Things I love - Tea By the Sea...

I've really gotten into tea and serving tea in the last few years and I have a great resource for buying it. It's a wonderful shop in Ventura County called "Tea By the Sea" and it's run by the very knowledgeable and generous Cindy Yoshitomi.

teapot and tea infused chocolate from Tea By the Sea; vintage teacups from my personal collection

A few years ago, my dear Wise Woman told me about her friend Cindy and the tea shop she runs so, on one of our visits to Ventura, my dear boyfriend and I went looking for the little shop. It's located in a building now called The Bell Arts Factory, which used to be a mattress company, but the building has been renovated into an arts complex and Cindy's shop is tucked into a hidden corner of the building. (I love that it's part of an arts complex!!)

She has many wonderful herb teas stored in glass jars and they look so beautiful. Each jar is labeled with the type of tea contained within and there are so many variations! Luckily, Cindy loves to share her extensive knowledge of the various teas and their healing properties and often will prepare some teas we may not have tasted before so we can gain an appreciation for them. This is how my boyfriend and I grew to love rooibos* teas.


One of the treats that I discovered were the tea infused chocolates she sells in her shop. A few years back, I gave some of these tasty delights to a few friends for Christmas, along with some vintage teacups and a few bags of tea that I thought each friend would like - they loved it!

mmmm, these tea infused chocolates are so yummy! the orange blossom is my favorite

On a recent trip to her shop, she told me that she had received a huge order for 35 pounds of tea and was puzzled by the amount of tea being ordered at one time. It turns out that it was an artist ordering tea for dyeing fabrics!! Cindy offers many herbal teas that can in fact be used for fabric dye, so if you're looking for a resource to by herbs for home dyeing, you may just want to check out her website and see all the offerings she has available, for craft or drinking. She has organic teas and tries to work with Fair Trade tea dealers as often as possible.

I love that she believes:

"...having TEA enhances the cre.a.tiv.i.tea of people
who desire to make the world a better place to live"

With someone like Cindy who believes that tea and 'cre.a.tiv.i.tea' can make the world a better place, it's no wonder I love tea over coffee! ;)


* - better known as 'bush tea' if you ever watched or read "The Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency"!

Thanks a LOT!!

Today is Thanksgiving Day and I just wanted to share a few things and say a few thank you's:


Many thanks to my dear boyfriend who has always been supportive of my creative endeavors, especially his offer to help me make a better banner for my blog!


Much gratitude to my wonderful Life Coach and fellow performance artist, Pete Lee, who really encouraged me to register for the Artful Journey Retreat, and encouraged me to start this blog, which has opened up so many doors...


Thank you Tinniegirl, for being open to friendship and encouraging me to participate in your Blogtoberfest - I've met so many wonderful bloggers, such as Curly Pops, I Speak Melsh, Cul*ti*vate and so many others!


Thank you new readers who have discovered my blog through Blogtoberfest and are part of my little 'Tribe of Creative Kindred Spirits' - I'm so glad you enjoy my blog enough to make it a regular read =-)


Thanks to the fun knitters and the owner at Stitch Cafe!! I love knitting with you all!


Thanks to all my wonderful friends, new and old who have been in my life - you've all made much joy in my life...



Now for some fun!

I have mentioned before my love of This American Life and I want to share some fun Thanksgiving/Turkey/Chicken themed episodes they have aired in the past:

This is the most recent episode they have been airing and the theme is more along the 'magical/supernatural' properties of fowl (Poultry Slam 2008)

This episode includes stories from my all-time favorite episode and a few I haven't heard yet, but I will likely rectify that this weekend! (Poultry Slam 2003)

This is an interesting episode with a story of Francois Mitterand's last meal (Poultry Slam 2001)

This is my all-time favorite episode with a great history about the founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken, an opera about Chicken Little and the relationship between two sisters and a duck puppet, which generated one of the funniest phrases I've heard: "Rev up the duck"!! (Poultry Slam 1999)

I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!

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Goodness, tomorrow I begin my "No Clothes Challenge" - Wish me luck for the next year!

It's slowly dawning on me how difficult this might be since I have even cut out thrift shopping for clothes altogether...conversely, I am also seeing how many clothes I actually have and it really is quite a bit, though some goes into storage for winter or summer. Since I've been working on storing the summer goods I really see how much I have and I need a better system for organizing and storing.

Maybe I should start calling this the "Organized Clothes Challenge"?!?

A Minor Calamity...

So I was working on my trusty overlock machine Saturday afternoon and when switching the threads to another color, it stopped working. The light was still on but when I put my "pedal to the metal", nothing happened, and I mean NOTHING - not a hum, or a splutter or a last gasp of operation!

I had to call information to locate a place I had taken my machine before and wanted to go to again in the hopes I could get a loaner, which this particular repair shop had provided in the past...

my dear trusty overlock machine is being diagnosed for location of disfunction =-(

I got to the shop and explained what happened with my little machine and the guy at the shop thought it could be any number of things that went wrong:

• it could be the power cord, which I'm hoping for since it's the least expensive option
• it could be the connection to the pedal, which is the next level of expense for repair
• it could be the motor, unfortunately the highest level of expense, though not as likely since I didn't smell any smoke during operation

When the guy at the shop mentioned it could be a more than a few days if it turns out to be the motor or the foot pedal, I asked about getting a loaner since I do have much sewing to do, whether it's costumes or holiday gifts. That's when I was told they no longer have loaner machines - OH NO!!!!

I am REALLY hoping it will just be the power cord and the repair will be done in no time and I can have my trusty little overlock machine back by the weekend. In the meantime, I guess I'll have to work on knitting and paper crafts during the repair process...good thing I spread the creativity around!!

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In related news:

After dropping off my dear trusty overlock to the repair shop, my dear boyfriend and I made a trip to IKEA to look into the long dreamed of sewing table. Upon seeing it, I realized it may be longer in length than my current table and may actually mean some serious reconfiguring of the sewing room altogether if I bring this table into my workspace. I had not brought measurements of the current table with me, but my boyfriend made measurement notes so I can take them to the sewing room and begin the work of what will need to happen for this table to make it into the sewing room.


Good thing I've been working on this for the last two weeks, which has not been easy for this 'pack-rat', as Glitterbygrammie commented on my last post - boy, we pack-rats can spot each other a mile away!! Which is why I love how she hides her pack-rat tendencies from her husband! ;)


Here's hoping my overlock machine will be restored to operation and SOON!!

Sewing Room Update...

my sewing table before the clean-up and de-clutter began...

I've been meaning to give an update on how the clean-up in the sewing room went during my "4 days to 44" that I posted last week. I can say that by the end of Saturday, it was a bigger mess than I started but I knew that would happen so I tried not to stress about it too much and proceeded to spend the evening with my dear boyfriend, and then Sunday morning having breakfast with some good friends to celebrate my birthday. I did more work for a few hours on Sunday but the bulk of clearing the sewing table took place on Monday and here is how my sewing table now looks:

my trusty overlock machine

this Kenmore machine has been with me since the age of 11 and still going strong!

an IKEA storage item (thrifted!) now housing all the sewing implements that had cluttered the table before

It took quite a bit of 'elbow grease', but passing the time with Sex and the City playing on my MAC really helped the time go by! I was excited to have found a use for the IKEA storage unit since I originally bought it for rubber stamp storage and I had not utilized it yet so it made it's way into the sewing room to house all the necessary sewing implements that I like to keep near my sewing machine. I have plans to collage cover it and hope to do that soon!(I'll be sure to post pictures of that!)

As for my other work table it's not quite looking like this from last week, but it is a little cleaner.

I'll continue working on clearing this table during the weekend and next week...

I did take a picture of the closet in the workroom before the clearing commenced and here is what it looked like before the tornado* hit:

how can i make this closet look organized and pretty...is that possible??

I don't have any pictures of what the closet looks like now but this closet also got some clean-up but I would really love to make it look more organized and pretty, if such a thing is possible. During the cleaning, I went through the bins of fabric and made notes on what I currently have and hope to use during my "No Clothes Challenge". It was great to consolidate like fabrics together and clear out goods that I know I won't be using. I cleared a lot of items in the room and made space so when I get the new sewing table there will be room to assemble it - I hope! I also uncovered some holiday items I'd nearly forgotten about but I'm glad I found them! Be on the look-out for some pictures of the holiday items soon...

Now that the sewing table is cleared, my dear boyfriend is asking if we will be going to IKEA to get the long dreamed of sewing table soon, but for some reason I'm feeling hesitant to actually buy it. I'm not sure if it's not wanting to spend the money, though I set aside funds from costume work for this very table. Or maybe I want the room to look better before I bring a sparkling new item into the room...??

Have you been hesitant to move toward "The Long Dreamed Of" thing in your life? If so, what did you do to break through and claim that thing?? I'd love to hear what you did - maybe it will help me go out and get that new sewing table!!


* - did i really say 'tornado'? guess i now have those on the brain after admitting my secret desire to chase them !!

I'm A Winner! But aren't we all??

It seems that I have been nominated for the Kreativ Blogger Award** by Chrissy at Cul*ti*vate - can you believe it?!!?!

Now that I have been nominated, I am to do the following:

1. thank the person who nominated me for this award (DONE!)
2. copy the logo and place it on my blog (this will be the tricky part for my technologically challenged self! it may not show up here for a day or two...)
3. link to the person who nominated you (also done!)
   
4. name 7 things about me that people might find interesting (see below and let me know if they're interesting!)
   
5. nominate 7 Kreativ Bloggers (easy-peasy!)
   
6. post links to the 7 blogs I nominate (done & done!)
   
7. leave a comment on each blog letting them know they've been nominated...(also easy)
   

I can certainly think of 7 Kreativ Bloggers:

1. Tinniegirl
2. CurlyPops
3. I Speak Melsh
4. EmmStarr
5. PepperStitches
6. ChunkyChooky
7. STARASHAN

Now for the 7 interesting things about me...hhmmmm, where to start?

1. I have an affinity for the snake, probably due to the fact I was born in the Year of the Snake, and it's also one of 3 animal symbols for Scorpio
2. I LOVE hats and handbags! Shoes, not so much, though a friend recently told me I have pretty cool shoes
3. I was never a big fan of the color RED*, but I have found myself ever increasingly drawn to it in the last few years - a co-worker stated that I was surrounded by PASSION and I think that may be why I wear it lately =-)
4. I've jumped off a 40 foot pole into...NOTHING!! Okay, I was strapped and cabled within an inch of my life, wore a helmet and had a team of experts to insure I would not plummet to my death and this was for a crazy work retreat! However, it was a really cool experience and now I want to try the "trapeze school" being held at the Santa Monica Pier!
5. I love watching little fluffy dogs walk away 'cuz i just LOVE how their little rear ends twitch!! SO CUTE!!
6. Like Chrissy, I too have a fear of large bodies of water but it's a general fear of the immensity of so much water, so I don't go into the ocean for fear of being swallowed up
7. I have a secret desire to be a Tornado Chaser!!
   

I can't believe I've actually won a blog award and I've only been blogging for not quite four months!! Of course, I'm not surprised that Chrissy has won the award and she has also been blogging for a few months, but she took the plunge to BEGIN blogging and that is what REALLY makes her a winner. I'm so proud of her for taking that plunge to begin to blog about her creativity because she is really making the effort to HONOR her creativity and put it out there into the world, which is exactly what all of the nominees I have listed are doing every time they post about their work, their lives and what they are PASSIONATE about.


Which is why I say "aren't we all winners?"




* - the reds i'm drawn to are the dark shades like crimson, but i really, really love burgundy

** - many thanks to Chrissy for giving me some tips on getting the award onto my blog!!! YAY!!