Tea Samples

Let's be real: the above shirt describes me pretty well. So well, in fact, that I just used a coupon that I had laying about to purchase it (in green!) so that when I'm working out, you'll know what I'm really thinking about. 

But let's not forget an important component in the whole system (really simple system) that makes up who I am: Tea.

Tea is the fuel for the fire, the juice that lubricates my thinking brain and my keeping-awake-eyeballs, it's the stuff of champions, the nectar of Calliope and all the other muses, the basic building block of all that hydrates me. 

Water, after all, is simply tea with the leaves taken out. 

This past holiday season was really good in the tea department!!

I talked already about the great loose tea set I was given in November, and the ManaTea tea infuser I got from my Secret Santa. Next up in the tea department is....

Harney & Sons individual samples!!

I started drinking Harney & Sons a year or so ago. I bought it at a fancy-britches grocery store because it was in the middle of their price range, came in a fancy tin, and the Earl Grey smelled really great. Yum! I moved on to Paris, a black tea with vanilla notes. 

Recently, my friend gave me a Paris and a Lemon Verbena individual packets, and the description for Paris was totally different than the copy on the tin. But they tasted about the same, so perhaps it's just marketing? The Lemon Verbena was amazing. I stopped drinking lemon tea and citrus tea in general a long time ago, because the stuff Celestial Seasonings was carrying just wasn't very tasty. Harney & Sons has completely changed my tune about lemon teas! 

In the past I've only ordered teas from Lupica, which has a fantastic variety of loose teas at reasonable prices. My favorite is Yume, a black blend with strawberry, vanilla, and rose.

It's hard to compare Lupica with Harney & Sons in terms of value, since it's difficult to do side-by-side comparisons by website descriptions alone. Still, it seems that each company offers a range of quality within each tea type, which makes me feel comfortable about taking a gamble on some of the pricier fancy teas. I have a range of Japanese tea cups that I got as going-away presents, and I want to drink teas worthy of such beautiful cups. 

Someday I'll round up all my tea and talk about it, because I have some really nice ones so far...

Next time we'll get back to books, I promise!!

Things I Love Thursday - The Weekend

Hi everybody!! I completely forgot it was TiLT until Katie did this great Thursday post from lovely Italy!!

Love Pig Love Pig Kiss Kiss Kiss!!

This Thursday, I love:

♥ THE WEEKEND!! I'm just having my Sunday right now, it was SO NICE to have two solid days off!! I made it to the library, and got to see a friend I hadn't seen in a while, and the rest of the time was spent reading, studying, eating cheeses... Very relaxed!! Sometimes having time off is bad for me, because I either get too lonely or restless, OR I end up going out and spending piles of money on stuff. This weekend was so very very nice to me.

♥ Sleep. Lately, I've managed to sleep all the way through the night, and I've had good dreams. You can't beat that!

♥ Coffee dates with good friends! Even though afterward my heart is always beating too fast.

♥ Future plans with good friends!! I love having things to look forward to, and I've got some really fun ones coming up!

Here comes the future, you guys!

Greet it with open arms and a loving smile!!

Stuck in the 100's

Sometimes you just accidentally end up in one place or another, and neglect to explore the whole area.

I didn't make it past the first two corridors of the non-fiction section

The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking: How Irrational Beliefs Keep Us Happy, Healthy, and Sane by Matthew Hutson. I picked this up randomly, because I wanted to know how to be happy, but I think it's preaching to the choir. I am basically composed 50% of Irrational Beliefs & Passionate Emotion, and 50% Cold, Unyielding Logic. 

The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm, who approaches love from having studied law, religion, and sociology. He begins with the premise that the difficulty we have in love is from our lack of exercising the faculty, but we mistake our repeat failures as being caused by the object. In other words, we don't practice our art, and then cry over a lifetime of bad paintings, sobbing that there must be something wrong with the canvas. I like logic applied to emotion, because (see above). Also because I can't make heads nor tails of other people. 

The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries by Marilyn Johnson. The only book not having to do with self improvement, unless my ultimate aim is to be the subject of a particularly entertaining obituary. Hmmm.

Thirty Things Every Woman Should Have and Should Know By The Time She's 30 by the editors of Glamour. I almost didn't include this in the picture because I'm slightly ashamed of having picked it up, but let's face it -- I am, occasionally, pathetic. It's just like reading a magazine, but longer, and in book form, and without all the ads. My best friend is turning 29 this week, which reminds me that I only have about 15 months until I'M 30, and while that doesn't necessarily freak me out, I feel like a failure a lot of the time for not having my life together more, or at least together enough that I can feel unashamed of inviting people in to that life on any real or meaningful level. (Spoiler: I actually have a lot of the things on the list. IN YOUR FACE, 30!)

The Rook by Daniel O'Malley YES I have read this book before it's brilliant and you should go read it too, if you like BOOKS. AT ALL. And supernatural stuff, and bureaucracy, and laughing. 

My brother got a book all about deep sea creatures, with lots of really great photos of blobby horrors and giant things with glowing eyes and tentacles. He has much better taste in books than I do, sometimes.

Also in the photo above, you can see my skirt of the day. My brother very kindly gave me some Crimbo Cash in the form of a Target gift card, which I used on two very nice skirts:

From yesterday, for my library outing. I was in a deep deep funk, which I think was showing on my face, which is why I was hiding under a big hood, but the worse I feel, the more I want to look pretty, so I used the skirt to let my legs have the day free. 

Skirt #2, being let out of the closet today for a coffee date. I don't quite know how to style this one: most of the shirts I have don't work with it quite right. I could wear a blouse, but it's cold enough that I'd then have to wear a jacket, and then you wouldn't be able to see my cute outfit, and then WHAT IS THE POINT I ASK YOU. I thought about buying a bodysuit from Black Milk to solve the problem, but imagining trying to use a toilet in bodysuit + skirt was just too horrifying. For now, leggings and a track shirt do the trick.

How's it going, you guys? It's warming up where I live, and that's something. I hope everything is ok with you.