Peter Rabbit and Friends

The Toad's Tea Party, by Beatrix Potter

I'm becoming reacquainted with the writings and illustrations of Beatrix Potter. She's brilliant! You might recognize her characters as Peter Rabbit, Squirrel Nutkin, Benjamin Bunny, Tom Kitten and Samuel Whiskers.

I believe that writing for children is one of the hardest forms because it requires simplicity and vivid imagery together. The task of bringing alive vivid images in few words is a daunting one, and Potter does it so well. She also does her own illustrations!

I recommend these books for readers of all ages, especially if you enjoy animals and nature. Or tea - there are lots of tea images and imagery. I suggest this book, Beatrix Potter: The Complete Tales. It compiles the Beatrix Potter stories in chronological order, along with a brief historical introduction.
Let the tales (and tails) take you back to a time of honest wonder.

V-day Ice Storm and More Tea Poetry

We got hit by an ice and snow storm in the Midwest last night. Lots of people are without power. I'm lucky to still have power, which means I'm warm but I don't get a snow day, either. In the first two photos, notice the branches are completely surrounded by ice. It's pretty. The DH and I were out and about yesterday afternoon, and we could hear branches regularly popping and then falling. It was an awesome sound, truly.









Have a nice Valentine's Day. Here are a few love poems of tea. (Originally found on Cup of Tea and a Blog.) The imagery is fantastic and very evocative -- You can decide of what.



Love Poems of Tea
1 If I, the boiling water,
And you, the tea;
Then your fragrance
Has to depend solely upon my plainness.

2 Let your dryness inside me
Softly uncoil and stretch;
Let me dissolve
Imperceptibly, your tension.

3 I have to be hot, even boiled
Before we consume each other;
We have to hide, see and hold
each other in water
to decide
a tea color.

4 No matter how capriciously
you drift;
Gradually and slowly
(O' gently)
You will into me submerge--
Deep.

5 By that moment
the most bitter tear of yours
will become a best sip
of my fragrance.

Cheung, Dominic. Drifting. Green Integer: Los Angelos. 2000. p. 18.

Bigelow Blog Roll

Hey! I'm on Bigelow's Blog Roll. Check out the column on the right!

www.BigelowTeaBlog.com

Valentine's Tea Stuff...

I have mixed feelings about Valentine's Day. I like the silly sweetness of it and celebrating with the DH. I like the chocolates. And I dislike the commercialism that's associated (aside from the chocolates!).

I've been saving a few items for V-day...here's the first to sing tea's praises:

A Poem Upon Tea

Hail, Drink of Life! How justly shou'd our Lyres

Resound the Praises which thy Pow'r inspires!

Thy Charms alone can equal Thoughts infuse:

Be though my Theme, my Nectar, and my Muse...

Tea, Heav'ns Delight, and Nature's truest Wealth,

That pleasing Physic, and sure Pledge of Health:

The Stateman's Councellor, the Virgin's Love,

The Muse's Nectar, and the Drink of Jove...

Immortals, hear, said Jove, and cease to jar!

Tea must succeed to Wine as Peace to War:

Nor by the Grape let Men be set at odds,

But share in Tea, the Nectar of the Gods...

-- Peter Antoine Motteux

Note: "Jove" is a reference to Roman mythology, the planet/god Jupiter.

What My Job Is Like...

At the core of my job, I develop software training. I do other things, too...like the strategic planning for all of this. Nonetheless, at the core, I develop training.

This YouTube video summarizes what my life often feels like, especially with the onset of Office 2007. I've watched it 3 times and laugh so hard each time! Especially the "Wait!" part at the very end.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRjVeRbhtRU

Tea Poems for a Cold, Cold Day

It's about 12 degrees today, and with the wind if feels like 2 below. But the sun is shining and I found a south-facing window with an open chair at the library. I spent a lovely afternoon reading about England. I've become enamored with the writing of Susan Allen Toth. She writes about her travels to England with humor, detail, and perspective.

Here are a few tea poems I recently rediscovered. Enjoy!

Winter Afternoon Teas
Winter seems to me
Time for tea
When all in the garden
is at rest
to sip and sip is best
A time to dream
A time to plan
A time essential to every man
-- Adelma Simmons, from Winter at Capriland's


We had a kettle, we let it leak;
Our not replacing it made it worse,
We haven't had any tea for a week....
The bottom is out of the Universe!

-- Rudyard Kipling, Natrual Theology

Really Beautiful and Unique Rosenthal Teapot

The generosity of my friends humbles me. I am the honored recipient of this really beautiful and unique Rosenthal teapot. It came from some friends who brought it home from their travels to Germany many years ago.

The creativity of this design is this:

1 - When you steep the tea, you turn the pot on its side.

2 - When the tea is done steeping, you turn it upright and the tea is out of the water.

I love the shape of the teapot. It works great, and is beautiful, as well. The fancy spout is one of my favorite parts. Here's the stamp on the bottom:

Anglophile

I'm taking the preparations for my London Tea Tour seriously! I'm studying up on British history, culture, the royal family, etc. For me, half the fun of traveling is the learning about where I'm going!

One definition of an Anglophile is someone simply interested in English things. That fits me, as I am interested in England and its connection to tea. Another definition of an Anglophile is one who wishes to be British. That's definitely not me. While I find the royal family interesting and am glad many of the beautiful palaces and artwork have been preserved, I don't believe in entitlement by birth. I'm too much of an egalitarian.




Windsor Castle




Here are some of the interesting sites I've found in my research:

Official Website of the Monarchy - Lots of history and photos.

The Royal Residences - Brief descriptions and photos. This was helpful, because I was having trouble keeping them straight. I'll be visiting Kensington Palace and Windsor Castle.

Changing the Guard - Info on the ceremony. "...the process involves a new guard exchanging duty with the old guard." Seems kind of metaphorical.

Tower of London - More than just a prison.

Lady Jane Grey - The "9-day queen" is a very interesting historical character!

I'll Take 22

22 degrees and breezy. It's sunny, but those clear skies are deceptive. No clouds to blanket the earth and hold in the heat. I'm heading out for a morning run. Solo run today. I don't wear my watch. I have a general sense of the distance (about 4 miles), but I don't worry about the time today.

I'm just not a gym girl. I have gone to gyms in the past, but mostly for yoga or the pool. I much, much, much prefer to take my exercise outside. Even when it's 22 degrees. I don't usually start out thinking that way. It starts out like, "Oh, gosh - it's cold! I'm tired. I don't want to run." But I pull on my gear and nudge myself out the door.

Like 22, I think in pairs. 2 sets of socks, 2 pairs of tights, 2 shirts, 1 jacket (double lined), a face mask and a stocking cap. The DH would smother in this get-up, but I'm quite comfy. I do NOT like to be cold!

Normally, I walk for the first 5 minutes, but when it's this cold, there is no "warm up" period with walking. I just get colder by the minute. I'm at the corner, and I break into a shuffle. Within a minute, and I'm at my pace.

On the way out, I have moments of doubt when I think I'm over dressed. I'm sweating. Then I hit the turnaround spot, and poof! The wind is now in my face. Nope, not over dressed. Swish-swish-swish. My nylon coat and pants make a soothing sound as I move along. I probably look quite funny.

My run through campus is beautiful. I look at all the students and their varying array of outfits. The winner today is a woman who has on a short skirt and bare legs, with heels. These sidewalks are icy and she's wearing heels! I hope she doesn't bust her butt.

The wind is still hitting me in the face, but I'm warm enough now that it doesn't sting. It's so good to be outside and breathe the fresh air. (We don't have many bad air days here.) The sun is sparkling off the remaining snow and the evergreen trees are lovely. I'll take this any day over a smelly, hot, sticky gym. I'm just not a gym girl.

Apron and All

Yep, that's my DH, proudly sporting a lilac floral apron and a teapot! Here's the story behind this great photo. :-) I was supposed to host a recent tea party for the staff at our church, but I had a cold and didn't feel up to it. The DH very capably stepped in for me! I suggested that he should wear my purple apron, for a laugh. Always one ready for a joke, he agreed.

While he doesn't give the "tea talk," he can brew up a mighty-good cuppa. Thank you, sweetheart!

Al and Monkey and PG Tips

I'm studying up on British things in preparation for my tea trip in March. I'm taking this quite seriously, reading and watching a diverse arrangement of British media and literature. Along the way, I've learned of Al and Monkey. >-)

In this commercial for PG Tips (a popular British brand of tea), the duo has reunited.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoD2w-Ogi4E

Enjoy!

Patience Pays Off!

We're now land barons! We closed on the lot today. It was a long process of hurry-up and wait. Apparently, the seller had not done the paperwork ~30 years ago when she inherited the land. There were other siblings and power-of-attorney issues on the seller's end. It took lawyers in 3-states to get the seller's end of the deal tidied up. I'm thankful for a patient husband and a patient realtor.
Our waiting has paid off! We own the sweet lot and plan to build on it. In a twist of irony too big to ignore, we looked at the lot 3 years ago and didn't buy it then. (We have differing stories as to why. :D) The lot went off the market. The DH kept it on his long list of to-dos in the past 3 years to find out what happened. As fortune would have it, the lot went back on the market and we found it before any of the land-hungry college housing landlords.

We would have saved money had we bought it three years ago, in a For Sale By Owner deal. However, would we have discovered and appropriately dealt with the legal issues? Would it have cost us more in the long run? There's no way to tell. And no sense in playing"what if." We own it now. We're celebrating with pizza AND breadsticks!

Cheers!
Stephanie

Movies

I've had the chance to catch up on my movie-watching lately. I'm also trying to brush up on some British flicks, in preparation for my tea tour. Here are a few movies that I've recently enjoyed:

* The Queen - I was fortunate to see this on its opening weekend in Seattle. I really enjoyed it! It's astonishing how much Helen Mirren looks like Her Majesty! There's very little "action" in the movie. It's based around a series of phone calls between Tony Blair and the Queen. But for anyone interested in England's political structure, it is quite interesting. And the movie has beautiful panoramics. And funny words. (E.g., "Stalking" means hunting.)

* Calendar Girls - Another Helen Mirren film. I watched this one twice, once with my Mom and once with Tom. I laughed heartily through it both times. This movie touches me because it shows the beauty, creativity and spunk of middle-aged women.

* The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio - Julianne Moore plays a Mom (of 10 kids!) who writes jingles to keep her large family afloat financially. Woody Harrelson does a good job of playing the conflicted father - an interesting character.

Happy, Happy!

I'm going to London on a tea tour in March! I'm so excited, I can hardly sit still!

Here are the details: http://www.teainlondon.com/default.asp

One of the cool things about this tour is that it includes a one-day tea class with Jane Pettigrew. She's one of the most well-know tea personalities out there these days.

This trip will be fun and will provide countless hours of blogging material, I'm sure. :-)

An Update on ADHD

Happy 2007!

For those of you that wanted an update on A Dear Hubby's Dilemma....

The dear hubby paid a visit to the Public Works department of the city.

The good news...
Though the truck looked like a regular garbage truck, it actually has two compartments. One compartment is for cardboard and newspaper. The other is for glass, plastic and metal.

The contents are taken to a large warehouse and dumped out separately. The contents are hand sorted. Unfortunately, there usually is some breakage of glass that can't be recycled.

The DH was relieved to learn that his worst fears were not true. The recycling is not going to the landfill.

Practicing Patience

The lot closing has been pushed out again (to January 17th). Apparently, the woman selling the lot inherited it along with her sisters. One sister recently died and the other has Alzheimer's. That sister's son needs to be power-of-attorney so he can sign off on selling the lot. We continue to wait for the paperwork to be finalized. Our realtor indicates we could walk away, but we do want the lot, so we'll wait.

I'm trying very hard to be patient about this. It's very easy for me to get frustrated and think this will never happen. That does nothing but get negative thoughts brewing in my mind, unhelpful chemicals chugging through my body, and frustrated energy flowing in the universe.

Today I'm choosing to be patient. I will be patient tomorrow, too. And so on. This is not an easy one for me, but it's what I'm doing. I'm also choosing to practice non-attachment and be OK if this lot deal doesn't go through. My happiness in the world is not tied to this lot.

Thank you for your continued good wishes! I do hope we end up with the lot, but if not it will be OK. I'm definitely learning about myself with wonderful chances to put into practice qualities I want to manifest. That's the biggest benefit.

Synchronicity...or Crawl Space Teapot

Check out this narrative from a guy who found a teapot in his crawl space. It's a pretty "mind blowing" story. Hang in there though the end, as he digresses, but eventually brings it all together.
(Thanks to MT, Teamailer, for the story reference!)

http://www.actionsquad.org/crawlspace1.html

A Cup of Christmas Tea

A Cup of Christmas Tea, by Tom Hegg

Listen to the touching poem read by the author, here.
My Mom gave me the book a few years ago. It's one of my absolute favorites.

Cookie Exchange

I attended a Christmas Cookie Exchange recently and it was very fun! Each person brought 1-2 types of cookies, and we left with a wide assortment. :-) The only problem has been not gobbling them down at one sitting.

We also had a kitchen gadget exchange. That was fun - and I came home with Bob the Builder cupcake toppers! Here are a few photos of the beautiful cookies.


The hostess's marvelous creation - gingerbread reindeer (an upside-down gingerbread man).









The lovely cookie table




















My teapot shortbread cookies. Butter, sugar and flour - what could be better?

More Eco-Friendly and Socially Responsible Gift Ideas

From my last post on this topic, I had a few great suggestions from readers. Thank you!

Heifer projet http://www.heifer.org/
Provides animals that can support a sustainable food source (e.g., milk/eggs) to impoverished families.

• Heifer envisions…A world of communities living together in peace and equitably sharing the resources of a healthy planet.
• Heifer’s mission is…To work with communities to end hunger and poverty and to care for the earth.
• Heifer's strategy is…To “pass on the gift.” As people share their animals’ offspring with others – along with their knowledge, resources, and skills – an expanding network of hope, dignity, and self-reliance is created that reaches around the globe.

Ten Thousand Villages http://www.tenthousandvillages.com/

• Ten Thousand Villages provides vital, fair income to Third World people by marketing their handicrafts and telling their stories in North America.
• Ten Thousand Villages works with artisans who would otherwise be unemployed or underemployed. This income artisans earn helps pay for food, education, health care and housing.