January is National Hot Tea Month

When someone told me that, I felt so happy.  We need more like this: national walking on the beach month, national picnic month (I think there is that, in Australia), national reading month, national sewing month, national letter-writing month, national fresh bouquet month, national gloves and hat and dress month....there would not be enough months in a year for all the lovely things to enjoy. 

Giving a nod to national tea month, I took some photos of my guest room...

...and a page from the first winter (1987-88) issue of Victoria, 

...the cover of which you see here.

As some of us have become more interested in using plaids, I thought you would be interested in a cape they featured in one of the articles:

Things have really changed for me over the years. When I got that first issue, I had children at home, and enjoyed them so much!  Now I have 10 grandchildren, and cannot seem to catch up with everything. I try to sew clothing for them, but get waylaid by various interruptions in life and never really get as much done as I want to!

I realize not everyone likes tea, but drinking anything out of a tea cup, even hot apple juice with cinnamon, or coffee, is so refined and slows you down, makes it a ceremony and makes time stand a little more still.  I like to put berries in a cup and pour hot water and add a touch of honey. That is "tea" to me, and I noticed on Pinterest there are a lot of people doing that and calling it tea. I saw a pretty cup with a fragrant peel of orange floating in it and thought how delightful it is to hold a cup of tea with a wonderful natural scent, whether it be a fresh mint leaf or some lemon.

Several ways to present hot tea: 

-Tea time delivered to someone, with service (by you or written instructions) included.

-Tea time, or whatever beverage they prefer, by mail. That is so exciting, to open a box with homemade treats, a cup, a napkin, spoon, a little book, and more.

-Tea for yourself if you are alone. Take a photo, or paint a little water color in your water color journal, write a description, or just savor the moments.

-Travel tea. This is something I've been trying to get right so that the process flows smoothly and efficiently during car travel and still looks nice and appealing.

-Yard promenade tea.  I love to put an tea pot outside on the old bench under the tree, make a cup with some of the herbs available in the season, and walk slowly around the yard looking at things.

-Guest Room tea.  If I deliberately take time, I can sneak into the guest room, feel like a guest and have tea and croissants, trying to get a feel of how my guest might experience it.

-Sewing room tea time. Would not that be interesting, to find a sewing themed teapot or tea cup just for the special tray in the sewing room.

-Laundry room tea.  I have not figured that out, yet. 

-Correspondence tea.  Sit down with a tray on a side table with just a little cup of mint tea and read your mail or get some mail ready to send.

-My daily list/schedule tea.  Although I don't like schedules, there is always that long reminder list to make, and there should be a special tea blend for that. 

It is useless to wait for something special to happen or for someone to declare a special day. At home, the dull world does not rule us, so, at home, there are no rules from the outside world, and we decide! So we can declare it to be be Happy Day, Quiet Day, Beauty Day, Singing Day, Spa Day, Swing Day, Ship Cruise Day, Train Travel Day, Art Day, Fix Things Day,Learn  Something Day, and whatever day you want.