WATCHING THE BIRDS for "Friends Sharing Tea"

Like many of you, I enjoy feeding the birds and watching them come and go to the bird feeder.  Some of you will remember my absolute surprise and shock when a really big bird landed on my bird feeder last September.  It was an owl.  I have never seen one again.

I would love to see that again but I'm not holding my breath.  I am enjoying a "Watch The Birds" tea time this morning and I have a little tea vignette set up with my Blue Birds Teapot.

  So grab a tea cup and pour yourself a cup of hot tea.  Do you take cream or sugar or both? 

I took these photos this morning - winter brown is here right now!

My hubby and I enjoy teasing each other about having a bird feeder as we declare we are now like all the "old people" we used to make fun of who feed the birds:

I love the little topper below that I recently found for just a few dollars.  It has an appliqued padded blue teapot on each of the 4 corners.  I have folded under one side to fit the buffet.

Hope your week is peachy:

PLAYING WITH ROSES

I ran in the market for some things for dinner and spotted the reduced floral section with some roses:

Sometimes it is fun to play 

with a camera.

We know that spring won't be here

for quite a while in Colorado so today

I decided to brighten the kitchen 

with some roses.

KEEPING COZY WHILE READING "A FINE ROMANCE"

I don't know about you but with all this snow I would love nothing better than a big stack of cookbooks, magazines, etc and lots of time on my hands to pursue and waste away hours and hours dreaming through the pages.  Actually this just isn't my life. I don't have a lot of time to relax.

  After hearing about a book others have read I had to find one. (I had sold her cookbooks in my shop for years.)   I am referring to Susan Branch's book and the fact that I just picked my ordered copy up last evening: "A Fine Romance". Today is "Friends Sharing Tea" so I want to share this book too. You would love it and wintertime is the perfect time for a good read. 

  Not every room in my house is full of teapots,  Our den is actually the one more masculine room.  I have a new teacup and saucer and it is English Elizabethan.  The colors are yellow and blue with lots of gold.

A leather sofa separates the kitchen from the den. My tea cabinet is armed and ready there as I do my reading.   

I have not been to England but doesn't everyone have a right to dream of going there? I know many of you have been there.  Susan takes us there in this book and journals each day with her artwork.  

A CHICKEN POT PIE KIND OF A DAY

Today it snowed all day long!  It was lovely and since I was home for some sewing I decided to make Chicken Pot Pie.  Now that's comfort food.

I looked at a number of recipes and settled on this recipe from the A Taste of Home website.  I also made a Spinach Salad which was a nice accompaniment with the pie.

Instead of using the recommended store bought pie crust - I made mine from scratch.  Well actually - I made 2 so I had to double the crisco pie dough recipe.  As I was making the filling I thought "this is a lot of filling" and then I realized this recipe made 2 chicken pot pies so I have one in the freezer too!

GETTING THROUGH THE WINTER WITH PINK TOILE

January is almost over and dealing with the winter blahs.  I have this same problem every year.  Time to "deal with it"!  I decided to make a new tablecloth out of pink toile.  I also set my table with what I call my Jane Austen Tea Set and a vintage Arthur Woods teapot with roses on it.

Our fabric stores don't seem to have much toile but I do see it was available on line.  It can be rather expensive for some reason (?)  I think it looks french!  If you buy fabric 56" wide you can just narrow hem the edge and it takes less than 3 yards.