i don't know what to do without you

Due to financial reasons, I had decided to cancel the internet and tv service to my apartment. It wasn't something I wanted to do, but it had to be done. Since I was already paid through December 8th, that was to be my last day of home electronic entertainment. I mourned this loss, deeply.

Let me explain one thing before I continue. I'm a couch potato. On days that I have nothing planned after work, I get home, change into the comfy sweats and tshirt (maybe even my pajamas already if I'm feeling especially lazy), sit in front of the tv and veg for the rest of the night. I don't always watch the tv, but it is always on in the background. I'm someone that NEEDS to have noise going on, especially when I'm alone, so the tv was often just noise. When I'm not focusing on it, I am browsing the internet looking at useless things. Mr. Y Not calls this caching (well, I guess a lot of IT people do, I just didn't know what this really meant until he told me).

So for me to not have internet OR television at home is an entirely strange change. I can no longer just sit and read facebook posts or my favorite blogs. However, besides the financial reasons, there is one more benefit to this transition. I will clean. Yes, my apartment needs a cleaning. I've been slowly working on this the past couple weeks and it's actually getting somewhere. Also, I still have boxes lining my bedroom wall from when I moved in a year ago. Now I will have time to go through those and either get rid of or make use of things.

The first day that I was home with none of this to keep me, well, not busy, I watched White Christmas. I still do have a DVD player after all. After that I watched the White Christmas interview of Rosemary Clooney. Then I watched White Christmas with commentary by Rosemary Clooney. Yes, this was getting ridiculous. Part way through the commentary version I had to leave because it was time to meet Mr. Y Not, thank goodness.

Except today it got a little interesting. I mentioned getting rid of tv at work, and my coworker said I should still be able to get basic channels just by connecting to the cable. It's not that this never crossed my mind, but I could swear that I tried this when I moved in and it didn't work. That's why I starting paying a company for BASIC cable. Well, now today I try again, and voila! I HAVE TELEVISION!!!!!!! You can't imagine how happy I am about this. I even still have Bravo! I LOVE Bravo!!! (I called Mr. Y Not simply to tell him this, I could hear him shake his head in shame for me)

So it looks like I can still keep some of my couch potatoness in tact. Although, since I had plans for big cleaning and going through boxes and whatnot, I will do my best to keep this up. Oh, also, this shouldn't mean that my posting goes away. (I'm not promising it will be more consistent either) Right now I'm at Panera enjoying the free wifi. Me and this place are going to become good friends.

font love

My mom has this book that has always sat in the living room. I suppose you can call it a coffee table book, but it serves more of a purpose than to just be there. I'm not really sure what it is called, but my best description is that it is a perpetual calendar which is used to mark birthdays and anniversaries throughout the year. I used to once in a while page through this book, and really liked it. Now, I want one of my own.

What does this have to do with fonts? Well, my search for a similar book has turned up with nothing. I did happen to find one that fit almost exactly what I was looking for on blurb, but if I'm going to buy one from there, then I'm going to design it myself. So now I am working on putting together my own perpetual calendar. There is a lot of work with creating my own layouts with this, but I'm kind of excited about that!

Here is the one I found, my layout will be very similar, so just to give you an idea: Every day is a New Day

Ok, maybe I'm not getting to the point quickly enough here. I L-O-V-E fonts! The best place I've found to download interesting fonts is dafont. I have downloaded numerous font to test for my calendar and now I'm stuck and need your opinion. Below are a few page mock ups, which one do you like the best (I'm also debating whether or not to have backgrounds)?

(click the image to view larger)

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learning the real way

About a month ago Mr. Y Not and I took a cooking class at Kitchen Window. (no comment on whether I dragged him or he came willingly) We did the pizza class where you learn to make 3 types of pizza from scratch. Upon arrival it was obvious that this is something that mostly couples do together. I'm sure it depends on the type of class (baking may be more attended by females and their friends) but this particular one was a majority of couples.

I got a glass of wine, Mr. Y Not a beer, we strapped on our aprons and awaited instructions. The 3 pizzas we were making were a flat bread, Chicago deep dish, and hand tossed. Everyone was broken into four groups and rotated through the four stations (each pizza and then a dough making station).

Although the two of us were going to have to wait for the fun pizza making part, we were put on dough duty first. This would be a really great thing to do for dinner if either of us had a nice mixer. We did get the dough recipes and will possibly try making it without the mixer, but I'm pretty sure that Kitchenaid was a huge help!

Next we were at the flat bread party. This pizza was DE-LISH-OUS! A garlic base sauce with caramelized onions, artichoke hearts, chicken, goat cheese and arugula. Oh! Also, it was baked in a Kalamazoo oven. Something I'm sure I will never have, but was a lot of fun to use.

The deep dish was what Mr. Y Not had been eying and waiting for. Since this station only allowed one pizza per two people, I let him do all the work. I have to say, the sauce they had for this was amazing! I'm super glad this came along in the recipe book we were given because I'd like to try it out again.

Finally it was hand tossed time. No, I did not throw my dough up in the air. I didn't trust myself enough for that. This also used that amazing sauce and we topped them with mozzarella, basil and prosciutto.

We were able to try all of the pizzas throughout the evening, and even took home leftovers. Basically, everyone shared and ate some of everyone's pizza. We also got coupons for the store which were used for a pizza stone (necessary based on using the skills that were learned in the class), and Mr. Y Not got a fancy new knife to add to his collection.

It was a great night, and I highly suggest taking a class from them. The one that we did was participation based, but they also hold seminars, demonstrations, and restaurant crawls. I would really like to go back for another class, just have to think of what I want to learn next!