Snoskred Loves

Bristol Beach

8 Comments Posted on January 20, 2016January 19, 2016 by Snoskred

This past Sunday, we ventured down to Booderee National Park. We wanted to pay the park fees for the next 2 years for both of our cars. $99 gets both cars unlimited entry to the park. You get a sticker for your car window – very like a car registration sticker which we no longer use in NSW – so the rangers know not to fine you.

We thought while we were there, we would do a hike. There are a lot of places in the park we have never been to and Bristol Point is one of them. We also did a loop of the camping area at Green Patch, to check out sites to book in the future. I personally do not camp but The Other Half does. He now has several optimal sites selected in his mind.

This is high tourist season here in Jervis Bay. The campsites were all full. And yet, when we got to the beach, we were the only people on it, for most of the time we walked there. There were a couple of boats out in the water, with people fishing.

Imagine our surprise when walking along Bristol Beach to see a cyclist riding along the beach towards us! I am not a cyclist myself and I have never seen a bike ridden on a beach before. This was the only other person we saw on the beach.

I should not be telling you any of this. The truth is, these beaches are some of our best kept secrets in the Shoalhaven. A lot of people go to Hyams Beach, or the beaches near Vincentia, Huskisson, Callala Beach and Bay. Not so many people go into Booderee, because they have to pay to enter the park. That is good news for us locals.

The water here is mostly crystal clear. It can be a range of shades of blue, sometimes a gorgeous shade of green. There is very little seaweed. Many of the beaches are very sheltered from wind and often the water here is pure glass – especially first thing in the morning – with a teeny tiny wave where the water and the beach meets. It is one of the few places I am happy to get in the water and swim.

You’ll be seeing a lot more Booderee National Park posts over the next two years. :)

Booderee National Park, Jervis Bay, photo blog country NSW

Greenwell Point Chinese Restaurant

6 Comments Posted on December 11, 2015December 10, 2015 by Snoskred

The view from the Greenwell Point Chinese Restaurant

On our very first visit to this area when my parents were told they would be transferred here, we went for a drive to Greenwell Point. We drove past this little club with a Chinese restaurant attached and thought it looked like a place we should try. Little did we know that we would be eating there at least once a month and sometimes once a week, for the next 10 years. It is our go-to place to take our visitors.

There are two tables that seat 10, if you are bringing a large party you *always* want to make a booking here. If you are visiting in school holidays, you NEED to make a booking or else you might not get a table, even for a small party. If you cannot get a table inside the restaurant, you can always order take away and eat it out in the bowling club or take it home with you.

There are usually two sittings at most of the tables – one between 5-630 and one between 7-8.30 – so if you can’t get a table at the time you want, try asking for earlier or later. Outfit wise, I recommend layering up, sometimes the wind coming off the water can be cool and if you are sitting near the large glass windows that area can sometimes get a little chilly.

For starters we usually pick one of two things – Sang Choy Bow, or Mini Spring Rolls and Fried Dim Sims. Note – you only get 6 of each – we specifically asked for 8 on this occasion as there were 8 of us. You can also get the Dim Sims steamed, which we have done before too. They come with a sauce similar to sweet and sour sauce. We’ve tried all the starters and they are all fantastic, the soups are also great. The prawn toast is delicious too.

King Prawns in Garlic Brown Sauce was once brought to us by accident. It is pretty amazing to say out of 10 years of dining here, that was the only time we ever had an item brought to us by miscommunication with the order taker. We were very thankful it happened, because this is 100 times better than regular garlic prawns and we have been ordering this dish ever since.

There are several sizzling dishes on the menu – here you see Sizzling Steak. I will say three things. Do not touch the plate, because it is incredibly hot! Be careful where you put this on the table, because tiny sizzling spatters will fly into the air, and you will not be moving this plate. If you are wearing glasses, do not sit near this dish.

This is Fried Duck in Plum Sauce. This dish is a real star, especially if you like duck. I do not like duck, but I will still eat this dish. If you do not like duck, but people with you do like it and they order this, try a piece and see if you like it. You might be surprised.

Fried Pork in BBQ – Salt and Pepper Squid

I do not usually like a lot of pork, but I enjoy this dish, especially the smaller crispy pieces. The Salt and Pepper squid is incredible, it has never been anything but incredible. Just don’t order it as take away, because it loses the crispiness of the batter. If you want squid as a take away dish, try one of the many other variations on the menu.

This is our most recent star dish – butter pepper chicken. I’ve never seen this on a menu anywhere else, the sauce is a combination of butter and pepper, which does not sound like a good thing to order. However something happens here – perhaps the pepper cuts through the richness of the butter, or maybe there is another secret ingredient doing that job.. it is amazing. The mushrooms are amazing as well.

With so many visits over the years, we have tried almost everything on the menu at least once. We like to order several mains and rice and share what we’ve ordered. We have gone through stages where one particular thing would have to be ordered on every visit, and then we’d try something else and move onto that.

We are not big on ordering dessert here – they do have fried icecream and we’ve had it and enjoyed it. The Bistro out in the club does some awesome desserts if you are looking for something a little more fancy than the desserts offered at the Chinese. We have never eaten at the Bistro because the Chinese is just too amazing.

You should be aware that my Dad declines the concept of this review. When I started taking food photos, he asked why I was doing that, and I said I was going to write a review because nobody had reviewed this place on Zomato – it is on Tripadvisor.

“No, don’t do that” Dad said. “If you tell everyone about this place, we won’t be able to get a table anymore”. Sorry Dad, the food here is so good, the world needs to know about it. :) We’ll just have to book a little earlier.

I will be doing a few more local food reviews with the holiday and tourist season coming up – important to note – We always pay for our food. Nobody pays me for writing these reviews. Sadly nobody asks me to review their restaurant/cafe/food place as yet. If asked, I will review a food place, but I will not accept payment for any reviews. I will review freebies or free items but I will always make it clear if something is free.

You might be interested to visit my disclosure page if you want to know more.

family, food, Greenwell Point, Happy Snoskred, reviews

Recent PINCHme Samples

4 Comments Posted on December 7, 2015December 4, 2015 by Snoskred

In December of 2014 I wrote about PINCHme samples – I also wrote this post about how *not* to sample – AKA don’t be stingy. Today I am giving you an update on recent samples I have received.

Over winter 2015 things went very quiet at PINCHme with not many samples released at all. They picked back up again in late September. The first sample they sent me was by far the least stingy and most awesome sample ever – a full sized Mitchum Clinical Deodorant.. when I next visited the shops I made sure to look for it on the shelf and was quite taken aback when I saw this –

I’ve been using it every second day since I got it and I have to say, it is pretty amazing. It smells wonderful, too. How does one use a 48 hour antiperspirant when one showers every day, one thought? I tested it out, still having my daily shower as usual on the second day and then *not* putting anything on and fate made sure I tried this on the hottest day we’ve had thus far – 35 degrees, no sweat, no smells.

It feels weird, not putting anything on after a shower, but I have got used to it. You only need to use the tiniest amount of this stuff – one click of the dial at the bottom per armpit. I’ve been using it every second day for over a month now and I still have over half a container left. Normally I would go through one roll on per month.

I knew I’d heard things about aluminium in antiperspirants so when I checked the ingredients I was a little unsure, but I did some research into that and it is all urban myths as far as I can see. I will definitely be buying this one.

Good job on not being stingy, Mitchum! In fact you did such a good job of not being stingy you have won two customers, I bought a similar product for The Other Half when I saw them on special recently.

So here we have some Dynamo clothes washing liquid – I gave this a legit trial with some clothes which were stained that have been awaiting stain removal. It removed almost all the stains. I’m keeping the second packet for more stains, and will consider purchasing a small amount of this to keep on hand. One small negative – our front load washer does not have anything to stop the liquid running right into the machine, so the detergent went right in.

There is also a Schick Quattro razor. I’m not a user of razors very often – I prefer waxing – plus I am unlikely to use anything with 4 blades as a regular thing, but I’ll give it a try. Anything more than two blades reminds me of this little ad from The D Generation

There is a Chux magic eraser – now I just have to find something to use that on! – and some Fancy Feast which the cats were big fans of. They would be even greater fans if only I would follow these feeding instructions –

Grumpy is 5kg, so that would be 7.5 pouches a day. This would be an increase of 7 pouches a day as the kitties get half a pouch/tin of wet food each morning. At 1.42 per pouch, this would cost me $10.65 a day in cat food! Unless I could find it on special somewhere..

If I followed these instructions, Grumpy would soon be 10kg, in which case I would have to feed her 15 pouches. Exponential growth! If I showed these feeding instructions to my vet, who recently told us our kitties need to watch their weight, she would probably fall on the floor laughing. It makes me wonder – is anyone out there actually reading and following those instructions? That would be very bad. :/

I find PINCHme free samples to be interesting, I always love receiving mail and sometimes the samples are a source of great products we end up loving and buying. We are still using Fairy Platinum dishwasher tablets and we love them, I am a big fan of the Mitchum deodorant..

Samples are usually released @PINCHme on Tuesdays at mid-day. They sell out very quickly, so you want to be logged in at 11:58am and ready to go. Sometimes they have surprise samples on other days, as well.

You can sign up for PINCHme here and I do not receive anything for sending you there, sadly. They ought to have a decent referral program. They do have one but it is linked to the samples which usually sell out within minutes, plus there is some blather about having to be logged in when you refer someone.

FYI the usual statements apply – nobody paid me to write this post, I do receive free samples from PINCHme but they are samples anyone can receive if they are a member and they sign in at the right time to claim a sample.

customer feedback, exercise, kitties, PINCHme

Word Bubbles

7 Comments Posted on November 27, 2015November 21, 2015 by Snoskred

There are three different versions of Word Bubbles available on Lumosity. My favourite one is the newest one which is still in Beta mode, but truthfully they are all great. I’m just having a lot more success with the newest one.

How does this game work?

There are three levels involved in word bubbles. To begin with, you are given two starting letters for a word, and you have to try to make as many words as you can out of those starting letters. There is a timer which ticks down. I am not sure how long it is, maybe 30 seconds or so.

On level 2, the starter is 3 letters long, and halfway through the timer the third letter drops away.

This means while I am making words with the 3 letter start, I can also be thinking about words with just the 2 letters.

For level 3, it is a 4 letter start with two drop aways during the level.

Why do I love it?

This game helps me with my vocabulary skills and also I personally believe it helps me with that word on the tip of your tongue but you can’t find it thing that happens. That happens to me much less often than it used to.

Also, it is just plain fun. Which helps when you are playing a game. I sometimes get a weird urge to play it and pause whatever else I am doing for a few minutes so I can indulge that urge. Some days I might play it 3-4 times, some days just once. It isn’t included in the daily training yet so I have to seek it out myself.

I keep getting better and better at this game, so I’ll keep playing.. :)

Over To You –

How is your vocabulary? :) Do you play any word games?

Gaming, Lumosity

The Huskisson – Review

10 Comments Posted on November 13, 2015December 10, 2015 by Snoskred

~ image from The Huskisson website
~ the place was so packed with people it was impossible to get a decent shot ~

On a sunny Sunday in early November, we revisited one of our favourite local places to eat. They have this delicious pizza there which I was suddenly craving, friends were visiting, the timing seemed perfect. This place has a fantastic location as you can see by the images.

It should be noted, I previously reviewed The Huskisson @Tripadvisor on May 13 2013. In that review I mentioned some issues with the design of the place plus they were only using one till for food ordering.

~ image from The Huskisson website

On a previous revisit in 2014 I noticed they were doing some internal renovations and I had hoped these design issues would have been fixed. Sadly they were not fixed. People are still queuing across a walk way and there is still only one till. We ended up sitting near the ordering area. I had a great view of the pass and that was designed quite badly as well, with a staff member there the whole time moving plates around, trying to work out what food went with which receipt and then using a buzzer system to let people know their food was ready.

Design issues aside, the food is still fantastic here. The bruschetta ($14 for 3 pieces) is amazing. It has avocado on it! I’d never had it with avocado before finding that here and it is a brilliant addition. The bruschetta also has tomato, fresh basil, toasted ciabatta, and fetta. It arrives on a plate which has been drizzled with a gorgeously sticky balsamic vinegar glaze.

You can see the menu here. For mains, 3 people ordered fish and chips ($24.50) – they all said it was delicious.

The Other Half went for the Waygu burger ($19.50) minus the beetroot relish because he does not like beetroot.

One friend chose the Chicken Parmigiana ($23.50). I’ve had that before and it is very tasty as well.

But me, I cannot go past the Husky Pizza ($20), which has Danish salami, chorizo, roast chicken, mushrooms, Spanish onion, roast capsicum, olives, fresh basil, prawns, Napoli sauce, mozzarella cheese. In fact, the pizza was even better than ever before. They did something to the base and it was super thin, crispy, crunchy and just awesome. I will make a very large call here and suggest this is one of the best pizzas in the Shoalhaven. You can see the full menu here.

We did not have desert sadly but I took some photos for you, they do coffee here as well.

Our lunch was delicious and much enjoyed by all. We will return many times. If you visit and want a peaceful lunch, I recommend sitting as far as possible from the ordering area and the pass. If you want some entertainment, then I do recommend sitting near both of those things!

You might be interested to visit my disclosure page if you want to know more.

food, Huskisson, Jervis Bay, reviews

Pandora Radio

9 Comments Posted on October 30, 2015October 30, 2015 by Snoskred

I am officially the last person in my nearby extended family to sign up for Pandora Radio. Surprisingly the first people to sign up were my parents who are both over 65 now. They bought three Sonos wireless speaker systems which all come with a Pandora radio subscription and they can control it with their iPads.

One speaker system lives upstairs, and two downstairs, one in the kitchen and one in the dining room which we now experience at dinner time as a surprise to ourselves. My parents have long been people who love to listen to music and Pandora is fantastic for them because of how it works.

The next person to sign up was The Other Half, who has been deeply enjoying the 80s and 90s alternative stations, plus creating his own stations. I’ve enjoyed the stations from time to time in the car and around the house but it was still not enough to convince me to sign up, because I usually like to be the one in control and play the specific song I want to hear.

But then one day The Other Half played his 80s alternative station and the song “Head Over Heels” by Tears for Fears got stuck in my head for 5 days in a row. I tried to flush it out of there, truly I did, but every morning I would wake up and it would be playing in my head. It reminded me how much I love Tears for Fears and I thought I would create a TFF station for myself.

How Does Pandora Work?

Pandora uses the Music Genome Project to analyse music and group like songs together. You can create a radio station based on a specific song, or based on one artist.

When you create your station, you may find it does not play the song or artist you have chosen right away. It will not always play songs by the artist you picked – it plays similar music. This can be a great way to find new artists with music that is similar to the artist you like. It can also be deeply annoying at times – if you put in Take That, you’ll get a lot of boyband music, some of which you might love, some you might not love.

As you listen to music you can give the track a thumbs up or a thumbs down. Clicking “thumbs-up” tells Pandora “you like this track” and helps to bring in more tracks like it to your station. Clicking “thumbs down” tells Pandora not to play this track on that particular station.

If you thumbs down, it will skip the track and play another track – though you get a limited number of skips each hour. Once you have hit your hourly limit of skips, it apologises for continuing to play the song and lets you know once the song is finished you will never hear it again on that station. But be aware, if you switch stations you might hear that track again.

It Turns Out –

I really LOVE not being the one in control. Sometimes the biggest thing that stops me from playing music is having to choose what to play. I do still have a small element of control with the thumbs down button. I deeply appreciate that this is not a commercial station where some random radio person is choosing what music I will listen to, plus bombarding me with ads as a constant surprise.

The Positives

Finding Music I Love But Forgot About – I loved music when I was a kid. Some of the songs I really loved I’d completely forgotten but Pandora has helped me find and enjoy them again.

Musical Memories – when I was a kid, I had “In A Big Country” as a single record, and I used to play it over and over and over again. One day the Split Enz channel played that song to me, and those memories returned to me..

Thumbs Up History – You can see which songs you have given the thumbs up to – see mine here. You can also see the thumb history, radio stations, and activity of the people you are following.

Thumbs Down History – Giving the thumbs down usually isn’t anything personal against the songs or artists, it might be that you are trying to build a specific kind of station and that specific song does not fit in. You can view the thumbs up and thumbs down history for each station by clicking on options under the station name, then station details..

Add Variety – Want a station with heavy metal and 80’s pop? Want Sinatra and David Bowie combined together on a station? Want to experiment and create something unique? You have a lot of options with the add variety option.

The Downsides

Data Hungry – Pandora can really chew up your data allowance. I’d recommend only using it at home on your wifi. On the plus side to this downside, you will find more music you love and can add to your portable or mobile phone playlist.

Out Of Service Area – When you have no wifi or internet connection, the music dies. That is very sad and slightly irritating at times.

Mobile Irritations – If using Pandora on my mobile, I find I am continually having to unlock the phone to give my thumbs up or down.

Live Music & Acoustic Versions – While you might love a song in the original recorded format, you may not love it as a live version. I still have not worked out if clicking thumbs down to a live song removes the not live version from your station.

Terribly Annoying Ads – There was an ad with someone singing off key, I wanted to throw my phone across the room. Luckily the ads do not seem to play very often for me anymore and it isn’t because I upgraded my account, either.

No Family Plan – With most things these days there is a family plan option so you can have more than one person using a service. As yet there is no such family plan on Pandora. While I have read you can use one account on two devices at once, I prefer to have my own account and my own stations.

In Conclusion –

It would seem from reading the above that there are more downsides than upsides, however my experience has been excellent and I *love* Pandora Radio. It is free and quick to sign up, so why not give it a try?

Over To You –

Have you used Pandora or a similar service? Would you like to try it out? Are you someone who likes to make their own playlist, or do you prefer someone else to pick the songs?

music, Pandora Radio

Orient Point Bakehouse

11 Comments Posted on October 5, 2015September 27, 2016 by Snoskred

I belong to a local restaurant feedback group on Facebook. People post photos and text of their experiences at local restaurants. I pay attention and store away nuggets of gold for future reference. Such nuggets involve names of places that get good feedback regularly and photos of food that look like something I want to try.

I’d read about Cronuts on lots of different food blogs with interest, so when someone posted about locally available cronuts at the Orient Point Bakehouse, I added that place to the very top of my list. Before we could organise a visit, they closed for a months holiday.. and I counted the days until they reopened. We headed down there *early time* on the very first Saturday they were open.

I ordered the Iced Salted Caramel ($5.50) – it was quite spectacular and perfectly balanced. That caramel on top was fluffy and very special. The Other Half chose the Iced Mocha (seen below, $5.50) – I tried it and it was packed full of chocolatey coffee flavour goodness.

While we were waiting for our food, I began to worry that the cronuts I saw on the counter – initially 6, now down to 2 – were the last ones available! I spoke to a staff member and it was as I feared, so I asked if they could be put aside for us.

I felt like the cronut might be too much sugar for my still yet to awaken stomach, so to eat I chose the bacon and egg roll with tomato relish. People. I’m not kidding. This is by far the best egg and bacon roll I have ever experienced in my lifetime and I have had quite a few. The bacon fat – which is normally something I remove as much as possible – was perfectly rendered – not chewy, not noticeable, just very tasty.

The tomato relish was the element that lifted this from normal to extraordinary. It was vinegary, tomato packed, flavourful, and zingy. This was quite large – that bun is about the size of a hot dog roll – and all for the teeny sum of $5.

Deeply satisfied and with cronuts in hand, we left. I was so full from breakfast that the cronuts waited until 3pm coffee time. And I thought the bacon and egg roll was good. There are no words for how amazing this was. Topped with whipped cream and a gorgeous blueberry jam, and dusted with CRISPY sugar, I am very glad this place is only open weekends. If it were open weekdays, I might be tempted to cruise down and pick one up on a regular basis.

There are two important things to know before you head off to this place –

1. They take cash only. I’m not sure how I knew this because it does not say anything on the website about that. It might have been reading reviews on the web. This is somewhat normal for our local area but I do find it to be a negative in this day and age, I will not lie about that.

I rarely carry cash myself and I was not sure there would be an ATM down there. We had to make a special trip into town to get enough cash before we headed down that way. While we got out of there for just over $30, some of the menu items are more expensive, so my advice is to bring more cash than you think you would need.

2. The place is quite small with limited seating so if it is packed you may have to wait a little for a table or get take away. They have some tables out the front as well if the weather is sunny.

They do have a sample menu available via their Facebook page with some pricing.

This was our first ever visit to Orient Point, which is a sleepy coastal village on the NSW South Coast. We will be back regularly. I’m thinking once a month will allow me to try many menu items before spring and summer are over and also not be too calorific for my present lifestyle. How will I choose something other than the bacon and egg roll? I’m not sure.. :)

I have heard these guys are moving to Culburra Beach sometime this year, so make sure to check the address on the website before you head over. :)

food, Orient Point, reviews

IKEA Haul

18 Comments Posted on September 28, 2015August 30, 2015 by Snoskred

When it was time to take the Aunt and Uncle back to the airport after their visit in August – another Aunt and Uncle were also going somewhere that day – they were flying to China. Arrangements were made for a trip using both cars because the Chinese trippers had 4 very large suitcases full of vitamins and baby formula.

Added in was a meeting with my sister and her partner for lunch at the St George Rowers Club. Because we’d just spent a week with everyone toodling and gallivanting, and we wanted to make sure my sister & co had plenty of family time, we dropped them off at the Rowers and headed to the very close by Ikea at Tempe for a Swedish meatball lunch, and to pick up some items we needed.

Over our many visits to IKEA, I have discovered the short cuts between various areas. I spotted a staff member going through a very large plastic door to one of the other sections – there was no sign saying staff only so I figured there was no reason I couldn’t use that door myself. Then I found other doors, and on one visit we were really hungry and discovered if you take a left at the top of the escalators, you could go right to the cafe.

Maybe the shortcuts are a new addition to the maps, or maybe back when we started going there I was so deer in the headlights I did not even read the maps. I’m not sure. I was surprised to see them on the maps as I always felt like it was a bit of a secret squirrel thing. ;)

What we most needed were tealight candles and large square oven trays. They had some new flavours to try – the coconut one is very awesome.

These DRÖMMAR oven trays are huge and fit nicely in our new oven.

I also got some more of these cups which I’ve had several sets of – these ones are a different colour. Christmas colours, you could say. Two of these cups = one bottle of Soda Stream.

They had my favourite rubbish bin in pink this time which I could not resist.

We thought these mugs were a decent size for the second coffee cup of the day, and we’ve been enjoying them afternoons when The Other Half arrives home. I like mine with a side of the ginger Ikea biscuits we bought.

I got some straws for spring and summer milkshakes and smoothies – I picked up a second egg slicer as I was using our present one daily and thought a second would be handy – we thought we would try this glass storage container and if we like it next time we are there we will pick up some more.

I spotted these gorgeous metal candle holders near the bathrooms next to the restaurant. I did not pick any up, thinking they would be found in the market hall. Of course, they were nowhere to be seen there, and I had to trek all the way back upstairs. I’ve got a silver pineapple and now these, there is a bit of a silver theme running on my candle shelf. I love that they reflect different shapes onto the wall.

I took a couple of candles from each packet to put in my small container and stored the rest away together in the candle container. They will keep me going for quite some time, even though I am burning candles daily here.

We also loved these bathmats. We put them on the floor for the kitties to sniff and roadtest. We have one bathmat with an inside of memory foam and neither of them will walk on it, because it feels weird to their feet. They like these new ones, though. They got right onto scenting them up.

Happy moments were had by all. :)

Happy Snoskred, IKEA, shopping

New Cards September

12 Comments Posted on September 16, 2015September 15, 2015 by Snoskred

Four new cards this month. While I am posting, here are some other new items I’m loving.

Australian made from Aldi, these Malted Milk Balls are amazing. They are about 50 times more yummy than a Malteser because they are solidly packed with malt instead of being mostly air. The only way they could be any more awesome would be with a dark chocolate coating.

Here is a look inside. Om nom nom! Run, don’t walk, to your nearest Aldi and pick up a set of these.

These Colour Clickers were just $4.95 and they have a set of replacement leads. These are mechanical pencils. I love using them and find them much better than wooden pencils. I’d buy a 72 pencil set if I could find one.

This 24 set of colour pencils was excellent value as well. I find the Mont Marte items to be great.

Greeting Cards, shopping

Trouble Brewing @ Lumosity

41 Comments Posted on September 7, 2015September 6, 2015 by Snoskred

I may need some kind of intervention, because I can’t stop playing this game on Lumosity. I’ve been a member there since 2012 and I enjoy the brain training. I can tell you that it has improved my brain, in particular my maths and memory.

So what is Trouble Brewing all about? Making coffee. It is a divided attention time management game. It helps with multi-tasking and in general I was already pretty good at that to begin with considering that was what I did 6 hours a day 4-5 days a week in my last job. But this game has me challenged and pushing myself continually to get to the next level.

To begin with, it is all fun and games and relatively easy because the coffee making machine and the orders are all on the same page.

As you progress, the order screen and the coffee machine screen separate a little. You’ll have a couple of machines on the order screen, then a screen with more machines. Like this –

But when you reach level 9, a terrible happens. You now have one order screen in the middle, and two separate coffee machine screens. Like this –

The order screen

Cafe screen one

Cafe screen two – you can see the coffee level indicator is telling me that cups are nearly full on the other screen. Each level you have to fill more orders but the time does not increase – at least it hasn’t yet. 40 cups in two minutes on level 9.. that is a lot of orders to fill in two minutes!

At the end of the game you get to see your score and your top 5 scores.

As I write this on the 16th of August, I am stuck on level 9. It is my hope that one day soon all the stars will align and the moon will smile on me and I’ll do everything in exactly the right way in order to pass this level and move to level 10.

Update – 05/09/2015

FINALLY!!!!! This is the day the stars aligned and the moon loved me enough to let me complete all 40 orders in 2 minutes. I’m still having trouble believing I finally got past level 9.

Playing this game so much has made me better at the other divided attention *and* memory games because this game uses memory to remember what orders need to be filled. This week I got top scores in Train of Thought and Star Search, plus a memory game where items wash up on a beach and you have to pick ones you have not picked on previous waves. I’m thinking it might be worth focusing in on one particular game for a week at a time and seeing how much I can improve.

Obviously Lumosity have not paid me anything to say this – in fact I have paid them in order to play the games. Nearly two years ago I bought the family plan – it runs out in November, then it is every man for themselves. You can likely find free brain training games on the web, if you look for them. I love the convenience, record keeping, encouragement, and the happy and positive vibe of Lumosity. I’m not sure how much the basic plan costs over there but I know I’ll be signing up for it again.

Over to you –

Do you brain train? :)

exercise, Gaming, Lumosity, time management

Snoskred – Life in the Country

Snoskred Loves

Bristol Beach

Greenwell Point Chinese Restaurant

Recent PINCHme Samples

Word Bubbles

How does this game work?

Why do I love it?

Over To You –

The Huskisson – Review

Pandora Radio

How Does Pandora Work?

It Turns Out –

The Positives

The Downsides

In Conclusion –

More Reading –

Over To You –

Orient Point Bakehouse

IKEA Haul

New Cards September

Trouble Brewing @ Lumosity

Update – 05/09/2015

Over to you –