I finally decorated my tree! It has been up since Thanksgiving weekend on Saturday, I think it was. Thank goodness that it came with lights and pinecones or it would have been really sad to have it up all this time with no decorations.

Notice the special tea decorations.

Life has been rather busy lately. I’ve been frantically grading final assignments, calculating grades, and prepping the lab exam. But FINALLY I gave my last lecture for the semester yesterday. Today is “reading day.” Yeah, get this, the students get a WHOLE DAY to prep for exams. Is that crazy, or what? At my undergrad school, we had a whole WEEK to do our final papers and prep for exams. It seems rather crazy to me to only have on day; however, I know that at the last school where I taught, there was a concern that students blow off the extra time and drink/party instead of studying. We certainly weren’t doing that at my alma mater.

But anyway, I digress.

Last night, after working from, I think it was 6 am to 7 pm, I came home, ate a fabulous supper (another tangent in just a moment on that), and then I decorated my tree! It took me quite a while. But I wanted to do the whole thing and put the boxes away. This doesn’t solve the garland issue that still needs to be fixed after falling from the garage and having part of the lights go out. BUT it is waaaaaaaaaaay better than before.

As for the fabulous supper: Mom and Dad were in the vicinity of my place on Sunday, because they were wanting to buy the same tree from Target. (Mom saw mine and loved it.) The Target near them was out, and they had looked at the one down the road from me. Since they were close by, they invited me to lunch and we tried a third German restaurant in town. Now, we’ve gone to the main three that are here. They were all fabulous in different ways. This one would be good when part of a group of people want to eat German food and the other part of the group does not, because they have more than just German food on their menu. In the end, the lunch portion was as big as their supper/dinner portion, and I brought half of everything home. It was WONDERFUL to have it again for supper.

As for the upcoming week, I have to make, give, and grade two finals. I have a pile of research papers to grade still for lab, which is just really, really is a pain in my ass. I have a pile of homework assignments, and seminar write-ups, and alternate essays to make up for the students who could attend seminars.

THEN, I have to start prepping for Genetics for the Spring semester! I already had a student ask me for the syllabus! oh dear. She has a learning disability and wants to read ahead, so it is a legitimate question. I suspect that we will start with Chapter 1, which should be pretty easy to tell her. But the book isn’t even published until tomorrow! The publisher is overnighting it to me (which really wasn’t necessary, but they put the order in before I could tell them no). Anyway, you can see how Christmas “break” is really never 3 weeks of vacation like it looks like on paper. I’m just hoping to take at least a few extra days off to work with Dad and Texas Seestor to build shelves in my garage and finish organizing my apartment, do my Christmas cards, spend a few extra days with family.

I don’t mean to complain. I really DO enjoy all of the work. But it is sort of annoying when people say things like “oh! but you have 3 weeks of vacation! That must be really nice!” It hardly makes up for the 70+ hour weeks that I’ve been putting in. It DOES get easier, but it will take a few years. A tenured professor warned me that it doesn’t slow down for about 5 years. But he was also teaching different courses almost every semester. So, I’m really hoping that I’ll have at least some repeat courses!

Anyway, I’ll post more later. For now, I need to go write the final exam for Saturday. Saturday?! Can you believe that? The Provost makes that decision, unfortunately.

But at least I have my beautiful tree to gaze upon while I work! Yay!

Did you notice the lazy susan holding all of the tea!!?

I don’t know if you remember the post where I was packing and all of my tea was spread out on the kitchen counter. Here is a photo from that post that should look familiar.

Remember that not all of that is mine! My half is on the left. HB’s half is on the right.

Anyway, in that post, I had also joked about how I needed a way to get to the tea that was in the back more easily.

I guess I will have to find a poor man’s version of a nice pull out rack. Maybe some sort of desk organizer…
… well, I’ll have to think about that.
That or I’ll have to make that one of my arts and crafts projects for the summer. Now, there is a thought!

Well, on our drive from MN to TX, Mom and I needed to eat lunch and we were having trouble finding much in southern Iowa off of I-35.
We looked at the map and realized this little town called Lamoni was in a bigger font (i.e. larger town) than any of the others we had been passing lately.

You can see it waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down at the border on I-35. The (A) marks it.

Well, when we got off of the road, Subway was the only thing marked on the food sign and it was 3-4 miles down the road toward the center of town. As we drove down the road, we saw a road sign to watch for horses and buggies! Thus, we realized we were in Amish territory.

Photo from someone’s blog post about Lancaster County.

On the way down the road we saw a collection of buggies and Amish folk at what appeared to be some sort of market; it was a Saturday after all.

THEN, and this was the BEST part, we saw a woman selling beautifully made baskets by the side of the road right next to the Subway! My eye was immediately drawn to the colors of the weaves that she had worked into her baskets.

Mom and I decided that we had to check out her baskets after we ate lunch. I started trying to think of SOME place in my apartment where I could use a basket. I wasn’t coming up with much to justify purchasing one, but then I remembered that I’d wanted to have a new basket for my keys. HB and I had been using a really cheap one for years that we’d saved from one of those Hickory Farms mini gift baskets. I decided that I would look for something like that!

As I was looking at the smaller baskets, I spotted IT! The beautiful lazy susans of various sizes. I started dreaming of how I could display my tea in it on the kitchen counter, because I remembered that the counter kind of stuck out in a weird way. I assume it is meant so that you can use it as a bar, but I don’t like eating like that, so I figured I’d just leave it open for preparing food.

I hemmed and hawed to myself about the size. The size I purchased didn’t have the purple and blue weave that was used on a medium-sized one to which I was particularly drawn. However, the one I ended up buying was either the largest one she sold, or the 2nd largest. Mom was concerned it was awfully big, but I had put some of the Amish woman’s jam jars into it to get a sense of how many it might hold. I realized that I really needed the big one if I wanted to display more than just 8 canisters or so.

And, get this, it was less than $20! I think it might have been $14!!
And it spins soooooooooooooo smoothly.
Check out the video

Anyway, it took me a while to make the little pedestal and decide which teas were going to make the cut to be on it. I had to leave about 4 of them off of it. I ended up cutting the ones that I never really liked as far as flavor went even though the designs were unique.

Then I had to find and decide upon the mugs for the mug stand that I’d purchased back in college for my dorm room (I think it was (?)) but has been in storage for years and years. I wasn’t going to bring it with me, but HB convinced me to pack it. Usually when he said something like “I’ll just end up throwing it away,” I would pack it.

Anyway, back to the story. When Mom and Texas Seestor were here helping me unpack, they had commented that it was too bad I didn’t have a way to display some of my mugs. But I did!

I just had to unpack it! And there it is.

Lastly, Texas Seestor had a piece of pottery that she was willing to give up for me to put some kitchen utensils into and place next to my stove. This ended up freeing up a drawer and allowed me to make my “junk drawer” in a real drawer instead of inside a lower cabinet. Now, when I say “junk,” I don’t really mean junk. I’m talking about pens/pencils, stapler, tape, scissors, flashlight, various screwdrivers, rubber bands, chip clips, etc. etc. You know, things you actually need fast access to!

Thus, the leftover tea ended up in that cabinet.

And voila! my kitchen is done!

Oh, and yesterday morning, it was such a joy to walk into my kitchen and make my tea with the lazy susan of tea and all of my beautiful mugs. And then I turned the corner and saw the pottery with my kitchen utensils. And my lovely tea kettle. And new microwave. And then I got to use another piece of Texas Seestor’s pottery for my cheerios.

It gave me such joy; I just had to take a photo.

And note: I’m not waking up at 5 am anymore! I can actually sleep until 6:30 or later most mornings!

——–

Yesterday, I did a bunch of rearranging and repacking which is less photo-worthy. But I have managed to hook up my wireless internet after much technical assistance, hook up my Wii (and do a tiny bit of Wii fit), and tie down the cords. All of that felt like an accomplishment too.

Today, I will attempt to finish dealing with the 2nd bedroom, which became sort of a dumping ground. And maybe I can do a tiny bit of decorating of things that have to hang. We’ll see how far I get. It is hard to put aside the Endless Forest to work on my apartment!

That is what the edge of our kitchen and dining room looked like at about 9:30 last night. I had just finished splitting the tea; it is on the counter. This photo also documents my version of organized chaos as I pack.

This is what inspired me to pull out my camera.

Can you believe that we own all of that tea???
And can you believe that all of that tea fit into the left side of the cabinet that is above it? ( see photo above) Yes, it took up the WHOLE left side, and we really didn’t get to the stuff behind the first couple of layers much. We really needed a lazy Susan for tea, or a nice pull out rack like Texas Seestor has in her kitchen cabinet – of which I am quite jealous! I guess I will have to find a poor man’s version of a nice pull out rack. Maybe some sort of desk organizer…
… well, I’ll have to think about that.
That or I’ll have to make that one of my arts and crafts projects for the summer. Now, there is a thought!

As I was pulling this tea out, it was like discovering old friends. I had forgotten that we had all of those Tealuxe paint cans of tea from when we lived in Boston! I actually found the paint can opener that we had to use to open them in the silverware + tea utensil drawer. Speaking of the tea utensil drawer, I found 3 large metal mesh tea balls, 2 small tea balls, two tea squeezers (one for home and one for school – from my grad school advisor). And that doesn’t begin to include my collection of tea pots, spoon rests or teaball rests, and mugs.

Anyway, I should explain one thing about the massive stack of tea – particularly the tower in the back. Dad worked with a woman who had a connection to Bigelow (I’m not sure entirely of the connection anymore – I think she might have worked there part-time), so we ended up with a ton of tea for free from her from Bigelow.

As for the rest of the tea, the canisters are all different flavors of Republic of Tea teas. Some of them had special edition canisters, like Memoirs of a Geisha for the Cherry Blossom tea which is renamed to be called Spring Cherry Green Tea, or the red Zen Dreams canister for Passion Fruit Papaya – my second favorite tea. Or is Blackberry Sage my second favorite tea? I suppose they are tied for second.

In the end, splitting the tea wasn’t too terrible. There are things that HB purchased for himself that I never liked anyway. And we had two of a fair number of teas – especially those Bigelow boxes!

Pulling out the mugs earlier in the day was also like discovering old friends. I have mugs from as far back as high school freshman year that were given to me by friends. I remember who gave me, or where I purchased, almost every one of them. I have even kept a chipped one that was such a favorite for so long that I’ve never been able to put it in the trash – I purchased that one, but I’m not sure where. That would be one of the few that I can’t recall where I got it.

And here are some more photos I went ahead and took as long as I had my camera out.

This is where I stood all day Wednesday. Packing paper in front of me, box being packed to my left, towels and blankets used for packing to the far left on the couch and chair, office paper and newspaper behind me, and for a while, I had bubble wrap to my right until I used it all up!

I felt compelled to take a photo of all of the utensils that I’m taking with me after I split them. That was sort of odd too. We have only one of some things, so I tried to keep track of the things that I will need to buy. And I started a small list for HB of things that he will have to buy, if he so chooses.

Well, I’m nearing the end of my cheerios and Home Depot is now open. I used up the last of my tape making the box to hold all of the utensils plus other stuff last night. That makes 4 rolls of scotch packing tape (purchased) and 3 rolls of cheapo brown tape from Atlas (free). I’ve probably been over generous with the amount of tape I use, but I’d rather use too much and have the boxes stay intact than use too little and have the bottoms bust out. So, off to buy tape I go. Maybe I’ll take some more photos. I’m finding them sort of funny to view.

It is official! I have been offered and I have accepted a job offer for a tenure-track position in biology at a small liberal arts school in Texas!!!

wooooooooooooooo hooooooooooooooooo

The image above is something I created to make notecards on Snapfish. I am going to send cards to people at my future school who are in my new department, were on the search committee, the provost, the president, and the woman in development (i.e. will be helping me get money for research). The school colors are black and gold, and I thought they might enjoy a card with a flower in the school colors. So I searched my numerous flower photos in my huuuuuuuuuuge iPhoto library (currently 9,800+ photos) for a yellow flower and can you believe that I found this tulip that actually has a black center in it too???!!!

Was this meant to be, or what? I took that photo in April 2007.

I really just thought I’d use a daylily that was yellowish green. But when I saw this and popped it on the design, I realized it was the right one.
Note, I can’t take credit for the idea for the background. Something similar was on Snapfish. I just copied it in the colors of my choice with the sizing of borders and lines of my choice.

Anyway, about the job:

Location: about 45 min (?) from Texas Seestor’s house! Maybe 30 min from where I might live (?). You know what this means? It means that I will get to see her, her hubby, and my two darling nieces on a regular basis!
Also, mom and dad are retiring in the area, so I’ll get to see them too! They haven’t picked a house, so it is still a bit up in the air as to how close I’ll live to them. But I have hopes that they will be close!

School: smaller than my current school. But my current school is the largest liberal arts school in the country, because of the way it is designed. (I can’t really say more without giving everything away about where I am, etc.)

People: This is a BIG draw for me. The search committee was actually made up of people all across the school, which is really unusual. There was someone from chemistry, kinesiology, and hispanic studies on it (along with the bio dept chair and another bio person). They all get along really well. We were actually laughing and joking on my phone interview. My on-campus interview was really great too.
There was this whole school reception after my seminar, where I met people from all over the school and everyone just seemed to get along and emphasized how much of a positive aspect that was for them at the school.

As for the students, the professors all had very positive things to say about them. They were shy at first in my guest lecture, but really warmed up to me pretty quickly. So, I think that we will all get along well.

Courses: This is the other main draw for me. I’m was hired to teach a course in one of my specialties: molecular biology/molecular genetics. I’ll also teach their intro bio for majors and a non-majors course. And one semester of anatomy and physiology.

Research: This is the one drawback. There are internal grants that I am almost guaranteed of getting for my usual lab consumables ($3600 a year). But to get some of the larger equipment that I have currently, I’ll write small proposals with the people in the development office. Then they will go to donors in the area and try to get them to donate money to the school/my research. This was the most involved part of my negotiations. I tried to get the school to actually give me start up money. In the end, they just don’t have the funds to offer any start-up money. BUT the provost did have an in-depth conversation with development and the woman in development is pretty confident that we can get the money. If not, I’ll just have to change directions in my research to do less expensive stuff. Which I can do. I just hope to continue doing neuro stuff.

Religion: The school is affiliated with the same denomination of which I am currently a member! This is not the denomination that I grew up with, but it is what I found when I went looking for a local church that has contemporary music. Again, could this be a better fit?

I don’t have flowers to celebrate; with it being Valentine’s day weekend and all, the prices are just jacked up too high. BUT HB bought me chocolate truffle cake! We had some last night while we watched the opening ceremonies and just finished it off (I stopped mid-post to have tea and cake).

Note: I had to take this next photo really fast, because HB was ready to eat the cake when I realized I hadn’t taken any pics!

It tasted even better than it looks!

We had passion fruit papaya tea with it.

yummmmmmmmmmmmm

I had 2 students who thought they were better and then relapsed really badly. So, I suppose it was inevitable that I’d get sick too. Not to mention that HB appeared to get it. The first time, I thought I’d gotten off easy with a mild case of just headache, sneezing, cough, sore throat and no fever. But this second time, I’ve had the fever part too. Yuck, I say.

I definitely feel more run down this round too. I pretty much slept for most of the day Saturday and Sunday.

I know no one really wants to hear the complaints of someone who is ill, so let me see what else I can tell you….

1) I’ve rediscovered my cache of herbal teas. They aren’t something that I drink much until it gets to be winter. So, it has been nice to delve into them again.

2) I just barely started Dan Brown’s book on HB’s Kindle last night. He had it with him for the weekend, and he had to do some work stuff over the weekend.
The Kindle is interesting. I really like that it is lightweight and I don’t have to use 2 hands to “hold it open.” This is a big advantage when reading while I eat. Usually I have to find something heavy (I use a stapler) to hold open my paperbacks when I eat. I used to have this multi-tool, which HB jokingly referred to as the “book tool”. When I would misplace it, I would utter something along the lines of “Have you seen my book tool?”

It is nice on my lap too. I haven’t quite figured out what happens if the computer chip goes wonky. I think that the books for an account are stored on Amazon…
…. but that always makes me a hint nervous.

I really like that HB isn’t collecting more and more paperback and hardback books that need physical space in our home. We are out of bookshelves. We already have whole containers of his books in our basement storage area. I think we need a library.

Anyway, I’m not very far into the book, so no news on that front. I’ll give you my general opinion without giving anything away once I’ve read it.

3) I have Thursday and Friday off! These are our “free days” which I suppose is like the equivalent of fall break. I will be spending it making sure my job application for the permanent position at school is up to par. oooooooooooo.

Now I just have to get healthy.

And stay healthy!

Overall, it was the best meal I’ve had out probably since our Anniversary supper last July.  So, we were due for a good meal.  And I think this one beats that one hands down.   Thus, I’m hard pressed to come up with a meal that was this good.

Since we’ve been to this restaurant before, I remembered a little bit about the decor.   But I’d forgotten how beautiful it is inside.  When we walked in, I was struck by the colors and architecture, and the lights which were these wire shapes of different sizes (at least 4 feet long) that had other colored cubes and spheres inside them that had lights inside.  They were really cool and unique. (you should click on the link to just see the photos of the decor which come up and rotate right away)

The menu quickly caught my attention, because they had lump crab cakes for an appetizer.  Which we ordered right away along with a lemonade for me and a martini for HB.

It is funny to mention a drink, but since I don’t drink caffeinated beverages anymore, I usually really don’t like my beverage with supper very much.  Now, there are places with good non-caffeinated drinks, but they are more rare than the wealth of ho-hum ones.  This place had awesome fresh squeezed lemonade.

They served us warm bread with excellent soft butter, and then the crab cakes came out.  OMG, they were so good.  I really love crab.  And these were lump crab cakes with no filler and very little material to even connect the crab pieces together.  They were just incredible.  I fell  in love with crab when we lived in Baltimore, MD which is known for crab.

I ordered a salad with goat cheese and balsamic vinegrette.  The goat cheese was soft and just sharp enough to complement the dressing beautifully.  The greens were mixed organic baby greens and just delicious.

For my entree, I had sea bass (medium well) on a bed of farro mixed with cooked spinach.  It was surrounded by a spicy tomato cream sauce that also had pieces of lump crab in it.  This time, the crab wasn’t as good as the crab cakes, because the sauce diluted the flavor of the crab.  But the sea bass, oh, it was wonderful!  It had some spices on it that I couldn’t really place, but were definitely more middle-eastern than anything else.  It was cooked perfectly and one of the best pieces of sea basses I’ve ever had.  The farro is a grain, kind of like a barley.  Mixing it with the spinach gave it a really great flavor.

I was getting relatively full at this point, but I really wanted dessert, because I remembered how good the molten chocolate cake was….

… so of course, I ordered it.  To choose a tea, they brought out this tea chest that had a really clever design.  It held large test tubes of tea (probably would hold 50-75 ml) so that you could admire the color and composition of the tea.  I chose their special blend that had green tea, peppermint (an interesting combo and not one I’ve had before), and some other flavors – I don’t remember at this point.  Of course, green tea has very low levels of caffeine in it, but I decided it would be fine to drink it.  And it was.   Just like before, they brought it out in a little iron tea pot on an iron trivet.

And then the cake came out and it all came back to me.  It was definitely the best version of molten chocolate cake that I’ve ever had anywhere.  And believe me, I’ve tried a lot.  If a restaurant has it, and I’m ordering dessert, I always get it.  Even cheesecake doesn’t beat it out.  Although, speaking of cheesecake, I think I’ll make one for our B-days this year.  HB’s and my birthdays are separated by one week, so we usually have 1 week of dessert between them.  I haven’t made our chocolate chip cheesecake recipe in quite a while.

Like I said up front, the meal as a whole was just incredible.  I think it might become one of the main restaurants we go to for special occasions.  And just think, our b-days are right around the corner!  (March 12th for me, March 5th for HB)

And that also means a Wii is right around the corner! 

It was a great way to celebrate Valentine’s Day.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention the music.  This restaurant plays the one of the best mixes of music.  Zelo and Outback probably play the most of the songs that we like.  We heard the Beatles, Sarah McLachlan, Eric Clapton, and others that I can’t remember now that it was a week ago.

And HB and I listened to some Hip Hop on the way to and then  variety of music on the way home from the restaurant.  The Rihanna, the Shakira song – the one about the hips – Beyonce, Britney (yes, a new Britney song), Red Hot Chili Peppers, Greenday and I can’t remember the others again.  It was a lot of fun!

The main problem with decaffeinated tea, as I see it, is that it tastes terrible. It has none of the round and rich-bodied flavor of regular tea. It tastes like Lipton or stale, old tea. It has a similar flavor to when you try to brew a second cup of tea from the same basket of tea leaves – an attempt to be frugal that I only made once because of the terrible taste.

I do have some Wild Berry Plum decaf tea from Republic of Tea, but it is far too fruity for my tastes and doesn’t have enough black tea taste. Probably because the decaf black tea taste is so terrible that they’ve bumped up the fruit flavors to cover it up. I’ve looked through their catalog carefully for decaf teas, but most of the teas that I enjoy do not come in a decaf version. Again, I’m convinced that the taste must be too wretched for their standards.

Now that we are going into the winter season and a nice cup of tea sounds so much more appealing in the afternoons, it is disappointing to have this realization. I guess I’ll have to switch to herbal ‘teas’ or tisanes and just give up on black tea altogether.

Well, except for my wondrous cup that I get to enjoy over breakfast, of course. mmmmmm teeeeeea. (I say as I sip from my cup of All Day Breakfast)

Well, I came up with the idea that we could go have high tea! I had read about a local tea house that served high tea on Saturdays. Now, to give you some perspective, for several years now, HB and I have talked about going to a high tea. Usually our discussions are prompted by some article in the newspaper listing off places that serve tea and a mention of how one of them serves high tea. Usually, the places serving high tea are fancy-shmancy hotel-like spots that required more planning than either of us ever seemed to be able to muster. I guess we got spoiled when we lived in Ohio and could go to Special Teas for, well, special tea at the drop of a hat.

On Friday, I looked up and called the local tearoom and Lo and Behold! they still had room for 2 for high tea on Saturday. Yay!

The tearoom is a farmhouse that has been restored/decorated as a tea place. The structure of it reminded me a lot of my grandparents’ place in Indiana. Our table was by an nice bay window and I could look through the wavery old glass and see a couple of very large trees.

The place settings were pretty, and made me all excited to be there.

I’ve never actually been to a place before that had so many utensils. My fancy dinner experience is somewhat limited.

We drank Lemon Soltice tea, a blend of black tea that had lemon, vanilla, licorice, and some berries in it.

I was a bit wary of it, because in the past, I haven’t enjoyed tea that is lemon, or vanilla, and I avoid licorice like the plague. I thought it was a bit odd that we didn’t get to choose the tea that we were going to drink, but I had a feeling going into it that was going to be the case from reviews I’d read online. However, the tea grew on me. After a cup of it, I found it quite pleasant. I couldn’t taste or smell the licorice, so all was well. And the lemon was offset by the vanilla and vice versa, and that made the tea fine. The tea also went well with the food.

First, we enjoyed a warm fruit compote. Very tiny chunks of apples with raisins (golden) and craisins topped with cinnamon and with the flavors kind of blending together.

Second was the scone. Oatmeal, maple, walnut with Devonshire Cream.

The scone was good, but the cream was to die for. YUM. For me, this was the highlight of the whole tea experience. Afterward, I decided that I’d be happy just going back for tea and scones sometime. If I could choose the tea flavor.

Third were the tea sandwiches.

Including pork tenderloin in pastry, curried chicken with gruyere cheese, and salmon in a phyllo crust. I liked the curried chicken one the best.

Fourth was the spinach and pine nut quiche. I decided to pass on the quiche. The eggs were too runny/custardy for my taste and I just couldn’t get past the smell of the melted butter of the crust. I have a really strong aversion to the smell of melted butter or melted cheese, even now, I can almost smell it and feel slightly nauseated by it. bleck.

Fifth was a Grand Marnier sponge cake. It was a fruity cream filled roll cake. The cream was cool and had pieces of orange and/or pineapple in it that made this cake a cool and light ending to a large meal.

All in all, it was a lot of really good food and nice tea in a lovely setting. I’m glad that I finally got to experience a ‘high tea’, although I think I now know that I’m just as happy having nice tea with a single dessert or scones and don’t really need all of the extra food. I did buy a couple of new tea blends too, and HB and I tried one of them over breakfast on Sunday. It was quite good. I’m looking forward to trying the other one today with lunch.

It was a special way to celebrate this stage in my graduate work.

Tea anyone?

This is the Indian blanket wildflower that I fell in love with while we were visiting Texas.

If you haven’t noticed by now, I’m particularly fond of flowers that change their coloring or shading within a petal or within the center of the flower.

I thought those pictures might be a nice cheer-me-up to all of us today. Particularly those of us *ahem* who are beginning to be tired of snow and/or being cooped up inside. But you know what makes being cooped up inside just a wee bit more bearable?

That’s right! chooooooooooooooooocolate.

Now, you may look at that collection and say to yourself “OH MY GOSH, Danielle!? Are you planning to OD on chocolate? REALLY, calm down, honey, you are almost done. No need to be drastic!”

Or you may say “Wow! HB bought all of that for you at the grocery yesterday? A truer sign of love has ne’er been found.”

(but only if you say things like ne’er. And who says words like that today? Not I! said the bear, I ne’er say ne’er.)

*ahem* Don’t mind me, I’m feeling loopy for some reason. Maybe it is the lightheadedness from yearning for chocolate. All of the blood has left my brain and gone to my stomach.

Anyway, where was I?

Oh yes! OR you may say to yourself, “geeeeee, I wish I could get a better look at those chocolates, because I Swear one of them wants to be eaten!”

Do you seeeeeeee that?! That one has a spotlight on it!

It clearly needs to be eaten.

Ope! It just fell out of the wrapper.

Well, we can’t leave a mess around the house, now can we?

yummmmmmmmmmmm

Flower pictures were taken with our Sony Cybershot DSC-P71 and chocolate pics were taken this morning with Dee-Dee.

Also, we usually do the traditional wrapping of the presents placed under the tree, that sort of thing.

But this year, HB went a different route and led me down to our living room with my eyes closed.

And look what he got me!

Isn’t it cooooooooooooooool?!

At first, I was surprised to see a Really Red teaset. But MAN, just look at that teapot!

It can blast out at you like a neon fire-engine.

Or look like Alladin’s lamp.

How could I resist something with such great curves?!

It really is striking. Get it, striking, HB strikes again?!

tee-hee! Don’t mind me, I’m just happy and tired, all at the same time.

I took all pictures with Dee-Dee, my Nikon D-70. For some I used the combination of a tripod and self-timer (for the first time) in order to avoid the whole blurry/shaking/too much caffeine issue.