Three weeks without caffeine

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Coasters. 'Nuff said.

Because I lived in Britain, I love tea. Because I love tea, I use coasters. Because I sew, I make coasters. Because I keep my scraps handy (meaning because I don't put things away and they clump on surface areas) I fashion coasters. Because coasters are easy to put together when scraps are plentiful, I design a LOT OF COASTERS. And because I wrote a chapter this morning without a lot of sturm und drang, I had time to pin together random beautiful fabrics and Bob's your uncle: Here's a pile of mug rugs waiting to be turned into sweet little quilt sandwiches.

And yeah, twenty-one days without caffeine. Talk about ba-da-bing, ba-da-boom Bob's my uncle! Dude, yeah, no regular tea. Or coffee. But the sense of wanting something that'll pack a punch lingers. I forced my withdrawals onto my protagonist, lol. Poor chap is aching for something strong, while I wonder if removing caffeine has made any difference to my tinnitus or blood pressure. I'll keep up this caffeine-free regimen for the rest of the month. If there's no great improvement, a cup of Yorkshire Gold is all MINE.

Meanwhile I have a horde of autumnal coasters whispering in my slightly ringing ears: Quilt me! No, quilt me! No, I'm the prettiest, you hafta quilt ME! Calm down, I tell them. I'll make sandwiches after this post, but before I quilt any of you lot, there are six placemats ahead of you in the queue. The placemats harrumph loudly, scowling at their smaller brethren. While the smallest of the mug rugs clears its tiny throat, asking to be finished with the few dabs of fabric leftover.

Oh my goodness, I announce, all of you just CHILL OUT! It's not even technically fall here in America, although I think in Britain autumn began on 1 September. Or it used to, and it should here as well if only because now the sun, when it does shine in Humboldt County, is sloping hard to the southeast. Yesterday it was warm, but the rays were angled so that I wanted some hot apple cider and a Fat Rascal and some dark chocolate-covered tea biscuits to go with all that soothing British goodness. Not sure why I'm in such a pine-for-Yorkshire mood, other than I am DYING FOR A REGULAR CUP OF ENGLISH TEA. Ahem.

Okay, not dying, well, that's debatable. Yorkshire Decaf is the closest decaf tea I have tried to the real deal, and believe me, I've tasted a LOT OF decaf teas, about like how many coasters I've sewn over the years. I'm not going to count those screaming behind me on my work table; I might just put all of them in the seasonal fabric that's not Christmas tote. Hah! You wanna be turned into a quilt sandwich? Well then pipe down and behave!

But, sigh, they're so small and cute. Pretty. Darn. Adorable. Pretty darn in need of bindings, which is the biggest detriment to me just spending the rest of this afternoon and not doing my dishes or reading this morning's chapter or picking blackberries but just sit and sew and sew and so forth. Okay, well, I do have binding material already cut into strips, but those strips aren't attached and it's nearly two p.m. and my dishes aren't gonna wash themselves, although I am about done here, and reading that chapter won't take long and, and, and....

OMG! What I'd give to sit with honest tea and biscuits and a Fat Rascal, but hey, I'm in California not Yorkshire and I've given up caffeine before (and survived quite nicely) and maybe for Christmas we'll order some British Christmas cake (although one can really only get Fat Rascals in Great Britain although maybe I could find a recipe and make some and....). Yeah, that's the plan.

Um, Future Me says, what's your plan?

She said she's gonna do this, that, and the other, Past Me replies.

Oh, Future Me nods.

Yup, Past Me smirks. That's the long and short of this Friday in the middle of September, 2023....

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