Sunday Afternoon Tea

I am tempted this morning to serve strong coffee in the teapot as we all lost one hour of sleep overnight. Yawn...

For those who have commented about the china, this picture is of my china pattern (Royal Albert's Lilac Rose). I don't use it often as the guys prefer one of my less "girly" patterns. :)

I love to pull out one of the teacups in the evening, when I settle down for tea and a book...after all the gotta do's of the day are complete and nothing is needing my immediate attention (unless it is a kitty's nose peeking over the book, wanting to curl up for awhile).

I've been thinking recently of books and conversation. What brought the thoughts coming back to my mind was the realization of how much time we spend in our home talking about "something we've read". It may not always be about a book (although if I'm starting the conversation it probably is), it could be from today's newspaper or an online article. It startled me to think of how many spoken sentences begin with, "I've been reading...".

At my daughter's wedding reception, she talked about being raised in a home with a lot of books and dinner conversations. (When she was in elementary school and it was just the three of us, we ate dinner out a few times a week. Quite often, her dad and I would be talking and she'd have her nose in a book until the food came or if we lingered over coffee and dessert too long!) Fortunately, there were plenty of times when she joined in the conversation in restaurants and at home. I loved to listen in (with permission, of course) to conversations with her college friends as they talked about books and classes.

It's a little different with her brother since, as homeschoolers, we tend to talk all day long. Sometimes the conversation would come about by something stated on a TV show (especially a science or history program), which would bring about a search in the juvenile nonfiction section of the library later in the week. I'm afraid now he prefers to do Google searches, it just doesn't have the romantic sound of searching the library shelves. :)

I hope I never lose that quest for knowledge, that sense that there is "something else" out there just waiting to be discovered. Whether it is a fact about the world or science, or a new friend found between the pages of a fiction book, what would life be like without conversations begun with the statement, "I was just reading..."?