soft Sunday sunet

[serafaery]

Enjoyed a soft sunset with Avalanche. We have been getting clouds of crows crossing the sky in the mornings and evenings, during sunrise and sunset. I love them so.

Did a little more work, then worked on dishes and cooked tons of beautiful food and listened to another couple of Cryptonaturalist episodes. I love them so much. These were Moss Tide and Moonshadow. I find most of these episodes emotionally evocative, in a gentle way. (Cosmic Kingfisher took my breath away.) Moonshadow was especially so. My heart.

As I was cooking farmers market veggies and organic chicken that will last me several days thanks to Josh not being home (I imagine he will polish it off upon his return if I haven't finished it by then), I realized it is a) Sunday which means it also b) popcorn day! (I am a popcorn addict so I have to limit myself to one day a week, although I make exceptions for special movie outings, sometimes.) So I popped popcorn in the air popper (and chopped fresh rosemary for it, I sprinkle this on with melted grass fed butter and nutritional yeast and sea salt) and browsed Disney and Hulu for something to watch. Discovered that Hulu has Sherlock. Even though I own both seasons on DVD, of course we don't have a DVD player anymore, so I haven't watched it in a loooooong while. So after a delicious dinner I plopped down with my popcorn and started the first episode, just to see if I would still like it, fifteen years later.

Baby Benedict Cumberbatch and baby Martin Freeman are soooooooo charming omg. The show is so spicy and clever. I wish Sherlock wasn't so mean in this series, and knowing some of the plot does make it a little less intense (for instance meeting Mycroft), but not much! Still very entertaining and I've forgotten all the fine details, so, so far it is a fun re-watch.

That was way more fun than sweeping the floors lol.

I did get my skies waxed in case I really do decide to head up to the mountain tomorrow. I will most likely be solo, not a peep from Tyler. I'm glad he's enjoying his schooling.

I can do housework on Tuesday after silks before Josh gets home from his trip, if I'm too tired after skiing tomorrow.

...

I have a question. I have become newly obsessed with loose-leaf tea. I drink it at night a lot. I just ordered five or six more bags from Dryad Tea.

How does one store bagged loose leaf tea? My cabinet is starting to get a bit chaotic and it's only going to get worse with this new order I just placed. Maybe my purchasing will calm down once I learn my tastes better, I just want to try all the things, right now. Currently my fixations are licorice root, fennel, mint, and wellness herbs like skullcap and other roots. I'm experimenting with more rooibos and spices. I'm not a big fan of ginger unless I'm ill; then I crave it. Same with chamomile which I don't want unless I'm struggling with sleep, as it is a very effective tranquilizer for me. (Recent research came out showing that chamomile has a compound that activates the same receptors that benzodiazepines do, which makes perfect sense - nature's xanax lol.) I don't like hibiscus, but otherwise I'm open to trying whatever.

Anyway here's my tea cabinet currently:



halp? Any ideas? How do people do this?

Also, just wanted to share a photo of Avalanche since I talk about her all of the time. This was her taking care of me last Sunday when I came home with a migraine:

Comments

[arethinn]

I would put the tea in more of those half-pint jars and stack them.

[serafaery]

I like this idea! tysm

[torachan]

What a sweet kitty!

[serafaery]

She is sooooooo sweet and silly and magical :)

[decemberthirty]

I'm late in replying to this, but if there's a question about tea I must answer! We've been a loose-leaf tea-drinking household for many years, and here is our tea storage:



Over the years, we've acquired a motley assortment of tins and canisters, and the teas that we are actively drinking get stored in those. Anything else is kept in deeper storage, where we only need to access it when one of our other containers needs to be refilled. That may or may not be helpful for you, but it works for us. :)

Also, I just love how some cats seem to know when they need to take care of their humans. Ours has the nickname Dr. Tommy because of how much he does just that!

[serafaery]

Yaaaaaay these are so pretty, thanks for sharing your canister setup! I'd love to create a little organic setup like this that just kind of creates itself as canisters present themselves :) We'll see what I can do.

Do you use teapots? I've been brewing a cup at a time with the little mesh tea balls but I am starting to feel like a teapot would make more sense with my level of consumption lol - but I have no idea what kind I might want?

[decemberthirty]

We do use teapots. I find them to be less fuss than the mesh strainers, and your tea leaves have more room to circulate. We have a few of different sizes, and choose between them based on how much tea we want to make at any given moment.

[serafaery]

Also yes many kitties seem to have a knowing when we are in ill health. Avalanche is just a yearling so she hasn't developed a keen sense for certain illnesses yet, but she definitely knew about the migraine and responded differently to me when I had it - which makes me wonder wonder if it produces some sort of chemical that she can detect or something. I know that when I have them, I cannot tolerate synthetic fragrances and other kinds of chemicals, it definitely feels like something chemical is going on. Maybe one day science will understand this better. In the meantime, we are lucky that the kitties already know how to help :)