Seven Quick Takes on Iced Tea, Books Finished, Sugar Free Whipped Cream, and MORE!

:: 1 ::

Is it hot enough for you yet? We’re triple digits right now, and the future looks pretty much the same. We’ve got an outdoor even on Wednesday, and right now the forecast for that day says 109! Good thing our bodies seem to be acclimating! Obviously this means that it’s officially ice tea season. For some of us, I know that starts in about March, but I didn’t get my iced tea pot out until last week because procrastination.

Today, I thought I’d share my herbal iced tea recipe that my children use. They make nettle tea most of the year, and that tastes pretty good cold as well, but sometimes they like a mixed blend. This can be made in an infuser pot, but honestly, I just use a quart jar or quart glass measuring cup with my stainless steel infuser.

This recipe makes one quart. Making it in the evening is best because it can chill in the fridge overnight and be ready in the morning.

Herbal Iced Tea Blend Recipe

Ingredients:
1.5 tsp shavegrass
1 tsp oatstraw
1 tsp stinging nettle
0.5 tsp lobelia

I actually use this recipe in my own iced tea as well. I make a 2-quart pitcher, so the first quart is my favorite oolong tea {I use five bags for a quart}. The second quart is the recipe above, which I pour in, stir, add ice, and then put in the fridge. I don’t like my children having lots of caffeine, which is why I have them stick to the herbal recipe alone.

:: 2 ::

Swimming lessons are over as of today. Everyone passed their levels, which impressed me because that means some people even learned the butterfly, a stroke I was never able to master. And while I won’t miss driving somewhere every day, I will miss sitting in the sun reading for so long every morning. My final list is in, and I’m quite please with it. Here are the books I finished:

:: 3 ::

This week’s links collection:

• Kids don’t know how to play on their own anymore. Here are four ways to change that from The Washington Post
  • They sort of missed the biggest thing: reduce or eliminate screen time.
• Why Handwriting Is Still Essential in the Keyboard Age from The New York Times
  • If you “have to see letters in ‘the mind’s eye’ in order to produce them on the page,” does that make writing a function of the imagination?
• The AAP Finally Admits Screen Time Isn’t The Enemy from Scary Mommy
  • If they had done a bunch of research and decided they were wrong — that the data didn’t show that children were harmed by screen exposure after all — that’d be one thing. But this whole get-with-the-times thing is so passé. {Get it?}

:: 4 ::

This month in 2014:

This post contains some of my favorite thoughts.

:: 5 ::

So AfterCast was a failed experiment again yesterday. Or, at least, it mostly was. My solution was to go ahead and record and then post it later, even though it wasn’t live, which wasn’t nearly as much fun because the live part is sort of the point of doing the whole Facebook Live thing, you know? Anyhow, I did go ahead and talk chores, and you can watch it here. I’m open to any ideas you all have on my technical problems, which includes, but is not limited to, in and out internet service for months on end. So far we’ve gotten a new modem, a new router, a new internet plan and and and.

I’m running out of ideas.

:: 6 ::

Since one recipe is never enough, I thought I’d share another. This one is super simple, and in honor of my littlest guy, who requires sugar-free foods. Poor baby. Anyhow, last night I whipped up {pun intended} some strawberries and cream, and I thought I’d share the whipped cream recipe, since I’ve yet to see a simple and easy sugar-free whipped cream recipe.

Xylitol Whipped Cream

Ingredients:
2.5 cups whipping cream
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup xylitol

Directions:

1. Using a coffee grinder, turn the xylitol granules into powder — you’re looking for the same texture as powdered sugar.
2. In a mixer, place whipping cream, vanilla, and powdered xylitol and mix on high until it becomes the texture of whipped cream.

Tastes great with strawberries!

:: 7 ::

Answering Your Questions:

• Question: Were the AO Conference talks recorded?
  • Answer: Yes, mostly. In fact, it is partly my fault that they aren’t available yet. My internet problems have been numerous and time consuming and frustrating and have also kept me from uploading everything so that we can further edit them. Some of them are uploaded; others are not. I feel weird asking people to pray for my internet problems, but seriously … we could use it.

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