I loved to visit my mom’s porch this summer with my boy.
He plays in the little pool of water my mom has set up warming in the sun. He drops rocks into it, plop, plop, plop, savoring the sound and the little splashes.
Meanwhile I usually get to rest a bit, chatting with my mom while she makes sure there are always snacks and tea, offered up many times despite any no-thank-yous (though I of course accept at once).
This time, I also painted. I love purple leafed plants, and this was no exception! I picked up all sorts of hues in this “Purple Heart” (I think) plant, but the overall impression was of purple, it was truly a lovely little plant.
For something of a change, this is a little digital speedpaint I did July 2022 actually… of a photo I took long long before. Peppermint tea, made with leaves from my garden.
I’ve been a big Peppermint Tea fanatic for years and years and years.
It was one of the things I took on as a personality trait in elementary school in fact (something in and of itself to unpack perhaps). I took a box of peppermint tea bags (Stash Peppermint Tea of course, haha!) on a class trip with me… I’m talking an elementary school class trip on a Tallship where all our belongings had to stay stowed on our bunk where we slept.
I think my primary introduction was as a very young child at my Dutch Grandmother’s house. Juice was a rare special thing there (often homemade when it did turn up), but what she did have and always offered to all us little cousins, was peppermint tea with honey. The honey made it particularly special I think. Drop in an ice cube or two so it wasn’t too hot. Offered with oatmeal chocolate chip cookies or date squares or other homemade treat.
Eventually I clued in that we did in fact have peppermint tea at HOME, and it started to become a comforting habit and I quickly stopped adding honey.
While I did have chamomile on occasion, peppermint tea remained my tea of choice until a fateful time in Japan just after high school! Ah, green tea… I shall have to write about you another time.
Yes yes, I will likely be revisiting tea again in this series. It seems to remain… My Thing.
Certain times of year, the leaves get edged with red, and the light filters through in a certain way that I love.
The colour of the roses is a lovely salmon sort of colour, that quickly fades in the summer sun to white. I claim over and over that I do not like pink, but there is a certain range of colours, soft, orangey-reds, reddish-oranges, that I love. A sort of dusty colour. One might even call it pink, but I dare not.
Speaking of dust, I have been fighting off some sort of dusty… mold? fungus? Whatever it is… clinging to my rose bush. I have been dealing with it by generously pruning every fall, and it does seem to help. Trying to be careful with how I water it, tricky tricky.
I’m going to try a little series of Little Things that I appreciate on alternate Thursdays, or something like that. I have a busy time coming up (expecting a baby in a few days), but I’ll get a few ready to go for now, and we’ll see how it goes.
