Saturday, November 17, 2012

A Tale of Two. . .

Plates.

When I was engaged my future mother-in-law hosted a shower for me at her church.  It was a lovely day, meeting and visiting with the ladies of St. John's.  I received some lovely things, including my first Creative Memories Scrapbook and supplies.  (I've been hooked ever since.) One gift that was very practical and used every day was the one given by my future husband's mom.

It was a set of dishes.  Plates and bowls, cups and saucers, a full set she had acquired through the grocery store point system.  They were pretty, blue with flowers, and it was nice that we didn't have to think about purchasing dishes.

We have used those dishes for the last 19 years.  Pieces have broken until finally we were down to this one lonely plate.



No we didn't all share that one plate, we had bought others to use.

But I was always running short on plates, especially if company was here.  It seemed I never had enough and was scrounging for something to work.

Last summer this dilemma really reared its ugly head as we had a never ending stream of company.  I kept telling David I should really look for some more plates at the thrift store, but never did.

Until we decided to host the circuit pastors and their families for a summer cookout.  I realized that buying thrift store plates on half-off day would be cheaper than paper plates. Besides I don't really like to use paper plates or napkins.  Plus it would solve my problem of never having enough plates. So off to the thrift store the kids and I went.

One of the kids discovered one plate that looked liked our set from my mother-in-law.  They were thrilled and wanted me to buy it too.  So I did.


We can't believe how pretty this one is and how used our one remaining original looks.

I guess years of soap and silverware and wear and tear really do age things.

Now we have two plates in that set, one old and one new.  It's kind of neat to see the difference.  And also a bit frightening.




4 comments:

Susan said...

Glenda, do you usually use a dishwasher?

Glenda said...

Yes Susan I do. And that is probably why the plate wore so much worse.

But I don't want to start hand washing everything. I'll just live with it and replace with thrift store every 19 years or so. ;-)

Or are you offering to come wash my dishes? :-D

I have lard to render. . .

Susan said...

Bribes .... tsk tsk tsk.

I'm palming off my own dishes on people who live here. I keep thinking I should use the dishwasher more, but there's so much stuff stored in there that I'd have to move... LOL.

Glenda said...

If bribes work. . . hee hee

My mom has a dishwasher, but doesn't use it. Except as a clean dish strainer. She'll wash by hand and set them in the dishwasher to dry.