Category Archives: Life Musings

Four Things

My friend Lunes over at Bijoux & Banter has tagged me in a meme to reveal 4 things about myself.

Four jobs I’ve had

Geriatrics Aide at a nursing home

Sales clerk at Handy Dan hardware store

Community Outreach Coordinator at a Cable 8 TV station

Tea Packer

Four movies I could watch over & over

Somewhere in Time

Gladiator

any of the Harry Potter movies

The Sound of Music

Four tv shows I love

Lost

24

Grey’s Anatomy

Heroes

Four places I’ve vacationed

Ireland

Germany

Hawaii

Jersey Shore

Four of my favourite dishes

Vegetarian Pad Thai

Field Greens Salad

Sauteed veggies and pasta

Fruit cobbler

Four blogs I visit every day

Ornamental

Daily Art Muse

Musings from the Moonroom

Christine Kane

Four people to tag

Anyone can join in! Please do!

Saturday Morning Tea

What a marvelous day – warm, not too humid with brilliant sunshine. Here in New England this past week, we’ve had some wild weather, including a couple of tornadoes that touched down in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. We experienced vivid lightning, crashing thunder and torrential downpours like I saw when I traveled to the Hawaiian rainforest. On our walk last night, we collected quite a few branches that had been knocked down. They’ll make great kindling for our fireplace once they’re dried out and seasoned. With all of this fire energy flying about, I decided to try a new type of tea for me – a smoky tea. I know that there are a lot of Lapsang Souchong fans out there but, alas, I am not one of them. That said, this tea has always intrigued me and I keep searching for one that I will enjoy. At my company, it is one of our best selling types of tea. I’m not reviewing a Lapsang this morning. Not yet. I have one in mind for an August review. This morning I am sipping a Formosa Oolong called Heavy-Baked Tie-Guan-Yin.

The full leaf is first processed as a Jade Oolong which is a slightly oxidized leaf. Still considered an Oolong tea, it is much more green in character than other Oolongs. This is because the leaf is allowed to oxidize only a little bit, approximately 10%, give or take. Some other Oolongs are oxidized 40-50%, giving them a much darker flavor and fuller body. I looked back on my tea archives and was surprised to discover that I haven’t reviewed a Jade Oolong yet. I’ll do that in August, too. I did review a Spring Dragon Oolong, another “greener” Oolong.

Once this tea is processed as a Jade Oolong, it is then roasted to give it a much different flavor. As you can see, the leaf is so very dark. In the processing, the leaf rolls up into little bundles which then release their shape a little during the steeping. I steeped the leaves for 4 minutes in 190 degree F filtered water.

The liquor is a deep reddish brown with a smoky aroma that has hints of tobacco. The taste is sweet and smoky but not overly so. For me, the smokiness is at just the right level. The full-bodied taste would probably stand up well to milk and sweetener. I am enjoying it plain.

Today is the perfect day for enjoying my tea out on our backyard deck. So, I will go sit and relax and work on a jewelry project. I have to set all of my other projects aside for the day and work on creating some jewelry to match a white and gold dress I have because tomorrow…………

My youngest son is getting married!

More Musings on Jersey Shore 2008

I wish I lived near the beach. It’s interesting because years ago I had my natal chart read. I found an astrologer and sent her the date and time of my birth and she in turn sent me a map of the alignments of the planets and stars at the exact moment of my birth. Fascinating. One of the things my chart told me was that I am deficient in Water, of the four elements, Earth, Fire, Water and Air. It advised that I should either live near water or drink a lot of water everyday. Even before this information was shared with me, I have always felt very drawn to the sea. So, someday, I would like to live by the beach so I could walk at the water’s edge every morning as I did when I was on vacation. It is at the top of my list of “well fillers”.

As long as I’ve been visiting the beach, I’ve listened to my Dad’s stories about his passion for fishing. Fishing is one of his well fillers, I think, and it really doesn’t have all that much to do with the fish or actually catching them, if that makes any sense. It is the whole experience of being at the water’s edge or out on the sea in a boat and interacting with it. My Dad’s passion, even though it is much different from my own, has inspired my passions for nature and art and photography.

As we look to our parents and those venerable elders who have influenced our lives, it is there that we can learn more about ourselves. I am grateful for so much my Dad has taught me about life.

I was sad to leave this wonderful place and week of Being but have come home with its wisdom of connecting, with myself, with my family and with Nature.

I am looking forward to my return next year…

Jersey Shore 2008

A week ago last Sunday, I let go of my regular day-to-day life and journeyed down to the shore again. Once I exited the Garden State Parkway, I opened my car windows wide to welcome the ocean breeze that greeted me as I got closer to the sea. As I turned down the road that would lead me to the beach, I felt all of the tension melt away as I inhaled the cool salty air. Once again, I was taken back to my origins and my inner self as I experienced a week of just “Being”.

Even though I had the perfect opportunity to sleep in, I rose every morning around 6am and had my tea out on the balcony. I listened to the songbirds greet the day and watched the terns and gulls as they wheeled across the sky. Constant was the gentle roar of the surf, a sound that spoke to the deepest parts of me as I watched the waves rise and fall.

I walked the beach every morning for about an hour before the beachgoers started to stake their claim on the sand. I passed fishermen sitting patiently next to their rows of poles and wide-eyed small children splash and dart at the water’s edge. I felt such a sense of calm envelop me as I placed one foot in front of the other and moved along the beach. As Eckhardt Tolle suggests in his books “A New Earth” and “The Power of Now”, I emptied my mind as best I could and immersed myself completely in that moment. It was challenging at first because my mind wanted to think about all of the issues in my life and what was going on. I pushed past those thoughts and kept bringing myself back to the feel of my feet against the sand and the rhythm of my breathing. I came to understand what Thich Nhat Hanh refers to when he suggests “walking meditation” as a good way to connect with yourself. Not only was I able to connect with myself but I also felt connected to everything else. This gave me such a great comfort.

I’m fascinated by waves and always have been since I was very young. There is something magical about the way they are created , how they rise and peak and then crash onto the shore. Studying the movement of waves has taught me of life cycles – gestation and birth: the rising up and creation of the wave, the period of a life: the wave at its full height and crest, and death: the falling down to earth and dissolution. The wave is absorbed back into the water to create another wave and this cycle keeps repeating itself. Just like our lives.

More shore pictures and musings to come…


Saturday Morning Tea on Sunday

Back to reality from my very relaxing trip down the Jersey Shore. I have this one more day of vacation, however, and I am going to savor every moment. I begin with a cup of one of my favorite China Oolongs called Bai Hao. Translating to mean “hairy crab”, I’m not sure why it’s called this but the leaf is rich and variegated.

After steeping in 180 degree water for 3 minutes, some of the leaves are still curled up and some have straightened to reveal their intact state.

The liquor is a buttery amber color with a sweet aroma. The taste is quite sweet with a fruitiness that lingers on the tongue. Many Chinese Oolongs that I’ve tried have a woodiness to their taste that I don’t really care for. I think it is probably connected to how long the leaf is oxidized. The darker leaves seem to produce that woody note. This tea, however, is light and fruity and very enjoyable.

It was an interesting experience to be away from my computer for a solid week. Of course, many vacations are taken with the intent of removing yourself from the busyness of your day to day life. If I had a laptop I probably would have brought it with me as there was internet access in the condo. I’m glad I didn’t though because it was a nice break from the electronic world and the distraction it so readily provides on a daily basis. For one week, my life was focused on walking on the beach, inhaling the salty air and listening to the sound of the waves. It gave me the opportunity to just “be” and listen to that voice deep within which sometimes gets drowned out by everything else in my life. I read and wrote in my journal a lot, too.

More on my Jersey Shore experience in the coming week…