Lustreware bargain

bad photo of lovely tea set which was only $11

 Weird winter weather this year.  We had a mini blast of winter in November and then December was mild, wet and wetter.   One of those wet days, we wanted to go for a walk.   Instead of hitting a trail, DH suggested we go to the antique mall to get our walking in.   It's always fun.   I wasn't really looking for anything in particular, just getting in steps.  However, tucked back in a corner of a booth with almost no china, but lots of other odd things, was this little lustreware tea set.  It was very pretty and a design I didn't have.  Also, it was $14.  Now lustreware  isn't usually horribly expensive anyway, but a few of the booths had ridiculous prices on some of their lustreware, so that seeing this at an affordable price was very nice.  Then I looked up to see the big sign, that proclaimed that there was 25% off that day.   It had to come home with me.   With tax, the total was $11 for the teapot, creamer and sugar bowl.  I was smiling for the rest of the day.  Once in a while I actually make tea in my lustreware instead of the huge pottery mugs that I normally use.   It's pretty delicate though so I don't do it very often.

 We had a storm with "blizzard" conditions roll through.  It wasn't a true blizzard, but the crazy winds made for a couple of days of miserable weather.   The power grid has been so stable lately, since they came through and trimmed everything possible after the ice storm a few years ago, that we neglected to prepare properly when the power started flickering.   Usually we load up some buckets with water for flushing the toilets, and fill up some pots with potable water, just to supplement the jugs we keep on hand for power failures.  Being on a well, rather than town water, we don't have an operational well pump if we don't have hydro.  

 Sure enough, a few minutes after I popped supper in the oven, the power went out.   I had just enough time to get some candles lit so that I could suddenly switch up supper to a cold one.  It's been a while since I've cooked by candlelight, but it was doable.   I made a salad with white beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, red peppers and feta.   Then I laid out some cheese and bread.   By this time the generator was going to keep the stove fan and the sump pump going.   Of course as soon as everything was set up, the power popped back on.   It was a good reminder to keep emergency preparedness in mind, a little more often.

Here is a photo of the neighbour's Standardbred yearling or almost yearling anyway, to make up for the lack of photos.  I couldn't do a cat photo because there is a compatibility issue between some of the photos on my phone when I tried to transfer them to the computer - the the horse it is.   He's got a very pretty face though and was very brave to come right up to me to say hi!

And I just changed my settings to avoid the HEIC format, because it's suddenly corrupting more photos on transfer than not and that doesn't make me happy at all.