If you have homeschooled very long you probably know who Cindy Rushton is.  I have kept up with her books and thoughts on homeschooling for a really long time…always found them to be helpful..Then she started branching out..and I began writing as well..and I could not keep up with her as well as I had before.

She has posted an exerpt from her book on her blog on how to get started with tea.  It is a cozy read and there are some great ideas as well as ecouragement for those of you that feel like you just don’t have the time or the stuff!

TEA-riffic Tips  is today’s MUST READ!

And once you get over to her blog..you are going to get lost..so be sure to have a cup of tea (or coffee) poured before you head over there.

Image:MaryeAudet

Post from: Kettle and Cup

I have been thinking about rituals alot lately..more so than in the early 90’s whenI first started reading Alexandra Stoddard’s books.

Rituals give us a sense of comfort, luxury, and  creativity in our lives…the way we set the table, the fifteen minutes we take for a cup of yunnan gold tea in the afternoon, nibbling on a shortbread cookie and gazing out the window, or catching a few lines in the book we are reading.

Ritual creates memories, as we serve out families the same recipe Christmas cookies that we grew up on, and feel quite sure that our children will serve them to their children.

The thing is that when we get busy the rituals are the first thing to be streamlined out of our lives.  We don’t notice it for awhile but pretty soon our days are empty and gray, devoid of the very things that fed and nurtured our hearts and spirits.

Life becomes pragmatic and practical, and very, very dry.

While rituals may seem to be luxury items, frou frou that we can do without, I am not so sure that we can, or are meant to.

Do you have rituals? Has busyness caused you to schedule them out of your life?

Thoughts?

Image:MaryeAudet

Post from: Kettle and Cup

Writing blogs takes a lot of research. You read, in a matter of moments, what it has often taken me days to put together. I read alot of news reports, websites, blogs, library books…you name it.

The other night I was infusing MYSELF in a hot bath with a LUSH bubble bar. I was lying there reading an old Alexandra Stoddard book from my personal library, Living a Beautiful Life.

It is the book that opened my eyes to the need for beauty and ritual in our lives. Not just to be doing something but because those things feed our spirits, and help us to remember who we are deep inside.

I have been going through a most difficult time. It has lasted far to long, and there is no end in sight. The little rituals that I made a habit of years ago are the things that glue my sanity together when it feels shattered. Having my coffee in a special cup..retreating to my hot bubble bath…spending a quiet time with my Bible….all of these things are habits that energize me in ways that I can’t explain.

One thing that I have stopped doing is sitting with a cup of tea and just looking out the window for ten minutes in the afternoon. I realized I miss that. It is something between a nap and a mental vacation!

I have a fireplace in my bedroom. It is a hologram one but it is a fireplace none-the-less. This afternoon I am going to ask my sons to carry a comfortable chair upstairs and put it by the fireplace. I am going to make a note to take a break everyday, with some tea and a cookie or muffin and I am going to sit there in quiet and just revive myself.

So, what is it that you do to revive yourself? What is the ritual that is the glue that holds you together? And if you don’t have one, what will you do in the future?
What part of confidante has that poor teapot played ever since the kindly
plant was introduced among us. Why myriads of women have cried over it, to
be sure! What sickbeds it has smoked by! What fevered lips have received
refreshment from it! Nature meant very kindly by women when she made the
tea plant; and with a little thought, what a series of pictures and groups
the fancy may conjure up and assemble round the the teapot and cup.
-William Makepeace Thakery

Post from: Kettle and Cup