Wednesday, January 09, 2013

A Whole New World -- of Tea

A lot of people share all of their resolutions all at once.  Like an avalanche of New Year's promises, sure to be broken in mere days.  I like to take things more slowly.  Approach them slyly from the side, glide up gracefully, and then attack like a wild boar!  Sink my in horns and shake the prey until he goes limp.

That's why it took me a week to get organized for my 1st New Year's Resolution:  "Lay off the Starbucks."

It's really no secret that I love my Grande Skinny Vanilla Lattes.  A lot.  In the first two months of writing this blog, I spent almost every lunch hour at the Starbucks near my work.  They know me there.  It's like my Embassy.

But like many resolutions, this decision is money-oriented.

Right before the New Year, I updated our Mint.com account.  If you don't have one, but want to know where your money is going, I recommend signing up right this second!  It's totally free and totally awesome!  If you're a nit-picking, list-making, card carrying Virgo like me, this appeals in so many minute and controlling ways.  They have an app too.  Guess who checks it obsessively every ten minutes or so?  Ha.

So like I was saying, I updated our Mint.com account.  Turns out, we spent a two-week European vacation worth of fundage eating out last year.  Yeah.  Bummer.

That was that.  Decision made.  We decided to get serious about our money and where it's going.  We have a few money goals for the first quarter of this year.  Setting a goal that's important to us is the way that we're going to be able to stick to the plan.  (I'll share the goal as soon as I can, but it's a secret for now.)  Erik is even on board and has given up his monthly subscriptions to various gaming networks.

My first concession was the Starbucks habit.  Thanks to generous family and friends, I have a few Starbucks giftcards, but I am limiting myself to one drink per week.  Other than that -- it's going to be tea!

So last weekend, we stopped at Central Market to pick up some new, exciting teas to try!  I got three new ones from Stash:

* Orange Spice
* Chocolate Mint
* Coconut Mango

I'm a little terrified of the Chocolate Mint, but can't wait to try Coconut Mango!

I also dug out my existing tea stash from the cupboard.  Moroccan Mint is an all time favorite.  Pukka After Dinner is a new, yummy one I found at Marshall's or some odd place like that.  It is so good!  I think it's the fennel and cardamom combo that gets me every time.  Mmmm...

I'm really excited to try all the new flavors!  Rocking two teabags seems to be enough caffeine to compete with my previous Starbucks consumption.  And saying good bye to the coffee shop atmosphere?  I hole up in my office conference room.  Door closed, lights off, blinds drawn, ipod on.  It's my own, private coffee shop.  Scratch that, it's my own private tea shop!

-xo

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love pukka teas, would highly recommend the detox one x

Unknown said...

Where do you buy your Pukka teas? I don't think my grocery store carries them. I just stumbled upon this one particular box in a discounter.

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