spring has probably sprung

Last year, about this time, all the leaves started coming up and the peach tree started putting out flowers. The bees came back and it was pollinated, and we even got a little pea-sized baby peach... and then we had several last-minute freezes and the first leaves and the little baby peach all froze off. I'm leery of putting out the new things for the garden because of this tendency... I can't remember if it happened the year before because we didn't have the peach tree yet (her name is Melba), and I was late starting the garden because of various crazy, so I didn't have to worry about February.

I think the rose is dead. I'm going out at some point this week to lop off the branches that are definitely not alive anymore, and to see if I can find any livingness in the main stem and roots. If it is alive, I'll feed it tea and powdered milk and see if I can get it to flower this year. If not... well. I don't know. I'll be sad. And I guess I'll get a new rose bush and start over. The green rose I got to go with it last year never even sprouted, so I guess they're together in the Way of All Things.

I need to get to the Seed Vault (see: the huge collection of jars in my closet) and pick up the tomatoes and peppers and herbs I want to grow this year. Several of them won't be viable much longer, so I may as well plant a bunch of them.

I need to get new dirt, since the rains this winter washed away most of my bucket of reserved dirt, and it's probably mostly not good anymore, anyway.

I need to go through the seed catalogues and see what's neat and new that I can afford.

But later. I don't have time today.

today's tea... monday, february 21, 2011

+

Japanese Wild Cherry + Rooibos Tropica, both from Teavana ages ago. 

It occurs to me that 'ages ago' comes up a lot in my tea descriptions. I should go through and get rid of all the old tea, make note of what it was, and replace it. Except that old tea is still good enough to drink, and I've put a lot of money into it over the years. And I keep them all in glass containers in a dark corner of the house...

Anyway.

This is a fruity and floral tea. It seemed appropriate since we're suddenly is spring up in here. It does require a filter-- I have a cute little over-glass one that H brought back from China for me-- because the fruit floats and the rooibos doesn't ever settle. The addition of actual tea and the flavors of the cherry, cherry blossom and whatever is in the Tropica covers up the weird olivy-ness that I always seem to get from un-flavored rooibos, and you get the benefits of red tea and black tea. Yum.

and just like that, it's spring

I don't know if it'll last, but when I came out of the house this morning to go to work, it was spring. A classic Lobby on the Lawn* sort of day. The sky was clear, the air was warm, the flowering plum across the street from the school was in full bloom, dropping pretty white flower-petals like snow. When I got to work, the shrubs I lock my bike up next to were covered in little white flowers that smell like roses, and the place was practically humming with bees. I haven't seen a bee downtown in months, and now there's a million in one place. The buds on the mulberries are opening up into little baby leaves. The peach tree is budding. If my rose comes back, winter's done!

link: Letterboxing North America - Getting Started

Letterboxing North America - Getting Started

Another fun-looking hobby I probably don't have time for-- like Geocacheing, but with home-made signature stamps.

Also here: http://www.atlasquest.com/

link: Machination: A Game of Evil Genius by Signal Flare Games — Kickstarter

Machination: A Game of Evil Genius by Signal Flare Games — Kickstarter

Kickstarter is an amazing thing, and I think I really want to fund a little of this game. It sounds really cool, it comes from people whose work I like, and it's being part of croudsourcing in a good way.

I made soup today

It wasn't really anything like the Minorcan Clam Chowder recipe I based it on, but it was good, and it went like this:
3 sandwich-sized bags of frozen turkey broth from the Thanksgiving turkey
1 can of Italian-style chopped tomatoes
1 can of red beans and their sauce / juice
1 can of baby potatoes, chopped
about a cup each of frozen peas and frozen corn
2 big scoops of Sofrito
a palmfull of fried garlic (the kind in the jar from the asian market)
maybe two palmfulls of fried onions (also from the asian market)
some thyme, red pepper, oregano, salt, pepper
2 bay leaves
a teaspoon or so of sugar

Cook all this until it's boiling
Throw in enough chicken for everyone who's eating-- I just dropped the chicken breasts in whole and let the poach
Throw in a third cup or two of rice
Let the whole thing simmer until the rice gets that split look that rice in soup is supposed to have
Nom nom.


I'd like to add more veggies next time, and probably some fat of some sort-- cream or butter in at the end of the cooking. Maybe some cheese. But it was good like this, and a keeper as far as half-thought-out recipes go. Not bad for a house with basically no food in it.

link: Why Letting Yourself Make Mistakes Means Making Fewer of Them | Psychology Today

Why Letting Yourself Make Mistakes Means Making Fewer of Them | Psychology Today:

"While some people seem eager to tackle new challenges, many of us are really just trying to survive without committing any major screw-ups. Taking on something totally new and unfamiliar is understandably frightening, since the odds of making a mistake are good when you are inexperienced. Small wonder that we greet new challenges with so little enthusiasm.

How can we learn to see things differently? How can we shift our thinking, and approach new responsibilities and challenges with more confidence and energy?"

Thinking in terms of progress, not perfection. That's so simple. And totally mind-blowing, like when I was trying to figure out how to save and budget better, and all I had to do was think in terms of how much money I can keep, not how much I can spend. This is the same thing, a little tweak of personal mindspace that makes everything look different.

I'm trying to progress. To improve, and learn and get better all the time. New things are hard, and I can make mistakes along the way as long as I learn from them.

I suddenly feel so much better about the world.

hinky

I don't know what it is, but I'm running on high-anxiety these last few days. Not as high as a panic attack, thank god, but that feeling where I feel like I'm forgetting something, or not working fast enough. I feel like... Like I've not been brave enough to ask the right questions about anything I've done this week, and it's going to cause problems later, except I haven't done anything that's required me to ask any important questions. At all. This fact means that it's just a hormone imbalance or something. I've been drinking a lot of tea lately; maybe it's the caffeine.

So I'll cut some of the sugar, I'll back off on the tea. I can take some suppliments in the morning when I eat breakfast. I'll try to sleep better. We're going to the rennfaire tomorrow, so maybe a little downtime will make things better.

today's tea...

I've had this one for a while, so it's probably not as fresh as it could be (and we have bad water-- I can't afford to only drink bottled water), so take any uncomplimentary notes with that in mind, because I really love Republic of Tea. They have an awesome look, good tea, neat gimmicks.

Anyway.

Today we have Republic of Tea Pineapple Guava White Tea.

It's got the perk that white tea never gets bitter because it has hardly any tannins*, so it's a good one to brew and leave, which is my favorite way to have tea. No muss... after the original ritual of getting it made.

I always want this one to be really fruity, maybe sort of tropical-floral, but it's not. At least my jar isn't. It smells good in the tin, but not really like pineapple or guava, both of which are very complex and specific scents, and the smell doesn't really translate to the tea. I don't remember if it did when this was new, but I'm sure I'd remember if it was really good, so probably not.

My two favorite fruit flavors are lychee and guava, and so far, guava-flavored things other than guava juice or paste have all let me down, so I think I'll stick with lychee for tea. But overall, this is a pleasant tea, just not anything amazing.



* Why are tannins in tea bracing, while tannins in wine are the cause of horrible morning-after headaches?

today's tea...

Some generic looseleaf Oolong. I bought a pound of it years ago and I'm only just now getting down to the end of it* and starting to consider getting an order together** for more. It's gotten stronger and a bit less complex over the years I've had it, but it's still super-drinkable, and it's great early in the morning. This post is going up at almost 10, but I got up and made it an hour ago, and it's exactly what I needed.

Goes well with a breakfast of an old toasted crumpet with butter and raspberry-redcurrant jam, too. The crumpet, however, needed some clotted cream. If I remember when I go shopping, I'll pick up some whipping cream and make some.



* A pound of tea is literally the size of my head. It filled up two of the spagetti-sauce-size mason jars and I still had a whole ziploc-bag full. Most of that went into things like my henna mix and this tea-infused cake I tried once (it wasn't very good; needed work). Tea is very light and a pound is a LOT.
** They're a great website, but they have a 35$ minimum order, and each thing is usually about four dollars, so I have to need several things to make an order.