snowball

8. The winner of the $50 Asian Foods Prize Pack Giveaway is:

Heather @ Get Healthy with Heather November 29, 2011 at 4:52 pm
Awesome giveaway! Ever since making sushi a couple weeks ago I’ve been loving Asian flavors. But homemade Mexican probably steals my heart :)

Congrats, Heather!

9. Holiday Baking Season is just around the corner and that makes me really excited.  It’s not even around the corner.  It’s here.  Happy December 1st!

10. I’d recommend starting off baking with a batch of Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies

Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies stacked

Chewy, easy, chocolatey and a good way to kick off holiday baking because who doesn’t like a warm chocolate chip cookie.

Questions:

1. Have you seen any things lately that have you excited?  Food, products, people, places, trips, tips?  What are your things?

2. Can you believe it’s already December 1?  Where did this year go?  Anything you want to accomplish with the remainder of the year?

I’d like to just get on the plane.  If I can get that handled, the rest of December and rest of 2011 should go pretty well!

Leave a Comment

Please note: I have only made the recipe as written, and cannot give advice or predict what will happen if you change something. If you have a question regarding changing, altering, or making substitutions to the recipe, please check out the FAQ page for more info.

The maximum upload file size: 4 MB. You can upload: image, video. Links to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other services inserted in the comment text will be automatically embedded. Drop file here

Comments

  1. My ‘things’ right now – Jasmine green tea. Oh my gosh I love that stuff! I just discovered it a couple days ago.

  2. That Backblaze is a great idea, thanks for the tip! We just invested in a Time Capsule – it’s the best router we’ve ever had as well as a permanent back-up for all networked laptops/computers in my house – but if anyone asks I would love to recommend Backblaze as that’s just a bargain, and sounds really no hassle.

    Have a safe trip!

  3. I think it’s insane that it’s already December! Some years seem to go by slowly, but I think this is one of the fastest years yet. So many things that have just passed me by. I want to pay attention more next year!

  4. So cool about the kombucha coffee… I’ve been dying to try to make my own for a long time but have never gotten around to it. Do you still brew kombucha on a regular basis?
    What has me excited today… the promise of the weekend only a few days away and my roommates and I are going to get a real tree for the apartment. Along with a fun friends christmas swap and party… very fun! I can’t wait to see sunny aruba pics and live vicariously through you for a while!!

    1. I always have a batch brewing or scoby’s in a ‘komboucha hotel’ that I can go into and grab one and start over if need be.

  5. Yikes on the passport, that is pulling it close! We’re getting ready for a trip too and I’ve been scrambling this week with work and packing.

    Who says pumpkin season is over? :-)

    Scary that December is here already, this year flew by.

  6. I am excited because everything is new to me back in my home town, which I have been gone for 4 years so alot has changed. Before the year ends I want to get at least 10 followers on my blog, that’s my hope. Good Luck with your trip

  7. Started December the right way over here – baked some cookies the first thing in the morning, using white chocolate and MINT! Best holiday flavor combo ever.

    1. sounds fabulous and if I wasnt leaving tomorrow…i’d be baking cookies today. They sound great!

  8. have a great time on your trip. I am supposed to go to Rancho La Puerta next year… Maybe i’ll come see you first

    1. I know you are…and I’d love to see you first! Seriously!

      Or maybe I could come down there and see you in action…we need to chat about it on email :)

  9. SO much left to accomplish: applications, life goals, you name it! You know, normal-average-everyday stuff. ;) And thanks to amazon promo certificates (from complaining because they screwed up a couple of my orders) I’m excited about the new goodies that have been coming my way for free (headphones, shoes, personal blender, etc)! :)

  10. kombucha coffee?! i am very intrigued. i just got a heating pad for my booch since its cold here, so now its at a constant temp and comes out so good :)
    have a safe trip over!! looking forward to the pictures while i sit here bundled up and frozen hahaha

  11. Whew– glad Scott got his passport back!!! Ryan and I went through that a few years ago– sometimes they take FOREVER!!!

  12. Oooh, that spa looks like an excellent day trip…yoga, reiki, acupuncture…sounds like a dream!

    I’m so glad that Scott got his passport in time! Whew! When Andrew and I were dating, he LOST his passport like 3 days before we went on a trip to Spain. I freaked out, because the same thing happened to my best friend before we studied abroad there. Luckily, everyone got their passports on time, but talk about panic!!

    Enjoy Aruba! And I’m interested in that kombucha coffee…not sure how I feel about the two combined, but it could be tasty?

    I actually just posted a list similar to this about all the things I’m excited about this week — yesterday I went to an art opening for a super amazing gallery that is featuring some of my art…I’m honored to be among local artists who I’ve admired for so long, it feels like it’s not really happening.

    1. That’s a close call on the passport…but glad it all worked out.

      Email me if there are any more snags with that code.

  13. Yay – getting so close to that beach my friend. I know you guys must all be getting excited.

  14. hi averie!! am i really the first one to comment?? i’ve had a wonderful day yesterday bc it was my bday! i spent the day in nyc with the bf. we went to eat at this vegan resto called soy n sake..so deelish!! that retreat place looks amazing!! i need to go to one of those!! i still haven’t gotten my iphone4s…it’s always in back order…so def looking out for that!! :)) have a great time in aruba!! sheesh so jelly rite now! xx

    1. yes you were the first! and good luck getting that iphone…you’ve been waiting for it for months now!