Our Table

For me, it is very important to have meals together, sitting at the table.  At different times, different homes, for different reasons, we have had our meals pot-luck-style, grabbing a plate, filling it from the pan, and going to sit wherever to eat.  Balancing a plate on your lap, or scooting a pile of books off the couch to find a spot to sit is not as comfortable as joining together at the table.  We talk and laugh, or sometimes quietly eat, but together. If I had to pick what piece of furniture would be the center of our home, it would be our table.


I love this painting.  A friend had it in her dining room, years ago, and I loved it then.  In Colorado, one of the homey little restaurants where we liked to eat had it on their wall, too. Through AllPosters.com I tracked down the print, and my family bought a framed copy for my birthday.  The multi-generations, dad hanging up his coat, just in from the barn, the fresh baked bread, the animals as part of the family (love that horse with his head in looking for a treat! - someday I want a dutch door like that), the border collie begging her treat, the little girl wanting to share her share, the growing boy too busy with his own eating, the knitting on the windowsill.  In five different houses, this has hung in our dining room, a reminder to enjoy and appreciate our mealtimes together.


Here is our table, a blank canvas for colorful meals and conversation, and for many, many memories. It is two laminate doors (my husband is in the door business), screwed on to the top of a smaller table for support, with matching benches. It has survived gallons of goat milk being filtered and poured into jars (and spilled, of course), hours and hours of schoolwork, art projects, construction projects (it was our work bench as the house we built in Colorado went up around it); we have covered it with chocolate chip cookies, muffins and breads, Christmas cookies; we have surrounded it for years with family and friends. An ever-changing, colorful assortment of food, projects and people.


What piece of furniture is the center in your house?