When Mark and I were planning our wedding, we were young. Twenty and twenty-two, to be exact. At that point in my life, I’d never eaten a single meal off china, so when it came time to register for dishes, I was confident we’d never need china. (Yes, I was quite wise at that young age, wasn’t I? *sigh*)
Who needs fancy plates anyway? Good grief, we’re not Kennedys or something. My parents never had china, so we would certainly be just fine without it. Besides, our friends were the same age as us, either working first jobs or still in college. It’s not like they could afford place settings in our favorite china pattern!
Of course, it’s 15 years down the road now and I see things differently. Today my mom has a beautiful set of china, and when I found out that Mark’s dad got rid of his mom’s china after she passed away, I might have actually shed a tear. It turns out fancy plates would be kind of nice.
I have to wonder: If I had china, would I use it?
Honestly, I don’t even know where I’d put it. I have too many [regular, not-fancy] plates as it is. And just last night, I was lamenting my lack of space in our small house. So it’s not like I have an empty china cabinet waiting for it. (But, for the record, if I did it would be full of books. Obviously.)
But more importantly, I wonder if I’m the kind of person to put away beautiful plates and mugs and saucers, never using them. On one hand, we have the porcelain doll collection of my childhood. I mean, dolls that are created (and purchased) for the express purpose of NOT BEING PLAYED WITH don’t necessarily teach a person to use the fancy china for lunch on Thursday. But in my defense, I didn’t buy those dolls for myself. (And they were pretty.)
So on the other hand, we have my dining room table – a lovely, expensive table that belonged to Mark’s mom and is currently marred by glitter glue, white-out, and a handful of other random scratches and scars. We’ve had it for approximately 18 months, so that wear and tear sounds about right, right?
Perhaps even more telling, though, is my use of perfume.
When I was in college, I found the best perfume. It smelled good in the store and on my wrist. It was perfect. (And it was, like, SO MUCH better than Exclamation or CK One!) It was sold only at Bath & Body Works – until the day it wasn’t. One week I was looking at an amazing sale – $5 a bottle! – and debating whether to buy a bunch of bottles, and the next I was wishing with every fiber of my needs-fragrance body that I’d bought an extra bottle. Because it had been discontinued.
Sad story, right? I KNOW! And it took me YEARS to find another scent I liked. I’ll spare you that story (for now…), but the point is I found one and I love it. So when my cousin bought me a set of lotion, body spray and perfume in my new favorite fragrance, I was super excited.
So excited that, at first, I barely used it.
Fortunately, I got over that pretty quickly. Now I wear it on a regular basis, sometimes even layering it up to smell REALLLLL good.
But most frequently, I spray a little bit in the vicinity of my neck right before bed.
Why do I do that? Not because I’m trying to impress my husband; he works nights. Not because I’m trying to make myself forget how long it’s been since I washed my sheets; don’t be gross. Nope. I put on that perfume because it smells good, and I like it. It makes me happy.
With that in mind, I think it’s quite possible I would use the fancy china I don’t have, if I had it. At least, I hope I would.
Wearing my favorite perfume whenever I want just because it makes me happy works for me!
Today is another Works for Me Wednesday. I was blown away by all the great tips you all linked up last week! I hope you’ll link up again – and stay a while, too! But first, PLEASE read the guidelines I shared in last week’s post. Highlights include linking your specific post, not the front page of your blog, and making sure to include a link back to this site in your WFMW. Thank you!!
{Photo by Jenn Durfey on Flickr’s Creative Commons}
Love!
i didn’t get china when we were married. I got Faltzgraf. The ‘Juniper’ collection. =)
Also, I spray perfume on me every night before bed. It works for me ;)
We smell so good at night. ;)
I agree… Wear the perfume! But if it makes you feel any better, we married young and didn’t register for china either but have since inherited both my mother-in-laws and my mother’s china. TWO sets… I tried to use it occasionally years ago but mostly we have moved it from house to house and stored it. We keep thinking since we have two daughters we should keep both sets so they can each have one… Six heavy, carefully packed boxes full of dishes that haven’t seen the light of day in over a decade. :/
We have some boxes like that. Not from moving, but from trying to! Both times we’ve listed our house we’ve decluttered and packed away a bunch of stuff that’s not totally necessary. Even though we took the house off the market months ago, with the addition of a baby (and all her STUFF), I didn’t want to get out everything we’ve stored. But every once in a while, I really miss something that is in a box or in my father-in-law’s shed.
Yes! I also have struggled to let myself use the “nice” things, ever. You will like this piece my friend wrote years ago about running out of a special massage oil that she got during a special time in her life:
http://chite.livejournal.com/556751.html
Oh Mary you do make me laugh and I so get it! I do wish we lived closer as we would sip tea out of the fancy tea cups I inherited and pretend we are all that! What a great post. It gave me a great smile to start the day. Sorry I don’t have a linky thing to share but some day I will start my own blog. =)
Be Well,
Lina
I hope if you start a blog someday, Lina, you’ll let me know! Until then, I so love seeing your name pop up in the comments!! :)
I got china when I got married thinking I was all fancy. It is the beautiful and classic Lenox Eternal Gold pattern. However, in the last 20 years of marriage I have learned that we are just not fancy. I have used my china a handful of times. My brightly colored Fiestaware that I got a couple of years back to replace the chipping and broken everyday plates that I had used pretty much exclusively for 18 years makes me happy. I guess you could say the Fiestaware is my perfume.
I love Fiestaware, Janet! And you know what? I think you have a great point – it’s what brings YOU joy, not what others deem important (or joyful)!
I could have written your first several paragraphs… I did not grow up with the ‘finer’ things either, like china. I had an awesome upbringing, and we always had enough food, and my mom sewed my awesome outfits, but china wasn’t on our table. Now, many years and moons later, I have china! My husband purchased a whole beautiful set, complete with sugar and creamer, and everything it could come with. That was several years ago…and we haven’t used it yet… One thing being it’s absolutely beautiful with gold edging and a black pattern around the inner edge, but, it needs to be hand-washed! With kids still at home at the time, I just didn’t want to break any pieces or have to spend a lot of time washing it all at the end of a nice meal. And now we have grandkids over a lot (and two live with us with our daughter, downstairs in our ‘big-enough’ house). And you know how grandkids and china do not go together… Funny thing, just last week my husband glanced up into the glass-doored cabinets and remarked how he had forgotten we ever had china. Me too… I actually have an everyday Corelle that we use and I bought some beautiful ‘made in Italy’ flowered set (from those grocery promotions) which I tend to use as the ‘nice’ set on holidays. But ‘one of these days’ I am going to break down and use that china for a holiday dinner for all of us! Because I can’t take it with me, and at 63 it’s time to use it! :) My girl friend of many years once said to me as she gave me some beautiful soaps, that looked to pretty to use…”use it, that’s what it’s for.” I’m going to take her advice once again!
Thanks for the ‘reminder’ Mary!
Just to make you feel better, perfume definitely goes bad quickly, so it’s probably just as well that you didn’t buy up all that stuff on sale. Ask me how I know. :) Thanks for hosting a great party!
Love this, friend! And I totally want to know what scent it was that got discontinued =)
It was Heartland in the Gingham Collection. It smelled good on me. *sigh*
Also, it was a lot less embarrassing to tell people than my current scent (Very Sexy by Victoria’s Secret). :)