Tea Time

    Hello Cyberspace! Happy Wednesday...yea I know it's not a holiday but I couldn't really think of another reason I was posting today of all days so I thought that sounded as good as anything else I was liable to come up with. Lame, I'll grant lol. 

   Anyway, there isn't much going on in the world of me lately. There is a massive reorganization going on downstairs at home. My apartment is on the landing halfway up so there is a lot of dust making its way into my space. I've got a problem with dust, an allergy really, and the first few days after the whole thing started were pretty miserable for me. Fortunately, I've discovered my system is pretty screwed up. I mean how I respond to allergens and stuff. There are two ways I've found to stop myself from coughing. One is a very cold shower with water running up the nose...yea I said UP..as in turning your head upside down. As you can imagine that isn't a terribly practical thing to do regularly. 

   Fortunately for me, I found a second way. TEA. Mint tea with a TON of honey. I've never been much of a tea drinker, though I did drink it around the christmas holidays, mint with sugar at that point and a touch of honey. This time, no sugar and all honey on the sweetner..which is good I guess bc it's totally natural, nothing dangerous about peppermint leaves and honey. But the sheer quantity I'm drinking right now is insane. Practically all day every day. Which means I'm buying honey twice a week at this point. 

   But I've also discovered that not all mint teas are created equal. Celestial Seasonings has a candy cane tea released as part of their holiday series around christmas time which was really great. What they did which was interesting is they added some vanilla to it, so the flavor is sweeter and less papery than some of the ones I've tried lately. Word of caution with Celestial Seasonings though, I bought their gingerbread tea bc my mom likes to have ginger to settle her stomach. It has soy in it. Now what part exactly of a tea leaf does SOY come off of? There is no reason that should be in tea of any sort and I'm not just saying that because my mom and I happen to be allergic to it.

     Bentley tea is the worst of the ones I've tried so far. Bentley Mint tea just tasted like muddy water. I actually dumped the entire cup in the sink and will not be using any more out of that box. The sad thing is I filled my portable tea tin (more on that in a minute) with the bentley yesterday and as a consequence worked until midnight with nothing to drink at the office. NOT FUN. 

  Bigelow teas are pretty widely respected and actually have two three variations of the "mint tea". Bigelow Plantation mint is a spearmint tea, not alot of flavor bc spearmint is alot softer than peppermint but it's still miles above bentley. Bigelow Peppermint tea is actually not bad at all but has a bit of a papery aftertaste so drink it fast, don't sip. Bigelow Mint Medley is today's office tea. It's, as you might guess, a mix of peppermint and spearmint, with rose hips, lemon peel and hibiscus. I don't really get the lemon peel, and strangly enough you can taste it but I kinda wish I couldn't because it doesn't add anything palatable to the tea. Bigelow has the same problem as Celestial Seasonings in that both seem to feel that in order to have less traditional flavors you must add SOY to them. Pretty much all their fruit teas that I've seen and their holiday blends are all soy filled. 

   By far the best mint tea I've ever had is a peppermint that was made by Yogi tea. I've not seen it in the store recently but it's one of a very few peppermint teas that I've found taste good both cold and warm. Most mint teas really don't work when they're cold. Idk why but there is something about the natural coolness of the mint and the hot beverage that blends just nicely. 

   But when I say I had honey to it, I mean I add alot of honey. I was using a jar of local honey the week before last and it was 4 teaspoons full per cup of tea. Now with the honey bears it's like 6 squeezes. Word of caution there as well, last week I bought a Sue Bee brand premium honey at the store. That stuff is terrible. Flavor wise. Maybe it's just because prior to that I was using natural local origin honey, but it really was just awful. I finished it because I'd paid money for it, that's literally the only reason. It was that bad. It serves the function of a cough suppressant so I don't have to rely on nyquill anymore (which is good because I don't like being knocked out) and dayquill really lacks the antihistamine which is the only thing that does a damn thing for my allergy so for me dayquill is pretty much useless. 

   Portable Tea tin is an idea I came up with yesterday and it seems to work just fine (except for the aforementioned bentley swill from earlier) The idea is pretty simple. About 5 years ago, I purchased a tea sampler from disney world while visiting. It consisted of 4 small tins with foil wrapped tea bags inside. Having finished that tea primarily by serving it to guests (which was the entire purpose of purchasing that as I only drink mint), I had the empty tea tins sitting on one of my two last remaining bookshelves after the rest kinda fell apart on me. 

   

   Anyway, I've had these small size tins for years and yesterday on my way into the kitchen I had an idea. I took one of the tins, a "green tea" tin featuring Jasmine from the aladdin films and the legend "disney storybook tea" (anyone who is not familiar with it, it was the tea sold in disney shops prior to the wonderland tea which came out in like 08 I believe and features the YOU MUST TRY mad tea party tea. I serve it to guests and brew it just for the way it smells, apricots and blossoms in the tea, smells like heaven) The small size tin was perfect for a handful of mint tea, should be just enough to get through the day. And the tin is small enough to be very portable. Fits easily into my computer bag or my purse for transit. All in all, very glad I kept those little tins :)

 My birthday has come and gone since the last time I was in the bloggisphere. I don't wanna say how old I am though, I'm getting to the point nowadays where I really don't even like admitting it to myself. My family isn't helping. They make a point of mentioning the exact number of years I have until I reach 30 as if it were a ticking time bomb. I'm of the opinion that I'm going to be one of those people that will not willingly reach 30...the stereotypical turning 29 15 times...that's going to be me, just you wait and see. I'm sensitive about growing older at all. It seems crazy and it's just a recent preoccupation of mine but I really just don't like the idea that I am getting older. Seriously, if someone guesses my age, I'm really angry if they get it right, isn't that a bit crazy? I much prefer it when people don't think I look anywhere near as old as I'm told that I am. I don't FEEL old. I don't think I look old. But the realization that I'm not a teenager, that I haven't been one in several years isn't very comfortable for me at the moment. 

   It's been bothering me since graduation I think. I kept thinking when I got out of college, life was going to start. So far, it's really just more of the same. Worrying about the same things I've been worrying about for years, paying the same bills, working all hours and with LESS of a social life than I had in college bc I'm not around people my own age like at all. I spend all day and sometimes all night at my desk working on paperwork and making calls. The "funfilled" weekend usually involves laundry and housework. Maybe I'm bored or maybe I need a vacation, I don't know. It just feels like there is something huge that's missing. It's sad when all I really have to talk about is tea and books. (like I'm at 67 in the book challenge thing). Though lately I've been working so much I haven't had much time for reading, just paperwork, I keep working on the pile and all it seems to do is grow. 

  AND I had a whole list of things I wanted to do for my birthday. Instead I ended up not feeling well bc of all the dust and I had dinner out and went home. That's it. No fun, nothing different or interesting...Just food. It was a nice meal don't get me wrong, I hadn't been to the place in ages so that was grand but I really do get so damn sick of doing the same thing every day. Nothing ever changes. 8 months of monotony is enough to drive anyone off the end of the rails but I'm too busy worrying about everything to actually stop and smell the roses. 

   We had the family reunion at the beginning of August which was really the only vacation I've had in a year, not really sure that qualifies as a vacation but it was nice to see some of the people. There are new babies pretty much constantly in the wilson's side, three new ones since January, with 3 more expected by the end of the year (all girls on the expecting, two boys and a girl on the ones that have come already (malachi, amira and noah- I've not met Noah yet but Malachi was adorable and Amira couldn't have been more AWWWW if she tried) ) I'm glad personally for all the little ones because, to me, they are my grandma wilson's legacy. See she had all these children who continued to have children and have children and each new little face is a continuation of her. In some of the little faces that have been around in the last couple years, they make me think about her, about the fact that this is her family, and that as long as these children continue to grow up and someday have their own families, a little part of her lives on. Seems silly I know but that's why I'm so insistent about these reunions and why I can't recall ever missing one. There was some discussion at this year's reunion about only running them every other year. I don't agree with that at all. Granted it isn't my place to object and it isn't my house that's being used. But the big issue is when you stop having them, if you stop creating reasons for people to come together, for these new little ones to get to know their cousins and make friends with them, then you break these ties that we have to struggle to preserve because grandma and grandpa are now gone. I know grandma would've wanted everyone to stay together, to keep in contact with each other, to continue to be family and preserve those connections. When I was a kid, I couldn't wait to get to the reunion and see my favorite cousins. That's what I want for my new little cousins. For them to make friends and look forward to seeing them. It's a little thing but it creates a sense of community. 

   On an attempt to change the subject as I seem to have gone off in a tangent (not the first time on that) computer trouble yesterday. Couldn't get it on in the morning, it wouldn't charge and I asked Dad how easy it would be to get an extended battery. Well then he goes off on this tangent about how I must have torn up the charge jack on the side of the computer and ripped it away from the motherboard and how "careless" I must have been in the treatment of my computer. So after he's done berating me, I plugged my non functioning computer in, in the hope that perhaps it would start to charge after all. And then just left it alone. 

   A couple hours later my brother Bob came through the office. I showed him the cord and the plug and the fact that regardless of the computer being currently plugged in, it was refusing to charge. So he very simply restated my previous notion that there was something wrong with the battery and advised me to take the battery off. After doing so, the computer worked as it was meant to. SO after being told how irresponsible I was ad nauseum, it turned out I was right all along. Purchased a new battery on ebay for $15.00, it should be here soon. In the meantime, my laptop is temporarily a desk top, but I will say the entire unit is a heck of a lot lighter without the battery lol. 

   Once more shifting gears. I heard right before I left for the reunion that a friend of mine from high school died last month. It was someone I was really close to though I won't name them here because I don't really know what happened and it has to be terribly painful for his family to lose him at 23, and naming him might bring up more questions than answers at this point (however if someone who went to school with me wants to know just contact me privately and I'll tell you what I know about it, though it isn't alot just warning you now) I do remember talking to another classmate via the chat thing on facebook saying that honestly we are too young to be looking for classmates on the obituary site (which is actually one of the first things I did after I found out, just to see if it was true) It seems impossible that he's gone. He was one of the few people I kept in contact with after high school, I would ask his advice about things, we'd email back and forth and he never made me feel like I was wasting his time or that my questions were stupid. As a freshman at HFA, he was one of the first people I met that were nice to me in high school and I'll always be grateful for that. But more than that, he was one of the smartest people I ever met, funny and sarcastic and just really great person to know. He also had really pretty eyes. I don't mind mentioning now though I would've never dared to tell him that I used to have a huge crush on him. It seems so silly now and it never would have worked, personality wise and I KNOW for a fact he never liked me like that, even if he did, it still wouldn't have worked. But I am going to miss him all the same. With that in mind, I actually wrote a song, my first in many months, as sort of a tribute to him. No I won't share it here, because it's raw and not yet copywrited. I will say that writing it made me cry (admit idly, not hard to do) but that there was something cathartic about it. Also considering how simply uncreative I've been feeling lately, and the fact that I hadn't written anything new since like march, this was a big deal for me. It didn't lead to a big burst of creative energy, honestly I doubt that will come until I get some of the worry off my plate at the moment and can really focus on my music. But in some ways, it felt like the goodbye I never got. Anyone who knows me knows I don't deal well with loss. I don't like goodbyes and I nearly always lose any composure I have when I get near funerals. Some of it is my thanataphobia though I've been doing better with that as of late. But the idea of someone I knew well, someone who, in spite of the "oh god I'm old" vibe I've been feeling lately, was very young, too young to have gone, isn't something I was prepared for. It isn't something I thought I'd have to BE prepared for. 

  What makes matters worse is the person I'd normally talk to about this is the very person who just passed. How's that for irony. I tried talking about it to my friend shannon and she's a sympathetic ear and everything but it isn't the same. I'm not talking to mike right now and micheal isn't talking to me so those two are out. Like as not, mike wouldn't get it anyway. Made the mistake of talking to steven about too much stuff the last time we spoke so I don't think I'm going to do that either. And Jazz is too busy I don't wanna bother her. Kassandra doesn't work here anymore so when I do talk to her I have to be careful and mostly upbeat as per my bosses instruction, plus she's doing well and is really happy right now so she doesn't need to hear my problems. I sometimes go to my cousin Chris or my cousin Mattiniah but I don't think this is the kinda problem they'd like. For Mattiniah it isn't the sort of thing he can fix easily and Chris is just really too busy right now to listen. Doesn't make him a bad person but I don't wanna bother him. It just kinda feels like there isn't anyone I can talk to and I feel like I NEED to talk to someone, clear some crap off my chest I guess. HENSE the return to the silent impartial world of the bloggisphere. Because yea I keep a diary book, I have since I was a kid. But in the blog world, even if no one ever reads it, you can imagine in your head that someone out there is seeing it and cares. Even if it isn't true and you know it isn't true. I'm completely aware that no one reads this but me but the venting itself is therapeutic. 

Until Next time,

       Kat

My car yesterday morning. I was headed to work yesterday and when I came around to the side of the building, it was peaking through the gate like that. I thought it was really cute, like a little puppy or something. 

My new scentsy product just came in. The scent bag is ALOT stronger than the bars are though so I'm gonna have to be careful where I leave this little thing lol I had thought of putting it in my "second bedroom" as a way to scent it without having to use electricity or find a plug which I'm not sure I can in there lol