Teas, continued

This one was last Thursday, so Day 8- Genmaicha Yama- "green tea and roasted rice." Not gonna lie; I did not have high hopes for this one. It tasted like green tea and smelled like cooked rice. Nuff said. I guess truth in advertising DOES exist!

As you have perhaps guessed, Day 9 was delightful. So much so that a friend joined me for tea. However, I did not swim in HIS drink. Oh well. Upon fishing out my unfortunate fruit fly friend, I finished my passionflower, valerian and chamomille tea. It was quite pleasant!

Day 10 was oolong, flowers, and lemon and I enjoyed it so much that I made a second cup. It's called Dreamy Tea by The Des Songes and you can check all of these out here if you're interested. I'll also confess to forgetting to have Day 10 ON Day 10 so I had it on Day 11.

Day 11 Hmm, my teabag scribble says "11 on 12" so I must have pushed this one back a day also. Oh, that's right. I thought about it before bed and didn't want to try it then. It was Jardin tropical so that translates to "tropical garden" and contained "exotic fruits." It smelled amazing and I'll probably make a second cup of that at some point. Tasted good too!

Day 12 was Earl Grey so I channeled my inner Captain Jean-Luc Picard and murmured, "tea, Earl Grey, hot" to nobody in particular, twice, and was relieved that it tasted less of bergamot than it smelled. It's not my favorite scent and I was a little alarmed at how strongly scented it was, but it settled down and was a cozy mug of tea.

Day 13 was another double cupper. It's Hammam Tea which was a green tea with flowers including roses and red fruit. So pretty in my mug and delightful to drink so I did it again.

I'm drinking Day 14 right now- China Yunnan "Pu erh Imperial" on my teabag I guess translates to Imperial tea of some kind. The tag says, "dark tea ideal after a meal" so I'm enjoying it now that I've had my lunch. It reminds me of the Celestial Seasonings Morning Thunder black tea I have, "with energizing roasted mate" though that e should have an accent mark on it and I don't know how to add that. It's not thick but it FEELS dense like it could almost be a broth if it tried a little harder. 

What are YOU drinking to stay cozy? 

 

Quit bugging me!

I don't know what it is with insects lately, but they are really bugging me!

 This morning I stepped away from my honeyed lemon tea to throw a load of curtains in the washer. As I'm tossing the curtains in evenly, an earwig comes out of... somewhere... and dives into one of the curtain folds. So I did what any hot blooded creature would do. I shut the lid and hit start. I figured either he will go the "all drains lead to the ocean" route (except we have a septic system so hmmm...) or he will survive and be thankful for his energetic, sudsy bath. I didn't see him in the tub of the washer when I took the curtains out, nor did I find him in the dryer lint trap, sooooooo your guess is as good as mine as to his location.

I went to recover my tea and not only was there a fruit fly perched on the edge of the rim, there was another one swimming merrily along!

AND one of my besties neglected to keep watch over her drink this weekend while she was outside and was stung right on the lip by a bee for her negligence. 

Just goes to show, ladies: never leave your drink unattended.

 

A prodigal finds a new home

I don't know about your kitchen, if you are like us in acquiring a variety of mugs or if you prefer your coffee accoutrements to match, but this is some of our collection. 

The far right one, asking "now where did I put my coffee" is from my camp friend, Kimmy. Boy, does she know me or what? The back of it reads, "Wallet? Phone? Keys?" 

The far left one is from Square One Art, which takes kid art and turns it into all sorts of fun items like flags, mouse pads, magnets, mugs, etc. Damon drew the giraffe and I adored it so I bought one for me and his giraffe-obsessed aunt Muggin. 

The "BEWARE, not a morning person" one was an off-to-college-with-you gift from my mother. It's survived a bazillion moves and I haven't busted it yet, unlike the Lion King one she also sent to college with me.

The pink one declaring, "You are a courageous woman" came from my sweet sister-in-law, Jana, during chemo. I had many mugs of hot tea through the chemo process and each time I used it I felt so loved.

The insulated mug with the candy hearts with sayings all over them is from my dear friend Kathy whom I've had the privilege of praying with for, wow, around 15 years now!

And the one beside that with the cherry blossom is a tea infuser, the first one we've added to our collection as we've discovered how much fun one can have with loose teas. Zita has a matching one, completely coincidentally, which makes me laugh!

No, the above photo is not how much coffee I consume in the morning, thank you very much. I just wanted to show off my new coffee mug and his friends. See the little guy, second from right, with the blue stripes? He's a prodigal mug. 

Dada and I were on a Trash Bash, which is exactly what it sounds like: we live in Ohio where the wind gets a bit full of itself and often recyclables which were in fact tossed into the proper recycling bin blow back out and go adventuring unsupervised. Therefore, there is plenty of trash in the farm fields, yards, and ditches around our corner of Ohio. It looks terrible and hurts my hobbit/wood elf heart. 

Dada, who loves me and has earned his mansion in heaven for putting up with my Shenanigans all these years, agreed to help me clean some of it up since we were out walking anyway. 

I hereby interrupt the original story to brag on this man a little bit. Through a lot of self-denial and self-discipline as well as a bunch of exercise, he has lost over thirty pounds this winter! I'm so proud of his dedication, especially in quarantine, especially in a house where there are Oreos. And ice cream. His personal Kryptonite. Way to go, babe! You are doing great!

So we were on one of our walks and had three grocery bags full of recyclables, some assorted pieces of trash, two glass beer bottles, and I spied a poor, sad coffee cup in the dirt. Did he fall of the roof of someone's truck as they accelerated past the intersection? Did he take a tumble from a tractor? How did he get here? 

Well, I couldn't just leave the little guy there, so I brought him home, gave him a good soak, a quick scrub, and a run through the dishwasher. When he was shiny and clean I poured some fresh, hot coffee into him to test him out and voila, he has a new home and a purpose. And friends. Now, where to put him?

As we were lugging home all of our trash/treasures, I kid you not, we spotted a bald eagle soaring over the field across the street from us. I jiggled the bags and chirped how none of this stuff we were hauling would now end up in the bald eagle or in his prey, and I think that's just about the best thanks we could possibly have gotten!

Yes, we drink out of Mason jars around here. Yes, that's a rubber Duckie in with our glassware. Have I blogged about that already? Hmmm. I'll have to investigate while you wait in suspense! 

 

Day Two in Bogota

Phooey, technology strikes again. These are all out of order. Bummer. 

I had the privilege of wandering through the Museo de Oro, the Gold Museum, on two separate days. The first time was with a friend and some of her family, including two children. The whole time I was thinking, "ohhh, the guys (Dada and his coworkers) and Pap Pap would love this!" The displays were spread out over three floors and discussed the various ways the gold was molded and formed and repaired and all kinds of aspects to which I'd never given a moment's thought. I was blown away by the detail and intricacy involved, especially when I factored in how good their eyesight and how primitive their tools would have been. If you're ever in Bogota, it is a must see. Absolutely fascinating. 

Remember, click on the pictures if you'd like to see them larger. Hopefully you can even read some of the captions.

Oops. That one was the same day, but obviously isn't in the museum. I heard its name but didn't write it down and therefore it is lost to me, but it had been the largest building in Bogota for awhile and it has a neat light changing display.

Back to the gold:

Above is the legend of El Dorado and the picture is of that golden raft (second photo from the top). It is quite famous. I wonder how long it took to craft and how many temper tantrums I'd have had if I was the one creating it...

This next picture doesn't do it justice at all, but the display was a circular room with a fishtank feel; that glass window went almost the whole way around. Different sections would be highlighted and lit at different times while chants and music were played simultaneously. The objects ranged from the larger medallion-ish things you can see to small earrings and other tiny items. There was also a cutout section of the floor with multiple layers of gold objects in glass, mirrored from the bottom. 

And once again, I'm eating. This was tea and toast and eggs one evening. I promise I did eat with other people throughout the trip (and how!) and not only in my room!

Tea and ... snowflakes?

I've drunk enough tea in 2015 to become an honorary Brit. Brit? Briton? British? Hmm. Anyway, hot or cold, I've been going through tea like it's going out of style. I'm not even sure why.

And I've been accused of baking a lot. I can't help it. Now that we're in a cold snap, of course I'M cold, and cold people need comfort food. So I baked a cake. And I baked some cookies. And I might not be finished. Especially if it doesn't warm up.

So where's my cake? It's a chocolate cake with chocolate minty pudding in it and baked in a Bundt pan. Excellent. I shared with my moms' group. I do blame Dada for that one, as I said, "if you don't please put the cake platter away I'll have to bake another cake." He replied, "You better bake a cake then!" See? Totally his fault.

The cookies I blame email for. I got an email about 10 irresistible cookie recipes which of course I had to check out. One of them was cake batter cookies. I'd helped make them at camp before, but never at home, so I thought I'd give it a try. I had a box of confetti cake which happened to be yellow, like the recipe called for, and frozen egg yolks from when I'd made a white cake and needed only egg whites. Anyway, I threw all 5 thawed egg yolks and one fresh egg in there with the cake mix and a stick of unsalted butter. It said to mix in about a 1/4 cup of sprinkles, but confetti cake already has fun stuff in it, so I just dumped it all in there. It also said to use an ice cream scoop but I just used my usual tablespoon to measure them out. They turned out nice and golden and kid-approved. I'm kind of afraid to test out the recipes because of the sweets we already have in the house, hehe!

Yesterday I got a text from sweet Zita: I might have seen snow.

She was right. It was raining tiny snowballs when I went to pick up Damon from preschool. Nobody on Facebook was happy about it, either. There were plenty of "snow!" posts. Fickle Spring and her nofucks. It made me think of 3 Dog Night's "Pieces of April" and hope fervently that I will NOT be having "pieces of April, but it's a morning in May..."

I still haven't forgotten the lightning bug post or our new-to-us park post, but I need to steal pictures from Dada's phone for that, so it might be awhile. Technology, you know.

Have a great rest of your Positive Energy Thursday!