The bargain bin

As a serendipitous shopper, I keep my eyes and mind open to finding treasures everywhere. It's amazing to see what wonderful items are just waiting to be found. Today's treasure came from a big-name bookshop's bargain bin: "Decorating With Color Inside and Out, An Essential Sourcebook of Decorative Schemes" by Sally Walton and Richard Rosenfeld. Ripe, juicy colors all but drip from this book's large, lush photographs. Readers are taken on a journey of colors, each named and shown in luscious illustrations. Decorating ideas spill from every page. Some ideas are accompanied by step-by-step instructions, ideas for things such as painting techniques and window treatments.
I was ready to spring to my feet to begin working on these ideas although it was late at night when I read the book. Colors bold, colors delicate and colors in between are all here, and so are many tastes and modes of decorating. The most unusual thing I saw was a "playful" garden chair featuring strips of Astroturf on the seat and back with plastic daisies here and there.
Even those who simply appreciate beauty and who have no notions of decorating will linger over the pictures in this book. The writing style is sensible and straightforward. It relates the how-tos in a way that makes anything seem possible. Although the book was published in Britain, American language equivalents are given so that instructions are easy to follow.
Not only shall I use this book in future decorating plans, but it is also something I would want if I were in bed and too sick to follow a plot in a book. It's cheery and lovely as well as useful.

Tuesday is Teasday

Imagine walking into your favorite grocery store and finding a shopping trolley filled with teas and tisanes all marked at clearance prices. You would be as delighted as I was when this happened to me not long ago. Let me tell you about two of my purchases.
From Organic and Pure Tea comes a lovely white tea (Bai Mu Dan) mixed with lemon grass. As a hot tea this left me cold, so to speak, but when iced it is a most refreshing summer drink. Chilling this tea brings its delicate flavors to their peak. The lemon grass gave me deliciously cool shivers on a hot day.
Meanwhile, for tisane lovers I recommend Celestial Seasonings' Cranberry Apple Zinger. It has the pizzazz their Zinger flavors always pack, coupled with sweet, calm notes of apple. Cranberry Apple is up there with CS' Lemon Zinger as my favorite tisane to chill for summer.

But what do teas and tisanes have to do with those flowers at the top, you're wondering. Nothing at all. The flowers are Judy Garland roses, and I posted them in honor of what would have been Judy's eighty-sixth birthday today.