Something exciting happened in my family recently. My oldest granddaughter called to tell me she was engaged. I’m overjoyed for them and thrilled to welcome him as another grandchild.

Since that happy announcement, memories of my engagement, way back in the last century, have been flooding my mind.

Once we had set a wedding date, my mom took me shopping to choose a china pattern. Pieces received at future bridal showers and as wedding guests would help me complete my set. This was common practice then and the question, “Have you picked a china pattern?”, was often asked.

I chose a Royal Albert pattern called Inspiration. It had dainty blue flowers and a gold rim around the border. I thought it was beautiful and If I had to chose again today, I would make the same choice.

One thing I wouldn’t do would be to would be to only use this china on special occasions. The fear of chipping or breaking a piece of this beautiful (and expensive) bone china caused me to store it safely away rather than enjoy it.

The difficulty came in knowing when an occasion was special enough. After a while it was forgotten in it’s “safe” place, no more part of celebrations.

Or, was it that I stopped celebrating? Don’t get me wrong, I still celebrated things like family birthdays and achievements of my kids. I just didn’t celebrate anything for myself. In my mind, there was always something or someone more important and I didn’t take notice of anything I did as being special.

Now I see how my thinking was faulty. There have been many missed opportunities to declare a moment worth celebrating. All could have been called special occasions if I’d let them.

It’s time I started celebrating moments in my life. I will let my Inspirations china be my inspiration. If I eat dinner from my good china, will that make today a special occasion? If nothing else, it’s a good place to start.