Deviant Dispatches

Over the weekend, I completed a whirlwind of important tasks. I visited my grandparents. I packed. I baked. I worried. I drank and spilled lots of tea and coffee. I drank lots of something that was not tea with my immediate family and cousins I've not seen in far too long. Important things, I tell you. I also got to see both of my nephews, which really shows the difference two months can make at a young age. Wee Axel Mr. Wyatt (Photo by Brooke) And I wrote. I'm now on page 133. I'll overshoot page 140 easily by end of the month, presuming I don't have to spend a crazy amount of time on the packing, which is going well. Tonight will feature vegetarian reubens, some angry saints , and pizza crust made in anticipation of moving day. Today is okay. Tomorrow will be okay too.

Republic of Tea is my favorite of the more commercial tea companies. Their teas are tasty, their teaware is gorgeous, and they have a sense of humor, referring to themselves as "ministers of the Republic of Tea." I've loved everything I've gotten from them. Until now. Get Clean I bought this Get Clean tea to see if it would help relieve some of the general "yucky" I've felt lately. I'd never tried detoxing tea before; it sounded like it would taste of pigs' feet and smell of elderberries . Not so, according to the website's reviews. Everyone seemed to really enjoy the tea's flavor. The least favorable reviewer just said she wasn't "that crazy" about the taste, which implies it's in the middle ground. I decided those reviews were good enough, so I ordered and waited. Boys and girls: you should never trust strangers on the internet. The tea arrived and I gleefully made a cup, ready to feel more ...

I know I did one of these posts recently, but this one has multiple layers to it. And it cannot wait, because I am excited, and I really hope someone out there can enjoy the hell out of this, too. I borrowed  The Happiness Project  by Gretchen Rubin from a friend, and it's taken me an astoundingly long time to get halfway through. That's not a comment on its readability, but rather the fact that with every five pages I read, I'm inspired to go do something that will make my day-to-day life a tiny bit happier. That, to me, is the mark of a good book. Rubin's book began as a decision to become a happier person over the course of a year. The book is divided by months of the year, and each month features a special focus, like vitality and organization, friendship, or romance. Reading someone else's indefatigable drive to improve, revitalize, and expand is very contagious, and her ideas are well researched and succinctly described. Her simple statements make you real...

Among our many adventures during the recent 3-day trip to New Mexico was a visit to an antiques shop. Rough Rider , in particular. They had a gorgeous 5-setting tea set that Spousal Unit and I wanted to cram into our luggage. Seeing as it was very, very delicate, that would have been a bad idea. On top of that, this gorgeous set - complete with creamer and sugar bowl - would be for display only, and we have no china cabinet. Something would have been broken in transit, and then we would have been sad. Luckily, we found a teacup and saucer all by themselves. The best thing about this? When you hold the cup up to the light, a geisha's head appears at the bottom.  So pretty. Plus, Spousal Unit and I like the color of this one much more. An awesome find.

Source I have big, big plans for today, and for the rest of my four-day weekend. Unfortunately, if I can't shake off the sleep that's caught in my eyes, I'll spend the rest of today napping and being lazy. This is not an acceptable course of action. Here are the steps I'm taking to remedy that: 1. An immediate and cold shower, lasting about five minutes. This will make my nerve endings scream, "AUGH! We're awake!" 2. A cup of Assam Gold Rain  black tea to make the brain cells snort, "Whut? Iz okay, we can has think nao." Or maybe I'll skip straight to the English Breakfast . That always gives my brain a good kick in the pants. 3. A head-first dive into my list for the day. Usually, by doing that, I tend to just forget the rest of the sleepiness, and by the time it's all gone, I've already been productive. The problem with all of these is that I have an unusual sleepy feeling today - one not caused by a lack of sleep. I ...

Some of these teapots I've found are gorgeous. Some are... interesting. Some are just totally bizarre. I think I want all of them. Most of all, I like this trio, but I especially love the dragon one. Source Speaking of cool animal-shaped teapots, anyone ever seen rhinoceros teaware? Didn't think so. I am happy to oblige. Source Of course, I prefer the monkey teapot. Source The hilarity is not lost on me: if any of these critters came in contact with these items, we'd have a mess instead of teatime. Of course, none of these that I've posted so far is really that affordable for us common people . (The monkey one? Yeah, $3,500. Not my kind of teatime.) This musical teapot, however, is less than $50, elegant, and fun. Source I'm a big fan of the Republic of Tea, both their beverages and their drinkware, like this pretty red set. Source This set is on sale right now, 30 percent off the original price. (Spousa...

Remember how I mentioned Spousal Unit and I were going to wait and slowly add to our teapot savings as people came to visit us? Remember that good plan we had in place, where every time we saved money on something (such as with coupons) we would put that money toward our new cast iron? Some plans aren't meant to be followed. This is our awesome new teapot, from Teavana . As you can see, one side has a tiger growling and prowling through the grass; the other side has a tiger sleeping under bamboo with a sun overhead. (Yes, I have a favorite side: it's the sleeping tiger.) On top of the cover is a little tiger statuette. We ended up choosing one that we hadn't considered before, and I'm glad we chose the tiger. The two sides together make it feel fierce, but peaceful. According to the little booklet of symbolism , it represents courage, determination, and bravery. I guess no one told their copy editor that courage and bravery are the same thing. But...

Spousal Unit and I are getting antsy about choosing and buying a teapot, so we at last have a savings plan underway. This will be part of goal #11 for me: getting a tea set. The pots we're interested in are rather expensive, so if I only get the pot before my birthday, I'll count that as a goal accomplished, as it's the larger part anyway. Our plan goes like this: when we save money on something (such as the $10 we saved on groceries last week via coupons), it will go into our savings jar for the teapot. We will not, of course, count up every penny saved, but when it's a significant amount, the cash (or a piece of paper with a number on it) will go into the jar. By itself, that may save enough for a teapot in a few months - I'm pretty frugal. But as I mentioned, we're really eager for this. So we've added another stipulation: we'll add $5 to the jar for each person when friends or family come to visit us. Considering that Spousal Unit's famil...

It's a cool, rainy day in the neighborhood. Not quite back to fall, but it appears that the weather heeded my pleas and pointed its magnificently hot hair dryer away from us, at least for the time being. Now that it's cooler out, it's time for chai and biscotti. Mmm. My usual chai recipe is in a box at Spousal Unit's parent's, with all but a few of our books. I'm bummed about this because the recipe I usually use is perfect - I got it from Auntie, in New Mexico, who is Swedish by birth and Indian by marriage. So the recipe I've provided below is a mash-up of two recipes, one from All Recipes and one from Group Recipes . Many of the recipes I ran across suggested using Ceylon tea. You can use English Breakfast, Darjeeling, or any of the darker black teas. The kind I use is pearlized (compressed into tiny balls). As far as the spices go, you can measure them all out, as in this recipe, or you can find a local shop that sells chai masala - a blend of all the sp...

When Spousal Unit and I were getting ready to leave New Mexico, the bookstore manager, Michael, came to work one day with a box full of tea as a going-away gift. And by "a box full of tea," I mean a box with at least ten packages of tea, about a quarter of a pound each. A lot of friggin' tea. He said it's from a place he and his wife love, near where they lived before New Mexico - Willoughby's . If I remember right, there were five different kinds of tea in the box: Earl Grey with Blue Flowers (black), Gyokuro Jade Dew (green tea), Gardens of Provence (herbal), Ti Kuan Yin Oolong , and Russian Caravan (a blend). "It's for you, but if Spousal Unit likes it too, that's a bonus," he said, and went on about his work. As though he hadn't just given me a two-year supply of tea. I was incredibly touched. I hadn't expected anything at all from him, and his sincere, thoughtful gift spoke volumes. I've thought of him and his wife every time ...

Weather-wise, today is a delightful victory. The high is 60, as it will be tomorrow, meaning Autumn is finally wrenching away Summer's grip on this hemisphere. Soon, the leaves will start turning gold, persimmon, and toffee, making our outdoor walks a symphony of color, a concerto of crunching. It's almost time to break out the scarves and sweaters. This is usually very exciting to me - the sweaters in particular. But this year, it brings on a moment of silence from me, because I left all - all - our winter clothes in New Mexico, believing Spousal Unit would be back for them at the end of September. Alas, he is going back, but it's likely to be on the train, which means no room for him to carry an enormous box of fluff. A few sweaters will be returning so I can avoid freezing my butt off, but most will sit in storage, wondering why they've been abandoned to that cold, dark corner of the universe. Since I can't revel in my fall sweaters quite yet, I'm enjoying f...

Can I just say how much I love waking up here? This morning the sky is grey and leaking, the breeze is as close to frigid as summer gets. I sit here wrapped in a blanket, drinking my favorite tea, as birds chitter in the verdant trees. I am constantly in awe of all the life that surrounds me. In other news, I've been looking over my list of things to do before my next birthday, which I never actually finished writing. I have 21 items on my list that should number 25. But I've accomplished two more things in the last couple of weeks: one was to get paid for something I wrote or made. I sold a shawl to a friend for $20. Yay! The other thing I accomplished was moving. Though maybe I shouldn't actually count that one till we have a place to live... nah. I deserve the credit now. There are two things on my list which I will not accomplish, whose opportunity has come and gone - November's NaNoWriMo and the subsequent Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award submission. These goals wer...

Mostly, though, I like tea. Coffee's great for those particularly lethargic mornings, or times when I feel homesick. Coming from a Norwegian Lutheran family, coffee is one of those bonding beverages. We drank it with dessert after dinner at home, pretty much every night, and whenever I visit my grandparents, we have a cup of brew and cookies while we talk, just like when I was little. Except I had milk back then. And I was more interested in making a ghost story theater in the basement or building sand castles in the driveway than sitting around talking with the adults. Anyway. As far as taste goes, I enjoy tea much more. Not to mention all the gorgeous tea sets that exist in the world. Someday soon, I hope, when Spousal Unit and I are no longer moving hither and thither like road runners on crack, I will buy myself a gorgeous tea set. In the meantime, I have a solitary cup to keep me company. My mom's Spousal Unit, formerly my German teacher (long story for a later post), aske...