The Versatile Blogger Award!

So, the other day (or should I say, weeks ago) I checked the blogs I follow and found that Melee from The Midnight Train of Thought was wonderfully kind in bestowing "The Versatile Blogger Award" upon little I Wear Milk Crowns. I was super excited about it and couldn't wait to follow up with my answering post - until Spring Break arrived and I rode the waves of the Carried Away scent. Ah.

So school's back in session. There was a power outage this morning that left me, understandably, upset because the paragraph in one of my stories that I had just edited was lost to the infinite blackness that was my office. Only the emergency lights from the hallway offered refuge. I was so disgruntled that I stayed in the dark office until the lights came on twenty minutes later. Of course, my paragraph was forever lost.

So I decided to do something fun to take my mind off of it, something I had been meaning to do. This post. Here's the conditions for the award:

1. Thank the person who loved you enough to bestow this gift.

2. Share seven things about yourself.

3. Bestow this honor onto 10 newly discovered or followed bloggers - in no particular order - who are some way.

4. Drop by and let your ten new friends know you admire them.

I think I've told Melee, thank you, but if I haven't: THANK YOU! I'm honored!

Alas! The sacred seven facts:

1. You can bribe me to do almost anything by offering me Peeps.

2. I'm still struggling to find my place in the world of Disney Princess identification. I used to love Ariel the best as a kid, and now it's Sleeping Beauty (though I confess it's mostly because of Prince Phillip) but I know in my heart that I'm actually most like Belle in personality. I love books and spacing out, and would probably have no issue with talking candlesticks and clocks.

3. When it comes to writing, I tend to overexert myself. I take on multiple projects at once and even feel like, while doing those, that I need to do more. This surprisingly does not result in unfinished short stories and the like, but it does mean I have way too much on my mind. My friends cock their eyebrows and sometimes slap me when they hear me talk about a new project. They mean well, haha.

4. I've ridden on a hot air balloon. It was only ten minutes, but it was one of the best moments of my life.

5. There are two likely reasons for me being crabby. 1) Heat. Hot weather. Not even mints can make me forget the sweat and sluggishness. 2) I'm working on a story in my head. Most likely I'm thwarted from jotting notes down on a computer or piece of paper. Other times I just want to be left alone to mentally work on a particular scene or dialogue.

6. I dream of buying a mustard yellow pea coat someday. I have strange expectations that, when I do find one, it will mean that I've achieved something great in my life. Like a marker or something.

7. I love coincidences. Because I don't believe that they are coincidences. I love whatever it is that makes me stumble upon a long-lost childhood book in a used bookstore or lets me here my favorite song while I'm strolling around the grocery store. Those strange moments of timeliness, like straight out of a movie script. I feel one with the universe in those moments, haha.

I'm still relatively new on the blog scene, but I found some that I absolutely love to read:

1001 Ways to be More Lovely

ALPHA'S Bill Karalius

Blushing Ambition

Esther-FromtheSticks

Bubble World

Francis Spoke

End Of March

Hello Enaam

Meaghan Makes

Nerd Armada

Tea and Finger Sandwiches (Fingers Not Included)

This post is more or less about food. Food blogging is popular, isn't it? It's one of those extremely fruitful blogging trends, much like the ever-popular fashion blogs. At least, that's what my peek at Bloglovin' has revealed. It's disheartening to see that the most blogs under "literature" have an average of three followers. That's where I am - huzzah! Representin' in the lit category, haha.

I can understand why food is so popular. I actually watch way too much of the Food Network. Whenever a competition or some behind-the-scenes food history show comes on, I just can't look away. It's so fascinating. It must be the joyful atmosphere that naturally comes when people flock together to enjoy a good ice cream sundae that is so attractive.

I've been drinking a lot of tea lately. We have way too many in the closet, so my mom's plan is to make giant glasses of them to stick in the fridge. She's even been combining different teas to make some rather pleasant concoctions. The last one was a raspberry and chamomile tea combo. Delicious.

This is very important. My top three favorite flavors of tea:

Cinnamon Plum

Almond

Strawberry

My mom and I had some cinnamon plum tea the other day. We sat together, drinking from our very plain blue mugs in silence. Well, she was. I was grading and staring longingly at my steaming cup. She had asked me what I was waiting for, and I merely shrugged and said, "Well, I might as well finish one more paper. It's probably still too hot for me."

"But it's been sitting there for fifteen minutes already."

"I can't drink hot stuff too well. I always burn my tongue," I said. I jabbed my finger in her direction. "It still surprises me that you can just drink it right away. It's way too hot. I bet you could drink fire if you wanted to."

And I strongly believe she could. I can picture her as a female Dustfinger from Funke's Inkheart, playing with fire like no one's business. I comfort myself my knowing that I can down very, very cold drinks with a lot more enthusiasm that she can.

I've been ruminating on tea. It's a beautiful type of drink, for many reasons. It prompts thoughtfulness and relaxation. I found some great quotes I wanted to share that capture that softer spirit:

The mere chink of cups and saucers tunes the mind to happy repose. ~George Gissing, The Private Papers of Henry Ryecrof

We had a kettle; we let it leak: Our not repairing made it worse. We haven't had any tea for a week... The bottom is out of the Universe. ~Rudyard Kipling

Never trust a man who, when left alone in a room with a tea cozy, doesn't try it on. ~Billy Connolly

You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me. ~C.S. Lewis

And, of course, where would we be without special cups to drink tea out of? There are so many, and it's hard to say which ones are the best. For no reason other than being proud to have the knowledge, I want to be able to memorize popular brands of tea cups like Wedgewood of Ginori (hahaha, not Corelle). I feel like the knowledge might come in handy someday. And how? Well, I don't know. But it's got to be exciting. Here are some cups I wish I had to drink my tea out of (from We Heart It, again):

Pretty, eh? And they have humor to them. I confess I don't have any fancy tea cups. I just have some plain mugs I grab from the cabinets. I just dunk a tea bag in water and heat it up in the microwave. Hardly romantic, but at least I admit it. And have to have sugar. A lot of it, haha.

What teas do you like? How do you enjoy it? I haven't had a tea party in a while, I could go for some chicken salad sandwiches on a croissant, or cucumbers with cream cheese. Yum! Sounds like a plan.