Can I Have One?

OMG, I so want one. So cute! Think Dan will let me bring one home?

The Tea That Wouldn't Die

I have been defeated. I tried my best but Aged Oolong has conquered me. Ten steeps, over four hours, about 40 ounces and the tea still has a lot of life left in it.

I, however, do not.

But I will pay homage to this tea that is apparently the Taiwanese tea version of the Energizer Bunny.

The Sample Package

The Dry Leaf

The First Steep (Post-Rinsing)

And the Tenth Steep
(Please note that the leaves are still not fully expanded - perhaps they are cramped from being in the same position since 1990? I know I would be).

Fascinating, yes, I know. Steepster log here for those with nothing better to do.

Merry Christmas, Hockey Fans!

For Christmas, my parents gave Dan a nifty little Costco package that was redeemable for two lower-level tickets to any Stars hockey game he selected. Well, of course he chose the game where the visiting team was the Blues!

So that's what we did last Thursday - watched the Blues beat up on the Stars a bit (okay, kind of a lot).

And we had great seats - $70 face value of each ticket and they put us 8 rows back from the ice. Very awesome.

This picture? Yeah, no zoom. Very awesome.

And speaking of awesome, the game was great, too! Good energy, especially from the Blues and once they took the lead they didn't just sit back and try to protect it - they kept pushing and got more goals, making it an exciting game (well, for the Blues' fans... not so much the Stars' fans). There were even a few fights, though the Blues didn't dominate in that area like they did on the scoring - there was one pretty embarrassing fight for the Blues' Erik Johnson when he got his fist caught in his sleeve, leaving him unable to punch. Good thing he's not normally a fighter.

Of course it is always nice for your team to win when you go to a game, so the final score was rather enjoyable.

It was made even better by the fact that the game was such a blowout that a lot of attendees left before the game was over, making it one of the quickest exits from post-game parking we've ever had.

Bonus.

The Absurdity is High

Bought more tea today.

My pantry after today's shopping expedition

I think I might have a problem.

(Not really. I can quit at any time.)

Books To Read

I found something nifty today: Shelfari A different way to keep track of my books instead of the Excel spreadsheet I was slacking on.

And look, I can do nifty things like make a bookshelf of the books I'm planning on reading next, which is what you see below. The book... uhm, books... I will be reading next.

Yes, all of them.

Shelfari: Book reviews on your book blog

Whee! I Can Read!

Go me! I finished a book!

I just finished reading The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan. He's the same guy that wrote In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, which I highly recommend.

In Defense was an easier read but Omnivore's Dilemma was more in depth and educational. I would probably say Ominivore's Dilemma is my favorite but it's ultimately a toss up because In Defense literally changed how I eat (well, that and a corn allergy). But yeah, if you are interested in where your food comes from, I'd suggest checking both of those books out.

I've been on a bit of a food-related reading kick lately and it seems to want to continue. Right after I finished my book last night, I started a new one, also food related, but one that might give me a bit of a view of the other side of the equation (or at least a view of the middle, based on the introduction which was the only thing I read last night), Just Food: Where Locavores Get It Wrong and How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly. And while I haven't started it yet, I just picked up Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life from Costco the other day and that one looks pretty interesting. So lots of food reading going on! Such fun!

Ah, the excitement that is my life! See why I haven't been blogging much lately? Nothing going on. Well, except food-related things.

Seriously?

Need I say more?

More Snow

Sigh. It's still snowing.

And the back yard has drifts...

WIRED

I am so buzzed. Since I am apparently not going anywhere today (still snowing, urg), I decided to try out Samovar's Russian Blend black tea, fixed in the traditional style. Seriously, go to their site and watch the quick 'How to Brew' video. They mention strawberry jam. So yeah, of course I had to try it.

Anyway, it starts off with a very strong black tea concentrate, then you dilute it with boiling water and add a bit of strawberry jam. So I did that. It was fun.

It was also very strong. And I had twelve ounces. On top of my normal morning twelve ounces (which, while not as strong (but really, what is?) was still pretty stout).

Holy monkeys. I feel like my eyebrows have been stapled to my hairline. I could leap tall buildings in a single bound. I am fairly freakin' caffeinated. WHEE!

But yeah, ultimately, I just wanted to share because 1) I took pictures and 2) I got to add strawberry preserves to tea and how cool is that and 3) it's snowing and I have nothing better to do. Anyway, my very long and detailed yet scattered review on Steepster.

Maybe I need to channel this caffeination into a marathon house cleaning session.

No Seriously. Stop it.

This was a bit of a surprise this morning.

Yeah. MORE freakin' snow. We've gotten probably an inch and a half and white fluffy things are still falling. School hasn't even been called! What's up with that? (Well, yet might need to be added there - this morning when I woke up there were only 45 closings. Now there are 75... and now there are 89). It's not like anyone is used to driving in this freakish white junk. Of course, if it keeps showing up like it has been this winter, that might change.

But yeah, I'm staying home until it stops coming down or it warms up a little - or hopefully both. It's hovering just a hair above freezing but underneath that fluffy layer of the pretty looking stuff is slushy mush that is leading to some slickness. Dan had to go out to see a client and he said that yeah, it's pretty messy and slick out there.

So I'm staying home for now, watching the white stuff fall, eagerly anticipating summer.

. . .

Almost two hours have passed now... Don't think I'll be going anywhere. The flakes? Yeah, bigger.

Stuff Happened!

As previously promised (threatened?), a picture of my new talent - melting travel tumblers!

The lid doesn't really fit anymore

Who knew those puppies would do that! I'm so talented.

. . .

There's been some activity at work lately, though not so much work related.

Uhm, it's not supposed to open that way

The church was robbed. Yeah. Nothing too horrible but still not fun - a little over $4,000 worth of lawn equipment (lawn mowers, blowers, trimmers, etc) was stolen last week when the outside shed was broken into.

On the plus side, I've learned that the police officer assigned to our area is very nice as is the insurance company. So it's a learning experience. Yay?

. . .

More non-work-related work stuff, CareFlight visited us today.

It's a bird, it's a plane! No wait, helicopter. Never mind.

They borrowed the back of the church's lot today to transfer someone from an ambulance into the helicopter.

Not something you see every day (which is probably good)

. . .

So yeah, that's pretty much it.

Oh no, wait. One more thing. Dan got a 24" wide screen monitor for his birthday. But my screen's just a little 17" so I can't fit a picture on here.

Okay, okay, I'm just too lazy to take one. It's purty though. Very purty. And huge. And purty. Yay Dan!

. . .

And lastly, I leave you with a cuddled Gidgie in a box.

*squish*

Changes!

Blogger is making some changes so I'm having to make a few, too. The new address of this blog is now pinkness.danzimmermann.com. Dan's figured out how to do a handy dandy redirect page so other than bookmarks (change 'em if ya got 'em), there should be no difference on the reading end of things.

And speaking of changes, go check out the main page Dan did at danzimmermann.com. He's gonna have a blog! Yay!

Hockey-Related Celebratory Post

YAY! Giguere just started his first game as a Leaf goalie. And yay! He got a shut out!

Go Leafs! Go Giguere! Yay!

I'm really hoping that this trade is great for Giguere. I luf him! And hopefully the way this game went? Will set the tone for Jiggy's Leaf-ness.

I'm Boring

I realized it has been slightly less than forever since I've updated but honestly, life's been pretty dull.

The biggest bits of news in my life lately:

• Giguere has been traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs. This crushes me. Fortunately, I look good in blue so the possibility of getting a Leaf's shirt is still on the table.


• I have managed to melt four, count 'em four travel tumblers. That takes either talent or horribly bad luck. I'm voting for both. I will (at some point) actually post pictures of this (which I think proves that life has been boring but yeah...).


• I had a horrible cold. I got over it.


• Winter makes me crabby and want to hibernate (like this is actually news to anyone that knows me).


• I have a lot of new tea.

And yeah, that's pretty much my life right now.

Thrilling, huh?

But one day, things will happen again (or spring will come and I will unhibernate) and I will have things to post again. Whee!

Avert Your Eyes

Last month, my MIL got me some super-fuzzy awesome slippers. I like them a lot.

Sadly, so does Sam.

STOP IT!

Not. Cool.

Ice Road SUV-ers

Dan and I occasionally stumble on an Ice Road Truckers marathon on the History channel and when we do, we usually end up watching. No clue why the show is so fascinating, but it is. However, in the future, I think I would prefer to see such driving conditions limited to television screen viewing. Not windshield viewing.

Because this is what we woke up to on Christmas eve.

So it started then and never really stopped. Even on our drive to my parents' later that afternoon. In fact, these were some of the better driving conditions we experienced.

Yay! We can see the road again!

Fortunately, Dan's an experienced snow driver so we were able to make it where others... just weren't so lucky. In fact, we passed a stopped line of about eight cars to tackle this monster hill.

On the way up and over, we passed two vehicles that had someone pushing. And see the headlights in that picture? Those were from a duley driving in reverse up the hill, towing a little Ford. That guy was having way too much fun doing that.

About the time we got to my parents' town, though, the snow had finally stopped.

But it managed to dump between four and seven inches of that stupid white stuff everywhere (depending on what news reports you listened to). My parents' house ended up closer to the four side of the equation and that was plenty, thank you. In fact, it guaranteed that we had plenty of the white stuff left over on Christmas day - my first white Christmas since moving to Texas in 1989 (we've had a white Christmas eve before but it had all melted by the next day). The wind had also been blowing during all the snowing so we were left with some pretty big drifts, too. This one was hanging off of the roof of my parents' porch.

All of this is something I might have enjoyed ten years ago, but now I just feel like I'm ready for summer. And the fact that there is still snow in my backyard's more shady areas? Is simply not cool.

Oh yeah. And Christmas happened.

St. Louis-ness-es

Last week, Dan and I were in St. Louis vising family and I'm just now getting around to editing the pictures and posting - but at least it only took me one week, right? The purpose of the trip was, of course, to visit family. But we also got some more tourist-y activities in there.

First off, Leah had found The London Tea Room so we went there for some goodies. Sadly, I was more into "ooo, tea!" than picture-taking, so this is pretty much all I've got.

My Cuppa

I got a pot of English Breakfast Blend, Dan got a pot of (really yummy) Earl Grey and Leah got a pot of Monk's Blend. I also brought home almost a pound dry tea. Yay!

Another fun event: Blues hockey!

This was Leah's first game, but she got all decked out, too, to support the home team.

We had really good seats, too. This picture was taken with no zoom or cropping!

Seven Rows Away!

And lookie there! Who's that? That's right, number 27 is former Duck Dustin Penner!

Hi Penner!

The game was pretty good - Leah even saw her first live hockey fight.

Fighting? Or Hugging?

Though ultimately the Blues decided that they were enough in the lead that they didn't need to actually play the third period so the Oilers came back and beat them. With a stick.

Oh well, a good time was still had by all! (Except for maybe the Blues).

And then Dan got to do something he's wanted to do for a while now...

Tour the Schlafly Brewery.

Where They Make Beer

The brewery wasn't big but it was pretty neat. And Dan restrained from trying to convince them to tap into one of their holding tanks, so good for him. But maybe that was because there was a small tasting after the tour.

Ah, Beer

Dan and Leah got more enjoyment out of the five beers we sampled, but I tried my darnedest!

Oh well. If I had actually liked one of the beers, we might have had to get some for me and I'm not sure if we could have fit much more than the case and a half we came home with anyway.