Simple pleasures

It's often the simple pleasures that we remember. One of thememories I have of growing up is our Sunday dinner. We always used the good dishes and the menu didn't vary much from pot roast with carrots and potatoes, another vegetable, gravy. Then we washed up the dishes and relaxed for the afternoon.

Our good dishes weren't saved for special ocassions, they were used to make the ocassion special and used often. And yes, they were used from the time we were very small. Mom's good dishes were a set that dad had brought back from Japan after WWII. He bought three sets - one for each of his sisters and the last for his future bride - and all of them used the sets regularly. And so we took pleasure in the small things.

Now it is also true that the dishes got broken. I remember them on the table as some of my earliest memories. And then as we began helping around the house I remember breaking some doing the dishes. And after we were in college mom found a place to replace the dishes and spent more on the few replacements than dad had for the whole set. And it was worth it for her, because we had the memories.

And I applaud my mother's wisdom, since I have the memories and not just the dishes.