The Friday Five

Coffee drinkers in search for the perfect cup, won't find their brew here. This week's five: favorite tea flavors.

I'm a tea drinker from way back. I remember having my first cup of tea at my Auntie's house. The tea was more milk and hot water than tea, but at 10 years old I felt very grown up. The tea ritual is not so much in the sipping, but in the sharing gossip, problems, advice, and laughs.

I've tried flavors of loose tea, but since I'm the only one around here who drinks tea, loose tea seems such a waste of time to brew for one cup. Easier to plop a bag in a cup of water and nuke it. I average 4 cups of tea per day. 

1. Tetley, the brew of choice for every day. I find it to be robust especially if steeped longer than 4 min. which I've been known to do.

2. Celestial Seasoning's Morning Thunder. Sometimes called Gunpowder tea. Very potent.All the fun of coffee without the jitters.  As I recall there was  a picture of a bull on the front of the box. This was my morning blend when I worked at Marquette Cement a zillion years ago. Haven't seen this tea on the shelves in a very long time.

3. Twinings Earl Grey. Love the smell of the bergamot.

4. Twinings French Vanilla. Good for a comfort cup. A good substitute is a Splenda Vanilla for coffee packet in a cup of good ol' Tetley.  I find myself reaching for this more and more especially in the morning.

5. Chai.  The Young One enjoys this too. The only tea she will drink. For a special treat we'll stop at Barnes and Noble. At home, we drink Tazo Organic Chai, a gift from The Eldest.

Oh, and I have to add one tea flavor I really detest, Sweet Tea. Gag.

Are you a tea drinker? Do you have a favorite flavor or blend?

A Letter A Week Project

I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with the letters or how to display them. I thought a wall hanging like a quilt would be cool. It would cost a fortune to frame and,  of course, I wouldn't have room to display it in the dollhouse. Making a book came to mind, but there were so many design decisions to make. How big, what kind of paper, what kind of binding? Made my head spin. I wanted something fun, but simple. Light bulb! Blocks! Then all the sanding and sealing the wood. Not to mention the cost. Fun, simple, but inexpensive, with materials I already have laying around.

So, I made the block out of a sheet of drawing paper. Outside lines are cut. Inside lines are scored. The box is then folded up and glued with Yes! Paste. The finished letters are then glued to the box faces. Ta Da! A block.

Have you started a project with one direction in mind, and then ended up with something very different?

Wed Letter Day

Waste not, want not. I was looking through the scrap boxes trying to find some colored paper for a letter of the week, when I saw a practice sheet of simple watercolor tulips I had done. This "U" popped out.

Have you used an old work in a new way?

Work In Progress

The paint job. Base and top coats. Needs a bit of shine and some detail.

Work In Progress

Lettering done. Illustration done. Painting the dragon. Blue, but of course.  What are you working on today?

The Friday Five

Wednesday was spent at WPI, the college The Young One will be attending this Fall. A lot has changed since I was in college 37 years ago.

1. Though college was expensive, tuition wasn't out of the price range for my parents. Tuition only cost an arm instead of an arm, a leg, and a first born. My parents weren't required to divulge their tax reports.

2.  My term papers were typed on an electric Smith Corona type writer. If I needed a copy of this paper, I inserted a sheet of carbon paper between the type writer paper. Typing mistakes were carefully erased with a pink pencil eraser with a small brush on the end. Corrections were also carefully made to the carbon copy. A relatively new product, Wite Out Correction fluid was also available. If you needed to insert another sentence or paragraph, you had to retype your entire paper. Research for papers was started in the library using a card catalog: small drawers with neatly printed or typed index cards that would direct you to the book in the library stacks. Special collections items were requested in writing and given to the librarian. If the library didn't have the book you needed, you went to another library to look for it.

3. I only needed to budget $500 to $700 for books for my entire 4 years at college. The most expensive books were $25.00 hard cover. I had to buy my books at the college book store. I could buy used books from students who had already taken the class, if they were selling their books, and if the professor was using the same edition.

4. Correspondence with a professor after office hours was done by leaving a typed or hand-written note in his/her mailbox or with the department secretary. A first class stamp cost 8 cents. Telephone calls from a pay telephone were 10 cents for a 3 minute local call. Long distance calls were 25 cents for 3 minutes. Telephones were tethered to a wall at home or office and in a telephone booth for a pay telephone. Push to talk was called a Walkie-Talkie and used only by the military.

5. As a commuting student, I could eat meals in the dining hall, but had to pay cash. If you needed to buy something, you paid with cash or you wrote out a check. If you needed cash, you went to the bank, during bank business hours (usually Monday to Friday from 9 am to 3 pm. Some banks might stay open late one day usually Thursday or Friday when people got paid. The late banking hours would be 9a to 4:30p or if you were lucky 5pm.. Banks might be open until noon on Sat.) For cash you filled out a withdrawal slip or wrote a check out payable to cash or yourself and took the slip or check to the teller. If the withdrawal was from a savings account, you handed the teller your savings account passbook. S/he would type the amount in your passbook.

How were things different when you went to college?

Wed Letter Day

Another doodle. Pigma pen on Diploma Parchment (I think)

What are you working on?