I’m sure everyone has noticed that I have fallen off the planet again.

With everything going on in life, its been one of the roughest years I can remember.

So with that said, I’m taking an official leave of absence from writing until the first of the year.

This doesn’t mean I haven’t stopped making and creating, but rather need a break from committing myself to anything.

I will be back after the first to show all that I’ve been working on.

Until then, be safe and enjoy yourselves.

So this is my fist foray into the loose leaf tea business as well as into an Oolong. This was one of the many that came in my sampler pack I bought.

Name: Almond Oolong

Company: Adagio Teas

Type: Oolong

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I need a vacation.

I know it almost feels like I’ve taken a vacation from writing but it’s more along the lines that I just haven’t had the energy to. I’ve spent all my time and energy concentrating on work, training people, working overtime, and working with the Husband at a Retro Gaming Expo. (I shudder to think of all the pictures/video of me running around the net right now)

(And no I’m not sharing links)

I haven’t spent much time with cooking lately, but there really hasn’t been any time/energy for it. I really miss my kitchen!

The only thing I’ve had time to do is drink tea. I know it somewhat seems lame, but sometimes that might be the only thing that gets me through the day.

I’ve started drinking caffeine again and I’m rather on the fence about whether or not I like drinking it. I really notice the effects of it, and some of them really aren’t all that great. Minor headaches, jitters, inability to sleep at night… Why is it we like drinking this stuff? I haven’t figured that part out yet.

After these past few weeks of really needing to have that extra kick in the pants, I started looking into caffeine and what types of tea have less. Tea seems a bit on the complex side…but maybe that’s why I like it.

Caffeine levels in tea vary in the way that they are processed and creating the “type” of tea. So here are the different levels of caffeine that I’ve found that each type of tea contains (roughly):

White Tea – 10mg
Green Tea – 20mg
Oolong Tea – 30mg
Black Tea – 40mg

I’ve never had Oolong, and my experience with white and green has been very minimal, but I do like black tea. I can’t stand it straight up but flavored I can handle. Green is not my favorite, too leafy. And white…I think I might have had it once? I can’t really remember.

So I took the plunge and decided to continue on in my effort of trying new things. I ordered a bunch of tea online!

I ordered from Adagio Tea, and they came very quickly (awesome). I ordered an Oolong sampler pack as well as some herbals and a white.

I really am slightly in love with the tins and the labels. I love the tiny tins, they make storing the tea very easy, especially since they stack very well. I also love that the basic instructions of the water temperature and how long to steep are right on the tin. Hopefully I won’t mess it up!

So here’s what I got:
Oolong (Almond, Peach, Vanilla, Grapefruit)
White (Peach)
Herbal (Berry Blast, Sour Apple)

I’m kind of iffy on the grapefruit Oolong, that just sounds a little odd, but it seems to have gotten pretty good reviews online so I’ll give it a shot.

The other great thing about sample sized tins? Only $2 each! That’s a pretty good deal on loose leaf tea. Adagio also have a frequent cups program so that you can earn points that turn into free money for tea. You also can earn the points by reviewing teas and sending gift cards to other people. I’m all about the free stuff.

I’m rather excited to try these new ones out soon and reporting back on what I got.

Alright, early mornings are high on the “life sucks” list. I’ve been making due and actually got back in the kitchen for once. And even know I have to get up at the un-crack of dawn (my alarm goes off at 3:20am, ick) you still have to eat. So I’ve been trying to figure out easy and quick ways to have breakfast in the morning that still tastes good. Something I can make while still half asleep.

These pancakes really hit the mark on the tasty factor, plus they are high in fiber for sure! I don’t think they are really high in protein and I know they aren’t low fat, but they aren’t too bad for you.

I can’t eat wheat germ or a lot of nuts or seeds, I seem to have a skin “allergy” that makes me break out if I have any of those. But from what I can tell, I seem to have with no problem is oats. So now everything I eat has oats in it. I especially love the granola in the mornings but I’ve been getting a little burned out by it. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been a long week.

Well, technically it’s a short week since Monday was a holiday (no work, yay!) but I feel really run down at the moment. (This seems to be quite a theme for me.)

I’m training a coworker to take over my old job since the other person I trained for my job has now been promoted to manager. Now training itself isn’t quite so bad, but it’s the hours that are killing me. I was very excited to get off of this schedule at first since it is so early (I have to be there, 40 mins away, by 5am).

I really didn’t miss being woken up by my alarm clock and looking over at the time to see it flashing 3am at me. I had to start drinking caffeine again this week to try and keep myself going on this schedule, while trying to do my job so I’m not leaving my dear coworker hanging and yet train someone on a job I haven’t technically been in for over 6 months.

The lack of traffic coming home is a nice consolation prize for how I’m feeling right now.

So I decided to self medicate… No not in that way, but with a hot cup of tea and a mellow song to try and take myself to another place all together. My favorite tea of all time is Tazo’s Passion. I love the taste and how it can just relax me every time I drink it.

I decided to start doing reviews of the teas I drink. Maybe I can convince someone else to find the enjoyment in drinking tea, or help someone else find a tea they might also like. I love tea so much, and I just want to share my loves with you guys.
Read the rest of this entry »

Its been a long couple of weeks. I’ve been working a lot, took a trip that caused us to be in the car for literally 30 hours, and really haven’t had a whole lot of inspiration to start cooking. I think my kitchen is starting to feel a little neglected.

And now work is changing my schedule yet again, hopefully only temporary, so that means some really early morning. Like having to be at work at 5am to train someone early.

This is not something I like and really doesn’t put me in a good mood.

Plus getting up that early in the morning to be able to get to work and still be able to function means changing what time I get to sleep. Sleep has always been an issue for me but has gotten better once I stopped drinking caffeine and eating a lot of sugar. It also helped that my schedule was finally regulated at a consistent and not too terrible time.

But now that my schedule is changing yet again, I need to figure out how to cope with the early schedule. I know I can survive if I started drinking soda again, but that doesn’t make me feel so great. Plus it gives me heartburn. It really isn’t so great to have that happen while trying to concentrate at work.

I’ve also thought that maybe the caffeine is what has triggered the migraines that I used to suffer from. I would get terrible cluster migraines as well as regular migraines that would last days. But now I’m not sure if that really is the case. I’ve drank some soda and had a Chai Tea Latte from Starbucks recently without having any problems.

So I’ve been considering starting to drink caffeinated tea again instead of just herbal, at least just in the morning with this stupid schedule change.

I worry though, that the headaches will return and give me problems again. I’ve been doing so good over the past year without the crippling pain that I’m almost afraid to start drinking them again.

Sometimes I just don’t know what to do to help me get through the day and not give me pain.

I’m trying to move forward and not backward, dagnabit!

My new friend, Terri, decided to surprise me with an invite to head out with her and a friend to the Chinese Garden in Portland OR. I love surprise outings.

Because I’m a hermit and don’t do well with other people at times, I thought about not going. Then I also thought about my recent goals to meet more people and to try new things. So I went.

I have to say it was a glorious trip. Not only was the day beautiful, but the garden was really nice as well. It was quite a shocker to me that this little oasis existed in the middle of a bustling city, surrounded by tall office and apartment buildings. I took tons of pictures and got to know my new friends better over the beautiful landscape as well as a good few hours in the tea house.

I almost tried to convince them not to go in the tea house since I stopped drinking tea for the last few years due to caffeine inducing my killer migraines, but they wanted to go and I gave in.

I’m such a sucker for a pretty face.

I am really glad I went though. I thought I would be just sipping ice water until I found the selection of herbal teas. It’s almost like I forgot that herbal teas existed! How silly is that.

I went with hibiscus tea, Terri had tea flowers (as in the flowers that bloom on the tea plant) and her friend Kelly had black ginger peach tea. I didn’t try their teas but I was in heaven with the hibiscus. It was nice and strong, tangy and almost citrusy. Plus it was a beautiful red color. I love strong flavored teas.

We also ordered some snacks go to with them, some vegetable dumplings as well as a red bean cake.

Red bean cake? Really? To the uninformed, silly, sheltered American this sounded really odd and not too tasty.

I was proven wrong, yet again. If you’ve never had it, try it. It’s sweet, rich and almost has undertones of a fruity chocolate. It was baked in a really beautiful pastry crust and was really moist and delicious. It went beautifully with my dark red hibiscus tea.

The dumplings were pretty awesome also. I’m not really sure what was in them but they were pretty tasty.

We each got our own little teapots and little (and I mean LITTLE) cups for our teas, which I found just charming.

All in all it was a great day, meeting a new friend and growing closer to my other friend, plus the “reintroduction” to tea for me.

I highly suggest going there if you are in the area or plan to visit. It’s small but a wonderful experience. And don’t miss out on the tea house, it is quite lovely.

Sometimes through life to tend to give up things for a big reason (example, smoking will kill me) or for no reason at all. I gave up soda about 2 years ago. I really wanted to cut down on my caffeine intake as well as I knew that drinking all that Diet Coke with its artificial ingredients, carbonation, and fake sugar really wasn’t very good for me.

Plus for some strange reason it started giving me horrendous heart burn. I’m partly convinced that the heartburn thing is really my body’s way of saying “You want to stop? Ok, I make you stop!”

I have to say, that really sucked. But it was also good in a way since I started to associate soda with pain, therefore I really didn’t want it anymore. I still craved it, and the sound of opening a can of soda? Holy crap, I could smell soda across the room. I went from 2-4 cans of Diet Coke a day, to none.

I tempered the bad reaction of losing a main source of caffeine with drinking tea. I liked black tea, flavored or with some home made vanilla sugar and milk. And chai. I loved chai tea.

I say loved because after a while I just stopped drinking tea. No real reason why, it just happened. Then when I tried to start drinking it again it started to trigger migraines.

That made me very unhappy.

Recently my friends took me out for a day trip to the Chinese Garden in Portland, OR and we had a drink in the tea house. It was lovely. I forgot how much I love tea. Granted its herbal, but it’s just delicious!

So be prepared, there will be more talk of tea in our future.

Lately life has been really scattered for me. I’ve been very annoyed with the job, myself, my body, my relationships… Just everything seems to be annoying to me.

It could also be the hormones.

For so long I’ve been taking the “easy” path of just doing a job that I happen to be good at and not something I actually want to get up and do on a daily basis. Or eating foods out of convenience (fast food, pre-packaged foods) rather than spending the time to take a minute or two for myself to throw something together.

I mean really, how long does it actually take to throw together a quick dinner of an easy sandwich or something similar? Not long. It probably takes longer to get to a fast food place to get the food than it does to make it yourself.

Plus it doesn’t taste nearly as good as homemade and it generally makes me feel like crap.

So I need a change in my life.

I’ve wanted to try and go through life “unpackaged” with using as few foods that are prepackaged or processed as possible. I’ve gotten pretty close to it lately with all of the wonderful fresh fruits and vegetables that are now in season and boy are they delicious!

I like the idea of knowing exactly what it is that I’m eating and what I’m putting in my body, especially with all my interesting reactions to food (some allergies).

I know I’m eventually going to change my job into something else, but I have to find out whether or not the field I’m thinking about is even something I want to do every day. I’m not a person who likes change but I really need to change something.

I’ll get there eventually. Who knows, maybe I’ll become a professional blogger. Ha.

As a child, I was a picky eater.

I can tell you right now that statement is an understatement. A huge, massive, epic understatement. And I know most kids go through stages when they wouldn’t eat things because… they’re kids and just don’t. But man, I was a pain in the ass.

Seriously.

I think I went through a phase where I wouldn’t eat spaghetti.

Then there was the phase where the only thing I would eat was spaghetti.

I’m still difficult. To me pasta is still a food group, but I’m trying to change. I’m working on expanding my food life to include all the things that never ate growing up (well, within reason and excluding allergy foods). Baby steps… Just baby steps.

Do you realize that I never had tried a cherry? A real fresh cherry. Never. It actually was to the point where I didn’t know there were different types of cherries, different flavors, or even that they had a big seed in the middle.

Sad yes?

For weeks I saw these stands on the side of the road selling cherries, and I finally got the nerve to have the husband stop the car so I could go buy some cherries.

I did it, I bought some cherries. Two types actually. A sweet, blush/yellow cherry and some dark red ones. I really couldn’t believe how delicious they are! The dark ones are deeper in flavor, have a small amount of bite to them while the blush/yellow ones are sweet and almost grape-like.

I easily went through the two small baskets quickly. I then decided to go back and get two larger baskets.

I ate all of them.

It took me about a week but i finished all but a few of them. I had them every day, a few for breakfast and then a big bowl of them with lunch. I didn’t do any cooking with them, I ate them all fresh. I think I am cherried out for a while.

It’s probably a good thing that the cherry stands are now gone, since I don’t want to burn out on them.

But oh boy, they are delicious.