March 29th

I wrote this on Tumblr a few minutes ago. And I mean it. Join if you want.

How to drink tea, the Ponicorn way.

After last week’s post on how much I love tea, and tea becoming hipsters’ coffee and everything I started thinking a bit, lately, tea has become such a big deal in my life, it’s kind of eponymous of my current relationship, so having all of this in mind I felt a bit inspired to write this guide to drinking tea.

Why tea? I’m sure you can just type “Benefits of Tea” on Google and you’ll get a long list of awesome things that will happen to your body if you just start drinking tea. I won’t give you that. Yes, tea has a lot of antioxidants, has less caffeine than coffee and all that, but that is a given.

Let me tell you about my experience with tea.

I’ve been a tea drinker ever since I was a kid, both my parents are coffee drinkers and somehow didn’t want me to get the habit, so they made sure to always have a wide selection of tea herbs and bags at home, and I loved it so much, I never really go the hang of coffee, not even when I became a teenager and all of my friends wanted to go for a hot capu.

Coffee has always been bad for my body, I have to drink it with lots of cream and lots of sugar, it gives me headaches, makes me nauseous, shaky and I feel tired and sleepy after a while. I can drink it if I have to, but I hate the feeling so much, I prefer not to. Tea on the other hand, can either wake me up or help me sleep depending of what I’m having. I don’t need to drink it with cream at all, gives me lots of energy and I don’t feel it drop after a while.

“Lot’s of cream, lot’s of sugar” You and I, both, Mr. Wolfe

So, If you hadn’t yet, give it a try, it will give your metabolism a more natural boost.

To prepare tea, the Ponicorn way you will need:

• Tea cups
• Tea herbs
• Kettle
• Tea pot
• Tea bags
• Sugar
• Cream
• Infusers
• Killer company

Mix and match the way you prefer it: You won’t need tea bags if you have tea herbs and infusers; you won’t need sugar and cream if you dislike their taste on your tea and so on.

1. Boil your water, for this I use my tea kettle.
2. While your water boils, prepare either your tea bags or infusers with tea herbs.
3. Set your tea cups with tea deliciousness, pour the water let it sit for about 2-3 minutes.
4. Remove the tea implements, add sugar and cream if you like it that way.
5. Add the killer company or a nice solo time, and enjoy.

Extra Tips for Tea Lovers and Beginners.

• Know your preferences, know your tea – I love tea extra strong, with two bags or lots of herbs, but over the years I’ve learned that when I try a new brand of tea for the first time, I’d better go slow on it at first.
• Don’t be afraid to mix – My boyfriend once mixed peppermint, apple and cinnamon and we loved it so much it became a regular.
• Careful with Green tea – This is not very common, but it happened to me, so let me warn you: Some people can have a slight adverse reaction to green tea manifested in the form of a slight migraine, sometimes it varies depending on the brand you’re getting, sometimes your body gets used to it, but it’s really hard to know. My advice? Go Slow.
• Don’t limit your tea intake to hot beverages. – The taste of your regular hot tea changes dramatically when you turn it into a cold drink. Then again, don’t fear the experience.
• If you’re feeling frisky, you can do this:

I may write later about cool tea items to you can buy to make your tea drinking experience not only delicious but also visually appealing, but for now, you’re set to go. I hope you enjoyed reading my guide to tea drinking the Ponicorn way. Now if you excuse me, I’m going to have a nice cup of roses before going to bed.

Strawberry and vanilla kiss

Pinterest + Invites Giveaway

When I first heard about Pinterest, I wasn’t really excited. I’ve been on Tumblr for over 2 years now and I just love the way it works, I love being able to repost what others post and laugh about inside jokes, and I though ‘Meh, Pinterest seems like the same but not as cool and intimate’. Well, I gotta say I ended up falling in love with it.

Pinterest is social catalog organized into boards, pretty much the same way Delicious works, you can pin a website or a picture, sort it into categories and use it later if you need it. You can either give it a real purpose or just keep it as a gallery. Right now, I use it both ways, I keep some galleries of things I find visually appealing, and project manager.

My nicest Boards?
Cat Cat Cat About kittens.
Decor Decoration inspiration, and projects.
Things my boyfriend would like pictures and objects my boyfriend would love to either see of have.
Cute things I want Silly little things I’d love to have.
Clothes Love Fashion lust.

I keep more, but these are my favorites.

Now, since getting a Pinterest invites are a bit tricky to get, since it’s not a free registration website, you have to get into a waiting list, before they invite you, or you must have a nice friend sending you an invite. That’s why, I have 3 invites for any taker reading this. Just ask for it here, or send me a private message, all I need is a valid e-mail address.

Give it a try, ponies, I’m sure you’ll love it.

My daily Moleskine 2011

The last few days I’ve seen a huge amount of traffic coming here in the search of a good efficient hack for your Moleskine, and I decided that, since I am about to start working on my 2011 daily planner, I would share my method with you, this one covers only 6 months of my year, but if you get your hands on a larger notebook that you don’t mind carrying around for an entire year, you can extend it as much as you need it. So here you have it: The complete guide to my Jan-Jun 2011 Moleskine daily planner.

First things first, You’ll pretty much need:

• A 192 lined pages, ruled pocket notebook, I use Moleskine, but you can use a different one if you prefer.
• A Ruler
• Pen, it doesn’t have to be fancy since it will be your working pen right now
• A line dater stamp (no necessary, but it makes things a lot easier)
• A stamp pad and Ink (if you’re using the dater stamp)
• Scissors
• Glue stick
• Post-it’s Filing Tabs (or any other brand)
• Printer

After you get all your material, you want to start by writing a list, this list should include each and every section you will need in your planner, try to be as specific as possible, since this list will help you select the space for every section. My list goes like this:

1. Personal Information
2. Calendars
3. Goals
4. Monthly planners
5. Daily planner
6. July on…
7. Projects
8. Manifesting
9. I love
10. Music/Movies
11. Article Ideas
12. Spending
13. EFT
14. Extra

Some of these take about 1 or 2 pages, but it’s really helpful to have a list you can follow. Now, these are the sections I need to sort my life out, you may not need to manifest or a monthly planner, but hey, that’s your call, really think about the things you need to have written, if you don’t need it, you mustn’t have it, the key to really make this work, is make it as personal as possible, so it can become a real tool for your life.

Decide the order in which these are going to go; for me it would go right the way you have it listed up here. Now, I am offering you a few things I made and edited for this, these are, Monthly planners, Personal information sheet and two calendars, if you find them useful, you can print them and use them, they fit a bit small for a Moleskine. I printed mine and right after my monthly planners, I started ruling my Moleskine to cover a week every 2 pages, like this:

Every day has 7 lines and the last small two are for saturday and sunday, do this for 27 weeks and then get ready to stamp your dates, or write them by hand if that’s you call. If you’re using a dater stamp, be sure you set 2011!

After you have half-year stamped, then use the rest of the space to personalize your areas, separate the amount of pages you will use for each section with a clip and then start labeling them with the filing tabs either on top or on the side, (NOTE: If you’re labeling them on top, be sure not to invade the elastic area!), and you’re good to go! You’re ready to fill the rest with your own information, I like to keep a flagging pen with my planner, in case there’s something I need to highlight.

This is pretty much how my planner works. I hope you found this useful kitties, excuse the lack of a good camera, but I didn’t want to end the year without sharing this.

Love,

 

What are you planning for 2011?

Resolutions, goals, plans, call them whatever you want, we all have them; you may hate the term ‘resolutions’ when it comes this time of the year, but truth is, we all are always planning, working, and hoping for something. Whether you keep yours as yearly resolutions or not (I do this, but actually divide most of my goals in six months plans), tell me, what is your list?

Mine is divided in two groups, Static and Ongoing. I consider the Ongoing to be the most important, it is constantly evolving and it goes pretty much like this:

• Eat more fruits – I am a terribly picky  eater, and I’m not really used to incorporate them into my diet. I’m not very tolerant of all of them, but I’ll try to eat them more. Even eating one everyday is a lot more than I do right now.
• Cut on my Candy addiction – I wrote about this on The 88 days project. Sadly I gotta say, this is one of the hardest goals for me to achieve, I have such a sweet tooth. Still, I’m not a quitter (even though this very goal involves quitting on something :P) and I will double my efforts for this
• Drink more water – I used to drink about 2 – 3 liters of water a day, but nowadays I barely drink any. I need to get that habit back.
• End my year with at least 3 important clients – Since I set my business, I’ve been procrastinating a bit on my networking, but I’m working on it already, I am working with 3 good clients right now, one of them a corporation that hired me in the past for a short project, and is willing to hire me again for a year-long project. I’m happy.
• Improve my web skills – During 2011 I’ll take a special course on this.
• Keep my life organized – I hate to admit it, but I’m one of those people who really needs to write a list of steps and plans of action to keep my life in place. This week I’ll be showing you guys how I’m planning to organize my Moleskine for this.
• Save money! – This goes hand in hand with cutting on my candy addiction, since most of my money goes on this. I’ll create a budget and I’ll stick to it. I already have a savings account.
• Try to finish one of my careers – If things go as I’m planning, this year will be my last year in school as an ‘under-pressure-student’ (meaning, my mom will finally get a title to brag about) don’t take me wrong, I love what I do, but I just want to get over with it. 😀
• Learn a new language – Portuguese to be precise. I already understand it a bit (since it’s so similar to spanish) but I want to be able to speak it, and since I was able to teach myself English, I try to do it to with Portuguese, We’ll see. 😀
• Keep the love in my life – As you guys know I’m in a relationship of over a year right now, I love this man more than I can possibly express, that’s why, I’m planning on a major relationship review soon, just to make sure everything is good and dandy. 😀
• Work out more!! – I’ve been postponing this for so long, and I need to really get my hands on it now.

On the other side, Static list involves things I just want to do and then be over with.

• Go to the dentist.
• Get out of debt.
• Buy a new camera.
• Clean my house and throw everything I no longer remember having.
• Get into as many classes as possible.
• Invest.

As you can see, in general, I think I need to pay more attention to my health, and work on school, everything else, will just come along.

To keep myself motivated and remember the things I want to do, I’ll copy this list on my Moleskine and also, my new journal and I’ll practice major manifesting (That Gala Darling podcast is seriously one of my favorites, I’ve heard it over a hundred times and it always serves a great inspiration) and EFT (One of the cool things about EFT is that you don’t have to believe in it, for it to work, so you guys should try it).

So, tell me, What are your plans?