What Am I Drinking: My March Teas

Hi everyone,

I"ve noticed that my teas change every month. Mostly the weather affects it, or perhaps the way that I"m feeling. As of late I"ve been affected by the change of things, and the way that my schedule is being turned around. I"ve started to gravitate towards greens and herbals that calm my nerves, but at the same time give me a steady long last amount of energy. I love how teas seem to help for just about any situation and mood that life throws at you. Which is why I wanted to share what I"ve been putting in my cup nowadays.

Matcha Maker  from Good Earth Teas: Eugene and I got this tea on a sale at Sprouts looking for a nice easy packaged Matcha on the go. Where as this tea doesn"t really live up to it"s Matcha name (flavor wise, it"s lacking Matcha"s umai taste), we were pleasantly surprised by the flavor of this tea. It brews to a flavor similar to an orange cream with light Sencha notes. This is my go to during the mid of the day when I"m looking to snack. Because it"s so sweet, you"ll can take this tea alone for mid day treat.

Lemon Balm Herbal: Clean and simple with soft notes of mint, grass, and citrus. This has become a staple in tea collection. Not only does it taste great, it has amazing health benefits. This tea almost always cures those pesky headaches when the weather changes. It also gets me to relax in the evening during a stressful day. Every now and then, I add a few rosebuds and lemongrass to this tea added even more notes to it. Another thing that I love about this tea is that it works great iced or hot, so sometimes I brew a huge pot at the beginning of the day and save the cold leftovers to be iced through the afternoon and into the evening. Lately, I added my cold tea with some sliced cucumbers for a little bit of an herbal detox water.

Yuzu Berry Sencha from Chado Tea: Oh this blend, I had to throw in something that reminded me of my wedding (We got married on Ides of March since we"re both play and literary buffs). Our reception was at the Chado Tearoom in Little Tokyo, which we mainly chose because we wanted our wedding to be intimate and have the ability to share what we love. We had tea flights, introducing the notes on each. Yuzu Berry seemed to be one of the ones that I remember the most. It seemed to capture the simple beauty of the Japanese modern theme we had, mixed with the pop of citrus colors. When I go to Eugene"s adoptive in-laws for dinner, they bring this tea out and it just brings back so many good memories for me. This tea has the sharp umai taste of Sencha with mid notes of Yuzu and from what I can taste Strawberry and Raspberries. It comes off as beautifully aromatic when you brew it with a finishing sweet and tart note. This tea gives me so much slow building energy and doesn"t leave me wired. I love this tea with a salad! If you"re at Chado, try it with their berry salad. I prefer this tea hot, but it also taste good iced.

I hope that you enjoyed these selections. I look forward to sharing my selections with you monthly.
Cheers!

I Heart: Mile IQ App

Hi everyone,
This I Heart post is mainly for the freelancers out there. I just wanted to share about this app that I recently discovered that has been helping me in keeping track of my business mileage. I"ve seen the ads on You Tube, but I didn"t realize that it would have been so useful for a single humble contractor like myself.

Before the app, I"ve calculated mileage the old fashioned way, I would buy my mileage logs in the office supply stores. More than not, I would forget to write down the mileage for short trips and only write them down for my longer trips. I think this was one of the biggest mistakes that I used to make.

Since I"ve started to travel to different cities for my work, I"ve been more mindful of my mileage logging. It didn"t make it any easier to calculate these things, so I was more open to trying various apps. Out of the three that I"ve downloaded this is the one that has made the cut for these three reasons.

1. No more calculation: This was the major perk for me. I"m not the biggest fan of math. This app also brags that it makes an IRS friendly report of all the miles logged, which is a win for me! I also found myself doubting myself when it came down to travel, often doubting that I did drive that far with my commute. With the GPS attached to this app, there is no second guessing. The best part about it was finding out all the little drives were accumulating to about an extra $25/week I was missing out on, this has all been really adding up!

2. It"s all automatic: When your doing and thinking about so much for your little business, it"s so easy to forget to calculate your mileage when your minds going everywhere! I hate to admit it, but I love this app because it does all the thinking for me. It reminds me every couple of days to classify my drives as business or personal. I love that about this app.

3. It"s free: Well... technically, If you only see yourself logging in 40 drives a month than it is. Otherwise, unlimited is around $60/year. Good thing about this is you can consider this a business expense and write that off as well. I"ve barely hit my half way mark in drives and I"m well into the month. But I would definitely purchase this app if/when I find myself expanding and doing more traveling.

Give the app a try! Download it, and the way it works is so easy to learn. I"ve saved a little under $100 this month alone. I also feel more put together and aware of my expenses for my business, which in turn allows me to look at the areas to make myself more efficient. I hope that this advice helps some of you freelancers out there!