Fancy Schmancy I Am Not.

Fancy-Schmancy I am not. 

You can count on one hand the number of times a year we eat a meal sitting at the dining room table. We belly up to the island bar or sit in the leather theatre seats in front of the TV.  And we eat from Corelle, which is a step up from Chinette. I love Corelle. It's not heavy, it stacks neatly in the cupboard and the dishwasher, it's resistant to breakage and easily replaced if need be. But it ain't fancy. 

Over the years it was a running joke in our family, especially between my youngest sister and I, to lay claim to the things in our parent's home that we wanted to inherit. We'd often use masking tape and a marker to write our names on the bottom of things in the china cabinet.  

And it was all funny. Until we had no parents and it was actually time to inherit the stuff. 

Suddenly I wasn't so adamant that I needed the crystal pickle dish with celery etched into it. And great-grandma's full set of fancy dishes with 22k gold trim. And the ancient blue bowl. The crescent shaped candy dish... 

However, I did end up with the pickle dish and my siblings insisted I take home the rubbermaid container of 8 place settings of carefully wrapped gold trimmed china and matching glasses. 

I use the pickle dish regularly and the bin of fancy dishes has been in my garage for 2 1/2 years. 

With our current renovation nearing completion, I decided to bring the dishes out of hiding and put them on display. Just like my mother had them on display. I don't remember them being used in all the years they were in her possession. (I might have used them at my wedding 36 years ago - I can't quite recall.) 

It is a set of eight large plates, small plates, cups, saucers and bowls and a few serving pieces. And 24 glasses - 8 each of 3 different sizes. All pieces are there, with no chips or cracks and no fading of the gilded gold edges, so I suspect my grandmother didn't use them any more often than my mother did.  

As I unwrapped each piece the other day to put on the shelf, I realized the newspaper they were wrapped in was a March 2006 Kelowna paper. Those beautiful dishes have been sitting in the dark in a rubbermaid container for nearly 12 years. And for what? Seriously. 

What is the value of owning stuff that has no useful purpose? So that I can dust them twice a year until I get tired of it, and then wrap them and store them in a dark place until one of my children takes them home to dust and protect until it's time to pass them on to the next generation?

No, I decided. Life is too short to put the fancy stuff away until the elusive 'right occasion' comes up. I don't live a life of 'right occasions' and fancy celebrations. If I'm gonna dust those suckers off, I'm gonna eat off them.  And use a fancy, albeit paper, napkin. And I will light the fancy-smelling candle with my initial on it. 

Yes! Here's to living life! Not saving the good stuff until it's too late to use it. Crack open that $25 mini bottle of ice wine that in five years you haven't had 'the right' occasion to sip. Eat the red smarties first. Pick the bugles out of the nuts 'n bolts.  Wear your diamond earrings to the grocery store. Sleep under your mama's last quilt. You have one life. Live it. And leave your Christmas lights on until March if it makes you happy - who cares what the neighbours think, chances are they are jealous you live with such abandon. 

If I am going to amass and hoard fancy things, those fancy things can darn well enhance my life. 

Here's to grilled cheese sandwiches served on china! Let's hear it for mango-citrus candles just because it's Tuesday! Wearing diamonds in your ears somehow makes you feel like you can afford those 40-dollar-per-kilogram steaks that you would somehow justify even if you wore your sweats and slippers to the store. 

I have no idea the age nor the value of my heirloom china. But in my opinion, it's worthless if it's useless. 

Never having eaten off china in my Mama's home, I'm not schooled in appropriate layout of a place setting.  "Put it on the table and eat off of it" works in my world. 

Corn Chowder and grilled cheese never tasted so fancy. But that ain't no ordinary cheddar sammich. Layers of brie, apple slices and fig sauce take things up a notch.  

There's nothing more worth celebrating than people you love! Eating an ordinary lunch on an ordinary Tuesday.