My Favorite Things 1

Happy New Year!

Faithful readers who are as obsessive as I (probably not many of you out there) might be expecting a photo suite today.  From 2012 to 2015 I posted a photo suite -- a collection of several related pictures -- every Sunday, and then last year cut back to the first Sunday of the month.  I do love the idea of grouping related photos, because so often they say more than one could say on its own.  But I think it's time for a vacation.

So this year, every Sunday will showcase one of My Favorite Things.  I do love my things.  I refuse to read books about tidying up or downsizing or parting with your possessions.  That may have to come later, but it doesn't have to come now.  My precious things provide inspiration (and sometimes raw material) for my art and repositories for my memories.  This year I plan to revisit 53 of them and share their stories.

Today is the eighth day of Christmas so I'm focusing on 8 maids a' milking, one of a set of ceramic Christmas cups that were given to me probably 25 years ago by Dennis Watkins, the best printer in the world, with whom I worked to produce hundreds of publications in my previous career.

Dennis and I always joked that he was the perfect printer and I was the perfect client.  We never wasted time with competitive bidding or price negotiations; he charged me a fair price and I paid promptly.  When I needed a publication in a hurry, it went to the head of the line and Dennis might work all night to move things along; in return, I never said "hurry" unless I really meant it.

The cups were made by Louisville Stoneware, a local institution that has been in business for 201 years.  Its folksy designs and blue-on-gray color palette are a fixture in Kentucky homes; even if you aren't into primitive art you make room for this stuff when somebody gives it to you.  

We try to bring out the cups right after Thanksgiving, and use them in the morning for orange juice, at cocktail time for scotch or eggnog, maybe even at dinner for wine.  They're quite handy; drinks stay colder in heavy stoneware than in glass, and you never get your drink confused with anybody else's.  Sometimes I request a certain cup and sometimes I take pot luck.

My husband makes me put them away on the twelfth day of Christmas, so I'll have to drink fast for the next couple of days.