From The Mud Puddle

Shannon, from RocksInMyDryer is having a
"Spur-Of-The-Minute Dish Carnival"
Sounded like fun...so I'm going to play along.

This carnival sort of made my husband think of the movie The American President , where President Andrew Shephard (Michael Douglas) is showing Sydney (Annette Bening) the "Plate Room".

First off is my everyday plates aka my Corelle dinnerware, English Meadow.
My husband and I bought these about a year or so into our marriage. We only have seven of these plates left of our place setting because regardless of what "they" say, Corelle dinnerware WILL break! :::nods:::

I do have all the rest of the set though. Of course the thing that broke HAD to be a plate!

Next is another Corelle Dinnerware Pattern, that I bought in the parking lot of our Corelle Outlet Store a long while ago when we just needed some extra plates. They were having a special sale. They don't usually sell things in the parking lot. I thought they were sort of fun.

I also bought the dessert plates to match.

In 1989, for four months, I sold Tupperware. I signed up to sell Tupperware on a whim. Honestly? I stunk at it. I really only had one or two good parties during my brief stint as a "plastic bowl pusher". My lack of success was probably my fault though, I really just didn't put much effort into it like I might could have. Then again, not really having a good base of people nearby to sell to didn't help either. I mean, it's pretty desperate when you start randomly calling people on the phone to ask them if they want to have a tupperware party. (I actually had one yes from that method of cold calling-I do not recommend doing things that way though.) I quit pushing the plastic bowls (thankfully) when I found out I was pregnant with my daughter. I was glad I was having a baby just for the sake of the blessing from God, but also because it was an easy excuse when I needed to tell my manager that I was quitting. LOL

I really was only in it to throw all...er any of my profits into buying Tupperware because I had none and I really wanted some plastic bowls, you know? So the next few plates represent some of what I bought during that time that fall into the "plate" category. (my cabinets tell the "rest of the story" of what else I obtained during that 4 months and they groan because of it)

Please dont judge me on how stained this top dish is, it IS 18 years old after all and has been used by two kids and two adults for a LONG time. It's clean, just stained.

I have eight of these this size, and eight that are half this size that were dessert plates. (not pictured)

Next you'll see some Tupperware lunch tray plates. I thought they were pretty cool and reminiscent of the lunch plates from growing up and going to school. I haven't exactly figured out exactly WHY I really wanted them beyond the "hey that's neat" thought. They are in really good condition because to fill one of these plates with food would feed the whole family. (in other words, we rarely use them)



I guess the next plate could be seen as Tupperware's "Fine China". They are special place settings that were offered. I'm not sure if they were just one of those bonus buy kind of things for the party host (if they sold so much) or a limited edition thing. (It has been a long time now folks)
Either way, I have 4 place settings of them. They still look pretty nice...and we use them when we totally run out of all other plates(because we need to wash 'em).


Next is our "Birthday Plate". We use this on birthdays (I know, that was an easy guess, huh?)
I think I found it through Current (stationary) because of course all fine dinnerware can be bought via your mail order stationary company!?!

Then we have the McDonald Plates that they sold for .99 cents several years ago. I bought one for each child. (even though there were four different patterns, I only saw the NEED in having two of them)
These get used too when we run out of plates.

Let me take a moment and explain the dirty plate issue I apparently have. I do not have dirty plates sitting around all the time, usually. It's just that two years ago our dishwasher broke and we have yet to replace it. We've looked at them, and really were thinking of getting one, but then our washing machine broke and I felt that was more important than a dishwasher. It's a lot easier to do without a dishwasher than it is to do without a washing machine in my world. (Plus my two teenagers make excellent dishwashers. They wouldnt even have the skill of hand washing dishes now except for the blessing of the broken dishwasher) Anyway, from time to time if our days get busy, the dishes pile up and before we know it, it is overwhelming. It only takes a day for it to become overwhelming folks, only one day! So we run through all of our plates and then someone has to take up the task to wash 'em all. We've tried the paper plate thing, but some foods just do not do well on paper plates. Anyway...back to the plate carnival.

Next is our Nortake Carthage fine china. We use this on occasion...a birthday, just because, etc.(though we haven't pulled them out because all our dishes are dirty yet. Generally I dont use these without washing them first since it goes long period of time between use. It would sort of defeat the purpose of using these as we put off washing dishes if we have to wash these because all the other dishes are dirty.)

Last is our Christmas China that I found as Brendles was going out of business in 1996(I think that was the year) There were a couple of pieces missing....but most of the eight place settings and serving pieces were there. This is just a dessert plate as the dinner plates are a bit further up in the cabinet and my husband was already thinking me strange for asking him to get this one down LOL!

So come on over for dinner, I have plenty of plates...and then we can all have a dish washing party afterwards!