A Weird Thing is Happening

(I'm going to mention some brand names but this is IN NO WAY an advertisement.)

I have always been a tea person. I first started drinking hot tea when I was about 14 or 15, just common grocery store tea bags at first, then my mom bought a bottle of Lea and Perrin's Worcestershire sauce that had a pack of 5 Twinnings tea bags attached. I can't remember for certain what variety. (It might have been Earl Grey. That was one of my favorites for a number of years. I completely lost my taste for it decades ago though.)

That first taste of Twinnings started me on a lifetime of tea appreciation and snobbery. I tried other varieties of Twinnings and later the Internet opened up a whole world of tea that is not available locally. For the past two decades I have mostly drank loose leaf tea because there are so many more varieties available and I can adjust the amount I use depending on the size mug I'm using.

I just never got started drinking coffee. Sure, I tried a few sips when I was young and hated the taste. But at some point I tried the General Foods International Coffees and found some of them... okay. Just a few years ago I got a little bit hooked on Hill's Brother's White Chocolate Caramel Cappuccino which, based on taste, I figure is about five or ten percent coffee. It's more like a fancy hot chocolate. I also love Land O' Lakes Hot Chocolate so the Hill's Brother's was actually like an alternate hot chocolate for me.

The bad thing about Hill's Brother's though, is that it has twice the calories of General Foods International Coffees. (though a little less than LO'L HC) So this year I decided I would stick with the latter. Just for a little variety, once or twice a week. After all, I'm a tea person. But here's the weird thing, suddenly I find myself actually wanting coffee more than I want tea.

So I've been wondering, "Could I possibly like "real" coffee?" (My other half drinks it.) so last week I bought a container of Coffee Mate Peppermint Mocha creamer to try in genuine brewed coffee and that stuff is heavenly. That's bad because I have been using significantly more than the recommended 35 calorie serving. One tablespoon? Really?! ROTFLMAO!

I have not yet been in a Starbucks. There is not one within 40 miles of me, fortunately for that way lies ruin. Also I'm a little bit scared of Starbucks. Everything I've read about them suggests that I would embarrass myself trying to order and annoy the barista with my utter stupidity.

But here's the thing... I am not happy about this change in myself. I like being a tea person because most Americans are not tea people. I like being different. I also like tea culture better than I like coffee culture. Oh, I do still like tea; I just don't seem to want it as much, if you know what I mean. My current favorite is Lapsang Souchong and I need some more of it. So I'm hoping this is just a passing phase. I am still a tea person. I am. I'm just having a sordid little affair with flavored coffees right now.

Well, Here I Go Again

I'm going to try to start this thing again. I don't know why other than I used to enjoy it. But anyway, since it's January 2nd let's talk about the new year.

As I get older, the end of one year and the beginning of another is less and less of a big deal to me but I can't completely get away from the feeling that it's something since everyone else is talking about it. I don't make resolutions because I'm pretty satisfied with my life the way it is. I know I'm not perfect; I could strive to make a few self-improvements and I do think about eating less/eating healthy but I think that's mainly because I've been eating so much crap during the holidays and I'm ready to get back to what is for me normal eating.

I also think about things like reading more and sewing more and especially sewing from the stash and shopping less but I have never shopped beyond my means and there's actually a good reason for continuing to build the stash and that is that someday my income will not be what it is now and I will have to cut way back on self-indulgent shopping and then it will be nice to have a large stash.

Another thing I think about every year is having a little garden and actually continuing to take care of it instead of letting it go like I always do. I got my first seed catalog in the mail on New Years Eve and saw an interesting tomato variety that I want to try. Tomatoes at least are pretty easy.

A really good resolution for me would be to spend less time on Twitter but I probably won't. I have enjoyed it a lot in the past year. I have discovered several new authors on Twitter as well as seeing hundreds of cute cat pictures so I really can't see Twitter as being a bad thing. Nearly everything in your life is what you choose to make of it.

One thing that is pretty definitely going to happen this year is a major house cleaning and throwing out of stuff. I expect we will be done with the new house this year and moving, even though the back of the new house is only four feet away from the front of the old, is not is not going to be fun. The less you have to move the better and, having lived in the same place for more than twenty years, we have accumulated a lot of stuff and much of it is stuff that probably won't be all that hard to let go of. Well, at least that's what I'm telling myself right now. No doubt it will be a different story when I actually start going through all of it.

So that's my outlook for 2019. No resolutions, just moving forward.

Sing A Song... If You Can Remember It

It's funny how memory works, and often doesn't. I don't think we ever really forget anything once it's in "long term memory". It just gets filed away, sometimes in a bottom file drawer in the dusty back room of our mental archives, never to be recalled unless something occurs to bring it out. What's puzzling to me is how things that were once important and exciting can be filed away and "forgotten" in this manner.

Yesterday I found this video over at Keys and Reeds. Back in the 70s this was my song. As someone who didn't fit in, and by that point didn't really want to, this song was very exciting to me. And yet, I hadn't thought of it in years.

I was thrilled to rediscover this song but then I was left with a disturbing puzzle. Who sang the version I loved when I was in high school? I could have used the Internet and found it in a minute but I was determined to figure it out for myself. Well, after a day of mentally beating myself over the head for not being able to remember I gave up.

I went directly to Youtube and searched. The first video that comes up is Cass Elliot. Well that's a bit of a surprise but... could be? So I listened. I didn't think so but I couldn't completely rule it out. Scrolling down, the next video that leaped out at me was by Bobby Sherman. I was pretty sure I was looking for a female singer but I had a huge 13-year-old's crush on Bobby Sherman so I listened to the first 15 to 20 seconds. Nope, definitely not it. And The Carpenters. That seemed like a strong possibility but I was curious as to what else would turn up and kept scrolling, thinking I would come back to it.

And then I saw it! I didn't even have to listen to know that this was it. I have this album! (vinyl, which I no longer have any way to listen to) And I suddenly remembered knowing it as part of the Sing/Make Your Own Kind of Music medley and HOW IN THE HELL COULD I EVER FORGET THIS?!

Beginning in 1974, the year the movie The Way We Were came out, I worshiped Barbra Streisand, which was one of the things that made me weird in high school because everyone else hated her. (I didn't really like the movie, loved the song)

Well, anyway, that's my little memory journey. I'm happy to have been reminded of this and still bothered and annoyed to have forgotten it. Another thing that's strangely annoying is that I think I like the Paloma Faith version a little better. Oh well, either way it's still my song.

Spoiled, Privileged Person First World Problem

It's funny how we so quickly become dependent on little conveniences that we were perfectly fine living without for most of our lives. Take, for example, package tracking. I hate when I order something and there's no or only minimal tracking info, such as only the date shipped and an estimated delivery date. But sometimes knowing can be as bad or worse than not knowing.

I ordered a t-shirt from an Etsy shop. (It's going to be a gift.) It shipped from Seattle via DHL. From there it went to Raleigh, NC. My package spent several days in Raleigh then finally shipped to Grand Prairie, TX, where it apparently spent several more days. I say "apparently" because on the day it finally arrived here Tracking showed that it was still in Grand Prairie.

I have the t-shirt and I didn't especially need it in a hurry but I would just like to know why. I'm pretty good at map reading but you really don't have to be to know that North Carolina is way far the other side of Oklahoma from Seattle, WA. And then there was the extra stopover in Texas. I admit that I really don't know a lot about how shipping works but that route seems terribly inefficient and wasteful.

And while we're on the topic of shipping, how long do you think it should take for a package to get here from the other side of the planet? I have only ordered internationally a couple of times but from my limited experience and reading the experiences of others three to four weeks seems to be typical. I just don't know. If you, personally, traveled around the world by plane how long would that take? According to this page it's possible to do in three to four days. That's a complete circumnavigation. Since we're talking about packages though, I'm talking about, at most, halfway around the world. And I know there's a lot of handling of packages that adds time but still, it seems to me that it should be possible to get a package from Europe to the middle of the U.S. in about two weeks.

But what do I know? As I said, I'm not a shipping expert, just a spoiled, impatient consumer. You know, if someone could finally invent the transporter we could get packages in just an hour or two. Sometimes Star Trek makes the real world look so lame.

Pre-Spring Rambling

One of my favorite days of the year is the day when I step outside and hear frogs for the first time. That happened on the last day of February. A few days later, another of my favorite days happened - I saw the first tiny wildflowers. (Most people call them "weeds" but really a flower is a flower.) And another of my favorite days will be this weekend when we go back to Daylight Saving Time.

This weekend is also the Tulsa Home and Garden Show, another of my favorite things. This is huge. If you haven't been to it you can't imagine how huge. It's in the River Spirit Expo (They change the name of this building every few years. It used to be the Quick Trip Center and before that... I can't remember.) one of the largest clear-span buildings in the world. It has 354,000 column-free square feet and a total of 448,000 square feet. That's a little over 10 acres of indoor space!

The Home and Garden Show is more "home" than "garden." There are all kinds of building, remodeling and decorating products. And safe rooms. One year we counted 17 safe room companies. Besides the safe rooms there's always a handful of companies that you think, "Why are they here?" But mostly it's like Heaven for HGTV addicts.

So anyway, I've been having a really good couple of weeks. It's not official spring but in so many ways it feels like spring and I'm looking forward to real spring. I'm looking forward to the time of year when I don't have to worry, "Are we going to going to have an ice storm next week?" Which can happen as late as April.

There is one thing that is looming: my 60th birthday. What the hell?! Most of the time I feel like I'm barely even a grown-up. How can I possibly be turning 60? I just can't make sense of it. I kind of joke that "60 is the new 40" but even 40 seems a little older than I should be. Of course there are benefits to being older. I think the worst thing about being old is not being old but being judged by one's age. Younger people have this idea in their heads about what 60 is but it's not what they think and they will never get it until they're at least 50 themselves. But still, they judge.

Oh well, enough of that. Look what I came across this morning: Beautiful Chickens. Honestly, they're not all beautiful; the white, skinny one is pretty creepy. My mom loved chickens and I kind of miss having them around but I'm not sure if I would really enjoy the responsibility of taking care of them. I might; I just don't know. I've never had chickens as an adult. Maybe it's just nostalgia.

Rambling

I kind of hate that I neglect this blog so much now. I especially regret that I neglect to read other blogs. I used to enjoy this whole routine but I'm enjoying the other things I've been doing instead - reading, (a lot) sewing (not as much as I want to in terms of getting things done) and... um... Twitter. I find it to be a really convenient means of interacting with people online. I use my phone and my phone's always in my pocket so I can pull it out anytime I have a moment and often that moment turns into half an hour. So anyway, if you want to follow me I'm @uppityokie though, to be honest, I'm probably not that interesting. I mostly re-tweet stuff, including a lot of cat pictures.

I also have a sewing blog that I post on infrequently in case anyone's interested in that. I am almost done with a quilt top that I wish I would have finished early this past summer so I could use it now that quilt weather is upon us. And I have tons of other stuff I want to get done right now - several things for my granddaughter, another shirt for my husband (I have made several recently) and stuff for me too even though I really don't need more clothes. I need to get rid of a bunch of stuff to make room for the new stuff I'm making but there's really very little that I'm willing to sacrifice. I do wear it all, just some of it maybe not very often. But, though I don't need clothes, in terms of total number of garments I own, I do need more of certain things. This year I have decided more tunics and stretch pants. (I am stretch pants are awesome years old) I have some good fabric for tunics already but need to get some more of the good cotton spandex for pants. (BTW, for any British friends who might be reading this, by "pants" I mean "trousers." But you knew that, right?)

I have been wanting to comment about some of the things that are going on in the world. I've written whole blog posts in my head but just never get around to actually writing them. The world is such a freaking mess right now, sometimes I really want to start beating people over the head with a clue bat but, on the other hand, most of the time I feel strangely secure out here in my little sanctuary in the woods. It occurs to me fairly often that I'm really not but living scared all the time is just too tiring. Getting worked up over crap all the time is tiring. I guess some people don't have the ability to just ignore it all and live their lives but I don't have the ability to stay scared or outraged for long periods of time. I just can't. Maybe that's a failing but it does make life easier.

The leaves are just beginning to turn here. They have been late for the last two or three years. The peak of fall color used to come about the second week of October, sometimes earlier, sometimes later but now it's not until November. It's time for this video that I post just about every year. My favorite piece of autumn music with some beautiful autumn scenery.

Harvey

I commented on Twitter at the time when Hurricane Harvey was first approaching way out in the Gulf that hurricanes should not be named Harvey. Harvey sounds like a friendly but ineffectual guy. Well, it looks like Harvey decided to teach us a lesson about not taking him seriously.

So far I am impressed with Houston's mayor and FEMA shows signs that they have learned from past mistakes. Everything seems to be going as well as can be expected. I won't make any comments about certain politicians because they have nothing to do with any of this. I guess that's about all I have to say other than, my sympathy to all who are affected.

It's funny how things seem to intersect sometimes. Like coincidences but I don't think this qualifies as a coincidence but something like that. Last week there was a conversation on one of the sewing blogs I read. I mentioned that I had been thinking about trying some of the African wax prints (also known as Dutch wax because they were originally made in Holland, and some still are, for African trade) and the blogger encouraged me to go ahead and do it already!

Well, the last thing I need is more fabric but one has certain social obligations you know. One simply cannot declare a desire to do something, receive encouragement and then just drop out. [ahem] Anyway, I searched Etsy for African wax prints - for days. I favorited almost two dozen fabrics and spent almost every waking moment thinking about them and trying to imagine each one made into something until I woke up Monday morning and just knew which one I had to have. But then I realized that the seller is in Houston.

So now I don't know what to do. My heart goes out to this woman who might have lost everything and I feel bad about even thinking about myself and something as trivial as fabric shopping. But I guess I'll pick another fabric eventually. There are many more that I like but I am so in love with that one that I probably can't have. Right now I am back to looking and thinking and waiting for another fabric to say, "Pick me! Pick me!"

Closing

I just found out this week that the local J.C. Penney store is closing. (It's in the same shopping center as the place where I get my hair cut.) This makes me sad but I have to admit that it's merely a sentimental reaction. There has always been a J.C. Penney store everywhere I have ever lived. It's just one of those places that have been around all my life and seems like it should continue to be around forever.

But the truth is I almost never shop there. I can literally count on one hand the number of items I have purchased there in the past 20 years. I go there more often than that - or I used to - but I rarely find what I'm looking for or anything that I would ever want. Part of the reason, of course, is that I make most of my own clothes and J.C. Penney mostly sells clothes, but I do buy things like sweaters, socks, undergarments, jeans, coats, jackets, and the occasional t-shirt. Every time I look for these items at JCP either they don't have my size or (usually) don't have anything I like. Everything is all so "trendy" and fussy and often slightly weird. There are no basics.

Obviously, I am not the only person with this problem. I never see more than one or two other customers in the store at the same time. Message to all the stores: Stop blaming millennials for all your problems. I'm not a millennial and I don't shop in your store either. It's not millennials' fault (or anyone else's) if you don't have anything in your stores that anyone wants to buy.

In With the New, Out With the Old

I have such a hard time letting go, even of things that I don't really like all that much anymore. The plate on the left in the first photo below is maybe 30 years old. I originally bought 4 10 inch plates and four 8 inch plates. They're actually a pretty hefty plastic, thicker and better than typical plastic plates but two of the large ones and one of the small ones eventually broke. Last year I finally found somewhere I could buy DallasWare in a small quantity. (They're a restaurant item, usually only available in cases of 48.) I bought 12 blue 10 inch plates and threw out the two yellow plates in that size but kept the three remaining smaller ones. The three that are left have stains that won't come out. I even bleached them and that helped some but there are still faint stains.

I had been looking at these aquatic themed plates at Walmart. I fondled them and left them in the store several times because I "don't need anymore plates." I thought about buying just one so my granddaughter will have something bright and colorful to eat off of when she comes over but today I finally gave in to the impulse and bought four of them. Which means I must let go of the old.

It shouldn't be hard at all to throw out some old, stained plastic plates that we don't even use all that often anymore but... but... they have been part of my life for almost 30 years. My children ate off of those plates! Okay, I did throw them away and right this moment I am resisting the urge to get them back out of the trash. Have you ever heard of such silliness?

I'm sure these new plates won't last that long. According to the label they are only "top rack dishwasher safe" but I know sooner or later (almost certainly sooner) someone is going to put them in the bottom rack and I won't notice and there goes my pretty new plate. Also, while they seem to be fairly decent quality I don't expect them to last more than a few years. Which, I'm kind of okay with because they were cheap enough but, for that reason, it seems sort of wrong to throw away something that is "still good" in favor something new and probably not as good.

Well, all that's probably more of the inside of my head than you ever wanted to see. Here are two more of the new plates. There were only three different designs so I bought two of the fish. When I got home I wondered why I chose two of the fish when the starfish is actually my favorite but I'm really not too disappointed with my choice. I like them all. I really wish there had been four different designs.