I wanted to extend a welcome to anyone who’s finding me through OhSheGlows! I really appreciate that Angela was nice enough to feature my apple bars with cinnamon “cream cheese” on her blog yesterday as part of her new Recipe Link Love series.

I thought it would be a good idea to share some facts about myself since so many of you are visiting my blog for the first time, and if you’re a veteran, well hopefully there’s something in here that’ll be news to you too!

This quiz has been showing up on a lot of blogs lately and I was wanting to fill it out anyway. Perfect timing!

A. Age: Just turned 27.

B. Bed size: Queen, and I sleep on the edge!

C. Chore you dislike: Least favorite chore is scrubbing tile grout. I think tile is beautiful, but grout is porous and gross and hard to clean which makes me never want tile. I do make my own household cleaners though, with vodka!

D. Dogs: None. We have two chocolate brown Burmese cats, Lucas and Liam, who are both completely neurotic.

E. Essential start to your day: I wake up immediately hungry and can’t think of doing anything else before I’ve had my brefkast. Yes, I say brefkast all the time, I don’t know why.

F. Favorite color: At the risk of sounding goth….gray, and black. Purple is definitely next though.

G. Gold or silver: I only wear silver metals, but if someone wants to gift me an entire set of intricate gold Indian jewelry, I’ll rock it for sure!

H. Height: Almost 5’2”. I am the teenies.

I. Instruments you play(ed): Played the clarinet in middle school, I don’t really have a knack for playing music.

J. Job title: After 6+ years in marketing research I am now simply a blogger. I started this blog to figure out what type of food-related career I wanted to move into. I feel like I know what I want now but it’s gonna take a lot of work to get there.

K. Kids: None yet. Not sure when.

L. Live: In Decatur GA. Love it here but I’d really love to live overseas for a few years, maybe in Singapore or somewhere else in Asia/Oceania.

M. Mom’s name: Karen.

N. Nicknames: Thymebombe (long story, I’ll blog it sometime.) And my dad will occasionally call me Al. I WON’T respond to Lanie.

O. Overnight hospital stays: Never.

P. Pet peeves: I can’t stand people who stop about ten car-lengths back at stop lights then spend the entire time at the light inching closer and closer to the car ahead of them. It’s maddening! Good lord, if you’re gonna pull all the way up anyway just DO IT so I don’t have to give myself whiplash .

Q. Quote from a movie: I don’t really watch that many movies, I can’t think of one.

R. Righty or lefty: Righty

S. Siblings: One younger sister, Danielle.

T. Time you wake up: 8:30 most days.

U. Underwear: Ummm…I have a lot of booty so I have to wear full coverage undies, I like em to be as small as possible while still covering though. Hate thongs, I’ve tried and tried and I can’t like them.

V. Vegetables you don’t like: I’m trying to think of a vegetable that I hate and can’t think of one. Some I don’t care for though are eggplant, endive, collards, snow peas, cucumbers, and raw tomatoes by themselves (as opposed to in a salad.)

W. What makes you run late: I don’t even need a reason, I’m just often late. I procrastinate too much.

X. X-rays you’ve had: Teeth. My neck and spine because I have scoliosis. I think that’s it, I’ve never broken a bone.

Y. Yummy food you make: I’m taking the bait, ALL my food is good! I cook asian food most nights of the week because I’m very familiar with those ingredients and because that’s what I like to eat! I do make Japanese food most often because I find it easy to prepare and highly nutritious.

Z. Zoo animal favorites: Zoos, for the record, are gross and cruel. But I do like tapirs, capybaras, wombats, capuchin monkeys, and flamboyant tropical birds.

That was a fun one! For even more fun facts, check out my 10 things post.

You’ll find a lot of interesting stuff on Thyme Bombe that you won’t find on other healthy living blogs. Anything from how to understand what motivates you to how to season a Yixing clay teapot. Hope you stick around!

March 1, 2011 Alayna Discussion 6 comments

So, I said yesterday that I’ve made a new goal for this year to try to discover and indulge some of my passions more. This didn’t just come into my head over breakfast though, it’s something that I’ve been struggling with for a very long time.

If you’ve read my 10 things post, you know that I was very much an “art kid” in high school and really for my whole life up until that point and then suddenly got really burned out with it and decided not to go to art school for college right as the year ended. But not only did I realize that I didn’t want art as a career anymore, I completely lost my passion for it. In the 9+ years since I graduated from high school I haven’t created a single piece of art for my own enjoyment. I’ve done pieces for family members and quick pieces to fill space on a wall in a bleak apartment, but nothing for myself or made purely out of my own passion.

So there’s that, but then there’s also another problem. I don’t know how to explain it without the risk of sounding like I just want to compliment myself and impress people, but I assure you that I’m not trying to be smug.

It’s this: Growing up, I was always one of the smartest people I knew. I won’t go into detail about what all made me feel that way, all I know is that I don’t feel that way so much anymore.

I haven’t felt truly intelligent in years, and I desperately I want to feel that way again. Not smugly though, I don’t need to feel smarter than others, I just want to feel like I have a breadth of knowledge that allows me to contribute to interesting conversations better, bring up new ideas, and command a bit of respect for my authority on some topics. I don’t think I should be ashamed for wanting to feel like I know things again.

This year I’m going to try to discover new interests and indulge old ones to a greater degree in an effort to learn as much as I can. That’s why Jeff and I are getting more into tea, we are both trying to become damn near experts on our teas of choice and on tea in general. I have many, many other projects I’m going to work on this year as well to help me learn more and be more creative and I’ll talk about those things as they come up.

So, I declare this year to be about self-improvement for me. I hope that I can come out of it feeling like a more well-rounded, confident, and interesting person. I hope that I can use the knowledge that I gain this year to affect real change in my life. I want to learn about things I’m interested in as well as things I find totally uninteresting, but important. I want to create art again. I want to try new things. I want to use my brain.

What about you? What part of yourself needs to be indulged more?

January 23, 2011 Alayna Discussion 3 comments

Ugh. This year is starting off a little wonky.

We’ve paid nearly $600 towards gas bills in the last two months. That is not ok.

We’ve been being careful with the thermostat, but it doesn’t really matter, this apartment is just really old and poorly insulated.

You can see the giant crack between the door and the frame, our front door has this too. We’ll be making a trip to a hardware store today to get some insulation tape for this but I know that’s not the whole problem.

We moved here because we wanted to pay really low rent for a year thinking that we were saving up to buy a home this summer. Now though, even though we’re saving at a nice rate, we’ve decided to put off buying for a year or two longer for various other reasons. So now, though our rent is low our utilities are making up the difference. It sucks because this apartment is really crappy but we were ok to deal with it with the promise of saving money, but with these high utilities it just feels like we’re living in this crap place for no reason.

I’m definitely feeling the stress, and I can tell Jeff is too. We really hate this place and can’t wait to move in June.

On the flip side, the location is ideal. It has been wonderful to live within walking distance of a cool part of town. I’m going to try to focus on that instead of the bad……and maybe start packing us up in March.

Sorry for the rant, it’s been a trying week with being stuck in the house so much and dealing with several other minor problems at the same time.

Rant back: What is something you love and something you hate about the place you are living now?

January 15, 2011 Alayna Discussion 1 comment