Weekly Teatime

I feel like these weekly check-ins are working well. The pressures off on trying to get blog content up as frequently as humanly possible (even if I haven't really got much to say) and it feels a bit as though we have a teatime scheduled in wherein I have a cup of tea and then proceed to have a very one sided conversation about the week gone by. Fun, no?

I've been writing a lot (actual, physical writing), which means I have a lovely case of "left-handers" on my knuckles on any given day. I'm juggling several projects at the moment and I (happily!) received lots of "go-aheads" from queries I sent out at the start of the month. Deadlines are coming fast and furious, one right after the other. I have to remind myself that nothing everything needs to happen all at once. It will all be okay if I just focus on what needs to get done today and let tomorrow take care of itself.

I made the worst cookies of my life on Saturday. At least I wasn't expecting them to be amazing (I was trying them out to see if they could accompany an article I'm working on), but I also wasn't expecting them to be so, so horrid. Let this be a lesson - a cookie recipe must white flour, white sugar, and butter. Any omissions from that list and it just tastes like sadness.
 
A good friend is getting married in June and this past week I ordered the bridesmaid dress, as well downloaded the pattern for the afghan I'll knit for her and ordered the afghan yarn. I feel so on top of things. Now I just have to hope the dress actually fits (although there's plenty of time to exchange it), find me some pretty silver shoes, oh and actually knit the afghan. But June is still a long ways off, right?

Speaking of marriage and babies and all the other major life milestones that I am failing at just 100%, has anyone else stumbled across this British ad campaign trying to get women to have babies when they're younger? Le sigh. So much could be said about this, but in general, let me just say "Aaaaaarrrrrgh."

I'm almost done with the current writing WIP. That's right: I put the first tentative words in a Word doc. on November 24 and now, a mere two months later, I'm almost done. Wait, what is that noise? Angels singing?

We just got out of Internet jail yesterday. Whenever we exceed a certain download cap, our internet service gets slowed down considerably until our internet usage falls within a certain percentage of allotted bandwidth. (The system makes about as much sense as that last sentence.) Our internet went out on January 3rd and just came back today. The really sad part? The last date that we were released from internet jail was December 22. I do not want to do the math on that one.

We set out the remains of the Christmas turkey once I'd boiled it down for stock the day after Christmas. I planned to throw it out after a couple days of letting the pine marten and birds pick at it, but here it is, nearly a month later and the birds are still finding eating off of it. It just struck me that I've been spending all this time watching birds peck at one of their own. Kind of pervy, really.

I have a big expense dentist appointment on Thursday to permanently fix my front teeth which have been giving me grief since 2011. Call it vanity if you must, but it's really only funny for so long to have "Ada the Brown Tooth" be your Game of Thrones bandit name.

Lake trout season outside of the Boundary Waters opened on Saturday and Andy says we're off to fish on Friday.

 

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Looking Up

I wish I was better at transitions. Or maybe, really, I wish that transitions were better to me.

Unfortunately, my life as a season employee means I face at least two major transitions annually and although it really seems like the simplest transition should be going from working full-time out of the house to working from home, that's actually always the bumpiest one, where it takes me the longest to get my sea legs back under me. It can be so tricky when your schedule magically opens up and you feel like you should be able to get everything done that you'd be neglecting for the last, oh, five months, never minding the fact that there's still real actual work that needs attention. C'est la vie.

So here I am, still waiting to fall into a fairly set, but still flexible work from home schedule which allows me to make money, make/write nice things, have a clean home, and eat good, healthy food most days of the week. Today's a bit of recovery day, since I spent the weekend pounding up and down Hwy 61 and I-35 with the parents to catch the Saturday matinee of Wicked at the Orpheum in Minneapolis. It was a fabulous performance (I really do love that musical) and an excellent change of pace after a long summer season. It feels wonderful to be home again, sitting in the sun on the couch, tapping away at my iPad because I'm too lazy to get my winter "home office" set up just yet.

There are a lot of things clamoring for my attention at the moment including the mess that is my office, the dump truck load of firewood sitting in the driveway waiting to be stacked and the two last episodes of "Big Bang" theory to be watched before the disc can be sent back. It's easy to feel like I should be a multitasking extraordinaire at the moment, but instead I'm trying to take things one step at a time and try to devote my full attention to whichever task I find before me at the current moment. Since next weekend it's off to D-town again for the annual "holiday" celebration with a group of college friends, I have a feeling I'm not really going to fall into any semblance of a schedule until sometime in early November.

And speaking of Saturday's get-together, can I just state how smart we are for taking what's traditionally been a Christmastime event and doing it in early November instead. It saves us from all sorts of holiday scheduling conflicts and also (hopefully) saves us from some of the headaches of winter travel. Also, because our celebration falls over the transition out of daylight savings time, we end up with any extra hour together. Winning.

Not having a set schedule has allowed me to go for longer runs in the morning. Last Monday, I took my first run in blowing snow, as you can tell from precipitation build up on my hat. I'm not sure I'm hardcore enough to deal with sharp little snowflakes blowing into my retinas for 30+ minutes, but happily, our weather has stabilized a bit since then. I'm still hopefully I've got until late November to keep running on the road before things get too slick and nasty for running shoes. I have no idea how I'll keep running/training in the winter. The most logical winter fitness substitution is cross-country skiing. Unfortunately, I abhor cross-country skiing. Abhor it, I say!

Our little hook-up box for broadband internet was installed last week. Unfortunately, word on the street is that broadband won't be a reality up here until sometime next summer. Cue toddler inspired temper tandrum.

 

One of the brightest (and simpliest) spots in my work from home days is a return to the 3 p.m. London fog tea break time. Oh nom nom nom.

 I spent a fair amount of time last week spiffing up my Etsy shop for the holiday season. (Because, you know, that's way more important than actually working.) Things are looking pre-tee good, if I do say so myself. And yes, we had a thin coating of snow on the ground all of last week. It's gone now.

Andy forever upped the gift giving ante last Christmas when he presented me with a long desired iPad so I had to get him a decent birthday present, rather than a couple crappy cds as I am want to do. (It should be noted that when I insisted I wanted, nay, needed, an iPad for oh, the approximately 30 months between when Apple introduced the iPad and when I actually got one, I never went so far as to actually research what iPad actually was or *cough, cough* how much they cost. Apparently I am a sucker for marketing.)

Enter the trail camera. Andy's been wanting a trail camera for a couple years now to help with deer "scouting" so a couple weeks back I finally ordered him one, despite the fact that his birthday isn't until mid-November. For the last week, we've been setting up the camera all over the neighborhood, trying to catch the elusive "big buck" on camera.  Deer season starts on November 9th. 

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Afternoon Tea: Homemade London Fog Tea

Because I live in the woods, I hadn't heard of London Fog Tea until I met up with my mom at the local coffee shop last week. Apparently it's been a staple on Starbucks and Caribou's menus for quite some time. Who knew? Oh, you did? As per usual, I am the last to know.

(For all of you would-be woods-dwellers, I want you to think long and hard before you move on up here about whether or not you are willing to deal with the fact that you may be the last person on Earth to hear about such things as London Fog Tea. It's not all loons and moons and woodfires up here; there are dire consequences that come from cutting yourself off from civilization.)

So anyway, I finally had a London Fog Tea. And it was amazing. Creamy and vanilla-y with enough tea in it to keep it from being cloying. It was so good that I decided I need to figure out how to make it at home. (Because I am not driving two hours round trip whenever I have a tea craving.) Since the only ingredients in London Fog Tea are Earl Grey tea, steamed milk, and vanilla syrup, I figured it couldn't be that hard to pull off. Happily, it's not!

I started off by making homemade vanilla syrup. I found this great list of homemade syrups for coffee drinks over at Annie's Eats and I used her vanilla syrup recipe. It takes all of 15 minutes to make (and only about 1 minute of actual hands-on time) and the recipe is an excellent use for the vanilla beans I bought on a whim last month. I store the syrup in the fridge in an empty maple syrup bottle.

The first time I made London Fog Tea at home, I attempted steaming the milk in the microwave. I quickly deemed this unnecessary. It was putzy and dirtied more dishes for a simple single-serving drink than seemed appropriate. I also really wanted the drink to be more tea-based than milk based.

After some trial and error, I've come up with a recipe that I've been brewing up every day around 3 p.m. to get myself through my mid-afternoon work slump. It's far from identical from what you'd be served if you ordered a London Fog Tea at a coffee shop because I scaled way back on the milk. If you're a lactose no-no, you can also leave the milk out all together. I did that this afternoon and it was still pretty tasty.

Recipe for Homemade London Fog Tea

1 tablespoon (or to taste) of vanilla simple syrup (Recipe here)
1 Earl Grey tea bag (Tazo is my favorite)
Approximately 8 oz. boiling water
1/4 cup milk

Place vanilla syrup and tea bag in the bottom of your favorite mug. Fill mug 3/4 of the way full with boiling water. Brew the tea for 3-5 minutes. (I find it's important to pay attention to how long you brew Earl Grey because if you let it steep for too long, the tea gets overwhelmingly perfume-y.) Add 1/4 cup of milk. Stir together. Enjoy!

 

 

This has just the right amount of caffeine and sugar to keep me focused and working hard on my daily to-do list until the work day draws to a close. If my attention's really lagging on a particular day, I'll pair the tea with some sliced apple to help keep me on track. Much better to take 5 minutes to make myself a snack than to find myself wandering over to Facebook and Pinterest for a pointless hour when I feel my focus slipping. 

What's your favorite afternoon pick-me-up?

 

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It's Teatime!

Alexis, over at North on Harper, wants to bring back the tea party. And this morning, as I stumbled out into the kitchen to put on the kettle for my morning cup of English Breakfast tea, I decided she was right. What this world really needs right now  is more tea parties. 

I've always loved a good tea party. Back in the day, my brother and I used to fill up my miniature Peter Rabbit teapot with water and host tea parties between us and our stuffed animals on our bedroom floor. If we were really lucky we got a couple brownies or cookies from Mom to serve as a teatime nibbles. My family often made real, live tea in the evening (usually herbal) as a way to relax and unwind after an eventful day.

As I grew up, I became well-steeped in English literature and my fascination with all things English, especially the tea party, only grew.

In college, several friends and I made tea parties a semi-tradition. The events always involved way too much sugar and usually ended with a sort of tea party hangover. (No, we weren't drinking sweet tea . . .)

To be honest, a good tea party, in my book at least, should end with an upset stomach and insomnia: it's a natural side effect of one too many scones all washed down with caffeinated tea.

While in London, I even got to have a grown-up tea party at the Ritz. We felt pretty fancy.

And really, when's the last time you got all gussied up to drink a cup of coffee? Tea speaks of elegance and tradition; it's fun and stately at the same time.

While I love a good cup of Starbucks when I can get it, the vast majority of my mornings kick off with a cup of tea. To me, a cup of tea means everything is going to be all right. 

Who's with me on the tea party thing? I'm tired of drinking my daily tea at laptop, staring at the screen through sleep-deprived eyes as I hammer out the morning blog post. What I need right now is an excuse for romance and charm. So let's put on party dresses, decorate the back garden with paper lanterns, and pull out our best china. Remember, pinkies up! 

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The Perpetual Busy-ness

There’s no denying it’s been busy around here. Last night I turned the page in my day planner and realized all those things those obligations that seemed so hazily off in the distant future are actually pretty much today. Never mind that I also have three articles that need to be written in the next 36 hours and plenty of other freelance commitments that “seemed like a good idea” to contend with.

But just when I was about to throw my hands in the air, I found a timely reminder imbedded in this week’s Funds for Writers’ newsletter, a quote from Sir Heneage Ogilvie: “The really idle man gets nowhere. The perpetually busy man does not get much farther.”

Molly over at the Snyder 5 has made taking on clutter in her house (and her inbox) her challenge for the last half year or so. Sir Ogilvie’s quote got me thinking of all the clutter we keep in our heads and on our calendars. The to-do lists, the things we worry about when we should be going to sleep, the overreaching. After all, if we allow ourselves to puppets at the mercy of our own schedule, we’re not really doing anything. We’re just spinning our wheels.

But I’ve never been especially good at saying “no,” even when I know I have plenty on my plate (which is why I always feel so sick after a good potluck) nor very good at shaking this sort of clutter. I let things get to me. I get overwhelmed, cranky, sometimes, rather unbearable.

And installing a gift shop at work has been, frankly, a disaster and the last three days have been little more than a data entry hell. We’re on the home stretch with that particular project (sort of): all the stuff is pretty well on the shelves and at least the clutter of cardboard and packing material is on its way to the recycling center.

Today was the third straight day of staring down invoices and trying to squeeze a ton of merchandise onto too small shelves. By midday, I was feeling pretty over the whole gift shop. And then my father and aunt and uncle showed up. They hung out at work for a while and then we came back to the cabin for tea. We didn’t worry about how much we were going to charge for this knick-knack or that. Instead we talked about canoe trips and baby mergansers.

After they left, I weeded the garden. I could have been working on those three articles, but digging in the dirt felt much, much better than staring at the computer for another hour or two. The garden isn’t doing much in this cool weather and I haven’t been doing much in the garden. So lucky me to find I have some help in the gardening department from some well meaning chipmunks or squirrels. One of them buried some sunflower seeds in the upper garden which have now sprouted. I moved them to a sunnier patch of grown where I hope they’ll grow tall.

The tomatoes are doing quite well too.The peppers are just put out by the cold.

I’m still working to strike that perfect balance between work and play so I can be free of the clutter of perpetual busy-ness. A little tea and gardening can only help.

I thought I’d end with some shameless self-promotion and a very blurry, dark picture of the baby mallards who spent last night on our dock.

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