The trash tree.

This showed up at school. Actually, it was not at all surprising, since several friends of ours were instigators. This "trash tree" is an artistic display of all the paper cups accumulated over the course of one week at school. It was intended to be an encouragement for the students to bring their own mugs to the coffee shop, or to use the mugs provided there. I think it made some difference, but both of us were frustrated at the conversations we overheard is the course of the next week, as students tried (in vain) to justify and defend why they did not use reusable cups. Sad. Not to make light of the situation... it's not easy to give up conveniences which save time.

It's Lent again, and I'm learning to plan ahead. Little by little, I'm trying to change destructive habits. This year, among other things, I gave up the drier. That means there's usually a load of laundry drying on the rack in the kitchen... since that's really the only place it fits... and since we only have one rack, and it takes a couple of days for stuff to dry in our basement apartment, we really need to plan ahead, and only do one load at a time! But really, it's a very small sacrifice. It's much nicer not to have to deal with two or three loads at once. I was actually inspired by my mom, who dries stuff on the rack inside, even in the winter. :)

Well, life is good. I think Lent is a time to form new habits. I really like this not-using-the-drier thing... maybe I'll keep it up!

p.s. Incidentally, this picture was taken on the day Keith wore his tux to school to advertise for his Latin class. Doesn't he look sharp? :)