Tag Archives: paper towels

How to Save the World Without Really Trying: Pitch the Paper Towels

Having five kids means different things to different people.

To my  parents, it means that they have lots of grandkids to brag about.

grandkids

To my friends, it means I’m the one who never completes her sentences and is always begging for a carpool .

friends2

To my kids, it means hearing fifty times a day “siblings are a gift!” and understanding that they will not be taking a trip to Europe on my dime.

kids hands

To me, it means that in addition to five times the love, I have five times the bills, trash, and complaints.

sibs

But I am not naive. To the world, having five kids means that my carbon footprint is personally responsible for the planet bursting into flames in the next fifty years. To make matters worse, we have a relationship with paper that pushers of other evils would crave. We can’t break ourselves of the kind you need for writing the papers and taking care of <ahem> business, but we needed to divorce ourselves from the kind that mopped up the spills. A thimble-full of water, a spilled cup of milk, and a gallon of any similarly precious liquid would necessitate the use of the same amount of paper towels. We needed to break this habit and quick  if not for the state of the planet than for my sanity.

There was no building up to this one, so we just stopped. Cold turkey. When it came time to purchase the next jumbo pack from Costco, we just didn’t. It took about a month for us to get used to it, but we haven’t really looked back since.

 Save the World! How to ditch the paper towel habit. From Sisterhood of the Sensible Moms

 Step 1: Make a place to store all the things you’ll need to make it work.

You are gonna need a bounty (see what I did there?) of reusable napkins, rags, and towels. Decide before you start where you will store everything. This little number was less than $10 at Walmart.

Save the world! How to ditch the paper towel habit! From Sisterhood of the Sensible Mom

Step 2: Make rags.

We cut up old, damaged, stained t-shirts to keep as rags for those spills and other things you really just want gone forever. I could go on, but really you know that some of life’s messiest messes aren’t even going in your laundry, they are going in the trash. You need these rags for those moments.

Save the world! How to ditch the paper towel habit! From Sisterhood of the Sensible Mom

Step 3: Stockpile napkins, towels, and washcloths just for kitchen use.

How many you ask? Well, we have found our sweet spot to be enough napkins for each of us to use one at every meal for ONE FULL day. For our family of  7, that’s 21 napkins.

We had over 30 at one time but the current number is 28.

Save the world! How to ditch the paper towel habit! From Sisterhood of the Sensible Moms

As for towels, this is the whole stack of 12.

Save the world! How to ditch the paper towel habit! From Sisterhood of the Sensible Mom

We have 10 washcloths.

Save the world! How to ditch the paper towel habit! From Sisterhood of the Sensible Mom

 Step 4: Make sure your washing machine is good to go.

I’m just gonna spell it out. I do laundry every single day. If you don’t, you are gonna need to adjust your stockpile accordingly to your family and your laundry patterns. And please don’t tell me that there are people who don’t need to do laundry every day, it will just make me sad. Or throw a napkin at you.

You really don’t want to be stuck in an awkward situation where your friends or family are left high and so not dry. Like with salsa dribbling off their chins.

Save the world! How to ditch the paper towel habit! From Sisterhood of the Sensible Mom

 Step 5: Have at least SOME of your napkins available for your guests when they need them.

I’m still working on this one. Most of the times, it’s a Hunger Games-esque situation where guests are competing for the last napkin. Or just begging for one.

You Can Live WIthout Paper Towels

“Thanks for the salad! Let me see if I can cram a fourth of it into my mouth.”

You Can Live WIthout Paper Towels

“Is it too much to ask for a napkin?”

You Can Live Without Paper Towels

“Well, the 15 minutes it took you to find this didn’t seem long, AT ALL.”

So there you have it: A Lazy Girls’ Guide to Saving the World. One Paper Towel at a time. If your family size is in danger of tipping the scale from comfortable to catastrophic, it may be your best option short of a reaping every week. So just follow these simple steps to saving the world. Then you can be a super-hero. Like me.

-Erin

 Follow us on Pinterest for more great ideas!

 

 

 

 

Share it real good . . .
Share on FacebookTweet about this on TwitterPin on PinterestShare on Google+Share on StumbleUponShare on RedditEmail this to someonePrint this page