I'm still contemplating...

...flusters, that is.

I may or may not do the planned shopping Saturday. This weekend is Texas' "Sales Tax Free" weekend (on school supplies and kids' clothes), which means the stores will be even more packed with bored teenagers and potentially helicoptering parents. (Then again: JoAnn's probably wouldn't have any, and if I went to Target early enough, I could miss the worst of it. Probably). I don't like crowds and I don't like shopping somewhere where there are large numbers of people who are resentful that they are being made to shop. (I think that's part of my distress over the local Mart of Wal: there are enough grumbly people shopping there, and enough ill-mannered people, that it rubs off on me and makes me grumbly and ill-mannered. And yes, that's possible: I saw some recent research that says bad moods are "catching.")

But I am considering one thing: Getting an electric kettle for at home. I have one for my office and it makes my life better over here, because I would otherwise have no acceptable-to-me way of heating water to a boil for tea. (I could microwave it, but meh. Urban legends about water exploding the in microwave aside, it takes a long time for it to come to a boil in the microwave....and somehow, microwave-heated water "tastes wrong" to me. I know that's an entirely psychological thing, but there you are).

I use a big old stainless steel "farmhouse" kettle at home....but it does take a while to heat, and every week or so I have to soak it with vinegar to get out the limescale, because I tend to leave water standing in it. Having an electric teakettle might be a nice thing. I have a spot for it on my dining room table that's close enough to an outlet. (I'd definitely get one like I have in my office; it has an automatic shut-off when the water comes up to temperature).

I've even seen teakettles - much more expensive ones - that you can SET the temperature at which they shut off, so if you want to make a white tea using water at 200 degrees F rather than 212 (or an herbal tea at 180), you can change the cut off temperature. I like that, but those kettles are about three times what I paid for my office model, so I don't know. I mean, I CAN afford it, it won't mean I have to eat peanut butter the rest of the month or anything, but I balk at paying that high a price for something that is essentially a frivolity: I still have my good old non-electric kettle and could continue to heat water in there.

I'm also waiting on an order of tea from Adagio I sent for earlier this week. (They said they sent it off yesterday). I needed more "Butterbeer" (one of my favorite blends ever), and I wanted some of the canisters to store some of the loose tea I had. And I also looked around in their blends area. They let people make up blends of any of the flavors/teas they have, and then they can name it whatever they want. (The butterbeer tea I love so much is, you might have guessed, a Harry Potter inspired blend). It's fanfiction as tea! So I had to look to see if they had My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic teas.

Yup.*

I ordered one person's blends (there are several out there): her version of Fluttershy's tea (rooibos, white tea with blueberries, and wild strawberry). I've never tried straight rooibos (I know some people don't like it), but I've had it in blends and liked it fine. I also ordered Rarity's tea (Earl Grey, with added vanilla and mint). She also has a Twilight Sparkle and an Applejack, there might be others.

Oh, I know, it's silly and gimmicky, but it's also fun. And the "Fluttershy" tea sounds like a good blend, even without the Fluttershy Is Best Pony! tie-in. And I think one of the things I suffer from sometimes is a shortage of fun. (At least, the kind of "fun" I like. I don't care for "enforced fun" like some team-building exercises goes in for....)

(*One other thing I'm eagerly awaiting in the mail? I ordered the "Apple Family Playset" which has figures - hopefully in the same scale as the blindbag ponies - of Big Mac and Granny Smith (and also Applejack, though I already have a figure of her). Big Mac is another character on that show that's grown on me considerably...I love the fact that his usual response to things is monosyllabic ("Yup" or "Nope") but that on one occasion, when it required it, he spoke in long, complex, detailed sentences. (I really laughed at that scene....his sister, who is normally verbose, was reduced to "Yup" and "Nope" and he was the one who delivered the detailed discourse. Just one other thing I love about that show: that the writers play with the known characteristics of the characters, it's like they know the fans will be amused by it so they do it.)