Not just anyone is allowed to give me one of these.

I know, right? It's got three chocolates inside, too, so even its portion size is cute!

And yes, V-day was awhile ago, but we're still working on the cinnamon hearts, too. We're probably being slowed down by all the Girl Scout cookies in the kitchen, but no matter.

Starting the weekend out right

After breakfast and cartoons yesterday morning, I made a second pot of tea. With the tea I had two of my favorite chocolate cookies -- Tim Tams, which I discovered in Australia.

Specifically, I had two Tim Tam Slams.

Unfortunately, I've never had the Chilli Chocolate variety of Tim Tam mentioned in the linked post (I bet it would make for a fantastic slam!). But the Classic kind is excellent. Really.

UK dwellers probably (at least, I would think so! I don' t know for sure) use this "slam" technique with Penguins.

I'm not sure of an equivalent US cookie that would really cut it for this particular technique.

But the Tim Tams ... !!

I definitely recommend the experience.

The view from my desk

This is what greets me every day when I get to work.


Okay, so there's a part of the desk on the right that you can't see that has more papers and stuff on it -- but really for the most part, I don't keep a lot of clutter around. I think seeing the clear, organized, colorful work area has a calming effect on me.

I like having shelves there for the important things, too.


Making a pot of tea is my little just-got-to-work routine. Most of my coworkers drink coffee in the morning, but I just spoon some tea leaves into my little blue teapot and add hot water. Nice mug of hot tea with a spoonful of honey -- mmm! I love it.

The company I'm with has a pretty interesting office space. It's on the top floor and the roof has skylights so we really get a lot of natural light during the day. Plus, when it rains, we can really hear the raindrops patter on the roof -- I don't know if it's so loud because of the skylights or because of what the roof is made of (tin? some other metal? Not sure). Whatever the reason, whenever we have a storm we get this nice, relaxing background noise.

I think a toy truck or robot made of Legos might be nice to have there, too!

Mmmm ... brownies ...

Okay, so you really have to like peppermint patties to even attempt this one. I got this idea from a baking TV show. Make brownie batter like normal (which for me involves a mix, but never mind--the real recipe is here), and put down about a third of it in the baking pan. Then lay down peppermint patties in overlapping rows, like this.

The resulting brownies have this cool white stripe of mint in them.


We don't do this kind of stuff often, but every now and then it cracks us up. Oh, but since yesterday was Valentine's Day, I added this little touch.



Hey, the little heart-shaped cinnamon hots actually tasted pretty good with it after all!

Much fun.

Surprise!

One of my coworkers sometimes brings in homemade beer for us to try. He brings it in a big dark brown bottle, and pours just a few sips of it in paper cups so we can taste it.

Normally, I drink tea at work, but when he brings in beer, I rinse out my tea mug and have him pour the sample beer in my mug. Yesterday's brew was a dark amber, with a kind of chocolatey overtone. He filled my mug up about a third of the way, more than I would have poured for myself.

Well, I brought my mug back to my desk, and got back to work. I was sitting there, typing away, concentrating on whatever, when I reached for my mug. Having somehow forgotten that the brown liquid in my mug was NOT tea, I took a nice, big gulp ...

WHOA! Haha! Waaaake UP! Nothing like thinking you're drinking some nice warm black tea and getting home brew instead! Woo hoo! I was sputtering and laughing at my desk for the next two minutes until people started coming over to demand what all the noise was about.

I think that little surprise woke me up a lot more than my tea did.

Our living room right now

I took this picture a couple days ago.

What?! We can't be the only ones who haven't taken down Christmas decorations! It's not Valentine's Day yet ... we'll get to it.

I guess we just like having it up -- it's kind of a nice, twinkly thing to have in the room. We turn it on when we watch TV. It makes a nice backdrop to American Idol and Lost (I don't turn it on to watch Supernatural, though. That would be wrong.).

Saying hi

I've never gone the blog route before, but reading some of my friends' blogs inspired me. Some of them are really cool travel blogs, but there are a few funny little every-day blogs that I really have been enjoying. So I went, "Hey ... ?!"

That little light-bulb moment happened in late January, and then of course the idea had to kick around in my head for a few more weeks. Some things just need that time. Funny -- I can decide in a snap to bake brownies or go see a movie or meet someone for dinner. But then there are other things, like, decide to buy a new winter coat, which has been an ongoing thing for like five years, when my current one started leaking Thinsulate. I guess I'm waiting for my current coat to disintegrate, which might happen by the time it turns twenty. That's not that much longer. In the meantime, there's always duct tape.

So compared to the whole coat-buying-thing, this blog setup thing has been like instantaneous.

Could be fun, too. We'll see.