What to keep, what to sell . . .

 

When you spend your life collecting, sooner or later you're going to have to part with some things you've collected.

In our case, we're still getting rid of some things that had been boxed up and put in our storage building out back when we moved into this house in 1996.

Those things are still moving into our booth at Antiques on Howard, and sales continue to be good, despite the pandemic.  The store was closed for several weeks in March and April, but once they re-opened the tourists and famililes of Appalachian State University students were back and spending.  

I've only been in the store one time since March.

I went early in the day when they opened, masked, as was the owner.

I put out some new stock pretty quickly and left.

We mail our rent check and they mail us a check for sales along with a list of what sold.  The arrangement is a good one and it's always interesting to see what people bought.

When we were with Don's family over Christmas last year, they sent us home with boxes of stuff they no longer wanted; WONDERFUL stuff, including a lot of silver.  So, those boxes have been moved ahead of our own boxes.  

Now, we're certainly not entertaining like we once did.  But even back in those days of dinner parties, we weren't really "silver" people other than our flatwear which we do still use and still love.  It's not unusual for us to pull it out for pizza.

Our friend John gave us a place setting of our silver when we got married and said, "we use our good stuff every day.  You should too."

Well, we don't use it every day, but we use it pretty often.

I don't think newlyweds care a thing in the world about things like china and silver these days, do they?  Their gift registers seem to be more practical.

I like pretty things.

One of the things we've "over" collected is pretty dishes.

I've always loved setting a pretty table.

And while the dishes we have can attest to being well used and much appreciated, it might be time for some of them to find a new place to live.

We have fine china, every day china (is that still a "thing?"), nice dishes, expensive dishes, not so expensive dishes, inexpensive dishes, cheap dishes and bargain basement cheap dishes.  Old dishes.  Newer dishes.  Family dishes.  Pottery dishes.  Gifted dishes.  "Had to have" dishes.

<sigh>

So.

I've been thinking about these dishes.

This morning I did some baking.

Blueberry muffins.

Decided I wanted my muffin on a pretty plate.

And from there I got silly.

WHICH pretty plate?

And decided right then I'd take some "muffin on a pretty plate" pictures and post them to see if it would help me decide which dishes I want to keep and which I might decide to pack up to take to Antiques on Howard to sell.

These are "some" of the dishes - - -

And I had my muffin on this pretty dish.