Mint Flavored Iced Tea (No Sugar)

OK, OK. I've sworn 100 times that I would write down recipes that I create on the fly, and I almost never do. And then comes the time 3 months down the line when I try to recreate that perfect thing and it NEVER comes out the same.

So, here, I will try to avoid this scenario and share with you a recipe for Mint Flavored Iced Tea.

Ingredients:

boiling water

2 tea bags (English breakfast decaf is my favorite)

1+ tsp honey

1 tea bag of mint tea or some dried or fresh mint leaves

2 lemons

water

Boil 3-4 cups of water and add the English Breakfast teabags. I brew the tea right in the pitcher because mine is tempered glass but you can also use a bowl or a pot and pour it into a pitcher once the water has cooled. Add the mint tea bag or put the mint leaves into a tea pouch and add to the water. If you have fresh mint leaves, you can add them to the water without a tea pouch. Add the honey and stir. Let this brew sit for about 20-30 minutes. It should have a nice brown color and should smell of mint and honey. Then squeeze the juice from 2 lemons into the tea and give it a try. You may have to add a little bit more honey if the tea is too sour. Then fill the rest of the picture with water and refrigerate. The tea can last a couple of days in the fridge, but ours never even makes it that far!

Now, it's time for me to delve a little into the movie critic shoes. I saw The Reader yesterday. I have to say that I love Ralph Fiennes so my view of this movie is biased.

Let's start with the fact that it's been about 24 hours since I've seen it and I still can't stop thinking about it. I see the character's faces, I am revisiting scenes from the movie. It's an amazing film. About love, about life, about the impact strangers can have on our lives.

I love the truthfulness of this film. It's rare these days to find a movie where the end isn't sugar coated. Where people have real faults, and you take them for the way they are and love them your whole life. Ok, that's all I'll say. Go and watch it (on DVD probably).

Like mother, like daughter or why the apple doesn't fall far from the tree

At the playground today, my daughter was fascinated with a little girl who was wearing a pink snow suit: this super-warm coverage with long sleeves and long pant legs looked like a sumo wrestler outfit on this tiny little girl. On her feet, she had tiny thin little silver ballet-slipper shoes. I thought the snow suit a little excessive for this beautiful 55 degree day and the shoes far too cold.

I made a comment to her and the mom on her "pretty little shoes", which seemed perfectly placed, until I noticed that the mom was wearing an adult version of those same silver ballet shoes with her winter parka. No joke.

Check out this video a friend sent me on the topic.

3 for 1

Today, I heard of 3 friends losing their jobs. Having myself been layed off 3 times in the last crash (2001), I can offer some useful advise:
1. Don't dispair, don't blame yourself, and don't think that you are contagious. One of the hardest things to accept when you lose your job is that it really was not your fault. Too many other factors combined to cause this issue.
2. Put your resume together and revise it once a week. Don't fix it any more often than that or you'll go crazy.
3. Do 1 job-hunting activity per day. For example, Monday is resume fixing day. Spend 3 hours fixing your resume, sending it to friends for review, etc. Tuesday is Monster.com and LinkedIn day, spend 3 hours on those, searching and saving jobs. Wednesday is apply online day. Thursday is go-to-networking events day (have at least one event per week where you have to get dressed and look like a human being. If you can't afford the admission price, email the organizer and explain that you have just lost your job and whether they can offer a discounted admission rate - most people will). Find something useful to do on Friday.
4. Find a job, some job. Between stints of tech-based employment, I worked at Crate and Barrel. Sure, I didn't use my degree, but I earned enough to make rent AND I got a great kitchen in the process. It'll keep you sane and get you out of the house, talking to people. Just don't forget to keep looking for a real job.

Did you learn that or were you born with it

I was sitting with my daughter in a mommy and me class when I noticed a peculiar thing. There are kids who sit in the front, there are kids who sit where they were placed and there are kids who go to the back and play with the toys unrelated to the program or lesson.

My kid is the first kind: no matter where I sit in the room, she will go to the "front row", stare at the teacher for 45 minutes of class and soak in every word. She won't look back at me, she knows I'm there. I'm glad she inherited this trait from me, although I wonder if this is a real trait of just a passing phase. I'm glad she didn't inherit her father's class-attending methods - taking a snooze in the back rows.

The most peculiar thing is that I never encouraged or taught her to do this. I never said, "listen to the teacher". So one has to wonder, was she born with it? What happens to the kids who aren't interested in the teacher or the lesson at hand? Do they grow up to be those kids passing notes and texting in the back of the classroom? Do they do poorly in school? Do they reform? Do they learn differently?

If we assume that there are at least 3 different kinds of learners, can we have a one-style-fits-all education system? I wonder.