It's the little things that plague me

We don't use paper plates in my house. I can't really explain what the big deal is, although yes, some of it is that I like to think I'm not killing lots of trees just to eat pizza and not have to wash a plate. I just don't get the idea of paper plates. We have a dishwasher, so it's not that hard to just eat off a regular plate and put it in the dishwasher afterward. I'm kind of weird about the kitchen. The rest of the house can look like a bomb just went off, but the dishwasher is run every night, emptied every morning before breakfast and ready to receive dirty dishes. I hate having dirty dishes in the sink...drives me nuts. Being that my dishwasher is usually empty, I see no reason not to just use the plates we have rather than getting out paper plates. Even for a sandwich...just use a regular plate.

So this weekend when I cleaned out my china hutch and found a cache of paper products, the same thought ran through my mind that always does when I poke my head in there..."Where did all of these come from?"

Then I looked in the bottom of my pantry. There were so many of those plastic colored cups you would think I hosted a frat party every weekend. Yet, again, we don't use plastic cups all that often. Sure, maybe a bit more often than paper plates, but not enough to justify the amount we have.

Last time we hosted thanksgiving at my house (three years ago) the power went out just before dinner. My Mother-in-law, bless her, immediately picked all the plates and silverware up off the table and asked me where the paper products where, because who knew when we'd get power back and did I really want all those dirty dishes sitting around? I love my MIL for this...she is SO practical and SO easy to please. We broke out the paper plates, forks, napkins and cups and had a great dinner. It was convenient, I guess, that we had all the paper products at that point. A topic for another day relates to the pure serendipity of having the power go out just as all the food was done....

So I guess that my stash is good for something. Today as I was putting it all out of my way and in one place for storage (read: where I will forget it's location and buy more), I really did wonder where most of it came from and when I am ever going to use it. I guess it's one of those things that everyone has around the house for a rainy day. Or a big meal with twelve people and no power.