Iced Yerba Matte Tea

This is my favorite drink in the Spring and Summer. I know it's not Spring just yet, but we have been having a few beautiful days here, and so I had to make it.

Here is what you need to make this yourself:

1 pitcher
loose yerba matte tea
reusable cloth tea bags
1/4 cup honey
water

Put about 8 Tablespoons of Yerba Matte tea into your cloth tea bags and tie them shut. Put them in the pitcher. Add cold water. Yerba Matte brews in cold water, and if you are making it hot, you should soak the matte in a little bit of cold water before brewing it hot, as it helps lock in it's nutrients. Steep for an hour or longer. Remove tea bags and add used Matte to your compost bowl. Add honey. I like to use my glass Pyrex measuring cup for the honey, because then I can nuke it in the microwave and then add it to my tea, and it mixes in so much better. Also, sometimes, when I have it, I like to add a little bit of peppermint tea to this mix, but just a little! Peppermint is a lot stronger than the matte, and can easily overpower it, especially if you brew it for longer than an hour.

I'm changing this goal.

From now on, some of my blogs will be like this one, uploaded from my account on 43 Things/People/Places. This particular one I edited, so I could add these photos.

I really did try to sell this car. First, I posted an ad in Hemming’s Auto Trader. I think I was made an offer from the IRA. They sent me a check for $8000, that I was supposed to cash and then give most of it back to the shipper. I called the bank the check was drafted on. They weren’t even a bank! I looked up the shipper online. It was obviously a fake website.

I talked to several Picture Car coordinators that I know. Nothing has ever fallen through. I’ve come to believe that deep down, I really don’t want to get rid of this car. Part of the burden was that it was just sitting in an empty lot, and I never really made the time to move it to my new house. Finally it was tagged for towing, so I had to go move it. I wish I had a movie of that day! Smoke billowing from the tailpipe. Me, just me, trying to drive it while opening the driver’s door to stick my leg out to try and coax it into going forward. Now, it’s even harder to sell.

I’ve decided that rather than buy a prefab greenhouse for my back yard, I’m going to put my car there, plant some plants around it, and use the interior as a greenhouse. Or, maybe lay some bedding down in the back sleep out there on summer nights. Maybe both! I’m going to plant some beautiful plants around it and feature it in my yard. I don’t know if anyone will be able to love this car like I do, anyway.

See more progress on: sell my 1964 Plymouth Valiant.

Blogging as a Cure for Insomnia

Once again, I have insomnia. Actually, I do sleep. I just can't seem to go to sleep when I want, and then end up sleeping way past the time that productive people get up. I've been working out, except for today because I chose to spend my time with the two cutest babies in Shreveport instead. I've not been eating past 8pm, which seemed to help last time. I don't know why my body chooses to stay awake so long into the night, and wee hours of the morning. So, tonight, I'm blogging.




I Love You Phillip Morris premiered at Sundance this year. I really can't wait to see this movie in theaters. Not only has this been one of my very top favorite films to work on, but I am proud to have worked on it. Shreveporters: start campaigning now to have it shown at the Robinson Film Center. They might be the only ones to show it here. I found this interview with Rodrigo Santoro. I'm just putting this out there, into the (web) universe. I really want to work on The Expendable, if only so I can go to Brazil, and maybe visit Rodrigo while I'm there. I would really like that to happen, Universe. Please?




I saw Brit's facebook pictures of Sylvie, their cat that they adopted from my house, and she had taken pictures of him with Photo Booth. Then, I came across another picture of a cat, taken with photo booth. THAT was somewhere on the net, and completely isolated from Brit's photos. So I had to give it a try. For the record, it's harder than it looks.





Today, I tried it with Ro Henry. It's not as hard with babies, but Jen was looking at me like I was being mean. I think Ro Henry will like them when he's older.






Here are some random pictures. Amber takes a picture a day, and I've been trying to follow in her footsteps, taking pictues of my life. I'm getting better at the pictures part, but the posting/blogging about them daily part is not as easy. I don't know why. I have nothing else to do. No job. Everything in my schedule lately can be moved around. Yet, I'm finding it hard to blog regularly. I'll try to make it a goal for a week. A picture a day. Here is some catch up:




I've seen this train twice, now. The first time was just after wrapping Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans. Werner Herzog directed the film, and it was so amazing working with him. A lot of the crew didn't like him. I loved him. Anyway, we had to wrap in a hurry because Gustav was bearing down on New Orleans, just three years, almost to the day, after Hurricane Katrina. Even the act of evacuating was surreal. I don't even live in New Orleans anymore, but Molly and I spent most of Saturday and early Sunday preparing Jen K's house before heading to my house in Shreveport. Once on the road, we...er, I decided to take a smaller highway. We were somewhere between Alexandria and Shreveport, way out in the sticks. There was nothing but the road, and this train that had "HERZOG" printed on it. It sound strange, but it was as if everything I was going through was validated. I don't really know how else to explain how I felt. I wanted to take a picture, but it seemed to be too much of an ordeal at the time. A few weeks ago, I was headed to the Y for my workout, and there was the Herzog Train. At a standstill on the bridge over Marshall Street. I tried to get a picture then, but couldn't get a good angle. I gave up, drove under the bridge, turned left, up a block....there was the train, on my left now. I drove to the dead end and got my picture. I like the bleak tree in the picture, too.










Making beignet's for the first time. They were so delicious. I was the only one around to eat them. That was the only mistake I made.

Smithsonian Art Exhibit in Oil City

Last week, I went to Oil City with some friends, to the New Harmonies Exhibit by the Smithsonian Institute. It was at the Louisiana State Oil and Gas Museum. The exhibit was pretty interesting, and I did learn a little bit...like the fact that Leadbelly had been in Angola and sang his way into a pardon from the Governor (what a great state I live in). Also, I never knew that during the Great Awakening, white farmers and black slaves created churches together, and after Sunday services the slaves would stay for hours singing spirituals, while the farmers would stay to listen. Now, that's my kind of church....like the gospel tent and Jazz Fest! This is a poster and photo of the Jubilee Singers, but don't get them confused with the current Jubilee Singers from Fisk University.

And then just this beautiful photograph. It's actually only part of the photograph. I haven't adjusted the quality yet, but I would like to see if I can improve the image and print it and frame it. I just love it.

Here is Shannon as Mahalia Jackson. Her daughter, Riley, was the one to come up with this idea, and Shannon has the rest of the pictures on her camera. So very funny!

There were a few interactive parts, like getting to play the washboard. For some reason I can't upload the picture of Riley playing washboard:

Anyway, it's a good exhibit. Those of you in the Ark-La-Tex have a week left to go. I highly recommend it for music lovers.

After the museum, we took a drive in downtown Oil City, where we saw this nativity scene with a drunk and passed out wise man:

And, before going home, we stopped at Caddo Lake, or as I like to call it, The Lake With All the Trees In It. It was beautiful.

Just in case anyone gets any hairbrained ideas, they posted these:










These were some strange plants floating on the water:



And, another nativity scene, this time the shepards were triplets, and there were four wise men! Who knew?


Overall, it was a pretty nice day in Oil City, a city that's on the ball!

Completed Projects and Other News

Well, I finished Rowan's baby sweater, and it's the worst thing I've ever knit. I'm only posting pictures of the unfinished back of the sweater, when I still thought it had some potential, and also a close up of the yarn, so you can see why I hate it so much.





I read in my Stitch N' Bitch book that you only need to block things made out of natural fiber yarn, and since it was acrylic, I didn't block it. However, I don't think that was the problem. The main problem was the yarn was not a smooth yarn, but really rippley, and I was always splitting the yarn, I couldn't count stitches, pick them up, sew seams, nothing seemed to go right, EXCEPT that I now know the basic construction and work that goes into a sweater. That and I know I hate rippley yarn and love smooth yarn.






I want to find some nice in-the-round patterns for sweaters because I can't seem to get enough of it! After the disaster of the sweater, I started these cute hand warmers. I found the pattern on my new favorite knitting website, knitty. They have some really great patterns, and if you like the handwarmers, you can make you own here: Dashing.

I don't have any pictures of my finished hand warmers yet, but I have worn them out in public, so I must admit that they are pretty cute.

Because I still have some leftover yarn from the handwarmers, I thought I would try altering a basic hat pattern into something that would match my handwarmers. However, I went to JoAnn's yesterday and lo and behold, they no longer carry any knitting supplies. So I did a search on my iPhone maps (how much do I love that thing) and was rewarded with one solitary entry, for a KNITTING & YARN STORE IN SHREVEPORT!!! I quickly drove over the the address listed, and wouldn't you know, there really was a yarn store, Knitting Under the Influence...and, also, in addition to, the place was packed, AND there was a little old man in there knitting away with the ladies! I was so happy, I bought some new yarn for a hat for Baby Abraham (coming soon), and some new dpn's, which is why I went to JoAnn's in the first place. I still have to take pictures of my new project, and the yarn that I am in love with. Also, I'm really getting better at figuring my correct gauge, which I suspect was also a problem with the baby sweater. It really does make the difference if you take the time to knit a few swatches, count the stitches per inch and adjust your pattern accordingly. This might seem boring or second nature to you seasoned professional knitters, but I'm pretty proud of myself for learning all this on my own. Also, I don't like to be confined to what the pattern says I need to knit with.

Well, perhaps I'll post more about my field trip the the Smithsonian exhibit at the Oil and Gas Museum in Oil City, of all places...but I did join the YMCA yesterday, and I promised myself that I would go today and use the elliptical machines. And there will have to be pictures about that, too, because the downtown Y is a beautiful historic building. Nobody ever told me!

Top 5 Favorite Things About Winter:

5. Many don't agree with me, but it is the best time for an ice cream cone. You have to make sure you are bundled up, but I discovered this while living in Phoenix. You can't eat ice cream in the summer there. But, in the winter, you're not in a mad rush to eat your ice cream before it melts all over your hand. You can take your time and enjoy it. This applies almost anywhere, not just Phoenix.

4. The clothes. So many options for layering, not to mention cashmere sweaters, funky scarves, and great jackets and coats, hats with earflaps. The list goes on and on.

3. Homemade hot cocoa with a shot of brandy. The other option is spicy hot cocoa. I have a great mixture of 5 spices, only they are a secret, so I can't tell you. I'll make if for you, though.

2. Snow. When it happens. Which is not often in Shreveport.

1. Cat Stevens snuggles under the covers with me, but only in the winter. He will scratch at the covers and wait for me to lift them up. Then he crawls under them, burrows down, turns around and pokes just his head out. Cutest thing ever.

What? You still read this?

So, New Year's Eve is tomorrow, and I'm throwing a party. Here is what happened at the party last year, before my camera died:



I'm also taking Amber's example, and going to try to blog regularly. if only just so my friends and family know how I'm doing. In case you're wondering how I'm doing now, I'm unemployed (hence this blog). But, it's not all bad. I started knitting again, and last night started my first ever sweater, for baby Rowan. I figured that a baby sweater would be easy because I wouldn't get impatient with knitting a grown up sweater. Also, Brittany can just make him wear it, and the only recourse he will have is to throw up on it.

Also, I have done a few projects around the house, and have been cooking regularly. Most of the recipes I've tried lately haven't been so good, except chocolate chip scones. But then again, it's bread and chocolate...what could be bad about that? My other project is learning how to silkscreen at home, because I want to start a T-shirt company, hopefully it will give me some income in between films, like now.

Anyway, I look forward to blogging more regularly in 2009. Happy New Year everyone!

What does MP stand for?

While on the set filming The Mist, I fell in love with the MP's helmet. I took out the moustache that I made a couple weeks back, and a photo op was born. We came up with several other meanings for "MP" (Master Partier being one of my favorites) and had the crew add their own (two of which are too dirty to post here). Eventually, I settled on Mist Prankster*, after a prank war broke out between Shannon and myself versus Steve. Shannon and I won, after a nasty turn of events, in which Steve narrowly escaped losing his right eye (I suspect he was more upset about losing his hat).

Here is the list:
Mighty Pretty (Thanks Bill Sadler!)
Master Partier
Major Participant
Mad Props
Major Pain
Male Patrol
Mister President
Miss Prankster* (I modified it).
Mostly Positive
Morale Propagator
Mustache Perfector
Mostly Professional
Many Privates
Male Pirate
Mean Pooper (I thought I was alone!)
Miz Pac-Man
Mini Pizza
Meal Penalty Police
Morality Propagandist
Military Police (you fools) (Yeah, someone actually wrote that)
Midget Prostitute
My Pickle
Morgan Phairchild...Yeah, that's the ticket... (Someone actually wrote that, too)
Meat Puppet
Multiple Personalities
Mighty Powerful
Mister Potatohead (very appropro, since I gave Adam's Mister Potatohead a gold tooth)
Mist Patrol
Male Prostitute
Marriage Planner
Meat Packers
Mystical Pot
Missing Person
My Princess
Mies en Place (smarty pants)
Miss Pronounced
and lastly, UGH! Military Police you damn civilians!!