Sometimes Trash is Just Trash

Yesterday, my Brownie Troop helped out at our school’s recycling center. The recycling bins are set out on Friday afternoons and then taken away on Saturday around noon. From nine to noon each Saturday, one of the school’s employees, a recycling guru and cafeteria lady extraordinairre, mans the recycling center with student volunteers. Yesterday, being the first Saturday after Christmas, was especially busy.

Now, I could never be in charge of this recycling thing because I’d drive myself crazy over all the very well intentioned but uninformed people who show up. Some people are bound and determined to recycle everything. And I’m here to tell you, as much as I’m fond of recycling, sometimes trash is just trash.

• When you bring me a garbage bag full of plastic yogurt, cottage cheese and milk containers that have not been rinsed out, you’ve brought me trash.
• When you bring me used, cardboard pizza boxes, you’ve brought me trash.
• When you bring me unopened vegetable cans, you’ve brought me trash (or possibly a contribution to a food pantry).
• When you bring me boxes that once contained shiny new toys from under your Christmas tree that still have all the plastic twist-tie thingies and a mile of tape around everything you’ve basically brought me trash. (Because what’s left of the “box” after I’m through pulling all the un-recyclable stuff off of it is rather paltry.)
• When you bring me a trash bag full of used wrapping paper including bows that are still stuck on, once again, you’ve basically brought me trash. The bows can’t be recycled nor can the shiny, metallic papers.

The thing we had the most of, that was truly recyclable? Cardboard.

This bin is packed full of cardboard. It got so full that we started putting the cardboard into the paper bin.

Now, there is the saying, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure”. Someone brought by some books. Our recycling guru set them out for people to take instead of tossing them. (Actually, a few were hardcover and couldn’t go into the bins away.) Among them was a set of cook books called Meta Given’s Modern Encyclopedia of Cooking. Modern equals copyright date of 1959 for the revised edition! One of our scout moms picked up one and found some good looking cookie and cake recipes. I picked up the other and found:

and

I think Ginny’s got some hound dog in her. Maybe I can teach her to hunt? Who wants to come over for dinner?

Merry Christmas!

From our family to yours!

Santa Came Early

And brought the camera* that took this picture!

Thank you Santa!!

*Canon Digital Rebel XT that I’m technically not allowed to use until tomorrow. DB took this picture, natch, since I’m in the background! But I already heart my “new” camera (eBay find, new to us).

Edited to add: And go here to see how the reindeer revolted against Santa this year.

Christmas and Kids

Some tidbits about the kids this holiday season:

JBelle is back to making homemade Christmas gifts, like she did last year. Today she made one for me and her brother and “wrapped” them in some paper of her own design.

So far, those are the only gifts under the tree because I don’t trust the GMan to leave them alone until the proper time!

The GMan loves, loves, loves, “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”. He asks to watch the video and read the book pretty much on a daily basis. He’s very taken with the part where the Grinch stuffs the tree up the chimney. (You can imagine my surprise and delight to have found a Hallmark Christmas ornament of the Grinch stuffing the tree up the chimney!) The GMan, however, upon seeing the live action version of “The Grinch” on television last week, was not pleased with Jim Carey’s rendition of the Grinch. He’ll stick with the Dr. Suess version, thank you very much!

This year has been difficult shopping for JBelle. First, she hadn’t given any indication of what she was going to ask Santa for. Then, a couple weeks ago, she came home from school saying she was going to ask Santa for a ferret! We explained that Santa does not bring live animals (and if he brings them to your house then shush!) To which she responded, “Okay then, I’ll ask for an iPod!” Um, no. Seven year olds don’t get iPods (again, if they get them in your house then shush!) I offered up a couple of suggestions that were dismissed. Then I showed her some kid-friendly digital cameras. Bingo! Santa is now bringing her a Disney Pix Flix High School Musical digital camera. Whew! “Crisis” averted.

After we’d told convinced the GMan that he wanted Santa to bring him a train table, he saw a pirate ship in a catalog and started saying that he wanted Santa to bring him a pirate ship. Hmmm, too bad since Santa’s already committed to the train table! But, all was not lost, turns out a certain aunt will be giving him the pirate ship. Again, “crisis” averted.

I tried taking some pictures of the kids by our Christmas tree after we got it decorated but they didn’t cooperate with me:

Thankfully, DB got a great picture of them sitting with Santa at our church’s Family Christmas Breakfast. We used it for our Christmas cards and you can see it over on our Flickr page —->