This year, for Christmas, I had this crazy notion in October (yep, definitely October as I sat on the van floor while we drove South drinking tea in the middle of the night looking for a spot to camp - Dirty Devil adventure) to create special blends of tea for office giving and then some others. But as my mind likes to do, my thoughts rambled on… What if they don’t take caffeine? What if they only like herbal? What if they don’t drink tea at all?
HOT CHOCOLATE! Why not do a custom blended tea in addition to hot chocolate? Well, boy did I ever think I was a creative genius when I thought of hot chocolate on a stick… but no. I googled it and found many, many sites on the topic. Apparently, Oprah named it as one of her favorite things! *If anyone can discover something ingenious, it’s Oprah.
It’s that time… last-minute shopping. Gifts for the neighbor. Gifts for the best of friends. Gifts for the forgotten. Gifts for the office. Duhn duhn duhnnnnn!
Since joining up in the Salt Lake office, I’ve tried to get our crew to go green as much as possible. Finagling approval for a recycle service, bringing in my own silverware, using Tupperware for my sack lunch or playful scoldings when the folks don’t recycle… yeah, I do what I can… ha!
Well, it’s become very influential… my green. Their envy. Get it? Green. Envy. Ha. I’m on a roll. Most of them try to reuse their plastic utensils and we each have our own water bottle. Anyway, that is where I got my office gift idea - silverware kits for each of the office folk.
I needed to move fast though. It was slim pickin’s online for silverware kits. I wanted actual silverware, not the (I know, I know… greener) bamboo utensils such as the To-Go Ware kits.
The bamboo utensils are just clunky, not as easy to use… There were a few on Etsy — Blackberry Prairie, Stitchmates, FashionRemixTeam and TheStraightStitch to name a few. But time and frugality led me away from buying online.
Rather, I came upon Simple Savvy’s tutorial to make my own utensil set! It seemed easy enough. Right? I hope it seemed easy enough…
Occasionally (although it may be weird), I like to go through my favorite food blogs when I eat. I came upon Seasaltwithfood’s blog about spiral potatoes during lunch one day and was inspired for dinner. I had fond memories when I first experienced them in Taipei.
Friday, the (unsaid) sanctioned day for plans… I’m proud to announce, my friend Heather and I had some good ones. Staying green, Heather grabbed me from work for some thrifty home-cooked eatin’. Seeing the blog earlier that day, I suggested we make the potatoes. Brilliant (if I do say so myself).
Merry Christmas II You — Mariah’s second Christmas album comes out today! It may be over sixteen years since the first CD of holiday tunes came out, but she still has it.
