Reuse

I forgot to mention yesterday (because someone distracted me--I won't tell you who, but I'll give you a hint: her name starts with C :-), that yesterday one of the women at MOPS defined expectation as "opportunity for disappointment." That kind of says it all, doesn't it? And it's not just our relationships with others that unexpressed expectations can mess up--they also interfere with our relationships with ourselves.
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I saw a robin on Wednesday. That must mean that it's spring!
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The friendship bread starter is starting to smell friendship bread starter-y: good sign! I feed it tomorrow.
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Sometime before Christmas, we ran out of paper for our printer. OK, long before Christmas, like maybe in July, we ran out of paper, and by the time school rolled around in September, I still hadn't gotten around to buying any. In the interim, we were using cardstock or speckled paper if we needed to print something. So when school started, I decided that I was going to reuse all of the paper that comes home from school--I may have mentioned in the past that the amount is staggering. I have a little tray in which I put all of the papers that only have printing on one side. I haven't run out of paper yet, and, as a matter of fact, I'd estimate that I currently have around 60 sheets of paper in there waiting to be used. I began this effort as a stop-gap measure to buy me time until I was able to remember when I was in a store that sells paper that we needed more paper, but at this rate, I'll never be able to use it all. It's true that I have gotten a few interesting looks from store clerks who notice my child's spelling test or math homework on the back of a coupon I hand to them, and when I handed out Communion schedules to the servers, they wondered why I was giving them a Pack 168 calendar of events, but I shudder to think of all of that paper just...wasted, and I wonder how I could have ever thought that it wasn't enough to be worth saving for another use. It's interesting to note that the volume of paper coming home from school this year has been reduced by at least 2/3, because the teachers and administrators are now communicating electronically, and they post community events on the school district website rather than sending flyers home. Chip and BuBuh (sorry--I'm not quite sure how to spell that!) reuse envelopes they receive in the mail, which I would like to give a try, but I need to find somewhere to store them that doesn't offend my inner clutter-despiser, but is accessible enough that I won't forget I'm saving them. I'm thinking I'll use them to make my shopping lists and put the coupons I use inside.