I Don't mind being "green" but.....

I am glad to be separating our trash into two containers. The recyclables are plastic, bottles, cans, paper........the rest goes into the dumpster. We have two trash pick up days in Louisville. This is a good habit to begin. But maybe I'm watching too much news because I'm starting to feel guilty if I put an empty toilet paper roll in the real trash instead of the recycler. Like I don't have enough to feel guilty about. (Yelling at my kids, messy house, making a lousy meal, surfing ebay). I don't think the media is helping with this.
I think Global Warming is real, I understand many in in Africa use only 5 gallons of water per day, compared to an American using 150. I just could get overwhelmed with the enormity of the problem. So we are told all the things we can do to help. I think it's good to know how the rest of the world lives. But if those in Africa had the water available like we do, I think they would use just a bit more - maybe the difference wouldn't seem so obscene.

We also have giant washer and dryers in America. Europeans have tiny washers and no dryers. A dishwasher is for the rich. Currently, the house we are renting has no dishwasher. What a miserable quality of life I am living. Yes, there are dirty dishes in the sink and on the counters most of the time. This, I do not feel guilty about.

Returning back from our Michigan Christmas trip, we discovered our orange recycling bin has been stolen. Now, do I wait for the new one to be delivered and hold the separated trash, or do I take this opportunity to just dump it all together. Haven't decided.

Theatre Mom

Wow - I'm a "theatre Mom". It's fun. Soon after we arrived Justin was able to audition for a Louisville Youth Theatre production of Willy Wonka, Jr. The production is a musical, so this would be a singing/dancing part for Justin. He began practicing and was cast as an Oompa Loompa and a Squirrel. We faithfully taxied Justin to his rehearsals twice a week and listened to our CD in the car on the way to and fro. The last two weeks were hectic, with intensive rehearsal, dress rehearsals, building up to performance time. The first two performances were to school groups. Then followed four more open to the public and finishing with a final school group performance. My main job was to help with the quick costume change for four Oompas. The Oompas had to quickly change into Squirrels, then another quick change back to Oompas! Talk about pressure......all worked out well, but it took at least three tries before we figured out the quickest way to get the boys changed! I also combed wigs, put on hairnets, kept the actors quiet in the "green room"..... It was so much fun. Also, as a newbie to the area, it gave me an opportunity to get to know some moms and their kids.

Sizes - food & socks

I wish I could find a place to file my grievance to the makers of children's socks, but I just don't think they would care. I carefully chose a package of socks for Justin at Kohl's this year before school started. I decided to ditch the 6 or 8 pack Hanes from Meijer after seeing that the shape of the sock is nowhere near the shape of a foot. They just were not comfortable. I thought buying a 6-pack of Gold Toe would be a huge upgrade for Justin. I checked the size chart and could see that Justin was a "M". I didn't even have to make a judgement call of buy them too small or too big.....he was right in the middle of the "M" size. I may even have taken one out of the package. But I am still in denial that my baby boy is over 4' tall, so I thought it looked just right. As you can imagine, the socks are too small. After a wash, they were even smaller. He's still pulling them on. I really want to get some wear out of them. So much for an upgrade. The question is - why can't they make these sizes more accurate and uniform?

Next topic - smaller food containers. While I was out of the country for the better part of the past three years, container sizes shrunk. I know they made it subtle so we wouldn't notice, but it was obvious to me. Pudding cups are smaller. Canned goods are smaller. And ice cream cartons look like the machine malfunctioned during the packaging. Ice cream - you don't buy a 1/2 gallon anymore it's 1.75 quarts. Which brings me to another subject - why the US never converted to using Metric.