How do some people move all in one weekend? I so envy them. I’ve been packing and moving stuff over to my new home for weeks now and I still feel like I have much more to do. The physical act of moving doesn’t take too long but it is the sifting through of all of the things you have accumulated over the years that is such a major part of the moving process. I’ve learned so much about myself during this process – what I choose to hold onto and what I choose to let go of. I have been laughing one moment and crying the next as I find old photos and mementos of past experiences. My children are all grown now but I still have their baby teeth, shoes and locks of hair. These are little parts of them that are sacred and precious to me. They will travel with me wherever I go. Then there are the gazillion bottles of nail polish that have been sitting in my medicine cabinet forever. Why have I kept all of this stuff??? I ask myself over and over again because with each object I throw away or donate, I feel so much lighter. At this point in my process, I am vowing to go through a cleaning and purging process every spring. The season of rebirth is a perfect time to do this.

Ok, on to my cup of tea! A beautiful green Darjeeling from the Makaibari estate, the leaves are long and twisted.

I steeped them for 3 minutes with 180 degree F water and they opened up to reveal some whole intact leaf. You can even see the serrations on the edge of the leaves.

The light amber colored liquor has a sweet slightly vegetal fragrance and a fresh pungent flavor that reminds you that it is indeed a Darjeeling. Another good green tea to enjoy if you don’t like an overly vegetal quality to your green tea. I have observed that it is this “green” taste that is the most challenging for traditional black tea drinkers to get past when they decide to try green tea for the first time.

With my full immersion in the moving process, I have had to set aside my beaded journal pages and my mixed media portrait. I am looking forward to the time when I will be able to create art pieces once again. For now, my focus is on creating a beautiful space for myself in my new home.