Use Your Good Stuff: the china syndrome

Good design attracts us. We may not know why we like something, we rarely explore the why. We are simply attracted. We can hold an object, look at a wonderful building, appreciate a handsome pair of shoes. It just makes us feel good. We like that someone thought of it.

With that in mind, we owe it to ourselves to do our best to surround ourselves with things that attract us, things that make us feel good.

At a certain point in my adult life, I acquired a set of “everyday” dishes and a set of “good” china, everyday and good silverware, everyday and good glassware/crystal. Like most others in the same predicament, I saved the good stuff for special occasions like Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Not sure exactly when that changed. Maybe when I started using my Waterford crystal every time we had wine (ok, every night). Then I brought out the china and started using it for every meal. We either donated the everyday stuff to younger family members or to a local church. The good china is so lovely to look at and it definitely made the food taste better. Or maybe it was the wine. I hope it makes our guests feel a little more special too.



I also started acquiring various sets of china and glassware. In the city we use my mother’s Minton Japonica pattern as well as NK’s aunt’s china.

We use the silver plate flatware from my practice marriage because the knives from my grandmother’s silver feel weird. The silver plate isn’t holding up so well and I have a feeling it will get donated soon. Or perhaps Ebayed in exchange for some good sterling. Hmmm just checked on some patterns so that ain’t gonna happen anytime soon. This was my mother's pattern, someday I'll see about collecting it.




Out in the country, we have more fun. Am using my Minton Consort for breakfast, which NK discovered has gold around the rim after putting a plate in the microwave. Hee!



Robert Lee Morris’s Camelot; an incredible white plate with iconic gold crosses which we use for dinner and a fun new graffiti set that we use for lunch. No real reason to separate the patterns into specific meals, just making sure we use them all.






































Have also bought some random fun pieces like these:



These are fun for mixing it up. I hope to acquire some random Hermes plates at some point. Hee!