I’m Back: Bullet Points of Interest

I’m still alive and more or less well. I just needed time off to do some important life stuff and serious inner work. I think I’m ready to get back into this, though.

I started blogging as a way to de-stress and take care of myself. When I get stressed, I often push aside self care in order to solve more problems and get more work done. I was raised to see most self care as a selfish indulgence, and when life gets hard I fall back into that mentality without noticing. Writing–about any subject–is soothing for me, and writing about comforting self care activities reminds me to do them. If I don’t do any self care I have nothing to write about.

When I started this blog, I didn’t think of it this way. I didn’t think of reading novels and taking OOTD selfies and showing off craft projects as self care. I thought of them as indulgences and felt a bit silly devoting any time to them. Now, nearly five years later, my perspective has radically changed. Over the last several months as I’ve posted less than ever, I’ve realized I need this more than ever. So here I am.

Someday soon I might write serious posts about some of that inner work I mentioned, but today I just have some brief updates and recommendations:

In late July I took a short trip to Arizona just to be alone and clear my head. I spent most of the trip walking through national parks and monuments–the Grand Canyon, Walnut Canyon, and Petrified Forest. It was beautiful and peaceful. Seeing the Grand Canyon is always a surprisingly international experience. Just walking the rim for a couple hours, I heard over a dozen different languages spoken by visitors from all over the world. A few weeks later I discovered a podcast called National Park After Dark that combines nature, history, and true crime featuring national parks all over the world.
A couple weeks ago I stumbled upon The Blackwell Ghost. I found it in Amazon’s documentary suggestions but early on I realized it was part of the “found footage” genre. It was short and pretty fun, though. It’s more subtle and funny than most “found footage” and fake documentaries I’ve seen. It’s five years old and has a bunch of sequels, so you all probably know about this movie already, but if you haven’t seen it I recommend it.
A couple weeks ago I also read a book. Man, Fuck This House has only been out about a year. Since it’s fairly new I won’t give anything away, but it was a haunted house story with a fun twist. I didn’t find it really scary or deep but it was funny and original. If you like haunted house stories and books that are horror-themed but not too dark, you might like this one.
On a trip to Albuquerque with my sibs this summer, I discovered Old Barrel Tea Company. Their shop’s vibe is not dark or witchy at all, but I don’t hold that against them. 😉 My siblings are even more into tea than I am, so between us we tried a lot of different blends while we were there. My favorites so far are American Wildflower and Bourbon Brew. They’re a bit pricey but they have a lot of creative blends, and I like being able to support a local business.
This month I also bought some new makeup. I kind of gave up on makeup during the pandemic, like a lot of us did. Even when we did go out, between masks and glasses, makeup felt like a waste. Now that I’m easing back into a routine, I decided to refresh my collection a bit. I really just needed a few high quality basics, so I went with Rituel De Fille. I’ve owned lipsticks of their before and liked them, and this time I bought their kohl eyeliner, a couple of eye soots, and a couple of creme colors. I really took advantage of their Labor Day sale. So far I’ve been really satisfied with the look and feel, and as long as I set with powder it all stays put pretty well. I like that they’re fairly simple and natural. The eye soot is fairly subtle, though, so it’s not best for people who love really dramatic eyeshadow. I have very hooded eyes so I mostly stick to liner and subtle shadow effects. It works for me.

Alchemy of Avalon

Alchemy of Avalon sells sampler packs of tea. You order the sampler, then in the notes you can name any three teas from the site and get generous (about 1 ounce) sample bags of each. About six weeks ago, early in my tea journey and flush with my tax refund, I ordered three sampler packs at once.

As you can see, they come in nicely labeled resealable bags. You’d have no trouble storing them like this, but my youngest kid and I wanted to open and sniff them all right away so we transferred the teas to cute little jars.

Alchemy of Avalon has a wide selection of green and black tea blends, as well as a few herbal teas. There are a few blends for specific healing or magical purposes, but I was more interested in trying a variety of flavors. I ordered a couple herbal blends, one magical looking oolong blend, and a whole lot of black tea blends. Out of nine samples, I thoroughly enjoyed most of them. As a total tea amateur, my opinion won’t count for much, but I’ll still give some brief details and thoughts on each tea.

Unsurprisingly, my favorites were all black tea blends. Massachusetts Maple had a nice deep smoky undertone from the Lapsang Souchang in it. Professor Earl-a-mental had a hint of smoke, too, which really added some depth to the earl grey base. In Love Spell, the cinnamon and rose really came through for me in a good way. This one really reminded me of the winter holidays. These three were my favorites.

I don’t know what possessed me to order both Peppermint Chocolate Chai and Chocolate Mint teas, but that’s what I did. I love mint so I finished both samples, but I liked Chocolate Mint a bit better. The mint flavor is gentle but clear, giving the tea a nice cooling note I really enjoyed.

Scorpio tea was the only black blend I didn’t love. It’s got black currant and ginger but neither of those flavors came through very strongly for me.

A lot of the black teas have little hints of chocolate and vanilla and other sweet flavors. Since I don’t take sugar or milk in my tea, these hints of sweetness came through nicely and made these teas feel a bit more indulgent than my basic blacks. I definitely plan to order a couple in larger amounts and keep them around for days when I need a little sweetness in my life.

The two herbal blends I tried were fairly unique. Siren’s Song was as much about sensation as flavor, with a little ginger heat, cooling spearmint, and licorice root giving it a strong sweet note that really hit the back of my throat. I’m not in love, but it’s interesting. It definitely felt like drinking a medicinal tea brewed by a wise woman. The second tea, Selene’s Blend, was much gentler and tasted lightly of lemon balm. It was also a beautiful golden yellow.

The last tea I tried, Lady of the Lake, was also a beautiful color, this time a deep blue-green. I knew I might not like an oolong blend, but I had to try it just for the magical color. It does have a touch of that savory grassiness I don’t like about green tea; if you like that flavor this is a wonderful tea to try. If you do love greens and oolongs, there are a lot of interesting blends to choose from. I might favor black over green, but Alchemy of Avalon doesn’t play favorites like that.

Overall, this was a great little adventure. I appreciate the wide variety of flavors Alchemy of Avalon offers. It’s definitely a wider range than most small tea shops I’ve looked at and their prices are no higher, and the sampler packs are a great way to take a chance on new flavors and learn more about what I like. I had fun and found a few new favorites. My only warning is that, as such a small company, teas seem to go out of stock quickly so you might have to keep an eye out to snag your favorites while they’re available.

Dark Teatime

As an ex-Mormon, I have an enduring fascination with beverages forbidden by my old church–coffee, alcohol, and tea. (I’m talking real tea made from tea leaves–even Mormons are allowed to drink herbal stuff like chamomile or mint.) My first love was alcohol, and since I wasn’t a great Mormon I started exploring this one long before I officially resigned from the church. Even long past my experimental teen years I was drawn to the history and romance around various drinks, but flavorwise I’m a whiskey lover. From smooth vanilla-inflected bourbon to light, clean Irish to weird peaty single malt Scotch, I find almost all of them delightful. Over the years, though, my digestive system has started to disagree with me on this and I’ve had to slow way down. Some St. Patrick’s overindulgence reminded me forcefully of this fact; my stomach wasn’t right for a week after.

If I can’t guzzle whiskey like a philosophical English gentleman or a badass cowgirl, that leaves coffee or tea. I guess my stomach would do better with wine or beer, but I’ve tried plenty of both and just don’t love them the same way. So that leaves coffee and tea. I enjoy a morning cup of coffee, sure, but I can barely tell the difference between roasts and origins. A friend of mine runs a coffe shop and roasting business and whatever she’s tasting in all those different beans, I’m not tasting it. She makes great coffee but one cup tastes pretty much like the next to me, and none of it tastes that great without milk or cream. I guess I’m not subtle enough for cofee.

So now we’re down to tea. It’s got history, variety, I can taste the difference between Assam and Irish Breakfast and Lapsang Souchang . . . it’s time to explore the world of fancy tea. I’m now the proud owner of an electric kettle and a real teapot and many sample sized bags of loose tea. I bought a sample box from a very fancy French Canadian company called, appropriately enough, Camellia Sinensis and a variety of herbal teas from an organic Michigan company called Arbor Teas. For the past two weeks I’ve been happily trying them all, and of course I prefer black teas. Like any good goth would. I’ve found a few potential favorites so far. I’ve also fallen in love with peppermint tea, which I guess I never really had before, and discovered the delightful blue of butterfly pea tea and suffered the beautiful pain of Arbor’s ginger chili tisane.

But the best cup of all was when I figured out that honeybush herbal tea with a small scoop of smoky Lapsang Souchang reminds me a whole lot of smoky, peaty Islay Scotch. What a perfect way to blend an old love with a new one.

The Arbor teas came first and they recommend storing the tea in glass jars. I got so excited about opening and smelling them all I forgot to take any photos. I hope they aren’t mad that I cribbed one from their website to show you.