Blueberries and Papertowels

Blueberries and paper towels
It’s been surreal to move right back into the same house, into the same neighborhood, and probably into the same routines. Funny, our first Sunday back, the new preacher (in the same church) preached on starting fresh, with a clean slate. It was her first Sunday, too.
So here we are, rediscovering the joys of a garbage disposal (vs. the street dogs), grocery stores (with EVERYTHING and more, all in ONE place), clean streets (yuck, don’t miss that!) and a washing machine that cleans clothes in a timely fashion (even if I have to fold them myself). Oh, and mommy driving. That is a joy!

And then there are the items we just couldn’t get like blueberries. Love it! Appreciation is running high for that. The boys have rediscovered the thrill of sonic blasts and milkshakes as well as the convenience of drive-thrus. Oh and the snack food, Alina has asked for cookies, cheese-its and pudding for breakfast more than once. We’d better watch out because it is so readily available and oh so yummy. oh my.

And then there are the paper products. We had switched to cloth napkins before we left. Do you realize how many napkins a family of 6 goes through in just one meal?? Well, besides being pricy and a bit of a challenge to get in India, there is the problem of waste disposal. Chennai just simply did not have the infrastructure to dispose of garbage. Nothing special, just trash. So, this recycle nut became a disposable paper nut in India. Newspapers were recycled by the staff and were re-used. Still felt like a lot of excess (redundant, I know). Napkins, we had cloth, made no difference to us. But then there was toilet paper and paper towels. I had (by pure luck) packed a huge amount of TP and paper towels in one of our side board/hutches. (light things could be packed inside furniture). TP was available in Chennai. A bit on the sandpaper/cardboard type of paper but available. There was even pink TP available. It turned the toilet water pink. I steered clear of buying that if there was alternative nice, white! Disposal, well, I pretended that once flushed, it was gone. Out of sight out of mind, I was just happy to have toilet paper (vs. the alternative of using the left hand YUCK) but then, they didn’t have the quandary of the disposal problem, right (just dysentery and other maladies, oh, yuck).

Paper towels were another thing, quality was lousy and small and limited and expensive. When my Costco supply came to a slow end, that was that. No more. And that was December. Now that we are here back in the good ole USA, tahdah, paper towels and garbage trucks abound. We are slowly sinking back into using them to dry our hands (a towel works fine), wiping the counter (a rag or sponge works fine) and covering stuff in the microwave (cloth napkin will work).

So here we are, starting with a semi-clean slate. Rediscovering the joys of blueberries and paper towels. But at the same time, hoping that we learned from our experiences and cut back on that trash!!