tea
I'm drinking the Mengku 2006 "Big Snow Mountain" tea today. I thought I had written something about it before, but I can't find it, so here goes again.

This is the most well balanced tea I've ever tasted. It's not very exciting, but it is very good. It's aged enough to be medium dark. If I let it steep too long there's a hint of astringency, but it's really very forgiving.

I would buy more of this tea, but I just checked the website and I can't get any more.

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I frequently consider writing something about politics. However, the times when I'm most motivated to post are also the times I'm least capable of writing. I think this is often true of me and important things.

I have been trying lately to improve my sleep. I just got a new, squishier mattress, which I'm hoping will cut down on hip pains at night. I failed to plan ahead though. The new mattress is queen sized and I went to make the bed after it was delivered and discovered I have no queen sized fitted sheets. I've been using the sleepio program as well and it seems to be helping. If nothing else, the sleep diary has made me more aware of some bad sleep habits I should break.

I'm drinking some tea now that weegoddess gave me. It is labeled as "sticky rice aroma" puer. Rice was clearly harmed in the making of this tea. There's so much toasted rice flavor I can barely taste the tea behind it. It's rather overpowering. I don't think I'd want to have this tea again, but right now I'm appreciating the way it's helping me warm up.

I don't like this weather. It's way too cold.

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I had a really bad night last night and got very little sleep. Nick came down this morning as I was making breakfast and I glared at him. He asked if I was okay and I told him I was having a little shootout at the OK corral moment when it looked like he might get between me and breakfast. Sometimes I wonder that Nick puts up with me at all. He even helped me open a jar after that.

I had very little cope, so I scrapped my original breakfast plan of making crepes with blueberries. Instead I made (GF) crepes with cinnamon and sugar. Because making crepes is easy, but apparently microwaving frozen blueberries is too difficult for me at the moment.

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Poor money management skills
I make (and drink) a lot of kombucha. I like kombucha made with oolong tea the best, but I tend to make it with black tea, which is much cheaper.

I just did the math. If I buy in bulk and get a relatively cheap grade of oolong then it would cost me about $10 a week.

Why am I using cheap black tea again? The money saved is really just not worth it.

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I'm home sick, so I'm catching up on my backlog of NPR and I come across an article on "Why are there so few women in tech". I didn't read it. I've seen so many of these that I can guess what it's going to say. It seems like I see one at least every month.

Now, as a woman who works in tech, this issue has some importance to me. But... don't we have more important things to talk about? With the shortage of skilled tech workers, most of the major companies are trying to figure out how to recruit and retain women to fill the need, and I feel like this issue is slowly being solved. I don't feel like all the articles are contributing. One or two is useful to raise public awareness, but there are so many out there that I feel like it's having the opposite effect, making readers feel harangued rather than informed.

I never see articles about the gender imbalance in other fields. Why have I never seen "Why are there so few men in early childcare?" I think that would be a far more useful article.

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Yummy microbes
weegoddess gave me a kefir culture last weekend, so I've been making kefir last week.  It's great; it tastes nothing like store bought kefir.  I suppose that shouldn't surprise me since I make kombucha and I'm well aware how disgusting store bought kombucha is compared to homemade.

In addition to being tasty I'm hoping it will help keep my digestive system healthy.  I used to have chronic ulcers before I discovered kombucha.  I figure more different kinds of beneficial microbes can only help.

The other great thing about kefir is it only takes a day and a half to ferment. Unlike kombucha which takes a week and a half. So when I want some, I can get my fix quickly.

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aged anxi tie guan yin
Taking a break from talking about horrifying drug side effects to instead talk about tea.

I'm drinking a 10 years aged anxi tie guan yin oolong. This is an oddity because oolong tea is not generally supposed to be aged. When they age it they alternately store it and roast it. The result is a much less green tasting and much more toasty tea than standard tie guan yin. The color of the brewed tea is dark golden.

The leaves took a while to wake up. The first pour was pretty bland. The second, after the leaves had sat for a while was much nicer and the third better yet. It's a very mellow light-bodied tea with a notable roasty flavor. It's the sort of tea that makes me want almond cookies to go with it. Sadly, no one makes good GF almond cookies.

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sleep and productivity
I'm coming to the conclusion that how difficult it is for me to get out of bed in the morning has no bearing on how productive I will be that day.

I finally dragged myself out of bed sometime after 9AM this morning, but once I got started it's been a great day.

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Today we had a group outing at work. For lunch we got food from Flour bakery in Central square. I'd never heard of it before, but their GF hazelnut-almond dacquoise is absolutely amazing and the best GF cake I have ever had. Possibly the best non-GF cake I've ever had too. I must go there again.

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we are moved
Moving has happened. I still need to finish cleaning out the fridge, but other than that everything is in our new place. I still need to go clean the old place as well, but we have a couple of weeks before our lease is up.

I have unpacked enough to let me shower, dress and go to work today. On the to do list for very soon is to get the washer and dryer hooked up and working and to unpack enough that I can cook breakfast.

The new house was unexpectedly very noisy this morning; the electric company was out in a cherry picker trimming branches away from the power lines right in front of our house.

Luna is still pretty unhappy. I let her sleep with me for a bit last night and when I left for work she was curled up in the middle of my bed.

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Not Invented Here
I've been making a lot of grilled cheese sandwiches lately. In order to change things up and to make them more like a meal, I've been adding things. I added some onions to get a vegetable in there and add some texture. I wanted some protein too so I threw in some leftover steak.

It occurred to me today as I was making lunch that I may in fact be re-inventing the cheesesteak sandwich.

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I need an excuse to get myself out of the house today, so I decided to take up Pokemon Go.

I have come to the conclusion that the game would be much more fun if the servers weren't down.

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Continuing adventures with nail polish
I got some more colors: a black and a blue. Last week I did black with a layer of the clear, shimmery (celestial it's called) over it. I loved they way it looked, and I got several compliments on it. Today I tried again to do the color gradation, and I am really happy with how it turned out.
( See! See!Collapse )
I need to get some clear to use as a top coat. Right now I'm using the clear, shimmery as a top coat, but I think it would look better with just a clear. And it really does need some kind of top coat, because the sponge I use to blend the color leaves a very rough surface behind that needs protecting.

I am learning that the colors they describe as "creme" are more opaque and do better over other colors.

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tea and nails
I got the new nail polish colors I ordered yesterday and I've been playing around with trying different effects. The new nail polish colors turned out to be rather more pastel than I had thought they were going to be.( This is me experimenting trying to get a color gradient with the mint blue-green and light purple.Collapse )
The new colors are not really what I wanted. They seemed darker on the website when I ordered them, but in retrospect I think they just seemed that way because of the white background on the website. Also, the color that was described as "translucent silver shimmer" turned out to be more transparent rather than translucent; there's 2 coats of it over the color in that picture and it didn't affect the base color at all, just made it shimmery.

But I realized that the pale blue and purple would look awesome as highlights on a black background. So I bought some more nail polish. And then I bought a set of nail polish brushes and tools so I can do more interesting things. I may have gotten a bit carried away.

After I was done agonizing over nail polish colors, I had some tea. I tried the 1501 V93 tuo from dayi for the first time. I bought it a year ago but I have been letting it age a bit to get rid of the newly fermented flavor. I really like it. It's a fairly heavily fermented shou with a flavor somewhat reminiscent of coffee. It reminds me a little of the Boyou F6, but not quite as thick or roasty. Not quite as good either, but I can't get the F6 any more so I'm jealously hoarding what little of it I have left. Meanwhile, the V93 will do.

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Saturday we went to parties and saw lots of friends whom we haven't seen in a while and it was wonderful. Today we're back to unpacking. I am making progress on the kitchen. I found the plates! I haven't made so much progress that dinner was anything other than prepared foods from the grocery store. Still, we're getting closer.

We don't have a table to eat at, but there are plenty of boxes around to stand in for tables at the moment.

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Exhausted but done
I am in Peabody as I write this.

Moving out sucked and I was so tired I wanted to cry by the end of it. The moving guys put in a heroic more-than-12-hour day to get everything out. We thought they'd be able to get the moving truck into our driveway, but they couldn't and they wound up having to carry everything down the stairs and then down the hill, which made it a lot more painful than it would have been otherwise. We also had a ton of last minute errands to run (dropping off hazardous waste, partially used propane tank, cable box, etc.) over the last couple of days. We got a few hours of sleep in a hotel last night and then flew out this morning.

I'm glad it's over. I didn't get to see everyone I wanted to say goodbye to though before I left; I was too busy.

This weekend we are going to do some serious apartment hunting.

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A coyote just wandered past my living room window. I got up to get a better look at it, and it saw me through the window, turned and ran up the hill.

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Thank you
Thank you to everyone who responded to my previous request for recommendations. I'll happily still accept more if you've got 'em, but I've got at least one recommendation in each category.

Preparation for moving is proceeding slowly but steadily. Who knew there was so much to take care of? I'll let you all know when we have a date.

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Request for recommendations!
I am looking for recommendations from people in the greater Camberville area. I am screening comments in case people don't want to say things about other people in public. I will unscreen comments if you say it's okay. Things I am going to need soon after moving there:

A good vet for an elderly and arthritic cat. One who will let me get refills for Luna's prescription meds with a minimum of hassle.

A good doctor for someone with chronic health problems. One who is willing to listen to what I say and have a discussion and work with me. Someone who will not discount my decades of experience dealing with my conditions or feel threatened by a patient knowing more about their own health problems than they do.

A good tax person. Someone I can talk to about my problems and they can help me figure them out, not just someone who only deals with software.

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Dear Boston

Did you misfile a change of address form?  Lately we've been getting some deliveries of snow that I'm pretty sure belong to you.

Love,
Portland

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