Late Nights and Sweet Tea

UGH....8:30pm softball games are going to be the death of me. Especially exciting, close 8:30pm softball games. We have not had a bunch of exciting games, but you better believe the ones that are exciting are the ones that are supposed to start at 8:30pm, but actually don't start until 9pm (or later since games never stay on time). We play with a 60 minute time limit, but unless one team run rules the other, we go the full time. Last night was a full 60 minute-er that got started at 9pm.  (you know it's ging to be a late night when you pull up to the field 25 minutes before your game and see 57 minutes left on the clock.  We got off to a rough start and had to come back from 4-0 after the top of the 1st.  We tied it up and FINALLY in the 4th inning we went up by 8, and we could relax a little.  By the time we were on our way home it was already 10:05pm.

I would love to say that we came right home and went to bed, but we were both still running on adrenaline from the game so we sat down to watch a little America's Got Talent.  That was mistake.  It was not a 1 hour show like I thought it was, but I didn't realize that until we were and hour and 30 minutes (minus the commercials) into it.  Plus they saved the underwater escape artist grandma and the sway pole handstand guy until the end and kept showing previews of them.  Let's just say that I may have made it to early Wednesday morning before my head hit the pillow.  Awesome, right?  This may call for an extra cup o' joe this morning.

Since the our game did not start until late I had plenty of time after work to pud around in the kitchen.  I had a recipe in mind that I wanted to try.......Southern Sweet Tea. Down here tea is served instead of water a lot of times.  I am the odd ball because I ask for water.  I don't drink the stuff.  It's kinda gross to me. If it were up to me (and it usually is) I would not worry about buying anything to drink.  I drink water and coffee (and the occasional bottle of wine, or 6pack of cider beer, or-you get the picture).  I am not a juice, milk, or tea drinker.  Eric usually goes along with it, but from time to time wants something different. He's been on a sweet tea (w/ Splenda) kick for a while now.  I finally got tired of spending nearly $4 on a gallon of tea each week, and decided to make some.  I mean it couldn't be THAT hard.

I know I could have called no less than 25 people for an easy recipe (but not my mom or grandma because they don't make it either!) , but I went with my trusty sidekick Pinterest. It didn't let me down!  I found a recipe pretty quick and got to work.  It's safe to say it took me a couple of tries to get it right.  I forgot to add the sugar to the hot water and did not account for the tea bags soaking up the hot water either. (apparently you are supposed to squeeze the water out of them before your throw them away....who knew?) After about 40 minutes I had my very first pitcher of tea!  It didn't make as much as I had hoped (or initially measured because of those pesky bags soaking up the water), but it was something.   Since I don't drink it and have no idea what good tea should taste like, I could not taste test it to see if it tasted right.  However I am happy to report that my taste tester approved when he got home and said it was actually pretty good--I think HE was surprised that I nailed it.

That is my "full" pitcher on the right.  It's not a large pitcher at all. 

There it is, my feeble attempt to be a proper southern wife or my attempt to save a few bucks a week, which ever you'd like to classify that under. =)