I Broke Down

For all my tough words yesterday, I broke down and turned on my heater this morning.  Yeah, I'm a wimp.

Once the house had warmed up a bit, I turned the thermostat down to 60 and left for work.  Guess what temp the house was sitting at when I got home?  If you said 60, congratulations, you're a winner!  I have no idea how cold it would have gotten if I'd left the heater completely turned off.  I don't do that, though.

I don't want my spoiled rotten dogs to get too cold.

I bumped the thermostat up to 65' and quickly built a fire.  Now, I'm sitting here at a very comfortable 68'.  The high today was only 32', and some parts of the state got snow.  We only got rain and sleet.  On the bright side, it wasn't freezing rain.  It's way too early in the year for that.

What it's not too early in the year for is hot tea.  I used to drink it all the time, but had pretty much stopped, because it would get cold before I finished.  Now that I have my Yeti-knock off insulated tumblers, I thought I'd get it all out and start drinking it again.

First thing I did was to drag it all out and see what I have.  It's lot, I'm telling ya.

First up, there is all this loose tea from the now defunct Tealated website.

Then there is this sampler my sister sent me for Christmas one year, that hasn't even been opened.

All this I bought from Wal-Mart.

And this jar which is full of miscellaneous, mostly unlabeled tea bags. 

If you would please be so kind as to ignore the clutter on my kitchen cabinet.

OK?  Onward...

On this chilly evening, I chose a flavor of the loose tea from Tealated.  I carefully spooned it into my tea ball, and heated my water.  I put the ball into my insulated tumbler, and began pouring in the hot water...and the clasp on the ball came loose and all the tea floated out.

Sigh...if that isn't a metaphor for my life, I don't know what it.

Undaunted, I let it steep, strained the leaves out and drank it anyway. 

Then I made some hot chocolate, and drank it, too. 

I am quite warm now, thank you. 



One last thing, I asked my coworker if she had to read the book again.  She said, "YES!"  I told her I'd make her a list of some of my favorite childhood books.  If you have any you'd like to suggest, I'll be happy to add them as well.