Thus ended my prejudice against that warm, brownish thing they call tea

This yummy cup of awesome was my salvation last week when I wasn't feeling well. Chest congestion is the only thing that can ever induce me to drink hot tea. Until now. Now I will drink it for soul congestion as well. For Mondays and Wednesdays and the cold, dark days of January. Any time the bills outweigh the booty or I hear too much about the economy - bring on the tea.  Now that I've discovered its powers.

You know I wasn't feeling well last week, and my mother one day recommended hot tea, as any proper mother should. I remembered a sense of cozy warmth the last time my chest had hurt like this, so I was for it. I boiled water in a plain old soup pot. I had a variety of tea bags around - a gift from Mom at Christmas I think? - and chose spicy chai. Then I dipped the water from the plain old pot using a plain old ladle, but I poured it over the tea bag into this beautiful pink-budded cup on its matching saucer. And that, I'm pretty sure, created the magic.

My Australian friend sent me this tea set, because we always said we wished we could have tea together. It came up because of our mutual love for Anne of Green Gables and the fact that in Australia, they actually have tea. (Jake and I call it snack). She sent it, I'm pretty sure, during the cancer year so it holds the added intention of, "If there was anything I could do to ease your pain, I'd do it - and here is a wonderfully sweet tea set for starters."

The combination of that wonderfully spicy-chaied warmth and the feeling that Bec was actually reaching across the ocean to pat my weary soul (plus the added aspect of having obeyed my mother, which rarely fails me) - all worked together to soothe every corner of my being. I had no idea a cup of tea could pack so much miracle power in it, but I'll never forget it again.