Tea of the Week-Warmth (Cinnamon Spice with Orange Blossom)

This weeks tea of the week is another one of the teas I bought when I first went back to work at the beginning of May. It's called warmth cinnamon spice with orange blossom and it's made by Tetley.

One of my friends recommended it to me and so when I saw it at the store I had to pick some up. This tea is a very comforting tea.  I'm not sure why but cinnamon teas tend to remind me of Christmas, and that makes me think of warmth and comfort. I love it, and I will definitely be buying more when I run out of this can. I love drinking this tea at work when I need to relax a little bit. Computers can be so frustrating sometimes so I try to take a break and have some calming tea whenever I can. I love this tea for work and if you are looking for a nice comforting caffeine free tea, then this one might be for you!

What's your favourite tea this week? 

Crazy Dreams

I've been sick all week with a cold. This is one of the worst colds I've had in a while and it has lead to two strange dreams nightmares that I thought you guys would find humerous. Here we go!

Dream Number One - The Dishes

This dream seemed to come at an odd time. Andrew and I recently registered for wedding presents and we registered for these dishes

Well, in my dream all we got for gifts was dishes! Like hundreds of them. And I woke up because I was so panicked with what to do with all these hundreds and hundreds of plates! Weird. 

Dream Number Two - Birch Branch Overload

This dream happened the worst night of my cold, and it happened four times in the one night. And every time I woke up panicking. In this dream the worship pastor from Andrew's church was selling us his unused birch branches for our wedding. But since Andrew and I already had so many branches from the trees that got hit by the ice storms I didn't need all the branches he was selling. So I asked for half of them instead of all of them. But he said no, we could only buy the whole pile or a quarter of the pile of branches. So I asked for two quarters. But he still wouldn't sell them to me! 

Both of these seem like really silly dreams now, but at the time they woke me up in a panic. Now I just laugh about them! I hope they made you smile! Happy Thursday!

Tea of the Week-Summerberries

This weeks tea of the week is in celebration of summer. I'm so excited that the warmer weather is here to stay. I'm actually sitting outside while I write this weeks tea of the week. It's really nice. This weeks tea of the week is Summerberries by Tetley. This tea is very fruity and has rosehip, hibiscus, apples and strawberries. I think I'm going to look for more teas with strawberries in it, because this tea is delicious! It's a little bitter though, so I think I will add some sugar to it when I drink it at home.  I also love that this tea is caffeine free, since I'm trying to watch how much caffeine I'm putting into my system. I've been finding that this tea is a great pick me up at work when I'm feeling a little tired, since the bitterness wakes me up a little bit.

This weeks tea of the week also features the new mug I got for my birthday from Andrew! One of my friends got this mug at her bridal shower a few years ago and I've wanted one ever since. As you can see it says "Mrs." on the front and on the inside it has a heart at the bottom of the mug and says "I found the one my heart loves. Songs of Solomon 3:4". It's adorable and I love it.

Tea of the Week-Bellini (Peach Orange)

Don't get me wrong, I love loose leaf tea. Something about measuring out the tea leaves feels so mature. It's a very sophisticated way to drink tea. However, it isn't very practical for work. There are so many more utensils to clean with loose leaf tea. I also find that loose leaf teas tend to be more fragrant, and I don't want to bother anyone at work with the tea smells So I've been trying to find some new bagged teas to take to work, since having tea with me at work is clearly a must.

With that being said, the next few weeks are going to feature some bagged teas that I've recently found that I am loving! The first os bellini peach orange by tetley. My friend let me try this tea when I was at her house recently. I love it. The container describes it as "A delicious infusion of peach and orange with a just a touch of ginger to brighten your day." I think it is absolutely fantastic. As soon as I tried it I knew it was going to move up to one of my number one favourite teas of all time. And I've tried a lot of tea! It's sweet, and relaxing and not bitter at all like I thought it might be. I just wish they had it at the grocery store we have in town, so I wouldn't have to drive into the big city to get it. I'm hooked. And I highly recommend it.

DIY: Tree Branch Table Numbers

Andrew and I were very blessed this year. A huge snowstorm took down a ton of branches from the two birch trees outside of Andrew's parent's house. I know what you're thinking, "Sarah, how is that a blessing?"

Let me tell you... One of the overarching themes for our wedding is nature. Andrew and I met at camp, which has so much to do with the outdoors. And some of our most favourite memories have been outside when we were around a campfire, or flying kites, or going on walks. Anyways, the nature theme suits us.

I pinned these tree branch table numbers a long time ago on pinterest, but I was worried that it would be too destructive to take down a tree for the sole purpose of being a table number for one night. This is where that snowstorm being a blessing comes in. The branches we used for these table numbers (and many other decorations, stay tuned!) all came down during the snowstorms this year! Pretty cool huh?

Here is how we made them, I have to give most of the credit to Andrew, he worked so hard cutting the branches and making them look awesome!

You will need:

-Tree limbs
-Saw
-Ink
-Stamps (You can buy these, but I made my own from foam stickers I found at Walmart)
-Measuring Tape

Instructions:

1) Measure your branches and mark them to be cut, we made all out table numbers approximately six inches tall, but it's really up to you. Make sure you keep in mind where the knots/other tree things are, these can be hard to cut through, so you may want to avoid these areas.

2) Cut the branches at the lines with your saw, Andrew used a chop saw.

3) Cut the angles, Again this is up to you, but we cut the ends on a 45 degree angle

4) Stamp the numbers onto the branches!

See, easy! Well, cutting the branches was pretty difficult, but other then that, it was easy. I love how they turned out!

Tea of the Week-Fruta Bomba

This weeks tea of the week is brought to you by my lovely brother Stephen! He gave me two types of tea for my birthday, Wild Orange Blossom (which I recently ran out of, so I was super happy to get some more!) and Fruta Bomba! Fruta Bomba is a green tea from teavana. I've recently been finding a lot of green teas that I like so I'm not surprised I like this one already! This tea has many flavours in it, including papaya, peach, lemongrass, apple and pineapple. I love the sweet fruity flavour it has. I can really feel the caffeine in it though, and I've been trying to reduce the amount of caffeine I drink since it keeps me up at night, so I have to drink this tea in the morning. Other then that, I love this tea! Definitely a new favourite!

Our Wedding Rings

On Tuesday Andrew and I got our wedding bands in the mail! We love them so much and I wanted to share our excitement with you guys!

I fell in love with the idea of having our fingerprints on eachothers rings before we were even engaged. (Thank-you Pinterest!). I thought they were so awesome and special but that they would be too expensive to get for ourselves. Once Andrew proposed, we went to go get my engagement ring resized (since it was two sizes too big) and Andrew tried on some plain wedding rings. We were very surprised by how much a plain wedding band costs! Then I was looking through my wedding board on Pinterest and I saw the fingerprint rings again and we decided to go for it! If we were going to be wearing these rings for the rest of our lives, they better be special!

We found Brent&Jess through pinterest, if you haven't browsed around their etsy shop, you definitely should! They do amazing work! We messaged them asking for a quote and they replied very quickly. We were pleasantly surprised to find out that we could both have fingerprint rings for less than that plain ring we saw when we got my ring resized! We ordered them right away. We loved the interactive process and how much communication went on during the process. We were always kept in the loop. They sent us the fingerprint kit, which was really fun to use, and then we sent back our prints. Two months later we received our rings. They turned out so awesome!

Andrew and I were a little nervous buying such a big item online, but I'm so glad we decided to go for it! Our rings are in sterling silver, they are the traditional half round shape but we decided to go with a brushed metal finish on the outside. We chose the brushed metal since Andrew does a lot of hands on things so we hope that the brushed metal will hide some of the scratches.  I was worried that it wouldn't match my ring but the brushed metal makes them coordinate, like they were meant to be together even though they aren't the same metal or finish. I love the mismatched look actually!

Naturally I have already taken a billion photos of them, here are a few:

April Report Card

April has come and gone, so now it is time to update you, my loyal readers, on how my goals for the month went. If you missed my goals, you can find them here.

Finish up Second Year|A

I was successful! I maintained my averages in all of my courses. I'm so proud with how I did this semester.

Spring Clean|B

I cleaned my room very thoroughly, I got rid of two garbage bags full of stuff and I sent one garbage bag over to the thrift store. However I didn't clean my car, I took out all the garbage but I didn't vacuum or dust it.

Finish Paper Flowers|A+

I finished all of the flowers! And I even put them into some of the bouquets! I'm so relieved to have this done.

Take a Break|B-

I did well with this, up until the last half of April, I got so excited about the crafts I was doing for the wedding that I forgot to take a break some days, and I got pretty burned out.

Revamp My Blog Design|A+

I'm so happy with how the changes turned out!

Make My Master Wedding To-Do List|A

I did this! I'm so proud of myself, and it's pretty detailed. I'm sure I missed things, but I can always add to it. Now it's time to start checking things off the list!

Overall Grade|B+

I'm happy with how I did on my goals this month, I feel like I really made use of my time off before work starts again (which is Monday!!). How did you do on your goals?