Of a Rather Pressing Note.

I want to spend a little bit of time talking about toilet paper.
The reason I'm going to talk about toilet paper is that I went to use some toilet paper to blow my nose today, and I might as well have reached for a plastic bag. Or maybe some sandpaper? Or perhaps a non-absorbent bag made out of sandpaper?

I'm going to name-call here and pick on Scott toilet tissue.
Yes, Scott--you need to just give it a rest and stop trying to make bathroom products. First of all, your one-ply excuse for toilet paper is not only insulting, but in extreme cases--painful.
"But you get so many sheets!" loyal (underpaid) customers will implore. "It's more sheets than any other toilet paper!"

Well, I ask you, my friends: Does a couple extra dimes saved make it easier to sit down, then lay down, and fall asleep at night?

Anybody who has been schooled in the proper use of toilet paper by either me, my dad, or my dad's dad, will know that there is nothing you can wipe with 10 sheets of toilet paper that you can't wipe with 4 (neatly folded) squares. If it takes you more than 4, you clearly need to do a double wipe--which you would have to do with your un-economical 10 anyway.
This is, of course, assuming that you have good, absorbant two-ply tissue.

If your toilet paper is only one ply--the absorbancy of the 4 sheets is drastically reduced. This means to get the equivalent quality of the wipe, you'd need 8 sheets. And that's for those who are schooled in proper paper usage. The average person will use 10 (which now is 20); and the crazy people who "wrap" the toilet paper around their hands, will use twice as much as the crazy amount of 20-30 sheets per wipe.
Not to mention, this wipe will not even be comparably as soft as a normal toilet paper wipe. So you're using twice as many sheets (of your "so many more sheets") and you're punishing your poor butt trying to wipe it clean!

Weigh the options, my friends. Spend 25 more cents for a happy hiney and a longer-lasting roll? Or go the cheap route for 200 extra sheets of one-ply plastic baggie?

You be the judge.

On Death and Birth

Hello all. All 4 of you?

Since I have last written, much has happened. Mixed emotions due to two events on completely opposite ends of the spectrum have led me to, once again, opt for dancing over mourning. I don't mind it so much--but I sure do wish there was a balance.

Sunday December 23rd, KC Randolph died at about 5am. Many of the teachers at school talked about how it was almost a blessing that everything really happened in under a week--because she never had time to stop being KC. She didn't have time to really sit around and go through the "why me's?" or "what will happen next's?" of cancer. Right now, everyone is praying hard that her husband steps up to the role that he hadn't quite found his fit with prior to her death. Her 9 year old son is alright, from what I understand--not really understanding the magnitude of mommy being gone forever.

It is sad sometimes when God decides to work like this, but sometimes it just seems so easy to get over.

Maybe it's easy for me to get over, because while KC was dying and my school and fellow teachers were mourning, visiting, and attending her memorial service; I was in Tulsa with my family celebrating Christmas and new life. We had family Christmas December 22nd, shared a lot of laugheter and fun times. It snowed! And then the following Wednesday morning, Niki went into Labor and Baby Tyler Cash Erwin blessed us all with his perfect and beautiful presence. There simply couldn't have been a better way to celebrate Christmas!

I'm glad that God has things planned out already.

And part of me hates that I don't know what his plan is.

But a bigger part of me loves knowing that whatever plans I could have possibly made--to fix things, or control things, or to make everybody happy--God's perfect plan is a million times better and infinitely more perfect than I could ever dream.