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.

A Friday Evening Alone

Although he doesn't work the night shift anymore, sometimes Mister B works in the evenings until pretty late so I spend a couple nights a week just by myself doing things I like. I think spending time alone is so important! For me it is anyway. Sometimes I like to just be all by my lonesome.

Tonight I had mozzarella, tomatoes, basil, olive oil, and bread for dinner, while also sipping a glass of wine and watching Bottle Shock (a really great movie, I definitely recommend it). Then I got a log going in the chiminea on the patio, lit some candles and relaxed. Even though it is January, here in Arizona it is warm enough right now to sit outside with a sweatshirt, blanket, and fire (and stripey leg-warmers of course!) So wonderful.

Then (as it was quite a bit later) I was slightly hungry again so I decided to roast some pita bread with olive oil over the fire. It seems that lately whenever I make something at home there is almost always extra virgin olive oil involved, I use it for everything! Anyway it was a grand idea until I realized that the log I am using is one of those store-bought things (still environmentally friendly, but certainly not wood) and it is making the pita taste funny...oh well, it was fun anyway!

Sitting outside with a fire and a glass of wine, listening to The Decemberists, and writing this to you lovely readers. I am certainly having a nice evening indeed, and I wish the you the same!

<3 Alia


ps. Upcoming: thrift finds that make me happy, and a giveaway. Yay!

pps. Maybe you have noticed, I certainly have, that many of my blog titles are "something AND something else." I started thinking about it because I didn't do it this time. I can't decide if I should fully commit to this and have it be like that every time, you know, like a THING. Or, if I should not try to force it, and just have it happens when it happens. What do you think?

*edit: A few minutes after I posted this, I heard a rustling sound. When I looked over the patio wall I was rewarded with an adorable group of javelinas snuffling by. I love nature!

Tea And Vintagey Goodness

First I wanted to share my tea from today because I got some new things, yay! All from the tea room I work at of course.

A cute chicken creamer.

Drip catchers for my teapot! So classy.

Scones from work and jam and Devon cream to put on them. (The chocolatey looking things are rum balls that I made.)

A certain lap monster knew she was going to get a treat.

Tea choice today was Monk's Blend: black tea with vanilla and grenadine flavor, yum.

Now on to the store Toni (see last post) works and sells stuff at. I think the photos speak for themselves.

So lovely right?! I could (and did) spend hours looking at everything. And the best part is usually really cute stores are super expensive, but everything there was so reasonably priced I could buy lots of things, and I am a poor student! So if you are ever in Redmond, Oregon, The Back Porch is definitely worth a visit.