Finding Direction: The Wind Vane Chronicles

There comes a time in life, and I've arrived there, when "saving" good things - the best, whatever it is - for "company" seems to be a loss of the lovely for each and every day.   The one we're living now.

I did not come to this realization on my own.  

As with most of the important discoveries of my life over the past 29 years, the number of years I've known Tom, he was the one who led me to this place in my thinking that I am now in.  Savoring each moment for itself, not letting it pass by in a rush to find something better.

In doing that, we have started using our "good" dishes every day.  

By good dishes, I do not mean fine china, for I never had much of that to begin with and what few pieces I had I gave away to someone younger a long time ago to cherish more than I ever did.  I'm not exactly a fine china kind of girl.

But, I do have a beautiful set of ceramic dishes - service for 12 - with a good many extra pieces that I have had since I was very young.  I've had the dishes for 45 years!

When our house in Slidell flooded from excessive rain back in 1995, we had to re-do practically everything and one thing we had to do was totally tear out and renovate the kitchen.  When we did so, we put in one upper cabinet with a glass front to show off the dishes, which had long been packed away.  That was the beginning.

Tom began to use the bowls every morning for his cereal.  We used them other times, too, but not just real often.  We still rather saved them.

When we built our new house here last year we again decided to have a cabinet with glass doors in which to put our good dishes.  It is a highlight in our kitchen.  And, now, we've started using them.  Rather, Tom since has, while I tended to still use the plain white "everyday" dishes I'd bought a long time ago cheaply at good ol' Wal-Mart.

But I got to thinking about it and all of a sudden wondered why on earth we weren't using our beautiful things all the time.  What exactly were we saving them for?  Who loves and cares about them more than me?  When will the day come when they will be anything more than some treasure on display, but not to be touched.  Or used.

So, now we're using our beautiful dishes every day.  I love them and even decorated my kitchen around them.  I want them to shine, and they do.

 I have to admit that it has been a long time in coming to this place where we are using lovely things like we are.  I wish now I had come to this thinking much sooner because life is as ephemeral as fog. We have but the moment we are now in.  We must cherish each moment and savor its sweetness, because all too soon it will be forever gone.

 If you have good dishes, get them out and enjoy them.  Or else give them to someone who will.  That is what I have been doing over the past five or six years of my life.  Giving most of my possessions away.  What remain, we use.  Our lives are much simpler now and that is good.

I hope you enjoy the pictures I've shared with you today.  If you'll come over to visit, we'll share a meal with you and enjoy our lovely things together. 

Hope to see you soon!  In the meantime . . .

Cheers & Blessings to you all today!  Dee

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