Friday Favorites - Tea Time!

I don't think I can call myself a tea connoisseur, but I do love a great cup of tea. I remember drinking tea from a very young age. We always had bags of Lipton or Salada in the house and I remember filling a cup with hot water, inserting a tea bag and waiting a few minutes before dumping several heaping spoonfuls of coffeemate (the powdered version, this was before the liquid stuff came out!) into it to make it more palatable. I couldn't stand the taste of coffee, but tea with coffeemate was pure heaven. Although I think I was more in love with the coffeemate than the actual tea. Anyway... The years passed by and I eventually stepped away from regular old Lipton with coffeemate and started to experiment with other flavors.

This brings me to my Friday Favorites post for this week - My Favorite Teas.

1.) My first foray away from plain black tea was English Breakfast. It was bold, it had a nice kick to get you going in the morning (yet didn't leave me shaky like a cup of coffee usually does) and it went great with almost everything. It became my morning perk when I started working oh...back in high school sometime.

2.) I tried Earl Grey next and by this point I was starting to wonder what took me so long to step away from Lipton. That stuff was nothing compared to the overwhelming aroma of bergamot in a good cup of Earl Grey. I'm convinced of this one fact though, either you love the smell of bergamot or you hate it. There is no in between. And I happen to love it.

3.) Hubby caught on to my desire to try new teas and ended up coming home one day with a cannister of Alghazaleen ceylon tea from a co-worker friend. And when I say cannister, I mean CANNISTER. That thing lasted us several YEARS! But it was fantastic and my first adventure into loose leaf teas. Up until that point, I had only brewed the bagged stuff. Let me tell you though, I don't think I could ever go back to the regular bagged stuff now that I've tried the loose leaf varieties (except for a particular green tea and for obvious reason - more on that later.) This particular tea was straight from Sri Lanka and I am desperately trying to find more of it. It apparently came from a speciality shop in NYC and I have yet to find an online merchant that has any in stock.

4.) When I first tried green tea I couldn't stand the taste of it. I think it might have been Lipton's version of green tea though. Which I now know tastes nothing like real green tea. But for years I took it off my "tea radar" and focused my love on only the black teas. All that changed when one of my co-workers resigned and I ended up inheriting her tea supply in her desk. In that little box were a few bags of China Green Tips from Tazo. It was love at first sniff. Since then I have to have at least two cups of this wonderfully calming tea everyday at work. And here I thought Starbucks focused only on coffees/lattes/mochas/etc. Little did I know I would be falling in love with one of their teas! As of right now, this is the only bagged tea I drink since it's a lot easier than dealing with loose leaf at work.

5.) I'm saving my absolute favorite tea for last. Sometime last fall, hubby visited a speciality herbal/tea shop and came home with yet another gem (among a few not-so-nice gems - more on those later.) I have now found a new tea to love - Imperial Velvet Oolong. It's a wonderful tea from Taiwan and it is described as having a buttery aroma with subtle floral notes. And trust me, it really does have a buttery aroma. It's like buttery green tea and I only wish hubby had gotten me a larger container of this stuff cause I'm almost out of it. Instead he ended up getting a larger container of a different variety of oolong tea. A smoked oolong tea which has to be the nastiest stuff I've ever smelled. He claims he likes it. I think he's just saying that to push my buttons. Opening that container is like unleashing the aroma of wet smokey grass clippings. Blech. I'll stick to my imperial velvet thank you very much!

New Gadget Alert!

You know you're a techy at heart when you receive word that there's a package at home waiting for you and all you can do is bounce in your seat cause you can't wait to rip open that package and play with the new gadget that's buried in the layers of cellophane and styrofoam. In fact I am so excited that I'm declaring today as "New Cell Phone Day"! Now if there was only a way to turn that into a holiday so I could get the day off from work...

Cause you know, these things take time. Learning them that is. It's one thing to open the package and oooh and aaah over the flawless and unscratched plastic. It's a whole other thing entirely to figure it out. And if you're like me, you almost need a whole day to do just that. Not that they don't make these things intuitive enough to figure out on your own. It's just that I'm a dork. And I like to read the user manual too. The whole user manual. Heaven forbid some neat feature goes unknown. I'm way too nosy to let that happen.

In this package will be not one but 2 new cell phones since this time around dear hubby decided to go with something different than what I picked out. That's fine. But that means I now have 2 user manuals to read. Cause I know hubby won't be reading his manual any time soon. And since it's inevitable that he'll be asking me to help him figure it out, I might as well get up to speed on that one too.

So to commemorate this important occasion, I figured I'd put together a tribute to the past cell phones I've owned. Kinda freaky that I've been a cell phone owner for over 10 years now...

My very first cell phone - the Nokia 550, circa 1998. It was a beast and it was entirely analog. Despite that, it had fantastic coverage.


After a few years, it was time to downsize so I got the Motorola StarTac. Those were the bomb when they first came out.

But I was not impressed with the durability of the StarTac and the battery life was crap, so I went back to Nokia and got a 6610.

Then I jumped to LG with the VX8300. Time for another clamshell?

And now, the newest member to my cell family - the LG enV2.

Ok I guess I've developed a pattern over the last decade...candy bar phone, clamshell, candy bar phone, clamshell...And now I suppose I'm back to the candy bar phone, but this one also opens up like a clamshell. Best of both worlds? Have I finally come upon my ideal cell phone based on the bouncing back and forth between the different types? Only time will tell. I'll keep you posted!

Friday Favorites

Ok - I'm starting something new here and hopefully I'll be able to keep it going. I'm calling it Friday Favorites and the goal will be to create a list of my favorite --insert topic here--

I'm not huge on long lists or needing to meet length requirements, so I'm keeping it flexible. You might see a short list or a long list depending on the topic and/or how tired my brain is by the end of the week. Or no list at all if I'm on vacation and sunning myself in Mexico. Now don't go getting all excited. I'm not going back to Mexico. Yet. Even if those margaritas are calling my name. Right now. I'm going to have to live vicariously through sj who is leaving soon for Cabo San Lucas - lucky duck! Wow, was that a tangent or what? Ok, back on topic... For my first Friday Favorites post, I choose to list -

My Favorite Blogs
FunnyGals - Cause they're just so darn funny! And I've been friends with sj for like 27 years. And our birthdays are exactly a week apart. And she doesn't blink an eye when I tell her I want to dress up like Anne Boylen. And KAT lives in the same town as me. Actually she grew up in this same town and so did hubby. So we have connections there, ok people?! I just love both of these ladies cause they brighten up my day with their wittiness!

Wild ARS Chase - Cause he's the male equivalent of FunnyGals, I swear! And his Snuggies Review left me in tears. Literally. I was laughing so hard I was crying. And let's not forget to mention the other great product reviews he gave before that grande finale. I don't think I will ever look at an "As seen on TV" product the same again.

Bridget Jones Has Nothing On Me - She's a no-holds-barred, tell-it-like-it-is-and-who-gives-a-F*-what-they-think kind of woman. I love her honesty. I love her bluntness. I love her style. She's just like me, only I'm too shy to put it all out there. Thank god she does cause she gives me hope that I might not be as crazy as I thought I was.

ScopeTech - He's hip, he's cool, he works in IT (and I naturally gravitate to fellow techies) and best of all - he's in LOVE! And I've been blessed to be able to witness it all unfold before my very eyes. Kinda like peeking through someone's windows and watching them play footsies under the table, ya know? Ok, before you jump to the conclusion that I'm some sick voyeur or something, let me clarify by saying - they have been posting this stuff on their blogs, people! So it's out there. The wonderful news of their budding romance. It's all out there for the whole world to read. And god help me, I'm reading every last little bit cause it's so cute. And they are so cute. And I have the warm fuzzies just thinking about it. And when I say "they" I will conclude my list with the other half of this cute couple...

Love Letters By Cora - Truth be told I haven't been following Cora for as long as I have been following Scope. I started reading her blog after seeing the incredibly funny comments she's left on Scope's posts and I'm very glad I did! She brings that giddy schoolgirl feeling back as she tells the tale of how she and Scope spent a very recent weekend. It's a chick-flick in blog form and god help me - I love it!

Well looky there - I just finished my first Friday Favorites post!

And if anyone has ideas/topics/suggestions for next week's posts, please comment and let me know!

Reno-cation Week

Get it? Renovation/Vacation week? Sorry - that was my lame attempt to create a new word. It's Monday, I'm going to leave it at that.

Last week was a busy week in renovation-land (aka our house.) It was filled with ups and downs, and since I'm going to cover about a week's worth of details in one blog post, bear with me as it might get a bit lengthy. I'll try not to get too carried away.

The week started to get interesting Tuesday night when I started demolition of the half bath. J came home from work not feeling so great. He went downhill fast as the evening wore on and by the time I was getting B ready for bed, poor hubby was completely overtaken by a nasty stomach bug. I don't know which was worse, emptying the puke bucket or being bugged by B to see what was inside said bucket. The last thing I needed was to be cleaning up B's puke on top of hubby's so I steered him away as best I could. With J being sick and confined to the bed, I ended up with plenty of alone time for some demolition fun. There's just something so satisfying about ripping away trim with my little 6" crowbar. The towel bar was a pain and one side didn't want to come off until I nearly ripped it out of the wall. The toilet paper holder was a true joy to remove though. I have hated that toilet paper holder since the major bathroom tissue manufacturers decided to reduce the width of their rolls. It was originally designed for rolls of a certain width and once that width was reduced, getting toilet paper to stay on the holder was nearly impossible. I threw that stupid thing into the trash with a huge smile on my face! By about 10pm, I was cleaning up and getting ready for bed. By 11pm, I get a call from J's aunt who was at J's mom's house finishing her taxes. Remember, this was April 14th and taxes were due the next day. Well for some reason she was unable to print her return. Great. After cleaning up after J and taking apart the bathroom, I was beat, so I made a plan to stop by early the next morning to try to fix the printer. Then the phone rang again at 1am. This time it was for J - he was on call for work. Lovely.

The next morning it took almost an hour to get the printer running. I have no idea what the problem was (yes I am in IT, however hardware is not my speciality), but it finally started working again after I pulled out the printer cartridges and put them back in. Whatever - it's working now and that's the important thing. The rest of the day was spent removing wallpaper and sanding and staining the new trim around three of our new doors. So I went from being covered in sawdust to being covered in wet gooey wallpaper bits. Let's just say I was very grateful for a shower at the end of the day!

The next three days were spent on what I call the dreaded 3 P's - Patching, Priming, & Painting. One day of patching. One day of priming - 2 coats. And one day of painting - 2 coats.

The end result is a much nicer bathroom, but it's still missing a few things. I need to get new trim, refinish it with stain and poly and install it. Then I need to put up the new hardware I purchased (towel rod, towel ring and toilet paper holder.) Oh and after all that we discovered that the previous owners of our house decided not to screw the existing lighting fixture into any studs or anchor it into the sheetrock. So now there is no way I can safely re-attach it to the wall. Which means we are now in the market for a new lighting fixture! Grrr...

Stay tuned for pictures!

Exactly one week from now...

...is April 15th. For my fellow Americans, that means the dreaded tax day is quickly approaching.

Of course most of you have probably already spent your returns. For those of us who end up paying every year (present company included) April 15th just downright sucks. I know I won't be mailing out that check until the very. last. minute. It's my/our hard earned money and I want to collect as much interest on it before I have to hand it over to my favorite governmental agency {cough}.

So while perusing MSNBC today, I discovered this interesting article... Six Deductions You've Never Heard Of

Some of those tax breaks are just weird - a whaling deduction?

This one is just sad - make sure your kid is abducted by a stranger and not a family member in order to claim them as dependents after they've been kidnapped.

And this is just not fair - foreign nationals don't have to pay taxes on gambling winnings?! That would be good news for my Canadian relatives however. Come on down! We've got 2 casinos right in this state. And I want to know how many drug dealers are paying taxes on their income!

You can take a medical deduction if your kid plays the clarinet? Apparently that instrument may help correct an overbite. Mom/Dad, where were you when THAT tax law came out? I could have saved you some money. Not to mention a hefty orthodontic bill!

Writers that sell their copyrighted work have to pay income taxes on that profit. Yeah, yeah. I'll worry about this if my novel ever gets published.

A tax deduction for the makers of fishing tackle boxes? So a question for sj, my favorite fisherlady. What have you - a Plano tackle box or a sewing kit? The strange thing is, I can picture you storing your fishing gear in either of those!

Adventures in writing...

Yes I stole that title from the famed 80s movie Adventures in Babysitting. That movie was my main inspiration for the little amount of babysitting I did back in the day. I dreamed I was the impeccable Chris Parker. Always ready to take on whatever came her way to save the kids from dangerous criminals. She became a role model for every babysitting teen out there. Yeah, well I never had to save any kids from the rooftop of a Chicago office building. Or fight off an angry mob of car part smugglers because they were after the kid who stuffed a Playboy mag in his backpack. Nor did I ever have to deal with a tow truck driver who had a hook for a hand. But let me tell you - I watched that movie so much I was prepared!!

But even still Elisabeth Shue is cool in her own right. Out of all of the actors in that movie, I think Bradley Whitford (Chris' cheating boyfriend Mike who gets caught in the restaurant with that trampy woman) remains the least changed. I recently saw him in Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and I swear it's like he walked off the set of Adventures and right into Sisterhood. He looks exactly the same!! And have you seen Vincent D'Onofrio (Dawson/Thor) lately? Oh my how some people change over time... But I digress...

This post was supposed to have been an update on the progress of my novel. A novel for which I still have no title. And yes that still bothers me. I actually have a file with about 30 different title ideas, but not one of them really sticks out as "the one." And for a book which I have already spent the past 2 months and 1 day writing, is already at 204 pages and has roughly 45,000 words, I am not about to pick just any title for it. I'm sure it'll come to me at some point. Maybe when it's all done and the magical words dance across my eyes in a dream or something. Regardless, I am having fun writing it and right now the action is picking up and it's starting to get good!

April rains bring renovation pains

It's finally starting to feel a bit more like spring around here. It was 50°F when I left the house this morning and that's much better than the 30°F I saw back on Monday. Yup, warmer temps. Just in time for the spring rains. Lovely.

Well despite the rain, the birds have begun to sing, the frogs in the pond are multiplying (as evidenced by the noisy video clip below), my daffodils are coming up and I'm gearing up for another round of home improvement nightmares successes. Our carpenter is slated to return next week to finish the interior trim around our doors. {begin sarcasm} Yay! More staining...can't wait! {end sarcasm}

We're also hoping to get going on the back deck soon. That means we need to move our Japanese maple tree and azalea bush before they start to bud. No easy feat, but it's got to be done since we're extending the deck and those guys are right in the way. Actually I'm more than willing to just cut them down. J wants to try to save them. I'll keep you posted...

And in other renovation news, I am gearing up to re-do our half bathroom on the main floor. And by re-do I mean strip off the wallpaper (yup, more wallpaper nonsense), paint the walls and replace the trim (cause they painted the trim this nasty peach color and it's got to go.) It's a tiny room. I think I can tackle it by myself. Wish me luck and stay tuned for the before, during and after photos.