Waiting for Ingrey

I just checked the mail. No ARC of _The Hallowed Hunt_ today.

The books sraun sent the same day arrived. But he was talking about the possibility of using me as an experimental subject on what the experience would be like reading the series from a different start point - so I shall hold off and not open the package yet. But it's here safely.

Tea time

So the other day I was bitching to joyeuse13 about how I get this terrible down time every day - by about 6 or so, I'm totally out of energy on taking care of the kids, the light is gone or going, and I'm lonely and depressed. selenite doesn't come home until later, and since most people are already heading home, LJ and email list posts dry up. When I was growing up, my dad would always be home by oh, 5:30ish, I guess, and by 6 or 6:30 we were already having dinner. selenite will tell me to go grab something to eat, but since we'll have dinner later I always end up just grabbing junk food that makes me feel awful later. The whole thing has been bad.

So joyeuse13 suggested "why don't you have High Tea?"

A marvelous idea. It doesn't take care of the emotional feelings of being left alone, but it does take care of the low energy blood sugar issues. Since I'm making it an official Tea, I can think about what I'm going to have and plan something, it doesn't end up just being me grabbing some chips because I can't wait another couple hours for dinner. I don't stress as much about when selenite is going to get home and how accurate my knowledge of it is, because I'm not trying to aim dinner for the moment he walks in the door. (Although, selenite, dear? Please note this does NOT mean you have carte blanche to work even later or be careless about what you tell me!) And I'm making a point of finding nice things I'll enjoy. Today is the second day of it.

In addition to the food, I've been literally making myself tea - making up some herbal tea as early as I can and then refrigerating it to have it iced. Yesterday I had chamomile, which I like. Today I tried some of the orange spice, which was, eh, okay I guess. I even offered a bit to Jamie, but he dropped it on the floor. Today I had tea with him, Maggie was napping. Yesterday they were both napping at that time, a bit later than usual. I had to work at not hurrying over tea, there's that dreaded feeling that they'll wake up any moment.

At some point over the weekend I'm going to go out shopping and look for more nice little things to put together for tea. Yesterday I had tuna fish salad with crackers, sliced cucumber, and the last piece of carrot cake. Today I had fishsticks and cucumber and chocolate caramel bar.

Anyone have nice suggestions for tea time treats? It can't be anything that requires lots of superfresh ingredients, because it's hard to shop often with the kids. I want it to be NICE things, and not lots of salty stuff. Can't be anything requiring lots of prep work - as much as I'd enjoy cute little sandwiches with the crusts cut off sliced into cute shapes, and lots of lovely little petit fours, I haven't the $ to hire a cook to do all that for me.

QOTD

selenite speaking of Jamie loving to yank the computer mouse off our desks:

"I believe he considers that the Pull-toy of Parent Summoning."