I have some mixed photos of the Moon that I took during the day, with a blue sky.

 

These photos were captured in the past few years, so I decided to add it all to a single post.

I love the Pumpkin Spice Latte from Starbucks.

This recipe I make is even better, especially if you like the taste of pumpkin!

You can do it 2 different ways. 

One way using pumpkin spice syrup and the other doing it straight up.

 

If you don't drink coffee, just don't add it! 

You can have it just as a pumpkin drink. It's actually pretty awesome too.

You can have it cold too,  but you have to make it on the stove first and then let it cool down.

Here on the blog,  you can get the recipes for the pumpkin spice and the pumpkin spice syrup.

Just click on the images below.

 

Makes latte for one person

• 1 cup whole milk     

• 1 oz brewed Espresso

• 3 Tbsp Homemade Pumpkin Spice Syrup (or more if you want)     

• 1/2 cup whipped cream     

• 1 pinch pumpkin pie spice or brown sugar (garnish)

Instructions 

Brew the coffee. 

Heat and froth milk. 

Place Homemade Pumpkin Spice Syrup into a mug, followed by hot espresso. Stir together. 

Fill mug with heated frothed milk until ¾ full, then top with whipped cream. 

Sprinkle with pumpkin spice or brown sugar!

You can use the pumpkin spice syrup for many things.

I mostly use it for making lattes, but you can put it on crepes, pastries, cakes, ice cream, etc.

 

You will need to have the pumpkin spice mix, 

and in case you need to make it from scratch, 

you can get the recipe here on the blog.

• 1½ cups sugar    

• 1½ cups water     

• 2 to 3 tsp of pumpkin spice (try and then add more if needed)     

• 4 Tbsp pumpkin purée 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

 

Combine sugar and water in saucepan and bring to a simmer.

Once sugar is dissolved, add the spice and pumpkin purée, and let simmer for 10.

Remove from heat and immediately strain through cheesecloth.

If you don't want to strain it, you can use a mixer or the blender while it is still hot. It will be a little thick but it will be just fine (I usually do it that way).

Makes enough syrup for 8 beverages. 

Keeps up to 7 days in the fridge.

 

Back in 2009 I used to have a cool desktop that I still miss today.

I created it all animated, using DesktopX, Photoshop and Visual Styles.

I had to learn how to script and code a little to be able to do this.

It was in Windows XP and back then I already customized everything.

Nowadays I go for a modern space art, minimalist and monochrome kind of style.

But I do miss it.

 

The desktop had a song in Sindarin called The Passing of the Elves.

A song to Varda. You can listen to the song here with translation.

 

Every 2 lines of the song would transform into a menu item, 

where icons would appear on the top of the book.

These icons were separated into the categories of the stuff I used.

They would remain hidden until mouse hover and 

only hard drives, recycle bin and quick lunch would be on screen all the time. 

Sometimes I get inspired to do this again... a new version for my Windows 10.

It takes a lot of work, tho I do still have all the customized icons and backgrounds...

 

It was the coolest desktop customization I have ever created to this day. 

The following images show the sequence of the animated song menu.

These images are in fact from 2009 and back then I wrote on them 

all the contents of the style.

 

You can see an animation of a previous version of that style and how it worked with the mouse.

 

So here they are.

The main desktop, and how it looked before the menu was activated by mouse hover.

 

 a new icon was added after an update.

Then the menu hidden in the song.

It opened a new category of icons.

I still use a more evolved version of these categories today.

Office

 

 then added an icon after an update

 

Image Editing and Skinning.

 

And what was added after the update.

Web Mastering.

Chat.

Audio.

Video.

Art.

 

 Art menu had a sub menu on one of the top icons.

Game.

 

Maybe once my master's degree program is over I will create it for Windows 10 or 11.

 

Below I posted the credits of the stuff I used back then, although

all of them were modified by me in a way so I am pretty much the only

one with the version you see on my desktop.

Skin: Muku by ~326MICHIRU, mod by me 

and the Incredimail and MUKU for Messenger 7.5, and Golden Elvish for Styler Toolbar all by me.
 

Icons: Buuf by =mattahan, and others from all over DeviantArt, The Icon Factory, Material Note, InterfaceLIFT and Mikworks, some mod by me.
 

Wallpaper: Fae Princess by *Indigo-Summers , the rest is by me... 

 

Novaër

 

 

They were sold by a Japanese Store called ToySanta and they were sold out when I found them. So I tracked the store and wrote them to ask for info and they had no way of telling me if they would make more, but he told me that some buyers got a lot to resell and that I could still find them online, plus they had seen low quality versions made in China sold around too, which are fakes.