It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like.....

What I'm Loving Wednesday -- HOT TEA!

Okay, so it's not like I didn't already like tea a whole lot, but since I started taking a cup of chamomile in the evenings to help me sleep, the gentility of tea prepping and sipping has become something to which I look forward every night. I generally have a cup of herbal tea with supper, and one of chamomile with a little squeeze of lemon at 9:27 p.m.

I confess here that my tastes are not sophisticated: I am neither ambitious enough to steep loose tea, nor interested enough in starting the practice to invest in the tools of the trade. I'm quite happy with my bagged tea, thank you. The latest variety I'm enjoying is a pomegranate blend. I didn't even know I liked pomegranate, but I bought it by accident and was hooked from the first sip.

Acquisitions of new habits spawn new desires, I have found. I ran across this fine tea set a few days ago. I find I would very much like to have it. Too bad I can't remember where I found it!

What I'm Loving Wednesday -- TREES!

A word of preamble is in order here.

I am not a big Christmas Decorator person. All the years my boys were growing up, one or the other, or both, would accompany their father to pick out our tree which I always insisted must be SMALL. Our oldest son lost interest in the process when he got to be a teenager, and it fell to my husband and youngest son to be the tree picker-outers. As time passed, and we all got busier, and I got less interested in decorating AT ALL, we grew a new tradition -- we would wait until the last minute -- when trees are reduced to $5 (adjust for inflation here, if you must) and they would go find the sorriest, saddest tree out there and adopt it. We'd dress it up when it got here, and the transformation became a part of our Christmas tradition.

The last few years, though, we've done without a tree at all. No wreaths. No nothing. It wasn't that we didn't look forward to Christmas, it's just that nobody here had TIME to make the effort anymore, and it was just another stress to add to all the other things that we just decided we did not need.

And then a baby got born. 

Not THAT one. THIS one.

Rosemary McCord Lucas

Last year at Christmas she had just turned one. She wasn't exactly into the whole spirit of the day, but I said then that I could sense a time was coming when we would want to make the effort again, for her. 

Last night, following a hand bell rehearsal at church I sat in the parking lot and pulled my phone out to call my husband to see what I might pick up at the grocery for supper. I checked Twitter first, though, and saw this post from my daughter-in-law:  "Let's all pray for @henry3012 with a 'happy' RML on a Christmas tree outing!"

Uh oh.

And then this got posted, by @henry3012 (aka "Pop"):   "Lookin' for just the right tree."

Shortly thereafter, I was home sitting on the sofa and heard the jubilant cries of SEVENTEEN! (somebody's new favorite word) outside the back door, and I was pulled off my sofa to come out and look.

Yep.

You're looking at the 2011 Christmas Tree Committee. 

And I am, despite a year of difficulties, major changes we didn't wish for, and ultimately the heartbreak of losing my Mama less than two months ago, finding myself looking forward to Christmas again for the first time in a very, very long time. 

And a little child shall lead them, indeed. 

That's what I'm loving this Wednesday. 

What I'm Loving Wednesday -- Implements!

I love pens.

I most especially love free pens, and have an enormous collection of them courtesy of friends from all over the country who have sent them to me from their own or local businesses, or hotels from all over the world in which they've stayed, or other assorted places that advertise through writing implements.

I haven't bought a pen in probably 20 years.

I'm very particular about them. They have to fit well in my hand, the ink has to flow evenly (I toss pens without passing "go" if they skip or leave clumps), and I know I am hooked to a particular pen when I go looking for it even when there are others right at hand.

Now I find myself deeply conflicted.

The Office Depot pen you see up there? The good people who own the bookstore in which I work bought a box of them recently, and I have gone quite dotty on them. They are almost perfect, but cannot meet my criteria for True Pen Perfection for two reasons.

You shouldn't have to buy pens that advertise a place of business.

And the only way I'll wind up with one of these in my personal possession is if I pilfer it.

Even I draw the line somewhere.

But when I'm at work? I'm loving these.