Show us your life- My Dining Room

Today I am participating (for the first time ever!!) in Kelly's Show Us Your Life Tour.  Today's topic is dining rooms.  My dining room is not all that spectacular, but I'll show it to you anyway.  And please excuse any dirt on the floor... forgot to vacuum before taking the pictures.  Oh well, this is what it actually looks like.

This is the view from the kitchen.  My books and laptop are not normally on the table, but I just had finished taking an exam last night when I took these pictures.  Although I must say that I have probably sat at that table with my computer many more times than with a plate of food.  That is sad.  Maybe I will have to start eating at the table.  I am just simply not home a lot around meal times because I just have so much going on.  I was very lucky when I moved into my house to have so much hand-me-down furniture.  The only things in this room that I actually bought are that plate on the baker's rack (which we will talk about later) and the curtain rod and curtains.  Well and I guess technically my laptop and textbook, but those don't belong in the dining room.

This is the view from the living room:

My aunt and uncle gave me that table when their business closed.  My mom bought me that awesome light hanging above the table.  I wish I would have taken a picture of the awful chandelier that was hanging there before I moved in.  I actually gave it to my cousin Megan to hang in her room because apparently that is the cool thing to do, but it ended up getting broken before they could hang it up (something about wild little brothers, I think).  And I just now noticed the weird shadows on the floor from the chairs.  I promise my carpet doesn't have weird stripes in it. ha.

When I moved in to this house in April, it had some oh so lovely vertical blinds hanging over that door, which leads to the back yard that I think I have been in 3 times since I moved in.  I thought they were ugly, but it wasn't bothering me too much until the stick thing broke off, and when I tried to open the blinds using my hand, it cut my finger pretty bad.  So that was the end of the vertical blinds.  These curtains were on sale at Target.

This is probably my most prized possession in the dining room:

It is a plate that I got in Tlaquepaque, which I must say is my favorite town ever to say.  I went there in March on a trip with my International Business Class; and were in Guadalajara for 9 days.  It was a fun time!
Anyway I saw this plate and I was like oh I really like it but I don't know if it would make my suitcase over the weight limit plus it might break and blah blah blah trying to talk myself out of it.  Well, we ended up walking by it again and I just loved it, so I had to buy it.  And then one of my classmates wanted to buy it from me for even more than I paid to give to his fiance to complete her collection or something like that, but I was mean and didn't take the deal.  I even found this plate stand there in Guadalajara as well.  I just really stinking love this plate!!! (although the relection in this picture does look kind of weird.)  Oh and while we were shopping at another place I found a serving fork and serving spoon that are pewter that have this same pattern.  I haven't actually used them but they are good to look at!

Well that's my dining room!  I hope to one day put down hardwood floors on this level (entry way, living room, dining room, kitchen), but that will have to wait a little while.