Mint-Tea

This is a corner of my garden. My mint plant that I planted last year, and as mint does, came back this year with a vengeance. It's actually a chocolate mint plant.


Last year, I did nothing with the mint, besides just smell it when the wind ruffled the leaves. I did cut most of it at the end of the season, with intentions of drying it, but after a few weeks - and after a snowfall, I remembered that I had left the mint outside on the porch. Oops. It was kind of gross.

So this year I decided to use the mint. I had been looking for some way to brew the leaves. And this past weekend on a trip to Ikea, I found this nifty teapot, with a mesh insert for tea leaves!! It works great.


I just clip a few stems & leaves, chop them up and in the pot they go. Then just pour hot water through the middle and brew for a while! Yum! The chocolate part of the mint doesn't really have a Hershey's chocolate taste. It just adds a little sweetness and takes away some of the bitterness. Gives it a smooth flavor!

It's amazing that I can make a refreshing drink from a plant in my yard and water. Guess that's how tea has been made for thousands of years, but I just started doing it. I grew the plant. I brewed the tea!

Weeds...and not

I was pulling weeds today and I got something that was stuck - and kind of heavy. Here is the first weed:

Then I got to another part, cutting back some weeds and monkey grass that have grown up next to the house, near the gas and cable hookups. And I was being careful....very careful. This time.
And when I saw this "weed" I got a little scared at first, but it was not connected to anything. Thanks cable guy, I think.
I was a little nervous pulling things that I didn't know I was pulling and seeing things that weren't connected anymore - because of the air conditioner unit incident a few weeks ago...

I was cleaning around the outside unit - getting rid of vines that had grown up and into the unit. Snip, snip, oops. I cut a wire. It was brown, just "hanging" around. It didn't look like it was a wire - not attached to anything. And it really looked just like the vines and weeds that I was trimming. I called the AC repair people and they told me that it was the thermostat wire. So that was good, sort of. It could have been really bad. Luckily they were able to fix it the next day, just by splicing and it was before the weather was too hot and the AC was really needed.

Purse Memories

While shopping yesterday, I saw this purse.

This purse looks exactly like the one that my mom took to Disney World when I was a little girl. I haven't seen anything like it in a long time. But I saw this and thought about Mickey Mouse ice cream on a stick. "It's a small world." And flying Dumbos.

Goals & such

I set some goals - in January. You could call them new years
resolutions, but I like to think of them more as goals to achieve.
Things that I want to do better, or more often. I had some basics like
drink more water and learn to like beans (yeah, I've never really
liked beans- but I now enjoy black beans & chili/pinto beans!)
So several goals are going ok. Some others just kind of fall apart,
mainly because I forget about them.
Ergo, a new system. A friend ran across this blog of a girl doing 2
and ONLY 2 goals a month. Seems doable. And more likely to be
remembered. I can remember to do 2 things for 30 days. And I've read
that it takes 30 days to make a habit. So I'm going to make some new
good habits.

So for May, my two are going to be
1) floss everyday
2) sit and stand with good posture - all the time!

These two things seem easy enough. And will make quite a difference.
So far so good!! Next month's goals will probably involve blogging...