How Conveeeeeenient

Yes, I found myself gathering the trash this evening in preparation for garbage pick-up tomorrow, and I thought, 'How nice for Joe that tonight is the night he works late.' That makes a month and a half straight of me taking care of the damn garbage/recycling. Speaking of garbage, I'm still not understanding why more people are not recycling. I do not think that it is enough to say that if one doesn't have the curbside pick up, then one cannot recycle. Right now, I do have recycling pick up, but it doesn't pick up paper and cardboard. Instead, I take that stuff to post and recycle it. Growing up, no one picked up our recycling. We have always had bins, and at a young age, my dad got me into using them and going with him to drop off the recycling at our town's center. It is one of the best things that man has done for me. It got me thinking at an early age about where things go. I think a lot of people think once it's gone, it's gone. No more dealing with it or consdering where the stuff goes. It goes to massive dump sites, obviously. We're talking tons and tons of garbage a day. And a great deal of it is stuff that could be recycled, donated, or composted. That makes me so mad, and I wish other people would get a clue. I'll admit that I do lack on the composting, but I recycle and donate the hell out of just about anything I can. I'm also very conscious about the things I buy - the packaging, etc, and I use cloth bags (most of the time) at the grocery store. Am I the greatest? No. Hell no. Other people do far better, and I probably look like a naive asshole compared to them. I try, though, I'm so tired of others doing nothing. Folks, if I may take a religious stance on this for a minute, the Bible not only talks of how live with regard to handling oneself and treating others (to put it simply), but also of how to treat God's earth. Honestly, I hope at the gate there's some mention of "Uh, you really trashed the place down there...and that's not okay." But anyway. At the very least, everyone, picture your kids, grandkids, etc playing in garbage. C'mon. Think of Wall-E or did that just register as 'cute'? All that said, I doubt I have really taken the trash out for six weeks straight because I honestly do not have to take it out weekly. Sometimes it only goes out every other week (even when Joe is home). With all that we recycle, we simply do not generate that much trash. Also, the main light sources in our house use compact flourescent bulbs, and we turn lights off when we're done with them. Generally, within reason I unplug shit when I'm not using it (electric bill is under $40). We don't leave water running during teeth brushing, etc. Our A/C and heat are set reasonably. The dishwasher is set to air dry instead of heat. It goes on, and I will continue to get better and better with this. And one day when I can afford it, I will buy a hybrid. I encourage everyone to try a little harder than you currently do, and if you have any neat ways that you're being green, please post them.

Whew. Okay.

So anyway. Things here are good. Joe's doing a night jump tonight, so that's why he's working late. I still haven't seen him jump (and that's out of a plane for you new folks) but tonight really wasn't worth going to because as Joe put it, "Ideally, you'll hear a plane pass, and then a few minutes later, a bunch of dudes you'll barely see will quietly run past you." While that actually sounds pretty cool, I'm not down for standing in a field in the middle of no where by myself in the dark. This is Georgia. The state.

In other news, Joe's birthday is this weekend. Baby boy turns 25 on Saturday. I've narrowed down that he does not want a cake, does want to go to this Animal Safari place nearby, have a nice dinner together in the evening, and then go for drinks with friends afterward. Should be a good time. I still need to get him a gift...Shit. Then, as I've previously written, Joe leaves on Sunday until Thursday when he comes home for the ball weekend. Then he'll leave three days later on that Monday for two weeks. It goes on and on. Training and training and more training. But the whole summer won't be lost to it because while it's not our honeymoon trip, we are planning to use some of his leave to go down to Destin for a bit. Yeah!! FINALLY. Time off together and not to be used, no offense, spending it with other people. I'm pretty sure married folks need this sort of thing every couple of years or so.