About Me

My Favorite Teas

This is, and will always be, subject to change! As I add to my tea cupboard and continue to try new teas this will change a lot, but for right now this is where I'm at:

Black Tea: Tie between Laoshan Black by Verdant and Nonpareil Yunnan Dian Hong by Teavivre
Earl Grey: Silky Earl Grey by Teajo Teas

Earl Grey Cream: Cream of Earl Grey (organic) by DAVIDsTEA

Earl Grey Lavender: Victorian Earl Grey by Simpson & Vail

Flavored Black: Rose Bergamot Laoshan Black by Verdant Tea
Flavored Green Tea: Earl of Anxi by Verdant Tea

Green Tea: Hand Picked Autumn Tieguanyin by Verdant Tea

Why Stone Tracery?

My fascination with this style dates back to 2003, when I was studying abroad in London. It was then I first saw stone tracery firsthand: It's the gorgeously carved decorative stonework on gothic windows.

One weekend I took a train up to York to see the Jorvik Viking Museum, and stopped by the cutest little teahouse for lunch. I hadn't been able to talk anyone else into going with me, so I pulled out the one book I had that was small enough to fit in my purse - a pocket-size introduction to English architecture I picked up to help me with one of my classes.

When I think of tea, and all the customs and traditions that are tied to it, I will often think of that little teahouse, and an hour or so with clotted cream, scones, a lovely pot of tea, and architecture.

Kit-Kats - Frequent Feline Guest Stars

In my pictures, you'll occasionally see bits of our two cats. They were about six or seven months old when we adopted them, so we just found nerd-esque names as close as possible to the ones they'd gotten used to: ChiangMai and Acosta.

Mei-Mei

Meet Mei-Mei. Her name is Kaylee's nickname on Firefly. Based on everything I read before we saddled her with it, Mei-Mei means "little sister" in Mandarin. She totally embodies that! A wee bit piggy, a hair jealous, and a total wuss in the face of a storm, she is my snuggle-bug and reading companion. When she's not playing fetch with her little fluffy ball, she will curl up on or around me when I read, and, while I'm on the computer, she will often drape herself over my shoulder or lie on the table - sometimes over my arm!

Update: Mei-Mei left us on May 1st, 2014. We tried everything we could to save her, but her poor little body finally gave out on her. She passed away, peacefully and surrounded by love, in her daddy's arms. Rest in peace, sweetheart.

Jake and Akasha

Here's Akasha with my husband, Jake. She's a total daddy's girl! Her name is from Anne Rice's Queen of the Damned. While no ancient vampire queen, she is a talented huntress (of that minion of the dark side, the evil red laser dot), gymnast (on the clothes-drying rack) and pouncer of toes under covers. I had to ask Jake to hold her for a picture, because otherwise she'd keep zipping around too quickly!

Contact Information:

If you're a tea company that's interested in asking  me to review your products, please visit my Policies page for more information and the email address that you can contact me at for those requests.

I welcome comments and feedback, so please feel free to post questions on the posting they pertain to. I will try to respond quickly. Thank you for visiting!

Links to My Other Writing:

Stone Tracery - Costuming Blog - While I've been costuming since my freshman year of college (winter 2001) I've only recently been blogging about it. Right now there are only a couple of projects, but I will be adding older projects when available and new projects frequently.

Tip-Toe on the Edge - Teaching in Alaska - Just a couple entries, but this does have some great links to images around Togiak, which can help put the LiveJournal entries into perspective.

My LiveJournal Blog - A much more extensive blog about my time teaching in Alaska - the ups, the downs, and the just plain weird!

Other Links and Helpful Things:

Steepster - A wonderful community of tea-lovers which is rich with discussion, tasting notes, reviews, promotions/sales notifications, and all sorts of wonderful things!

Forget Me Not Animal Shelter - The shelter in Republic, WA where we adopted our kitties.