Christmas is almost here! I was very fortunate that Adagio offered to send me their Tea Advent Calendar to review! I’m thinking that this year, since we’ll be staying home for Christmas, I will be able to do a tea a day in December! That’ll be fun! If you enjoy tea, definitely get this calendar and enjoy a surprise tea each day of Advent. Even if you don’t celebrate Advent (actually we don’t do anything special for Advent), this tea calendar is a fun way to take a tea break each day.

I had the worst dream! I was in some Shakespearean play, except for some reason I didn't make ANY of the rehearsals! AND I had forgotten to memorize my lines, and it was opening night and I was late! I was rushing to the play venue and wondering if I could memorize my lines in between scenes (Shakespeare! Gah). This reminds me of the terrible dreams I had where I would come to class late and find out that there was a test I had forgotten about, or a paper due which I had forgotten to write. I woke up and I was like, "Haaaaaaaaa thank God it was just a dream!!!!!!"

Please allow me to brag about my dad a little. :) He just sent me this cup that he made from a vodka (? I think?) bottle. He cut it, then sanded it down by hand, and then stenciled it with that pretty Hawaiian design. It's super heavy and thick! I think I'll use it for pens or something like that.

My husband, Captain Caffeine, tends to go to Goodwill a lot. I think he likes the thrill of finding a really good deal on something that would otherwise be expensive. Anyway, last year he came across a teacup, saucer, and dessert plate from Royal Albert in their "Moss Rose" pattern, which I really, really, REALLY love. It's probably one of my top three patterns from Royal Albert that I've seen. And the set was only $15! Then this past weekend he found a pitcher in "Moss Rose"! It was paired with a plate from a different manufacturer, and the set was $15. Also the pitcher didn't have "Moss Rose" printed on the bottom, but I told him to get it. When he brought it home, we realized it's a perfect match for my teacups! I have been using it for my English style tea and I love it! Way to go, Captain Caffeine! You're a superhero!

I've been doing the devotional Thessalonians: A 5-Day Reading Plan by NewSpring Church on the YouVersion Bible app , and today's devotional (day 5) and Bible reading was really good for me. Lately I've been disappointed with my work output, my number of hours worked per day and my words written per day. I think I'm comparing myself to other writers who are so much more focused and disciplined than I am, and have insane word count outputs, and are making six figures a year. I'm also trying to achieve the same number of hours worked as when I was a biologist, but biology work was much less mentally strenuous than writing has been. So I've been struggling to improve my focus and my discipline, but I get lazy very easily. God has given me this gift of working from home, so I should take advantage of it, right? But just yesterday I really didn't want to work, and since I'm home all day there's no one to notice if I slack off. The devotional made ...

The Black Midnight (True Colors Book 7) Two Series of Murders Seem Mysteriously Connected Step into True Colors -- a series of Historical Stories of Romance and American Crime Could a series of murders in London in 1889 be related to unsolved murders in Austin, Texas, 1884? Queen Victoria wants to know and asks her granddaughter—who left the queen’s good graces by going off to America to become a Pinkerton agent—to quietly look for any connection. The catch is the queen doesn’t want her to do it alone. Alice Anne must find her former Pinkerton agent partner—now an attorney in Austin—and enlist him in the hunt. As the pair get closer to finding their suspect, their lives become endangered, but they refuse to be intimidated. Can this case be solved? Camy here: I have to admit upfront, I'm a huge fan of Kathleen Y'Barbo. There's something about her writing style that always completely engages me from the first page. This book was no different. She hooked me as soon...

I actually don't intend to post everyday on my blog (although who knows? Maybe I'll find I enjoy doing that), but I wanted to post this photo since I'm so stinkin' proud of myself! I made "real" sourdough bread with that lovely oven spring and everything! And the crust is super crispy and it even opened up where I scored it! I started doing sourdough baking thanks to my friend and fellow author, Deborah Vogts who has a blog with lots of mouthwatering recipes. I used her Sourdough Baguettes recipe and it came out fabulous! From there I've been hooked on sourdough and I've been reading up on it more to make really good bread. I finally managed it! It was so delicious! I think this is the best bread I've made yet!

So I discovered yesterday that I might be fighting off a cold or flu or something, probably thanks to the flu shot I had a couple days ago. I wonder if that's why I've been so distracted and unfocused lately? I don't like blaming my health, but I've been struggling with my so many issues lately, why the hooch not? (and yes I realized I just made up a slang phrase and I don't care) When I was younger, I used to get flu shots and I would ALWAYS get sick. So I stopped getting them (I think in college). Actually, now that I think about it, I think I got it a couple times when I was working in biotech research, but again, I always got sick and sometimes when you're doing biology research, you really can't just take a sick day. Sometimes you set up an experiment to go down on a specific day and it's simply not possible to put it off or have someone else to do it. I'm feeling pretty craptastic so it's only kind of reinforcing my thoughts about flu s...

I’ve been reading a bunch of marketing books and articles, and many of them gave great advice on how to blog. So I’ve been trying to be more “formal” in my blogging lately. I don't know if it was noticeable? Anyway, I found it kind of boring and really very restricting since I kept thinking about "value added" for each blog post and all that jazz. But I was still blogging at my Daily Writing Blog because I'm trying to improve my writing productivity, and I was still enjoying blogging over there. I was throwing my messy thoughts up on the web (which most blogging/marketing articles tell you NOT to do) and in the process, I've been able to pinpoint some of my really bad habits. I've managed to fix some of them, and I'm still working on coming up with ways to deal with others. I've also been doing experiments to improve my efficiency and productivity, and I use my writing blog like a lab notebook--I blog about what I intend to do for the experiment...