Shall We Have Tea?

But of Course! My daughter is getting ready to go back to school and the summer is quickly coming to a close. She has a great part time job waiting for her in Flagstaff and she needs to get moved back there and get started on the next phase of her life.
Sigh....

Anywho!
To celebrate we had lunch at GOOSEBERRIES! It is a great Tea Room here in Phoenix.



Their Chicken and Fruit Salad is what we always have. But they have some specialties that have to be mentioned. Homemade soups, bread pudding, and cinnamon rolls... all to-die-for. Heart Shaped Scones, that are wonderful. You can actually order them frozen and serve them at your own tea party. Their dinner rolls are incredible as well.



I would recommend making reservations, but you don't have to. Sometimes they get pretty busy!



I would allow time for some browsing... There are plenty of tea accouterments, including their own private tea blend. Gift items galore and just that little something that you can't pass up!

I say, "Always make time for tea! If you don't who will?"

Sweet Bea!

Did anyone else notice that Google honored Beatrix Potter's birthday today? How cool is that, I ask you!

Joy in July!!!!

One day a couple of weeks ago my sweet mom called and said that she was going to be going through more of her things and "downsizing". This always makes me a little sad. She said that she would be getting rid of some old Christmas decorations and did I think that I would want them? Are you serious? Are kidding me?! I KNEW I WANTED THEM! I got the box Monday and opened it last night. It really was like Christmas in July. Number one, I LOVE Christmas more than any other time of the year. And two, I love any happy attachment to my childhood.
I was so thrilled when I opened the box and found these items. Just look!

These glass ornaments always hung on the tree. I remember at one point, when I was a teenager, I told my mom that I would only hang them on the back of the tree, because "they look so old!" Go figure, now I think they are just the most precious things. I think they are probably from my mom and dad's first Christmas.....

My mom made this the year my daughter was born. She was born in June and this was finished by Christmas!

I gave this ornament to my mom for Christmas the year my daughter was born.... You can click on any of the pictures to see the detail.

These pretty little angels always sat on the dinning room table at my Ma's house. Oh! P.S. Ma = Grandma on my Dad's side.

This little guy was always hanging around some where. Sometimes in a wreath and sometimes on the tree. Just singing away....

This was one of the bonus items that I found. This little precious sat on my Ma's dressing table. it amazes me that my mom kept when she passed away.

But the best thing in the box was this quilt. My mom even put a note with a story about this quilt. I'll share that in another post.... AHHH....All this talk makes me want a cold glass of egg nog!

"I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year."" -- Charles Dickens

My Favorite Thing.....Today

Cindy at My Romantic Home (click image above) had the best idea I've ever heard of in the whole entire blog-i-sphere! I have spent all day lurking on all of the different blogs that have participated. Now I think I will spend the evening going back and leaving comments.
So many lovely blogs, so little time!

I spent a lot of time trying to narrow my choice down and I think it has to be this vignette.
(You can click on any of my images to make them larger)

I'm picking this vignette because it has my blue and white dishes in it and my new cute lamp that I bought in Prescott AZ last weekend. I kind of have a weakness for cute little lamps and I love this one. Plus, it is a great souvenir of our weekend. The Blue Danube dishes I started collecting when my Grandmother willed a starter set to me. I have been collecting them since then. The company started making them in the mid 50's but the original company has been sold several times over. I think this is the only pattern they make. Anywho! I love them.
~~Liz~~

Are You Coming For Coffee?

I made a fresh pot just for you!


One of the great, simple things in life is the first cup of coffee in the morning! I love that coffee pots have timers now that you can preset so that you can wake up with wonderful aroma of coffee. I just can't imagine life without it. It is truly one of my great loves!

~~Liz~~

Ewey, Gooey, Wonderful, Chocolaty Brownies

I'm a pretty good baker of brownies. I'm not gonna lie. I would never use a mix! : )


But see, this is what I love about the blogging deal! I have found so many wonderful ideas and recipes. Two really great ones from the same Gal in Texas. The first recipe was The Boarding House Pound Cake. And it was so good that I thought I would try another one of Tina's recipes. This is her Brownie recipe. You can find it on her beautiful blog. Cherry Hill Cottage


As you can see this is not really for the faint of heart. I mean you really have to be jones'in for chocolate. But they are de-lish! Can you see that layer in the middle? I'm tell'in you what!
Awhh go on! You know you want one!
Make it a sweet day!
~~Liz~~

My Blog/ My Mag!

Okay.... I wish that I had thought to do this myself...but I didn't. Isn't it fun though? You can do one too. Go to Flickr.
~~Liz~~

What Kind of Roses Are These?

When I went to the grocery store the other day, they had a dozen roses for $9.99. I don't usually buy myself roses, but these were so pretty! The buds are huge and the petals are ruffled. I had never seen any like them before. I would love to have these in my back yard.

Have a great day and don't forget to stop and smell the roses!
~~Liz~~

07.25.08 NOTE: The name of the Rose, Esperanza. And there you have it. : )

Tina's Boardinghouse Pound Cake

It's our turn to take treats to bible study this Sunday. So I am going to try Tina's Boarding House Pound Cake recipe. I was looking through the Cherry Hill Cottage Blog and saw this recipe. It looked so yummy that I knew I had to try it. So Perfect for Sunday morning!

Boarding House Pound Cake

1- 8oz. pkg. cream cheese

1 1/2 cup butter- softened

1 tablespoon vanilla

6 eggs

3 cups sugar

3 cups cake flour

Cream the cream cheese and butter together, add the vanilla. While beating add 2 of the eggs, one cup of sugar, and one cup of the flour. Repeat until all of the eggs, sugar and flour are used. Spray a bundt pan or a 16 x 4 1/2" loaf pan w/ cooking spray.

Pour batter into it, without pre-heating the oven bake at 300 for 2 hours.

We’re off to Church! I hope you have a blessed Sunday and an awesome week!

~~Liz~~

I love Goodwill!

When I go into Goodwill looking for something specific, I never find it. But I do usually find something wonderful!



Look at these great plates that I found a couple of weeks ago. They were a $1.99 each. I thought that they might be ruined because they had rust and black marks. I brought them home and cleaned them up. I wish I would have taken a before picture. I think they look really nice in my office.



When I bought this one I couldn't think of where it would go. But I think it looks pretty here on the sideboard. It's perfectly shabby/cottage for $1.29. Don't you think?!

Pretty Vintage Type Fabric

I was in a local discount, discount, really discount fabric store locally and found this beautiful blue rose fabric. I wasn't going to buy it, but I just couldn't seem to get out of the store without it. My initial thought was that I would make a pretty table topper for a table scape. But then our new chairs came this week and I realized that the fabric would actually make beautiful pillows. The fabric matches perfectly. I will show you the chairs when I finish the pillows.



The best part is that the total cost for the pillows will be less than $20 bucks. The store actually sells their fabric by the pound. And the trim was only $1.99 a yard. I can't wait to work on them.

How we spent the 4th

I love the 4th of July! Unfortunately, being in AZ, it is the worst time of year for parades and summer entertaining. Unless of course you have a pool... which we do not. But I decided that we would make it special and honor the holiday ... indoors.

The plan was a nice dinner, then fireworks, then homemade ice cream and a patriotic movie.

Well, the dinner was just fine. Simple. Really simple! Fried Chicken, Green Salad and dinner rolls. I didn't focus on the food so much as making the gathering special. No one likes to eat a lot when it is so hot anyway. Like 340 degrees... just kidding only 113.


I made the table topper and just poked the flags in my regular, old, country, center piece. My blue and white dishes lend themselves very easily to a patriotic theme. I found some sparkling star glitter and wrapped that around the whole thing. Cute! Huh?







I'm sad to say that the local country club that usually provides our fireworks display didn't come through for us this year. So the only fireworks we got we VERY far away. But we had the home made ice cream (strawberry) and my cute little box mix confetti cupcakes. Not exactly an all American 4th. But, hey! We try! And Besides that, isn't really about honoring our country and the things we stand for. Thank you to all those who serve and sacrifice!

TA DAAAAA!!!!!

Yay! My Blog is here My Blog is here!
My sweet husband worked all morning with me (yes we ditched church) to get my page customized and " pretty-fide". Thanks Baby! He has a lot of talent and great ideas.
It took a lot of patience but I think we created a really pretty stop in the blog-i-sphere.

I'm a baby blogger and still learning... so we'll see what happens in the days, weeks, and
months to come.

Lit-n-Latte Complete Book List

 What have you read lately?

This is the complete list of books that we have read since September 2006 in  

The Girlfriend's Lit-n-Latte Bookclub
AKA
The Best Little Book Club Ever

• Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
• G Is for Gumshoe - Sue Grafton
• My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She's Sorry - Fredrik Backman
• The Woman In Cabin 10 - Ruth Ware
• All the Light We Can Not See - Anthony Doerr 
• Kabul Beauty School - Deborah Rodriquez 
• Traces of Guilt - Dee Henderson
• Mutant Message Down Under - Marlo Morgan
• Wedding Bees - Sarah-Kate Lynch
• Eighty Days - Matthew Goodman
• The Christmas Town - Donna Van Lier
• Alice In Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
• A Man Called Ove - Fredrik Backman
• The Source - James Michener
• This Road We Traveled - Jane Kirkpatrick
• Cold Sassy Tree - Olive Ann Burns
• Denial - Deborah Lipstadt
• Big Little Lies - Liane Moriarty 
• Hidden Figures - Margot Lee Shetterly
• My Name is Resolute - Nancy E. Turner
• The Hundred Gifts -Jennifer Scott
• The Lowland -Jhumpa Lahiri
• Sister Eve, Private Eye -Lynne Hinton
• Wuthering Heights -Emily Bronte
• The Harbinger -Jonathan Cahn
• The Goldfinch -Donna Tartt
• The Whistling Season -Ivan Doig
• Brooklyn -Colm Toibin
• Miracles from Heaven -Christy Wilson Beam
• The Princess Bride -William Goldman
• Mrs. Kennedy and Me -Clint Hill
• A Simple Christmas Wish
• The Storied Life of A.j. Fikry
• Death Comes to Pemberly
• Bittersweet - Thoughts on Grace, Change and Learning the Hard Way
• Unbroken
• The Vintage Tea Cup Club
• The Rosie Project
• Love Idol
• Tattoos on the Heart
• Voyage of the Heart
• The Fault In Our Stars
• The Christmas Memory
• American Jezebel
• Three
• Anne of Green Gables
• The Grapes of Wrath
• The Great Divorce
• The Language of Flowers
• The 19th Wife
• Dancing on Broken Glass
• Orphan Train
• The Best Christmas Pagent
• 1776
• The Book Thief 
• Pride and Prejudice
• Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet Spy
• The Glass Castle
• The Joy Luck Club
• Death by Darjeeling
• A Voice in the Wind
• Mrs. Mike
• Killing Lincoln
• The Gift of the Magi
• The Dressmaker
• The Devil In The White City
• A Year On Ladybug Farm
• Les Miserables
• Major Pettigrew's Last Stand
• One Thousand Gifts
• The 12th Imam
• Traveling Mercies
• The Great Gatsby
• Sarah's Key
• Snow Angel
• A Thousand Splendid Suns
• The Murder At The Vicarage
• The Help
• A Tale of Two Cities
• Rocket Boys
• The Space Between Us
• Water For Elephants
• Jane Eyre
• These Is My Words
• When Crickets Cry
• Left To Tell
• Murder On The Orient Express
• A Soft Place To Land
• Anna Karenina
• To Kill A Mockingbird
• Look Again
• The Soloist
• The Last Sin Eater
• Persuasion
• Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
• The Christmas List
• Animal Farm
• The Time Traveler's Wife
• Same Kind Of Different As Me
• Gone With The Wind
• Truck A Love Story
• The Death And Life Of Gabriel Phillips
• The Zookeeper's Wife
• Joshua
• Sense and Sensibility
• Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
• On Strike For Christmas
• Gift From The Sea
• My Sister's Keeper
• Three Cups of Tea
• Marley & Me
• The Shack
• A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
• The Last Jihad
• Susannah's Garden
• Playing For Pizza
• The Lovely Bones
• The Kite Runner
• Night
• The Secret Life of Bees
• Ferenhiet 451
• Redeeming Love
• All the Pretty Horses
• The Memory Keepers Daughter
• The Faith Club
• The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency
• The Christmas Hope
• True Believer
• Over Salad & Hot Bread