Valerean

I decided to tea dye the drawstring cotton bag I wanted to use for the project in the Summer issue of GreenCraft. This is because I like the color tea dyeing produces versus using coffee; it's warmer and looks more vintage. I have my own method of dyeing which I've used for lace and small bits of linen. The formula is pretty simple: boiling water + four tea bags + glass container in which to soak the bag in the tea. For darker color you use more tea bags. I wanted only a light dye so I let it soak for about an hour before I took it out. I then gave the bag a quick handwash. This isn't strictly necessary but I prefer to remove any remaining tea from the bag. Here is the tea dyed bag next to one that was not dyed. Note the shrinkage. Now that I have the bag done, I can give the project a go. :)

After much experimenting, fiddling, trying alternatives and avoiding related problems, I've now settled my morning beverage (if you remember, I gave up coffee in favor of tea back in March .) Yes, I'm back to drinking coffee again. There are many reasons. I love tea more than coffee, but the experience of drinking tea in the morning was less than satisfying. I went through caffeine withdrawal headaches for longer than seemed reasonable. I did find a caffeinated Asian osmanthus tea that I liked lot, but then I came across some controversy over the actual versus claimed ingredients. I did more research. There were disturbing reports about heavy metals in Chinese tea that made me decide to stick to home grown, which actually is very expensive (I did try a few, but none appealed to me.) The only teas that seem to be safe are the herbal tisanes grown in the US. Meanwhile, I got headaches more frequently. I'm not sure why but it might be psychological; I've ...

I'm back to making my morning coffee in a drip machine, this because unfiltered coffee (which is what I was making in the French Press) has a substance in it that raises cholesterol, which is bad for me. The coffee drama in my life (more on that tomorrow) will never end, it seems. It did give me a topic for this post, which is namely no-calorie drinks. As a diabetic I drink a lot every day -- probably close to a gallon -- so I have to be careful not to drink anything sweetened or that has too many calories. Hot coffee with stevia is a zero calorie drink; I add about 40 calories with the tablespoon of nonfat drink milk that I use for creamer. At night I drink one or two cups of herbal tea with stevia, which is also a zero calorie drink. Since I'm a chronic insomniac I've been testing various brands and blends of chamomile tea to see which helps me fall asleep fastest, and Celestial Seasonings' Honey Vanilla Chamomile is the winner. Without fail one strong-br...

After being a morning coffee drinker since I was a teenager, I decided back in January to make the switch to drinking only tea. Why, you may ask? 1. Coffee is already expensive, and with the situation in the world (climate and political changes) that's only going to get worse. 2. Because of my lactose intolerance I have to use non-dairy creamer in coffee or I get a stomach ache in the morning. The one I prefer is also becoming more expensive and harder to find now. 3. While I like coffee, I prefer tea, in which I don't use any creamer. I also drink herbal tea at night, and it's more relaxing for me. 4. Tea is much cheaper than coffee, and I have it on hand anyway. This matters because I am still looking for ways to live more frugally, and by me giving up coffee we'll save almost thirty dollars a month, which is $360.00 a year. 5. According to this paper it's possible that green tea may help me avoid suffering from cognitive decline in the near fut...

While on a shopping trip last year I went by Sam Flax, the art store where I snapped the pic of this funny bird mural. It's been painted over now with art I don't like so much, which made me sad, but that's life. I think I'm pretty much finished with participating in NaNoWriMo, which has just become a sad profit-generating shadow of the original concept. What I would like to do is make my own novel writing time challenge for the blog, and set my own rules. I write 72K novels in about six weeks for work, for example, so I could try to write one just for fun in the same amount of time. Maybe from September to October since November has always been a tough month to manage with my holiday depression. I like October better than November or December, too. Anyway, I'll keep you updated on this as I figure it out. I took this pic 11 years ago while having lunch with Kat on the day the world was supposed to end because of the Mayan calendar thing, which frighte...

I've now successfully reduced my coffee intake to one cup per day. At first it gave me some withdrawl headaches, but nothing I couldn't handle. So I rewarded myself by trying a new tea: Teavana Peach Tranquility. It's not only the best peach tea I've ever tried, it's also caffeine free. I subscribe to Stampington's newsletter and this week they sent me a free .pdf article on how to make mini journals from (I assume used) tea bags. I've seen this done a lot in the art magazines, but I've never been tempted to try it (shudder.) Anyway, I think it would be difficult with Teavana, as they use little three-sided nylon bags for their teas. In the thank-God department, Chobani has recently now made my absolute favorite oat milk sugar-free, which will allow me to drink it whenever I want. Thank you, Chobani.

My tea cups aren't as pretty as this -- actually, all of mine are mugs -- but I get a lot of inspiration out of them. Tea is a big part of my life, thanks to books from my childhood. P.L. Travers wrote about tea in her Mary Poppins novels, and Laura Ingalls Wilder's father was always drinking it in the Little House books. Alice in Wonderland had that wild Mad Hatter tea party, which still is my favorite part of that story. When I grew older I read about it in Jane Austen's novels, where it always seemed to be part of the setting, but also helped with the action: "Mr. Woodhouse was soon ready for his tea; and when he had drank his tea he was quite ready to go home" -- Emma "Mr. Tilney drank tea with us, and I always thought him a great addition" -- Northanger Abbey "some of them did decide on going in quest of tea" -- Persuasion "When the tea-things were removed, and the card-tables placed" -- Pride and Prejudice In...