Tea, church, simply being, and love let's get sipping!
Let's start with something that I was expecting to be a big part of 2018 like it has turned out to be. Tea. My tea obsession started in a very odd way... 50 Shades of Grey. No joke back in college is when my tea obsession started because of Anastasia Steele. And trust me there are a few people reading this and laughing at how it started with 50 Shades of Grey. I read about how Ana was obsessed with English Breakfast Tea. Well on my next trip to EPCOT, I stopped by the Tea Caddy (a shop in the United Kingdom Pavilion) and the rest is kind of history.
But I have started to read about real tea, about how to brew a whole pot of tea, not just popping a tea bag into a cup and letting it steep. But learning how to make a full pot when one cup just ain't enough. I had started the tea journey with Teavana, who have died, and now live in the graveyard known as Starbucks. But it was a very good start with them. I'm grateful I was able to experience their tea blends.
I am really considering put more tea into my life. Buying real bone china to experience the tea. I want a tea nook in my new office at work. Even have considered the idea of a tea room in Tuscaloosa or North Carolina. But only time will tell with everything. I do know that I am going to take classes on becoming a tea master in blending and tasting. It's like my best friend said yesterday that tea has become a hygge experience for me.
Church was something that I have been thinking about for quite some time. The church I was going to about 4 years ago finally fizzled out. Literally they just called it quits one Sunday, the preacher wasn't even there. I had no intentions of returning anyways.
Enter, Church of the Highlands, a church that everyone I know talks about, but doesn't go. They are usually fussing because their church lost members because they decided to go to Church of the Highlands. Well Christmas Eve, I went. I was astonished at the whole experience. First, since Christmas Eve was on a Sunday you had to reserve your spot at church!
Now I haven't been back to the building but I have watch almost every single service they have had since then online. I love it so much! I love the sermons. I love the atmosphere. There is so much for everyone. They are really there to help you meet your needs. This is a church that is active in its members and its community which is the entire state!
Simple Abundance is back in my life again. And this time it's sticking like no one's business. I have decided it's one the last things I do before I go to bed at night. It's plenty to think about and make notes on. I believe before I was too young to understand some of these concepts. Like that meditation wasn't of the devil, it's just a different kind of praying almost. It's just wiping the mind clean letting your feel your body completely.
But back to Simple Abundance. The last time I felt like I had to read the Devotional that I was reading at the time at the exact same time. Well I am doing that devotional again, but I do the Devotional in the morning and Simple Abundance at night. I have more understanding with it this time. I can connect better to situations, and honestly? I'm willing to find my authentic self now instead of what everyone wants from me. I am putting Simple Abundance with Powersheets and the outcome is astounding to me. I actually make time for seasonal things, for daily personal time, and little things. To me it's a huge progress!
And lastly what everyone wants to know about...Chris.
Yeah it's still going. He proposed. Our engagement party is coming up with our family.
Chris was my friend before I started dating Vin. He actually was the one who helped me off the plane from Seattle when I arrived back in Alabama. He helped us move in and commented how I had as many hair products as he did. Our friendship grew through playing in the worship band at church. And then really blossomed with dance practice in the mornings. And was solidified when we took up running together.
There is something to be said for the man who knows what you smell and look like at your worse and still calls you gorgeous. The one who has seen the toenails fall off, who has laughed himself to the point he pees because when he poured the ice in on you after a race you peed in the bathtub. The one who knows how crazy you are about all these wild ideas and gives you the freedom to explore them. To know that he still wants to spend the rest of his life with me after those things means the world to me. But then again, he says it's because of those moments he wants to spend the rest of his life with me.
"We really live life."
He tells a lot of people that. And it's true. Sure we go to charity balls, we run marathons (we are running a 5K tomorrow in our underwear), and we travel a lot but we also fight over who used the last of the soap and didn't throw it away, who let the ink spill on the rug, and who turn it is to make up the bed. For the record that last one? We call it truce and neither one of us make it up.
There is something with Chris that I can't even put into words. It's that deep friendship. The trust blindly. The need to be together. The chemistry that pops when we are near each other. Nope that the cinnamon in the tea making me blush.
I hope you enjoyed this time and this cup of tea with me.
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