Tagged: 7 Random Things about me

1. I drink hot tea all year round

2. I make my family sit down and have a home cooked dinner at least 4 nights a week. Last night I made a chili concoction for my husband, with broth from stewed beef on Sunday night, black beans, also from Sunday night, local organic carrots that I bought at the Farmer's Market on Sunday, one shredded whole grain tortilla, and a little Safeway salsa. He ate the whole pot.

3. I have been watching a lot of ripped videos on YouTube. Better watch them now before they are taken down for all the copyright law suits.

4. I knit with the yarn held in my right hand, on the index finger, and I don't "throw". The only other person knits this way is my mom, who taught me to knit (and still claims I can't hold the yarn the right way). She learned to knit in a Russian orphanage.

5. Some of places I want to live in: Santa Cruz/Aptos, Pacific Grove, British Columbia, Da Lian or Tsing Tao in China. Interesting, all these places are on the Pacific coast, just different sides. I've been to all of them except for BC.

6. My latest love in skin care is Origin's Modern Friction, a rice starch based scrub, very creamy and gentle, yet effective.

7. This blog keeps getting hits from Google searches. Mostly for Good Husband's Guide -- number 5 on a Google search; sometimes also for "wig" or "short hair". sigh .... I'll count them as my random things since I wrote them.

I'll tag:

Romi, who blogs at Rosemary-go-round

Arlene, who blogs at Arlene's Extravagant Knitting

Karin, who blogs at Knitting &

Diane, who blogs at And In My Spare Time ....

Sue, who blogs at it's a knit thing

Sarah, who blogs at work in progress

Darcy, who blogs at Darcy's Soccer Blog (Darcy's mom, Monica, is busy, otherwise she'd be tagged too)

Tea Time

My mom had a friend of hers gather a bunch of tea (per my request)

The very small packets on the top part of the picture are one serving teas, vacuum packed to preserve freshness. The rest is regular bulk leaf teas, some I could recognize as green tea, some sliver top (white tea from the mountains in Yun Nan province), some generic flower tea (jasmine), most I have no idea at all. My kitchen was filled with the wonderful fragrance of tea leaves.

In this picture below, the one in the upper right is jasmine, you can see the little white specks among the tea leaves, which are dried flower petals. The bag in the lower left has silver top tea.

A tea pot to go with it all. This is a Yi Xing purple clay pot, from Yi Xing county in An Hui province. Over the years of usage, the clay would retain the flavor from the tea, and the surface of the tea pot would become smooth and polished from daily handling. The color of the clay will hide the tea stain, so all you need to do is to toss out the tea leaves and rinse the pot, no scrubbing. They age gracefully.

Last but not least, a rose from my garden. I love roses, so when we moved into this house my beloved had this rose bush planted right outside of our dining room window and I can see it from the kitchen. He knows I won't go out of my ways to visit the rose in the backyard.

Color Blocks Finished

The sewing together was more fun than I anticipated. Learned this stitch pattern from an old quilt that my husband's grandmother made. The black shows nicely on the bright background.



I decided to leave the top of the blanket the way it is, with an uneven edge. I wouldn't know what to do with the left over pieces if I don't put them in this blanket. Hate to throw them away.



My occasional helpers. Henry learned to sew in after-school care. He has made stockings every year, and they are putting together a very large quilt with blocks made by all the kids this year.



Bucky does not sew.