I've been a bit distracted lately. For the most part, this isn't a terrible thing. I have long standing habits of putting everything important into my PDA, and it remembers for me. This leaves my brain free to focus on what I am doing, instead of trying to keep up with constant random reminders. But lately it has had some unfortunate consequences.

See, I drink tea. Often. I have a marvelous kettle which I received as a wedding shower present, from my husband's grandmother (no, it's not actually an old kettle, she bought it off my registry). I managed to completely ruin it this week, by putting water on to boil for some tea, sitting down at my computer and completely forgetting about it. My husband and I both sat there thinking, wow, is someone grilling this late at night? what's that odd smell... hmm.. it's not going away...Until finally something clicked, he went running into the kitchen, turned the burner off, fought the kettle off the burner and confirmed my fear. It had cracks through the inside and outside coatings, completely unsuitable for use. Fortunately it seems like the burner survived unscathed (we have a smooth ceramic glass type stove, which I'm not very familiar with. If I don't know how to break something, I'm usually cautious with it.)

So. One kettle down. I switch to a reliable saucepan for my water boiling needs. Within three days I pulled the same stunt! I was a little faster on the "hmm what's that smell" part of the scenario, but the same result: one very overheated saucepan. In this case the ending might not be so dire, it's a solid metal saucepan, no coatings of any kind to have been damaged. So this one might be salvagable with some Barkeeper's and steel wool.

But still. I'm very upset at myself over this. This is the level of distraction where more serious accidents can happen. So I'm making a commitment to start my yoga program up again. I need to do a better job of keeping my head clear.

And as for the tea, my friend Spydie had the most brilliant suggestion - an electric kettle:



It hold more than enough for a full pot of tea (which is good actually, since one of my habits it to pour the leftover boiling water down my drains to help keep them clear). It's MUCH faster than the stovetop kettle. When you pick it up from the base, it's totally seperate and flat, no cords or prongs or anything, so it can travel to another room easily. It keeps the water warm through the insulated carafe. But here's the best parts - it automatically turns itself off when the water boils, and it refuses to turn on if it's empty. I won't promise that there's no way I can ruin this thing (I am awfully ingenious in my destructive powers sometimes) but it is much, much harder.

I'm going to develop the habit of refilling it when I've emptied it, which means tea is always a click away now.

Oh, and it looks all sci-fi in my morning kitchen.




For some reason that makes me almost as happy as the somehow musical "click" when it turns itself off.

I have this fetish for well designed tools - things that do a job so well that it becomes hard to imagine how to do it any better. I think this will be one of those things. See, even in the process of making tea this morning, I wandered into the kitchen, pushed the button, put some dishes away and wandered back out of the kitchen. This led me to my computer, where I checked my email, opened up all my morning blog reading, and started sorting out my school work for the day. It occurred to me that I should make this blog post about the new kettle, so I grabbed my camera, shot some pics, uploaded them. Renamed, resized, rotated and resaved. Somewhere in the process I smiled to myself when I heard the click that tells me the water is ready. I said I'd go get it in just a second. Then I went to grab my phone, check for messages and update my to do list. A quick bathroom break and I'm back at my computer, reading. I was getting a little hungry, so I wandered back into the kitchen, put a bagel in the toaster, contemplated the frozen fruit possibilities for a smoothie, then looked over and saw the steam in the kettle lid. Oh yeah!! Tea! I get out the tea pot, the tea I wanted and checked to see if the water was still hot. Yes indeed it was. So I have tea, and no cooking vessels were harmed in the making of it.

I think this is the start of a long and happy relationship.