A Break In The Clouds

We've had some pretty dramatic skies lately, here in central Texas. Seems like it's been raining for weeks and I'm getting really bored with the clouds and fog and mist and humidity. But today we had just a teensy bit of sun for a while in the afternoon, and the sunset was impressive though it didn't last long.

I'm afraid the forecast is for more drenching rainfall over the weekend. Then, they say, by the middle of next week we might expect to start drying out a little. And I am definitely ready for THAT!

For more sky shots, click on the button above.

ABC Wednesday: Round 18 - T

And T is for...

Tea!

And also for Tea Chest.

M and I drink a lot of tea. We drink a lot of coffee too, but somehow we don't seem to have so much trouble storing coffee beans. But tea -- both in bags and the loose kind -- always poses something of a problem when it comes to storage. When we moved into the new house a few years ago, I simply shoved all the tea stuff onto a shelf in the pantry and left it there. Over time, more and more boxes and containers accumulated until it had turned into a terrible tea-thing jumble.

Every time I wanted a cup of tea, I ended up with boxes falling all over the place. It was maddening.

Then one day, a lightbulb went off in my brain and I thought "TEA CHEST"!!!  Why hadn't I thought of that in the first place? Why hadn't my thoroughly organized and ingenious hubby offered the suggestion? Maybe we really are getting too old to be left on our own.

Well, anyway. I zipped on over to Amazon looking for tea chests and, after a morning spent browsing and comparing and making up my mind, I found one I liked, clicked the "One Click" button and now that corner of my pantry looks like this:

So organized! Everything easy to find and no tumbling teabag avalanche every time I want a cuppa.

Total tea time triumph!

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Wordless Wednesday: Here Comes Cinco de Mayo!

Cheers!

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ABC Wednesday: Round 18 - P

And P is for...

Postcards!

I love to send/receive/collect postcards. Always have. I love old ones and new ones. I have boxes full of them, and several albums devoted to various subjects -- cities, artwork, holidays.

Older cards from all over

I think my favorites are the cards people used to have made from family photos:

In "Olden Times" families would send postcards with photos of the kids

Do these folks look happy about the picture-taking?

So, as a postcard fanatic, I was thrilled to find out about the Postcrossing website which makes it possible to, as they say:

send a postcard and receive a postcard back from a random person in the world!

And it works! Here are a few of the cards I've received from all over:

Happy family group from Finland

Catching snowflakes somewhere in the UK

Adorable kitten with amazing eyes

A handmade, personalized card from the USA

Once I signed up (for free), I received a random address from the website. Then I sent a postcard to that address, and waited (just a very short time) to receive a postcard from another random party somewhere in the world. OK, that's a very simplified explanation -- if you're interested, you can read all about the process in more depth on the Postcrossing home page.

If you're not going to be sending postcards for a while, you can let your account go "inactive" and then activate it when you're ready to participate again. I'm inactive at the moment, but I'm thinking of getting back into the game pretty soon.

(Note: I don't receive any compensation from Postcrossing for promoting their website. I just think it's lots of fun.)

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