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the china cabinet

I needed a project.
I needed a project very badly.

In the evening of the third day of no school, I think I lost it. There were some unkind words from my mouth directed at sweet hubby, and I don't think he appreciated them. I didn't appreciate that he wanted/wants to put off new shelves in the guest room until Monday. I didn't appreciate that he *had* to go back to school on Wednesday, while I was still off for another whole day. My unkind words did serve one purpose, though: they got me some help.

I said unkind and jealous words about how I wasn't enjoying not getting anything done with too much free time, alone time, time at the house by myself, and then told sweet hubby that if he wasn't going to install the shelves for me, that he was going to go with me to get all of the wedding china and grandma crystal. And that he was going to go with me *NOW*.

And even though it was cold out, 8pm, and starting to ice over again, sweet hubby did. He did tell my mama that he thought I was a little crazy and losing it, but he did help.

We had been bringing boxes of wedding china and grandma crystal to our house, slowly, slowly, slowly, one or two at a time, grabbing one each time we were at my mama's house and remembered, or didn't have too many other things in our hands, since Christmas. I wanted to have all of the boxes on hand so that I could see what we have and put it away in the china cabinet accordingly -- leaving the appropriate amount of space, making it look pretty, and all of that fun stuff. And since it has been almost five years since we received the wedding china (yes, I'm slow. I know it) I wasn't really sure what we had.

I'm sure now.

I spent a lot of day #4 out of school unpacking china, washing crystal, and staging the china cabinet.



Here are my boxes, mid-project. The dining room table was a little bit scary. But I took it one box at a time, folded up the tissue paper for when I'm putting my winter dishes away in a month, and kept going. When I finished with these boxes, I pulled out another stack from the guest room.

This is right after I started. See? A few dishes look better than none. And certainly better than the boxes of packed-up dishes that made it here, but no further.

I unpacked, unwrapped, unpacked, and unwrapped for a while. I started putting the plates where I thought they would look nice. After the plates, it was time for the grandma crystal.

Oh, the grandma crystal. Boxes and boxes of brown and dingy crystal glasses from my grandma's house. She moved from her home of 52 years in November 2009. When she moved, the crystal she gave me went into boxes and then to my mama's house, for safe-keeping until I was ready for it.

These snow days made me ready for it.

I unpacked it into a sink full of warm, soapy water, gave it a bath, a rinse, and a good towel-dry, and then started to realize just how much crystal had come to live in my china cabinet.

There are water glasses, sherbet cups, wine glasses, and juice glasses. Do they even still make crystal juice glasses? And if they do, who buys them? At what store? And why? How did you get so much money that you can justify using crystal juice glasses? I would really like to know.

I put some of the grandma crystal in the china cabinet. I had to put some of it out of sight, because there wasn't space for 18 water goblets and everything else in the china cabinet.

I also found the three sets of crystal that I started collecting when I got married to sweet hubby -- two glasses each of three different patterns. Two goblets, that I love, but are so expensive that it makes me nervous to handle them. Two goblets in a pattern I didn't choose -- but looked up last night and think I might ask for as a birthday present, to have either six or eight, because it is pretty and compliments my china well, even though I didn't pick it out. And two champagne flutes in yet another pattern, used for the wedding toast. I put the juice glasses in a different cabinet to make space for these.

So in the end, I spent almost all day working on the china cabinet. Here are the empty boxes....






And, though not great quality, here is the finished product:



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