I don't quite remember when I fell in love with tea but I do remember the most special moments of me drinking tea. I was eighteen years old and I went to live with my biological mother for four months. I had just met her months earlier and it was awkward for both of us. She and her ex-husband lived a very quiet life in Boulder, Colorado. He was a professor at one of the universities and she was a housewife. After years of drug addiction and being in and out of jail, she deserved the break. I was homeless so she and her husband agreed to let me come live with them. Each evening my mother and I would find a spot in the living room with a cup of tea and a book.

Now, years later, I'm a self proclaimed tea expert. I start each day with a wonderful English Breakfast tea to get me going. As the day progresses, who knows what wonderful tea I will crown queen. But for sure, I have at least three cups of tea a day. And yes, when I can, I have tea everyday at about 3:00 P. M. I love to invite my friends over for tea and cupcakes and so far everyone thinks it’s a delightful experience. I am always in search of the best blend of tea. Yes, I’m a tea snob, I prefer loose tea but I do like some bags also. I have learned not to judge a book by it’s cover. Some bags can be quite nice. And yes again, any Diva knows, what you drink your tea out of is very important.

Tea for me is a way of life. It's wellness for the mind body and spirit. Here, I will explore every expect of tea possible, with a high concentration on wellness. I will review the best teas, the best places to have tea, the best ways to brew tea, the best tea accessories, what tea goes best with what foods, and the list goes on and on. I plan to share my passion for tea with you. And I've been told, nothing I do is ever boring so be prepared to go on this tea journey with me.





RLT Collection Tea Ball Frosted Clear Beads!

Mint Medley by The Persimmon Tree Tea Company

About This Tea:

Until recently I had never drank Peppermint Tea made with loose leaves. And Honestly, I will probably never go back. The freshness of loose Peppermint Tea cannot be denied. When I open the can of Mint Medley, From The Persimmon Tree Tea Company, I feel as if I stepped into a garden of peppermint leaves. It is a perfect blend of organic peppermint and spearmint leaves grown in the US.

Mint Medley has become a favorite and I find myself reaching for this tea tin almost everyday. It is great for on-going nausea. The health benefits and endless. It relieves muscle aches, headaches, migraines, stress. And now that it feels like someone is sitting on my chest and I have a mean cough, I'm sure it will help to relieve some of this congestion in my chest. Mint Medley has been in my tea cup more than any tea as of late. It has really helped with my winter cough, congestion related to this bout of pneumonia. You can read my full review on The Persimmon Tree Tea Company Mint Teas.


RLT Collection AIDS Awareness Tea Ball!




Welcome to my world of books! As an pre-teen books changed my world. I fell in love with the writers of the Harlem Renaissance period and the more I read the more I wanted to read. The fiction of this period was powerful and empowering all at the same time. It spoke to my own degradation and gave me hope for a better tomorrow. It gave me purpose for my own life and the courage to fight the good fight and never surrender.

I love to read! Inside a book I escape into someone else's life. There is something wonderful about turning to the next page of a wonderful story. Something intoxicating about the smell of the book and the story it brings to life. Reading brings me joy, and these days with my health in the balance, I find solace in my books.

I spent hours in my bedroom sequestered with the door closed reading the classics from the Harlem Renaissance, Hughes, Larsen, Hurston, Wright and Baldwin. Books became my escape and my salvation. The fiction of this period was powerful and empowering all at the same time. It gave me purpose for my own life and the courage to fight the good fight and never surrender.

Reading is the one thing that the pain of my life could never take away from me. It was the thing that helped to make it better. And even today, living with AIDS, books continue to be the safest place for me. It’s the one thing that belongs to me that AIDS cannot take away from me.The RLTReads book club will be books that I choose. It’s me sharing a part of me with you that has nothing to do with AIDS. It’s actually in spite of AIDS.

The RLTReads book club will be books that I choose. It’s me sharing a part of me with you that has nothing to do with AIDS. It’s actually in spite of AIDS. I have read hundreds of books from many different genres and I will pick the best of my reads over the years. I warn you, it will not be exclusively white or black, male or female, fiction or non fiction, it will be all of them.

I’m so excited and I’m grateful to everyone who wants to be a part of this venture. We already have 110 Book Club Members. You can email me @ RLTReads@raelewisthornton.com. The Twitter hashtag is #RLTReads. We can make this book club as wonderful as we want to make it. Who says that Oprah has to have the only ownership to a wonderful book club?

This Month We are Reading In My Fathers House by E Lynn Harris


Read along and join our discussion July 19th at 7 pm CST







For more Tea with Rae "Vlogs" Click here to visit her youtube channel

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Live By The Golden Rule! Treat People How You Want To Be Treated!


It's common for women to go along to get along because no one wants to be along. I will admit that over the years I have tolerated some shit so that I wouldn't rock the boat.

It's like this, men have a way of flipping the script and making you seem crazy cause you called them on their shit. For many many years I would allow stuff just to keep him and the peace. Men are quick to throw in your face your crazy, your drama and that becomes the issue. Then you find yourself defending you, and not addressing the real issue.

As I've grown to understand my worth and apply that worth to my life, I tend to be less tolerable of some things that leave an uneasy feeling within me. Now in full disclosure, I'm human and my first impulse is to KEEP THAT MAN! I said in my blog last week that I needed to work on me in some areas. While I don't always like how I react, and how that then manifest itself to the other person, it doesn't negate how that person made me feel.

As time passes, reality sits in and it hits you, fowl is fowl no matter how you slice or dice it. What makes fowl even fowler is when a man sees no wrong in his behavior, just the wrong in your reaction to his behavior.

I live by the golden rule, to treat people how you want to be treated! I speak and I expect to be spoken back to, bottom line. Like I knew it was time for my ex-husband to go when he would come into the house and fix him a plate of dinner that I had prepared without mumbling a word to me.

He traveled on the road with me back in the day and somedays he would stand in the back, with his arms folded in a Donna Karen suit, money from my gigs had purchased and hadn't said more than two words to me that day. It was ugly, but I knew that I had to let him go and face the fall out; and I did it and never looked back.

Respect is respect 24 hours a day. It's like this,  If I text someone 3 times in one day with no response, and then text them the next day and finally get a short and dry response 3 hours later, that's some rude shit.

First off, it was rude that it took 14 hours for them to respond from the first of 4 texts, especially with someone that you are building some kind of realtionship with.

It's a total disregard of the person. Actions at that moment says either you are not important to me, or what I am doing is more important and cannot share the same space with you.

Let me take it a step further, a person doesn't respond for two reasons in my opinion, bottom line. 1) They are ignoring you  or 2) They are so emotionally engaged somewhere else, that they are emotionally disengaged from the person that is reaching out to them.

Now let me be clear, this does not mean necessarily that the person is out their fucking. Nor does it mean malice intent. i.e. they didn't sat out to hurt you, they just did. If this has never happened in the past, bullshit ain't nothing, it's clear that the person has disconnected from you for whatever reasons they thought valid, and it is what it is.

The extra bothersome part for me is when people don't take ownership and make you the bad guy. Now in truth, whether a relationship makes it or not, treating people with the same respect that they have treated you and with the respect that you deserve to be treated should be the golden rule.

Truth be told, because you've behaved in a certain way in the past, does not make it right. It's bothersome when a man says to you, what I did to you was a small thing, I've done worst, so get over it. Like how does one proudly say that they disregarded someone's feeling that they cared about  as some band of honor?

It would be great if men could have more self examination rather than incrimination. Wouldn't it be great for a man to say, I made her feel less then, what can I do to change it, to make the relationship better, rather than seeing her feelings as a red flag to stop movement in the relationship?

I've always been such an honorable person that I don't know how to handle lack there of. I treat people how I want to be treated and if I don't, I take ownership and use that moment to be a better me for me and for them.

What I do know for sure, no matter how much I like a man, I have standards and I expect any man in my life to want the best for me, no matter how young or old the relationship may be, whether its day 2 or day 2002.

 I said in my blog When Women Don't Listen To Menat the end of the day, you can't make someone love you or want you or want more with you. No matter how much you bond. No matter how good the chemistry is in bed or out of bed for that matter. No matter how much you like him. But whatever barriers a person have that prevents them from taking a risk with you, should not alter your worth.

The same is true, when a man is half-in/ half-out emotionally. The question for you then is how long will you wait, or what will you tolerate as he journey's through his emotions?

My golden rule of self-love, well ummm, when I'm through blogging and the lights are off, how and what I feel about me will determine what I do next.

I never really know what I will do when, I'm not that premeditated. I'm also learning patience in my old age LOL ... But what I do know for sure, I don't spend a lot of nights not liking me for accepting less then what I deserve.
blog comments powered by Disqus
 
Clicky Web Analytics