More new things

Today I'm showing off a find from the local thrift store. As I have mentioned before on this post, the university here is very popular with Asian students, especially students from China. That means that every so often, I find a unique item in this store. While I've had this cup for over a month, and have wanted one for years (at least to try it out), I finally got around to using it this morning. What can I say, its been a rough fall. I also got out my therapy light a few of weeks ago to help with the fact that I was so tired I just felt like sitting and staring into space. It's amazing what a difference that makes.

Since I had been drinking with the monks yesterday, I left them on my tea box for the photos. In addition to having a lid, this cup also has a ceramic insert to brew the tea.

Since the holes are bigger, you have to use a larger leaf tea (I used Dragon's Well today). I've also used coffee filters to line these sometimes when I feel like using a finer cut tea. Even with the larger leaf teas, you do still end up with some leaf debris in your drink.

I used a spoon to fish them out before I enjoyed my tea. I should also point out that while my tea looks amazingly green in this photo, green tea is not really green! I always laugh at the pictures of green tea that show a vibrantly green brew in the cup. I know that it's food coloring, and not tea. It doesn't really show up in the photos, but the interior of the cup is really light blue. When that combines with the yellowish hue of brewed green tea, you get that nice green color in the cup. Clever. I hadn't thought about the color choice for the inside of the cup until I saw the picture. Overall, it's a nice cup. I'm glad I picked it up. It was a steal for $2.88. I think I've seen similar type cups for sale around $20 or so. It seems like life is still one step forward, two steps back. When I was moving, I noticed that my back was starting to hurt. I figured it was all the heavy boxes I was toting back and forth. Unfortunately the back pain didn't stop, and I realized that the culprit was probably my 8.5 year old mattress. How dare it wear out on me when I'm so stressed out over moving! It turned out to be the perfect excuse to order a new bed frame (since the movers set up my old bed frame with 3 of the 4 casters causing it to be permanently off kilter after the problem was discovered a month later). Not wanting to have to deal with furniture stores or delivery, or the fact that everything seems to be on back order for a month or two, I opted to go to target and buy an in-stock foam mattress. I didn't realize until this morning that the mattress I bought weighed 69 lbs. I thought it was around 45-50 lbs (that must have been the weight of some of the lighter mattresses I looked at on Amazon). No wonder my arms are sore today, I lugged that thing in by myself. Maybe foam mattresses in a box aren't the solution to finding a mattress that I can lift entirely by myself.

I totally thought that it looked like a low budget horror movie larva as it slowly uncurled on my bed. Thankfully I do have a friend who is willing to help me haul the old mattress and box spring out after the frame comes on Friday. Until then, it will have to live on my old box spring. I've also been working on making lace. I'm needing cheap gifts to give again this year. Last year it was because I just bought a car. This year it is because I just moved. I'm a little afraid of what next year's big expense will be. Since Thanksgiving day was also St Catherine's day, I got out my bobbin lace and started working. For those who don't know, St Catherine is the patron saint of lace makers.

Yes, I got out the German book with the 3-D star patterns in it. And here's my cat checking out some of my lace on my new mattress.