We've had the Elders and a friend over for dinner every week for 3 or 4 weeks now. My hostessing ideals, goals, and realities have changed over the years. I realized this as I served up taco salad Wednesday night. I've always enjoyed pooring over home decor magazines like Home and Garden, House Beautiful, Pottery Barn, an occasional Martha Stewart Magazine, and Ballard Designs. I have the perfect decor for my home in my head. The colors are picked out, the furniture, the pictures on the wall, the plants, rugs, lighting, hardware, towels, bed linens, and fabric for pillows and curtains. I can see myself entertaining guests in my perfectly planned and coordinating home. Plates, intricate matching serving platters, glasses, silverware- design would flow from the kitchen through the dining area, into the living room, and on up the stairs. My home would ooze class and grace. All in blissful, peaceful, harmony.
However... I served my taco salad from plastic rubbermaid. The dinnerware was a mesh of plastic teal and blue Pampered Chef picnic plates along with McDonald's sports plates and one ancient ceramic plate with a hunter green ring around the edge. (I believe this plate was originally part of Mike's first Bachelor set circa de 1996) The silver ware, a hash of 4 different sets and a plastic airplane spoon purchased at one of the Smithsonian museums in Washington D.C. in 2002. (At least the Elders didn't have to use that one) For drinking cups, I opted to pull out the plastic Pizza Hut cups since that was the only cup consisting of a matched set. (Mike gets one while he works every weekend) Our table is a hand-me-down. We have two green chairs, two white chairs, a cloth covered antique cherry chair, and a pine straight back mission style chair for seating around our kitchen table.
We don't actually ooze class, but my cup definately runneth over with what really matters. We have regular giggly fits amongst the oh-so-wonderful little boy dinnertime conversations I have to regulary redirect. I walk into our home and I feel a kind of peace that speaks. It may not be a peace that comes from tailored, meticulous design and organization- although I still seek the peace organization brings. It may not be a quiet peace. It's a busy peace. A noisy serenity. Full of living. Our house is definately lived in. And while I still dream of beautifying my home and creating... I can appreciate how my surroundings speak now of our life. Our full life. The plasticware says we have little ones who need non breakable dinnerware. It says we are not necessarily tangibly wealthy. We are humble. The little toys in every corner speak of energetic little ones at play. Everything from the dirty grill brush a little boy used to dig a hole in the back yard, to the unfinished entertainment center Mike designed, to the formerly muddy sneakers now laundered and drying in the sunny windowsills, to the movies a mobile baby girl scattered over the living room floor... tell our story.
So, welcome all. Welcome to our home and our story. It may not come through graceful beauty. But it does come. And what comes is beautiful.
3 comments:
That's so sweet! Love you!(very eloquently written too, I might add)
You are the perfect you. I love you and your family just as you are and I am so glad you aren't the "classy" people of your day dreams. You really write very well. You should consider it for a a side job to the one that matters the most of being an absolutely wonderful mommy.
I do not recall at all what kind of plate I ate from as a child -- but I do have fond memories of my mom's taco salad! Beautifully written:) I decided that my new decorating style that I have recently embraced is called "early childhood exploration". The title sounds a little fancier than the muddy footprints on the carpet it incorporates;)
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