Nespresso fusalp advent calander

Nespresso x fusalp Advent Calendar

If you’re someone like me, who loves receiving coffee as a gift, I’ve found the perfect gift. Perhaps receiving an advent calendar during the year might be strange, but do you really need an excuse to try a new coffee every day?

My husband bought me a Nespresso advent calendar for Christmas. I waited until January to start my caffeine journey, and boy, was it good. Seeing as January can be more stressful and tough to get back into a “normal” routine, this was a great way to make me excited to get up in the mornings and make myself a cup of coffee with a new taste.

I will add a disclaimer that I am a lover of coffee beverages, but I am in no way an expert on taste or even identifying the notes. I have recently started watching videos from a Youtuber, James Hoffmann, who is a barista and a coffee expert. I feel my knowledge has improved on this topic. He also has a nice and calming voice. On a side note to the calendar, I would like to attend barista classes. I think it would be nice to know how to work the machines and make a decent cup of coffee.

Back to the calendar. You receive 24 pods with a bonus of a mug on the last day. Can we take a moment to appreciate the pretty packaging? This was a collaboration with fusalp.

This is the list from the website.

Here are some photos of my favourite flavours and some of the pretty designs.

My favourite flavour is the Frosted Caramel Nut. I bought a sleeve of pods while on holiday at the beginning of December, which I finished within a few days. Unfortunately, these are part of the festive range, and I believe you cannot buy them during the year.

On the last day, you receive your mug to enjoy the very last pod. It is thankfully dishwasher save, if you were wondering.

I first envisioned this blog post to describe each day’s flavour and add a photo. My phone gallery is filled with daily pod photos. As mentioned, I lack the knowledge to properly relay flavour. What I learned so far from James is that there is acidic and bitter; they are at the end of the scale. Therefore I just wanted to share my photos and give my seal of recommendation to give a coffee advent calendar a try.

If you have any questions about the calendar or the flavours, I can attempt to answer you as I did make daily notes. I take my coffee seriously, you know.

Mona – hopped up on caffeine

GRANDIA PS4 / PS5

I have been playing Grandia for PlayStation One again. I just finished it for the second time since playing it 22ish years ago. This game has actually had such an impact on me, more than I thought. 

You play as Justin, a teen who wants to be an adventurer like his dad. In the opening parts of the game, you are playing with other kids, collecting random household items, like a wooden stick, and calling it the sword of light, or a pot lid is a shield of protection.

One day, the museum curator has spare tickets to some ruins that are being excavated, and knowing Justin enjoys an adventure, gives him the tickets. the story develops from there, and you follow Justin in his adventure to find the edge of the world. along the way you meet up with interesting party members, Feena being a stand-out for me. The Feena arc I really enjoy. Feena is part of the adventurers guild, where you take on quests provided by a committee and can only go where they tell you. Just reminds her what it means to be an adventurer again. The entire game centres around this, the spirit of adventure. 

Without knowing it, this sort of mentality, and the lessons it taught me have impacted how I approach games, and what I want from them. 

The combat is turn-based, and doesn’t flow as nicely as modern games, but is still playable. Your characters can level up from fighting enemies, but there is a system below that I really enjoy. Each character can learn up to 4 elements, and use a variety of weapons. As you use these weapons and abilities, they also level up and get stronger, and then they start to combine. for example, you can learn fire and earth, get your sword ability to level 10, fire to level 12 and earth to level 9, and you will learn explosion slash. elements can combine to create new elements to use. combining wind and water elements creates ice/snow, which opens up a whole new bunch of moves.

It’s really fun to see what combos you unluck, and it encourages you to play all your skills so that you can learn more.

The world is fun to explore, with most NPCs having something to say. The voice acting is great for the time, and while not everything is voice acted, the moments that matter are, and it just heightens those moments. 

Overall I loved the story, I loved the “call to adventure” vibes of the game. 

If I had to give a critique, it’s that the world is often difficult to explore, and I’d get lost in towns. the camera angles can be very odd. I wish the characters were older., there is a sort of love triangle, but they are all teenagers, its kinda of weird. 

If you like old-school RPGS, and you have a Nintendo Switch, or an emulator, I highly recommend Grandia.

Squidbeard – Husband to wife of a gamer

Life Catch-Up

It’s been a while, let’s catch up. Grab your favourite beverage as this one is a bit long, but it’s a good one, I promise.

I ended off my last post with a nice book review. That was a year and a half ago. I was still at my long-standing office job and getting used to being a homeowner. But soon life would come at us hard. The interest rates were fast climbing, and our future was starting to look a bit uncertain. As a couple, we went through a bit of a depressive spell. Life was just so bleak. No available funds for anything fun and fast running out of money to pay for essentials. Then it’s like I got thrown a lifeline.

Little of over a year ago my friend referred me to someone who was looking for a part-time employee to help out with all the tasks. I had very little knowledge in this field as I was slowly regressing in my office job, but I jumped at the chance to supplement our income. It started off slow, but I was eager to learn and took anything she was willing to delegate to me.

Earlier this year we travelled to Johannesburg for a wedding, and I had the opportunity to meet my new part-time employer. She is an absolute angel. Always willing to teach and gives you constructive feedback if you are not hitting the mark. At this point, I was feeling like I wanted to make more time available to work for her. After my trip, I approached my employer of 15 years to come to some sort of agreement where I could reduce my hours. Naturally, my remuneration was reduced even though my workload remained the same. But let’s not dwell on the negative, I agreed to the offer, and I had to go through with it.

I now found myself with more free time and being able to work from home at any hour. I loved this new freedom, and I was slowly starting to resent having to go to the office at all. Finally, I hit my limit when, one day I returned to the office after my lunch break, and I could not find any parking. This issue has been slowly growing and annoying me to no end. I found a parking spot far from the office in an open lot for a clothing store. No private parking signs, but I’ve been told off before for parking there for hours on end. On this day the security guard approached me, and I knew I was going to be told to move my car.

He greeted me and asked if I worked in the area, to which I replied yes. Then he said his co-worker has told me not to park here. In the moment I was upset and started arguing that there are no signs indicating that I may not park there. He replied with this gem, “I am the sign“. You, sir, were indeed the sign. I told him I would park there for today and he would not see me parked there again in the future.

I quickly discussed it with my husband and part-time employer and then and there I handed in my one-month notice at my former office job.

Fast forward a few months and I am so happy. I am finally doing more creative work. This is oddly the career path I thought I was going to take when I left school, but I just had to take a quick 15 year detour.

I am grateful for my previous job. I learned a lot and had a lot of big life milestones while working there. I don’t believe in burning bridges, and I am still willing to help if they require me to, but I have definitely moved on to bigger and better things.

Mona – Career changed

Disney Electric Parade

I went to Disneyland Tokyo for the first time last December. Before the world was closed off. We had a good time and made some memories, which you can read about in my previous post. After a long day of waiting in lines and going on rides, we settled down for the evening electric parade. I wasn’t expecting too much, but wow, was I impressed.

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