ne(one)piphany

Surprised and delighted to discover in my mailbox more lovely freebies from Adagio Teas:

Inside, another box of four 1 oz. samplers to match the first, with infusions of lime, cream, chocolate and “valentines” (mmm, chocolate-dipped strawberries, heaven!).

The gift that keeps on giving!

Am sipping a freshly-brewed cup of the lime as I type — subtle, refreshing, would probably make an excellent iced too. Will likely have to order a real-sized tin v. soon.

In other news, I’ve begun to foster an intense hatred for this new bathroom scale. Just what everyone needs, a new daily source of despair.

You must check out Utata.org right now for all sorts of fabulous goodness, not least of which is: trains!

(But this is Catherine Jamieson’s brainchild, so this should be no surprise at all)

Found at Candyland in Richmond:

Emily, of course, was first to let me know they existed, but I never expected to see them in the flesh. Should have known that Canada would be just the place to go — another example of how snack-deprived we are in the States!

My flickr friend hexion said this, in comments:

Children in Japan do not like green tea taste. However, the adult like green tea taste. I think that it is a thing like the bitter chocolate.
 
By the way, There is a custom of presenting “Kit kat” to the examinee in Japan. Because the pronunciation of “Kit kat” is near Japanese “Kitto katsu” that means “Win without fail”.

Kitto katsu!

They’re good; maybe a little too sweet, but not overwhelmingly so — about what you’d expect from a good green tea ice cream, but swirled with crispy KitKatty goodness. Since they’re imported from Japan, a little pricey, and then there’s that commute…

I know it seems tea’s been on my mind a lot lately, and you’d be right! Shaula over at tsuredzuregusa 徒然草 has a lovely entry on tea, for whose inspiration I can take some little, indirect credit (via Watermark & my Adagio Teas entry), which spurred a small tea shopping expedition: genmaicha is an old friend (this from Republic of Tea), wonderful and mellow, while lapsang souchong is a new acquaintance, smoky and nostalgic. I know a few of you vehemently dislike it — I wonder if it comes from not having often experienced warm winter fires on frozen nights, crackling & aromatic of charcoal, memories of which come flooding back to me as I sip. How could you not love?

And from janjan, word of her own Adagio reward, which sounds amazing — but I need to watch myself. Finish the tea you’ve got first, yukino.

I mentioned (in passing) Adagio Teas’ link rewards program a week or two ago. Well, imagine my delight at finding a small package from them on my front porch today! My pagerank must be okay (how does one figure that out, anyway?) because what I found inside was their “5+” reward, which contains:

• an IngenuiTEA 2-cup pot/steeper
• a 1 oz. tin of mango tea
• a 1 oz. tin of oriental spice tea
• a 1 oz. tin of cream tea
• a 1 oz. tin of strawberry tea
• a handwritten thank you card!

I haven’t tasted any of these yet — oh, but they do they smell divine! — and I promise to report back once I do. Truly, between this and my recent rooibos adventures, I’m in absolute tea heaven!

(…and wow, I guess blogging can pay!)

Well, I think by now you’ve probably noticed that a new site design’s in effect. For fans of the grand experiment in purple, I hope you’re not disappointed. There’s still plenty of pink, purple, green — I love them too much not to use them (Tara, I kept the beach, just for you!).

Still, long-time readers will know that I’m never quite satisfied, so there are sure to be tweaks and changes over the next few weeks. Hopefully, the bulk of the work is done, though!

Some notes, before I get back to nummy things like bath products and tea*:

1. I love CSS & the idea of CSS, but wow, does it have limitations when it comes to layout! I finally had to cheat a bit and surround everything with ten DIV’s to position my background graphic elements. Even then, I had to make a lot of images with invisible padding if I wanted to position them relative to the right side of the page.
2. Internet Explorer is horrible!!! Could it be any worse at dealing with CSS?
3. I would say: don’t be afraid of using tables, honestly! That is, unless you are a raving loon and think you might want to someday enable drop-in stylesheets. No matter what anyone tells you, there are definitely things you can do with tables which aren’t possible in CSS. I almost gave up so many times, but clearly I am a madwoman and need to be committed…

Also I finally have room to put my flickr photostream on my blog! So please enjoy, and everyone send warm fuzzies (or subscription money) to the lovely folks who make it possible.

Now I’m going to go brew myself some honey rooibos. See? Feels like home already!