Thanks for Catching Up, World!

My next door neighbor as a child was Margaret Greer, whom we called Sissie. She was a widow who had absolutely no family to speak of except a sister-in-law, Nan Keener, who lived in the house next to her mobile home. Aunt Nan, as I called her, moved back to her hometown when I was quite young, leaving Sissie in our care. Or should I say, leaving Sissie to care for us. And care for us she did! She was my main babysitter, as well as being present at all family events including birthdays and holidays. When my grandmother was ill (Now keep in mind, Sissie was a good 10 years older than my grandmother), Sissie would sit with her if my mom had to go out. She was just another grandmother built right into our family!

I loved visiting Sissie's tiny trailer house. She let me do ANYTHING I wanted. And I do mean anything. One of my favorite parts of her house were her dishes. Now, she didn't think they were anything special, but I thought they were because I loved the color blue.

If you are fond of old china as I am, you will recognize this as Liberty Blue. Sissie had various and sundry pieces of this set, but it was not a complete set. I think she may have also had some Blue Willow thrown in there to make sure she had enough dishes to go around in the unlikely event of company. Anyway, you can see that they are beautiful! When Sissie passed away in 1992, my mom gave the dishes away to someone who needed them, and that person's house burned down not long after that. We were both sort of sad that we had given them away, but I know the person who had them for even that short time probably needed them.

Ever since then, I have loved blue and white dishes. Any time I go into an antique store, I look for Liberty Blue or other blue and white dishes. When I got married, I don't recall there being any blue and white choices of china patterns, or I certainly would have registered for those!

Now that my mom is gone, I have two sets of blue and white dishes - one was my mom's wedding china and one was my grandmother's. They are both favorites of mine, but I realized several months ago that I had no table linens that matched them. Well, then the world decided that blue and white was the "in" thing, and I started seeing blue and white everywhere! Needless to say, I AM OBSESSED!!!!

The shoes are off the clearance rack at Target, and the bracelet. OH THE BRACELET!!!! My sweet, awesome husband bought that for me for our anniversary this year. He thought of it because I had pinned it on Pintrest. Swoon. I love him so! It is made out of pieces of china.

So imagine my excitement when the Pier One catalog came in with all manner of blue and white stuff on the cover. Since we had very important guests over for Sunday lunch, I thought some new linens were in order.

I am in blue and white heaven!!!!