Afternoon And Evening Loveliness

So as I have probably mentioned many times, I work at a tea room. For someone who loves tea and all things tea related like me, this is a both a wonderful and dangerous job. The dangerous part is that I end up coming home with WAY too much stuff. But how can I resist when it is free! If something breaks like a tea cup, but the saucer is still good, or if something gets chipped, they cannot use it in the tea room anymore. It breaks my heart to see it get thrown out (to be fair a lot of it gets broken up to use for the broken china frames) so I have to adopt it!

I end up with all the little orphaned bits of china. I have about six or seven random saucers that do not have cups. Now there are a lot of things you can do with just saucers, two of my favorites being candle and jewelry holders, but recently I had an epiphany. I have all these white cups in the garage that are a similar shape to tea cups, but thicker and do not have saucers. I never used them because I always just used my beautiful tea cups. Once I realized I could pair them up with my lonely saucers, hallelujah!

So I have been using them a lot lately. Today I was feeling very bright so I had tea with a lot of pretty colored dishes.

My sandwiches were cucumber (one of the ladies at work has crazy amounts of cucumbers growing in her garden and I am reaping the rewards, huzzah!) and basil, mozzarella, and tomato (those are two different sandwiches) and my tea was Windsor Castle - black tea, toasty Darjeeling notes, Assam maltiness, lively Ceylon flavor.

I have been having some lovely evenings as well. It is funny because if I sit outside it is a summer evening, but if I sit inside with the a/c on I can get cozy and pretend that fall is on its way even though it is still super hot here and will be for quite a while. Here are both versions as well as some of the amazing clouds we have been having lately.

We even had a real proper storm tonight with rain that lasted more than five minutes, yay! Sigh, things have been lovely and happy of late.

Tidbits And Giveaway Stuff

Hello there! First I would like to say a couple things about the giveaway. I know it has already been almost two weeks, but I really want to go another week because I was hoping for a few more participants. Thank you bunches to those of you who have entered, you guys are the best! I would just love to get a few more people involved. So, I don't usually do this, but if you post about my Giveaway on your blog and then leave me a comment on the giveaway post to let me know, you will get an extra entry, yay!

Here are two things I recently got from the Chantilly gift boutique. We have a lot more than just tea! Also, I don't know if I mentioned this on the giveaway post, but we have a lot of items not tea related at all as well, so even if you don't like tea you should still enter!

A tea pot necklace,

and a tea cozy that was hand-knit by one of the ladies who works in the Chantilly kitchen. So cute, right?

Okay besides that I have been pretty busy with life and stuff, but here are a couple tidbits of my life.

It snowed! Well, there was only a tiny skiff on the tops of our cars at six in the morning, but there was still snow in the mountains when I got up for real.

Don't worry the weather is back to being warm again! And despite the brief cold my calla lily plant seems to like it here. It died all the way back when we first arrived and I thought it might be done for, but recently it has shot up like nobody's business!

It is at about two and a half feet right now! Silly plant.

And here are some Tucson sky shots.

Hope you have a lovely weekend. I am going to the local renaissance fair with Mister B on Saturday, and then will be having a picnic tea in the park with some friends on Sunday. Hopefully there will be lots of pictures from those things to share!

Corgis And Rainbows

Happy Tasha Tudor Day!

 
Tasha was a wonderful lady and I love many of the same things as her. Especially tea and corgis! Corgis are my favorite kind of dog and someday I will definitely own one.

So cute!

Anyway to celebrate I had a nice tea today (okay so I usually do that anyway) and looked at one of the books I have had forever.

This book was and still is very special to me since I have had it for so long. I am sure it is very special to a lot of people since it is a Tasha Tudor classic.

It was given to me for my birthday by the daughters of the lady whose daycare I went to. They were my friends, but older than me. It still has their notes in it!

I guess it was my third birthday.

So lovely.

Also, the weather did some special things today and I would like to think it was in honor of Tasha.

Did you do anything to celebrate Tasha Tudor Day? Are you curious to know more about her? Go here.

Lovely Day

I wasn't really going to post today because I thought nothing interesting would happen, but when I woke up I found this note on my computer.

Mister B left it there for me! He knows that one of the first places I go when I get up (after watering the plants on the patio) is to check my email, and perhaps check certain of my favoritest blogs for updates? Yes indeed I have to admit I am slightly blog addicted. 

I was so excited, so I quickly ran to the refridgerator to see what yummy thing could be there. I spotted it right away....

My wonderful mister had stopped on his way home at 7 in the morning (he has been working the night shift) just to get me a special brunch to go with my tea since he knew we didn't have much in the house. What a guy! And boy does he ever know me well, cheese, salami, watermelon, and a delicious smoothie all awaited me.

So tea time it was!

All that was needed? A few lovely magazines to read.

If you look closely you can see a Bookman's sticker on the magazine. I got all these magazines from Bookman's for just a few dollars. If you have never been there and have one nearby I highly recommend it. You can get used (but good condition) magazines for way less than the retail price, and they often even have the most current issues! Oh and of course wonderful amounts of books too.

Oh the whole thing made me so happy I needed to share. Thank you mister!

I was also excited about the day because I wore a dress that I got a while ago at a used clothing store, but have barely worn. I forgot how adorable it is. And the best part is....it has pockets! I just love dresses and skirts with pockets don't you? It is one of my favorite things.

The last amazing thing about today is there were/are CRAZY thunderstorms. I mean we get a lot of thunderstorms here since it is monsoon season, but this one was HUGE, with torrential rain and so much lightning and thunder. So awesome. Did I mention thunderstorms are one of my favorite things? I think I probably did several times. Anyway they started this afternoon and I can still hear loud claps of thunder as I am writing this. There was even a lightning strike on the mountains behind where we live and it started a fire! The rain put it out thank goodness, but it was pretty crazy. I don't have a picture of today's storm, but here is an enlarged and cropped version of a lightning picture I have posted before.

Not too shabby if I do say so myself.

Hope your day was as lovely as mine!