Serving Others - Sips For Renewal

The only ones among you who will be truly happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve. - Albert Schweitzer

Interesting quote for tearoom owners and staff. In A Spot For Tea employee manual we have under waitress, job description: You basically keep the guests happy, when they aren't happy, you listen to why, and make them happy. Even when you have had a bad day. Nobody should know it. You can't take it out on the guests. Waitressing is hard, it's demanding, it's a daily struggle. I think it's a mind set. You really have to like dealing with people. You have to believe that "serving others" is NOT a demeaning thing to do. You must realize that you are often the first line of contact that a customer sees, and he or she will base their entire opinion of the tearoom on YOU!

Think about how you have been treated at the places you liked the most, and at the places you liked the least. I'll bet that in both cases, you will come up with a name, a face or a memory of how you were treated by that "front of the house" staff member.

We ask that you uphold the traditions of A Spot For Tea and apply serving from the heart in all that you do for our guest. We are here to build great memories.

Tea Cup Chandelier

In the Queen's Room over one of our tables hangs our tea cup chandelier

Tea Cup Chandelier

Find a tag sale chandelier in good electrical working order that has arms spaced wide enough to accommodate the saucers placed under the cups. You will need teacup/saucer for each light. They don't have to match. Our chandelier has all different teacups. Use a diamond-tipped drill bit to make holes large enough to accommodate a light socket. Support each piece in a bucket of sand for support as you drill; Place the drilled saucer face up over the socket and secure with epoxy or super strength adhesive. Next, slip on the cup and glue in place. Let dry. Use candle flame style light bulbs for a romantic glow. I bought shades for each light. It adds a special touch when you are having tea.

Happy Thanksgiving 2009

Candace, Zachary, Brock, Benjamin and Blake

At A Spot For Tea we have reason to count our blessings. Many of you remember the heart story of Zachary . He is doing wonderful, playing basketball and looking great. Candace (who worked for us this summer as hostess) is his sister and now attending OSU. They came to have lunch with us and we are thankful for their visit. Our boys got to spend some time with Zachary since the kids are on holiday.

A Spot For Tea will be closed on Thanksgiving Day to allow our employees to have time with their families.

Giving Thanks

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.

- Melody Beattie

Tea Cup Pincushion

How many of us have a chipped or cracked teacup that means something to us or is pretty except for that chip and we don't want to throw it away? Here's a fun project.

Materials Needed:

tea cup and saucer (chipped or cracked or perfect)

Material of your choice, steel wool #0000 (very fine) 1 pad will make 3 or 4 pinchusions depending on size

Fiberfill or scraps of quilt batting

Hot glue gun and glue sticks

needle and thread

Trims of your choice (ribbon roses, thin ribbon, gathered lace, string beads, etc.)

Measure the diameter of the top of your tea cup and triple it. You may use a material that will best suit your cup and taste. Any material will do.

If you have the matching saucer, first glue cup to the saucer, this will make the cup more steady as you use it.

Do a gathering stitch about 1/4 of an inch to 3/8 of an inch from edge. Tear some steel wool from pad and make a flattened circle a little larger than the top of the cup. Lay it in the center of your material circle. As you start to pull up the edge to gather it, fill with fiberfill or quilt batting. fill firmly. Finish gathering until it is closed and tie off. Glue into cup with gathered side down in the cup and you have a nice rounded top on cup.

Now trim with gathered lace, ribbons, string beads, ribbon roses, etc. Have fun and be creative.

The reason we put steel wool at the top is to keep your pins sharp and clean. Pins will go in pincushion and bobbins that we will be using can sit on the saucer in easy reach.

We're On The Cover

Exciting News

Set for January 2010 release from Harvest House Publishers, Mini Teatimes cover will feature A Spot for Tea's portrait that Susan Rios painted of our tearoom. The book will have a wonderful collection of original reflections, inspiring quotes, and delicious recipes selected from some of artist Susan Rios' favorite teahouses including A Spot For Tea. We couldn't wait to share the exciting new with our customers.

Mini Teatimes will retail for $9.99 in hardcover (available in January).

Sips For Renewal

Oswald, My Utmost For His Highest Devotional - December 18th

It is only the loyal soul who believes that God engineers circumstances. We take such liberty with our circumstances, we do not believe God engineers them, although we say we do; we treat the things that happen as if they were engineered by men. To be faithful in every circumstance means that we have only one loyalty, and that is to our Lord. Suddenly God breaks up a particular set of circumstances, and the realization comes that we have been disloyal to Him by not recognizing that He had ordered them; we never saw what He was after, and that particular thing will never be repeated all the days of our life. The test of loyalty always comes just there. If we learn to worship God in the trying circumstances, He will alter them in two seconds when He chooses.

Loyalty to Jesus Christ is the thing that we stick at to-day. We will be loyal to work, to service, to anything, but do not ask us to be loyal to Jesus Christ. Many Christians are intensely impatient of talking about loyalty to Jesus.

The idea is not that we do work for God, but that we are so loyal to Him that He can do His work through us - I reckon on you for extreme service, with no complaining on your part and no explanation on Mine. God wants to use us as He used His own Son.

"And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God." Roman 8:28

Whats On Your Bookshelf?

My book shelf next to my reading chair.
From cookbooks to poetry..

The stack next to my reading chair. I have many more books and many more shelves; Christian books, tea books at the tearoom, favorite novels in one section, inspirational books, favorite authors, decorating books, lifestyle books, favorite magazines (Victoria, Southern Lady, Tea Time, Tea A Magazine). I love reading.

Favorite book quotes:

The contents of someone's
bookcase are part of his history,
like an ancestral portrait.
- Anatole Broyard

If you would tell me the heart
of a man, tell me not what he
reads but what he re-reads.
-Francois Mauriac

Birthdays & Babyshowers

Emma Lane - 6th Birthday

Saturday, November 14th - 11:00am

Emma and her mom Laura

Emma and her guests

Kenedy Wells - 5th Birthday
Saturday, November 14th - 1:30pm

Kenedy and her mom Amy

Kenedy and her guests

Della Synder getting ready to host a party in the Queen's Room

Angie Jones hosted a baby shower for Jennifer

November 14th - 2:00pm

Red Room

Guests at Jennifer's baby shower

Enjoying food and festivities

Baby shower for Jennifer

Erma Reeves - 90th birthday

November 14th, 2:00pm

Queen's Room

Guests at Erma's birthday party

Guests enjoying the party

more guests

Guests in hats.

This is how I feel about A Spot For Tea:

If we can just give God the little

that we have, we can trust

Him to make it go around.

- Gloria Gather

Visit from Susie

Our dear friend and customer Susie Burke was visiting from Illinois. Linda and Dolores were also celebrating Dolores' retirement. Congratulations! Its always such a treat to have Susie come to A Spot For Tea. She always brightens my day with her kind words, support and prayers. Its good to have friends that feel that A Spot For Tea is home. Dolores you don't how much that meant to me. You girls are wonderful. Susie we miss you!

It is an awesome, challenging thought: The Lord comes to us in our friends. What we do and are to them is an expression of what we are to Him. - Lloyd John Ogilvie

Sips For Renewal

Looking back you will see that every step was planned. Leave all to Me. Each stone in the mosaic fits into the perfect pattern, designed by the Master Artist.
It is all so wonderful!
But the colors are of Heaven's hues, so that your eyes could not bear to gaze on the whole, until you are beyond the veil.
So, stone by stone, you see, and trust the pattern to the Designer.
- God Calling Devotional, November 11

"When thou goest, thy steps shall not be straitened; and when thou runnest, thou shalt not stumble." Proverbs 4:12

Friend Night at Thunder game

Ben brought his friend Ben

Blake brought his friend Hayden

Brock brought his friend Braxton

Count up the boys....yes, six boys.


Brock and Braxton with a Thunder cheerleader (you got to love those grins).

Irma Warr & friends

Irma Warr (pink top), Debby Myers, Janie Allen (black & white top) and Braylon Warr(Irma's granddaughter)

One of my favorite customers is Irma Warr. After earning a degree in religious education from Minnesota's Northwestern College, Irma worked at Minnetonka Community Church with Tim LaHaye, and later served on staff with The Navigators. After moving to Oklahoma City, she married Gene Warr in 1964 and began traveling extensively on an international scale, speaking at conferences on the husband-wife relationship. Irma's ministry with wives focuses on discipleship and instruction for being the kind of wife and mother that Scripture commands.

Irma and her husband Gene helped establish Warr Acres the community that the tearoom resides in. Gene went to be with the Lord a few years ago and Irma continues to provide mentoring to women in our community. It is always a delight to see her and her many friends and family she brings to the tearoom.

Sips For Renewal

"We are not cisterns made for hoarding; we are channels made for giving."
- Bill Graham

Rose Cottage November 6 & 7

Caroline Shelton

November 6th, 4:30pm

Brooke Schutrum

November 7th, 11:00am

Emily Labeth

November 7th, 1:30pm