I had way too much fun on the Stash Tea website last weekend, and received my order yesterday.  I got smallish samples of several plain and flavored black and oolong teas, a big pack of mint, and a couple white teas to try just because I've never had white tea before. About half my selections are in tea bags, the rest is loose-leaf.  Not pictured is the Coconut Mango oolong that I already took to work, and the Darjeeling that they forgot to send.

I've only tried a couple kinds so far, but WHOA! One knocked my socks off.

Do you like floral teas? Dragon Phoenix Pearls jasmine white tea. Seriously, get some now.

It's intensely fragrant, smooth, sweet, and not at all bitter. It's one of the more expensive kinds I bought, but you can infuse two or three cups from the same leaves, so it works out about the same (or less, even) as a single-use tea bag.

Dear Self,

How long is it going to take you to realize that continuing to beat your head against this particular brick wall is not a productive activity?  How long until you realize that this HURTS, and maybe you should stop?

Just accept that the brick wall is there, and go around.

Sincerely,
Yourself

SQUEEEEEEEEE!

In approximately 8 weeks, after they build it for me, one of these beautiful wheels is coming to live at my house!

My contribution to the Seventh Annual Blogger's (Silent) Poetry Reading:


Reluctance
by Robert Frost

Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch-hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question 'Whither?'

Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?

Jasmine tea.  Yum.

Also, I no longer find sugar necessary, even for black tea blends.  It's not just unbearably bitter bitter bitter anymore.  I can taste the citrusy flavors in Earl Grey, and the floral sweetness of the jasmine.

This really is very strange, that I suddenly like tea.  I feel like I'm having an out-of-body experience.  Who am I?

A spinning wheel with a 30" drive wheel really isn't THAT much bigger than a wheel with a 22" drive wheel, right?

Right?

OK, so I measured and compared to Emma's Ashford Traditional wheel... Overall, a Schacht Reeves 30" Saxony wheel is 11" longer, 5" taller, and 6" wider.

That's not so bad.

(Stop it, Sue.  Stop it, stop it, stop it.)

All morning, through getting myself and Emma up and out the door, driving her to school and myself to work, and sitting here at my desk for a half hour, I've felt sort of off kilter.  Everything was just...off.  I was having trouble focussing, like I had been up until 3:00am again, except this time I HADN'T!  I had a good night last night, went to bed before midnight and stayed asleep all night. (Tension Tamer tea at 10:00pm! Yay!) Still, I had that off-balance, weird feeling.

I took my contacts out and rinsed them, then finally made the connection.

It's a very disconcerting feeling to have your contacts in the wrong eyes, especially considering they are two different prescriptions and one of them is a toric lens.

D'OH!

(I've done this before.  You'd think I would learn...)