Out With The Old, In With the New

In April 2013, before our family moved back to the US, I came here for a short visit. While I was here, I rented a storage unit and started putting some things in it for when we would all get here a few months later - the bunk beds my stepdad had found for us on Craigslist, a mattress my brother gave us, that sort of thing. I also put in some lime green dishes I'd found at the Dollar Tree. I love that green color, and there the dishes were, a dollar each, in the Dollar Tree, so I bought a set of eight to get us started.

Those dishes have served us well, but I don't love them. They kind of make food look a little unappetizing. There are no matching side plates and the mugs don't stack.  However, they are functional, they serve a purpose, and so we've been eating on my Dollar Tree dishes for a year and a half.

I've dreamt of getting new dishes, imagining what I'd buy if I could start all over. I've longingly gazed at beautiful designs and fabulous colors in department stores and shopping centers but sighed and moved on. We have dishes. We don't need to buy new ones.

I've kind of become a little obsessed with yellow lately. (Haven't we all?) I keep seeing yellow things that I like and could imagine looking great in my kitchen - if I were to redecorate in yellow. But my house is decorated in duck egg blue, because that's the color the walls are painted in our rented home. I've added some lime green accessories that I love, but they don't really match the blue; they never have. But yellow would be so cute with the duck egg blue! I'm always thinking. And then I move on because I don't need to frivolously buy things in yellow when I already have what I need in whatever color it's already in. (Greyish green sofas that were a steal on an online yard sale, the hunter green and wood coffee- and end-tables we found in a flea market, the comfy olive green tweed rocking chair I picked up at a garage sale for next to nothing- along with my lime Dollar Tree dishes and to-die-for handcrafted green pottery that I adore, you'd think we had a thing for all shades of green, no matter how they clash with each other).

I saw a lovely yellow set of dishes at Target a few weeks ago. I didn't linger long with them, just long enough to sigh with the pleasure of looking at pretty things, before meandering along to the next aisle to admire pretty Christmas decorations. Then tonight, while shopping with my stepmom, I passed by the dishes again. I pointed them out to her, and she loved them too. We fawned over them for a few minutes before I noticed the price tag - very inexpensive! I was tempted - very tempted - but I was ready to move along. I don't need to buy something I already have just because it's pretty. But they were so reasonably priced... 

I hemmed and hawed for a few minutes, then decided to call Scott. He's incredibly practical and if he said we didn't need new dishes, then we don't need new dishes. So I called him, and right away he told me to buy them. Didn't even ask what they looked like. He just said to get them if I liked them, that it was absolutely fine.

I still wasn't sure. I put them in my cart. Guiltily. I guiltily put them in my cart, feeling like this wasn't necessary. Yet they were so pretty. And next to the duck egg dishes on the same shelf, they looked incredible, so instead of getting two four-piece sets of yellow, I put one yellow back and replaced it with one duck egg. They looked so nice together. They would match my walls so perfectly.  It was so hard to justify to myself, but Scott (and my stepmom) convinced me it's okay to treat myself once in a while.

So I treated myself. My lime Dollar Tree dishes are going in the garage for a rainy day (or a garage sale), and my new grown-up dishes are ready to replace the old ones. Meet my new bowls, mugs and plates. They are so pretty!