I don't resolve, but I will drink tea

This sort of looks like the sky around here, but we have no rosettes, rats. The color is pretty close, though.

It is still close enough to be the New Year, so I have a question for you – are you a New Year's resolution person or not? I am most definitely not. At least one reason is that I could never keep the silly things for even as long as the first week, sometimes, not even the next day. Yah, I know, I probably have an extreme character deficiency. But who really does make them and keep them? Are there really enough people out there making them and being good enough doobies to keep them so as to warrant even a passing moment? The mere thought is enough to drive me to drink. So I will. Tea, of course. If you are indeed one of the admirable people who keeps New Year's resolutions, I would love to hear from you. I do admire people who can do this, especially since I can't. So if you are one of the select, please drop me a comment.


English tea, you can't beat it for being right up front. In a tea swap I received some Harrod's, Knightsbridge (a part of London) Empire Blend #34. It is billed as 100% pure Assam, Darjeeling and Nilgiri. It is, as you might expect, a blend of black, brown, tannish leaves with a few twigs and a very pleasant “fresh tea” scent. The brewed tea certainly was fresh, and it was more mild than forthright, which was a surprise. I think the Darjeeling and perhaps the Nilgiri softened the Assam. This would be an excellent tea for when you would like a black tea but a softer one than usual. It is very much an "English" tea, good with milk and perhaps sugar, if that is your taste.


You're probably sick of my kittens – animal lovers can be real ditzes about their pets – but this one I have to tell you. When we had our first snow I saw Bert playing with the snow, pushing it together and then batting it around. Noone believed me, of course. Then my husband threw a snowball at the 2 of them, which they played with and now, others have seen it – they make snowballs with their paws and noses and play with them. I truly have never seen animals do this!