Something you may not know...

Something you may not know about me is that I LOVE dishes! I haven't always loved dishes, but ever since we bought our own home, I've found myself looking for MORE dishes. I think they are an awesome thing to grow an attachment to and to possibly pass down to your children someday (if they're still in style). I do have a favorite set of dishes. They are my Paris themed ones. I've had them for about 9 years. For a majority of those 9 years they were in boxes in my bedroom. Before I tell you that story, here are some pictures of them. Go ahead, fall in love with them. I did at first sight.

The whole set.

Cup and saucer.Bowl.Bread plate.Dinner plate.

I just love the street scenes. So, funny thing about these dishes. The first time I ever saw them was at the TJ Maxx in Ft. Union. Although TJ Maxx was only selling the dinner plates and bread plates, I still wanted them. I had no idea at the time there was this beautiful set out there. But, they didn't have 8 of each. I HAD to have 8 of each. I always buy dishes to accomodate 8 because you never know how big your family will grow. So, reluctantly, I put them back. But I still thought of them often and said to myself "someday, someday they will be mine". Then one day, some friends and I went to a furniture store to look around. I forget why we were there, but that's not important. I believe it was fate that brought me to that store that day. There I saw them, just lying on a beautifully arranged dining room table in the middle of the store...MY DISHES! Even at a ripe young age of 17 I knew I had to have these dishes. I knew that someday they would grace the table in a dining room in a home of my very own. Unfortunately, the furniture store didn't sell the dishes...just the massively expensive table they were sitting on. So, I picked up a plate to see if the brand name would be on the bottom and it was (Mikasa) and then looked up the nearest store online as soon as I got home. I ended up driving to the outlets in Park City to buy my perfect dishes. Lucky for me they had exactly two sets of them left, so I got my set of 8. :) The Mikasa outlet is no longer there so don't go looking for it now. You probably won't find these dishes, either. I've tried. I handle them with the utmost care because I am terrified I will drop one and shatter it. I believe they are irreplaceable. And they are priceless to me. Howie knows to be careful with them. I told Howie when we bought our condo that I absolutely had to have a place to display my dishes. They had waited years to be taken out of those boxes and I wanted to do them justice. They are now sitting in my beautiful china hutch. Every once in a while, for special occasions, we eat on them. They are simply perfect.