Word of the Day: descry The sky is unbelievably blue today. After all the nasty weather we had over the past couple of days, the heavenly dome has been washed clean and is radient. In a minute, I'll go outside to enjoy it. I remember when I was six, my parents, my step-brother, and I lived in a house on the outskirts of town. There was a rather small front yard, but there was no fence in the back, so the yard merged with a woody area. On the side, there was a large pile of rocks that were there for aparently no reason. They weren't decorative, but instead looked like someone left them there and forgot about them. I loved playing outside. I pretended that the rocks were my home. I had a bedroom and a living area, but no kitchen becuase I could go home for that. In the woody area in the back, I would go with Sandy, my dog, and we'd run around and play with sticks. I'd whack trees with particular sword-like sticks that I had found and saved in a place for just these times. I remember finding a stick that could be used as a slingshot, but I tried to use it to find water in the ground like on TV. I loved climbing the piney trees, also pretending they were my home like the birds. The sky today is just like it was back then. ************************* Really, I don't know what brought on that nostalgic memory. I initially came to write about my renewed passion for tea, but that just suddenly came out of my fingertips. It's so rediculously beautiful outside that it's destracting. The temperature's perfect, there's just the hint of a breeze, there's a sleepy silence all around that is only disturbed by the birds and a rare passing vehicle on the road. I was going to put some music on before I went outside, but I even decided against that. Before that, however, let me tell another, more recent story. I gave up sodas for Lent again, but this Lent just seems like it's lasting forever. I think it's because Ash Wednesday snuck up on me that I wasn't so prepared as I was last year. Any road, since then, I'd been looking for a drink that is tasty like my beloved Pepsi but that doesn't leave a sugary aftertaste in my mouth lke coffee. I was amazingly cleaning out my pantry a week or so ago, and rediscovered a box of tea that had been there since we moved in over a year ago. It was a box of English breakfast tea, which is entirely too strong for me. However, I had stuffed a few packets of Darjeeling tea in the box, I suppose to condense. I made myself some of the Darjeeling tea with, as suggested, a splash of milk and discovered loveliness. No sugary aftertaste, a lovely warm feeling, no thirst. I had been looking for Darjeeling tea at Wal-Mart, but I suppose they stopped carrying it like they did with my precious thin-cut chicken breasts, the bastards. So, instead, the other day I went to HEB and bought a box of Darjeeling and regular green tea each [the green tea just to try]. I'm so very happy, I'm trying to go out and buy a teapot so that I can stop making tea in my coffee maker and start making it correctly. But not today. I'm going outside today. Also, Daylight Saving Time begins at 2am local time tonight, so don't forget to spring forward if your part of the country celebrates it. Stupid Dayling Saving Time...saving my ass. Domo.