Sick of being SICK! (Ginger. Lemon. Honey Tea)

I have been sick for an entire week now....
and i am soooooo sick of it. I have no idea what is wrong with me, but the whole thing has gotten so old.
I can still eat, but nausea and running to the toilet seem to be my mornings and nights now. It's so draining. In the span of time i have been sick in my life, a week is really nothing --- but since i have missed half my life due to illness, i would say i have less patience then i once kept stored up. This is driving me bonkers and kinda freaking me out. (Flashbackksss).

A few things could have happened :::

1. I went out to a party and to wrestling and may have caught something creepy from the other humans. Everyone knows rednecks carry germs. My friends do too.
Although, i have no fever, no aches, no symptoms of having caught anything at all.
2. I jumped in my pond with my duck and swam around in the mud. parasites?
3. Celiac Sprue...... i blame most everything on this silly disease i have. Mainly cause it causes everything digestively wrong and is so easy to accidentally get something in my mouth to trigger it...
4. I am preggers for the christ child, and he thinks me having diarrhea is a character building sacrifice. Alternately... some other dude's baby.
5. the new strain of E. Coli really is in the USA?

SO, i made some of this fancy tea...
my famous Ginger Lemon Honey Tea.... except i added strawberries this time.
All you do is bring it all to a boil and let it sit (then add honey).
The thing is, this gets rid of illnesses that are contagious (flus and colds and sore throats).... it might even fuck up a parasite or two, cause ginger is powerful like that. But i know, it will do nothing for my celiac sprue or the second coming of christ and i dont know about E.Coli.

XoxoXOXO

A Tea Party

On Wednesday afternoon for completing my first 1/2 term at my new school, I was invited to an afternoon tea with the principal. Which, I thought was a very charming British thing to do.

It was lovely, the table was laid with the most gorgeous trays of sandwiches and cakes and scones with oodles of clotted cream and strawberry jam to lavish upon them. There were also the most divine miniature coffee eclairs. After working away in the cupboard all day, all that wonderful sugar on offer was pure happiness!

It was all created by the students in the Home Economics department and they had worked tremendously hard. It was an absolute delight and, a pretty neat way to welcome in your new staff too!

(Image: A Su Blackwell piece)

Summertime in the South

It’s hot here! This is the hottest weekend of the year so far. As a girl raised in the South, I am used to heat. Heat, mixed with humidity that seems to dew on your skin the moment you step outside. Heat, mixed with humidity that takes your breath away when you open the door. Heat, mixed with humidity that feels as if you are breathing through a wet cloth.

Summer, in the South, symbolizes the beginning of so many things. It means fresh fried chicken with sliced tomatoes straight off the vine, cucumber salad and cantaloupe dripping its melon nectar to mingle with the vinegar of the salad on your plate.  All purchased that afternoon from the Farmer's Market. A large shed that held inside its walls the best of Summer: fresh vegetables, watermelons, boiled peanuts. Bushel baskets by the door to place your selected items in as you shopped.  The smell of the sun and warmth, on the vegetables, that had not long come in from the fields.

Not all Sundays, but on some occasions after church we would head to the local family restaurant in town.  A place that served Southern food at its finest! No calorie counting here! Turkey & Dressing is always served on Sundays with a choice of vegetables and fresh yeast rolls. That was usually my choice over ham or fried chicken. That lunch mixed with the Summertime heat would often make you sleepy and an afternoon nap on the hammock would ensue.  

When my grandmother was a child in the South the big meal of the day was eaten at lunch, or as people called it then, "Dinner" and "Supper" was a lighter evening meal of cold lunchtime leftovers, sandwiches or biscuits, grits and frizzled ham.  They lived at the top of a big hill and when my great-grandfather Red would come home for lunch, each child would have a turn during the week riding up the hill with him.

He would place his arm out of the window and help the “rider” onto the foot board, holding onto them with his big worn hands as they gripped the open window frame, they would ride up the hill with their daddy, squealing and laughing all the way as the wind blew through their hair.

For that is the South.  Sweat rolling down your back; ice clinking in glasses as it slowly diffuses into sweet tea. The laughter of gossip carrying over the yard as children swing higher on their swing hung on the boughs of an oak to feel the breeze cool their faces.

Harper Lee described Summertime in the South best, in one of my favorite books, “To Kill A Mockingbird”: 

Somehow, it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summer’s day; bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square. Men’s stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o’clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum…A day was twenty-four hours long but seemed longer.

 

I love that line: A day was twenty-four hours long but seemed longer. The days did always seem so much longer when you were little, with one day slipping into the next an endless parade of Summer days. Now, time seems to fly, there are never enough hours in the day to accomplish everything. But, that I suppose is how it should be, there is a time to everything and so there should be a time to rest as the sun comes to its end and our pace slows to match the softness of the moon.

(Peach Truck Image: Re-vamped Allman Bros. Album Cover, Pink Tag & Tape on "To Kill A Mockingbird" Image, The Pugly Pixel, Background on same image: The Graphics Fairy, Farmer's Market & Palm Tree Images, copyright J. Michie)

A Spot of Tea

Just heading out my racing green door for a spot of tea and good natter on this wonderful sunny afternoon!

I have the day off and I am going to soak up every drop of sunshine I can! Hope it is sunny wherever you are today...

(Image - Teacup: The Graphics Fairy, Dottie Border: The Pugly Pixel, Embellished by J. Michie)

Tea Party

We went shopping this weekend and I came across these silicone tea cups:

Unfortunately, the store was out of stock, they just had an empty display box, stating more stock would be in soon. I thought that this would be an adorable idea for a children's tea party, or even a grown-ups tea party for that matter. To have delicious cupcakes baked in these pipped with twirly-whirly swirls of icing in a rainbow of colors and sprinkles.

And you could serve them alongside these yummy lemon raspberry sandwich cookies:

These little ham & cheese thumbprints:

Mini cucumber sandwiches made with my Mom's mouth-watering cucumber and carrot spread and a selection of delicious vegetables with a homemade buttermilk ranch dip. I am getting hungry just thinking about it!

The day started out rainy this morning, but now has gone sunny and deliciously cool, the perfect tea party day, for bunting strung in trees, white tableclothes billowing in the breeze, good music floating through the garden and a group of friends to enjoy the afternoon with as day slips into night.

When these get back in stock, they might just jump into my hands, because I think this is a truly cute idea!

(Click on the cookie and thumbprints pictures to be taken directly to the recipe, tea party girl by Belle & Boo)