december arrives.

Apologies for the small bout of inactivity. Our family owns a 12 year old yellow lab and his health suddenly took a turn for the worse. He has congestive heart failure, but our veterinarian has given us medication and he seems to be improving for the time being. It's hard to be creative and outgoing when one of your best childhood friends has suddenly become very, very mortal in your eyes.

I mean, in his youth he was a tank. He was hit by a SNOW PLOW and was tossed about and then popped out of the snow happily bounding back to me and my dad while we stood frozen in absolute horror.

I'm still waiting to develop film. I hate making separate trips to get things processed -- I much prefer having a wave of photos come in all in one go. I can't wait to see what my old reliable camera has captured. I was a little bit worried that the internal light meter battery would have expired (I think I last changed it in 2004...) but it seemed to function well enough! I just wish I had the forethought to unpack my little remote cable so the lower lit shots wouldn't have any sort of blur to them.

I am pictured drinking Harney & Sons "Mangalam FTGFOP Or. 664." It is absolutely delicious! I was pleasantly surprised when I decided to try this tea out while restocking my plain black blends/breakfast teas. I'm a real sucker for good Assams. It is a beautiful reddish caramel cup and the flavor is so smooth and comforting. They mentioned on their page that the aroma is sweet and toasty, and I couldn't agree more. When they also mentioned "toast with dark honey spread on top" I couldn't get that association out of my head, and it has since become my favorite tea to drink while eating a little bit of cinnamon toast with raw almond honey on top!