Thanks for the answer. :) This is what we do every dinner. So a sit down meal is just eating the normal way.

we also have a compost bin. I also separate plastics, cardboard, etc. My goal someday is to be completely off the electric power grid. I want to have solar panels and a windmill. I can dream as these are quite costly.

Maksi, most of us eat "the normal way" too. But when you have a lot of people over sometimes there isn't room for everyone to sit down at the table, so they help themselves to food, like a smorgasborg or a buffet or snacks, and they don't have a "sit down (at the table) meal"

This is the kind of meal were always eat at the holidays. There just isn't enough table for everyone.

if we all used them we would use a lot less paper. The disposable diapers get me. People should go back to cloth diapers, towels, napkins.

Think I remember reading somewhere that most of our landfills will eventually be composed of disposable diapers. It would have been a real luxury to have them when my four stairsteps were growing up, but such things weren't available then. However, I do remember there being something very comforting about taking those diapers off the line, folding them, and putting them in a stack next to the crib. Always made me feel good. In the winter, I hung them in the basement, or over the radiators - depending on where we were living.

Disposible diapers absorb a lot more than cloth diapers. I wish they were around when my three kids were little, I would have used them. Grandkids don't get diaper rash with the disposibles. Poopy cloth diapers were no fun to clean.

Yeah, poopy diapers were always so much fun to dip into the toilet to rinse when the water was barely above freezing.... :D

This topic made me laugh as the same thing has happened at my house. We use terry cloth homemade napkins everyday, same as my Mom taught me to do. She's been a recycler from way back. Some of the ones I made 20 yrs. ago, finally got so threadbare, I threw them out a couple months ago. They were even too thin to go in the "ragbag". I do have more terry in a box, somewhere, to make more. I make my own double fold bias tape to sew on the edges. If I use a print that gives a solid color terry some bling, plus you can use different prints for different people and then they don't get mixed up. Sometimes napkins that match a tablecloth aren't very absorbant if they have too much polyester in them - maybe that's why people tend to not use them? Even if that's true, I still blot my mouth with them, since that is their purpose!

When my sons were babies 24 years ago, I started out using disposable diapers and soon switched to cloth to save money. I too liked the feeling of folding those diapers and putting them in a stack next to the changing table and felt I was doing a "good thing for our earth". Rinsing them out in the toilet was a bit icky at first, but I quickly got used to it. Breast fed baby diapers clean up much easier too. My sons never had diaper rash. I was a stay at home Mom and this prob. wouldn't work if the baby is sent to a daycare center. I'm sure they expect to use disposable diapers.

When my kids were babies I made bibs out of washcloths.
Folded over a side and slipped elastic through it. After they were through eating, I rinsed the cloth and wiped their mouths.

Re: the disposable diapers - for some reason, in the Summer, every parking lot boasts at least one disposable
diaper. It's almost like it's an obligation to have one
declaring a "family friendly environment"!!!!

Two of my boys had cloth diapers..the third got a rash every time I tried to use them on him. I didn't have the toilet rinsing problem. My mom introduced me to disposable liners....toss in the toilet!!! And yes, I also loved that feeling of seeing the freshly laundered pile of folded diapers.

lol, must be such a nice meal they licked their lips clean. We use cloth napkins all the time here, dh sure is not gentle on them. I make multi colored ones for daily use, hides the spaghetti sauce stains.

I understand, :) thanks. When we have a lot of people over about more than eight) then we don't have a sit down meal, just because we don't have enough place at the table. I didn't want to offend anyone, if I did I apologize for that.

I think everyone understands your reasoning....and I don't think you hurt anyone's feelings. When I was a kid, my grandma's table was way too small for all of us and so we ate in "shifts". Men ate first, then the kids and finally the women. I always thought that was strange too -- why did I have to wait until last to eat when I'd help prepare all that food and it was getting cold??? :lol: :lol: But NO ONE questioned my grandma :lol: :lol: :lol:

I remember a C'mas when I was 7 yrs old, thre were 36 grandchildren, and 18 adults. The babies were all fed first, children next, adults last. One uncle had an 8mm projector and ran cartoons for the kids while the adults ate. My grandparents didnt' have a tv, and back then, having the cartoons was a REALLY big deal!!!! What a fun C'mas that was!!!!

I gave up cloth napkins long ago. I decided it was too much trouble to wash, fold, and store them. I do use a nice tablecloth but that's to cover up the scratches in my tabletop. DGD decided she wanted to draw using a nail when she was two. It can be repaired but I think she did a nice job for a two year old. My DD still gets upset seeing it and offers to have it repaired which I keep turning down. LOL.

I have one friend that makes you use the cloth napkin she provides.

Doesn't anyone remember the time when we used knives and forks (kept our hands clean) and were able to negotiate our mouths without incident. Who needed napkins?
Strangely my mouth has become much smaller. LOL and I need a napkin to wipe off my chest.

that sounds so much like me, saving those"special" drawings!!
I had bought a gold , expensive frame to place DH and my picture in, after a cruise we had taken. My grandson was here, 4 at the time, and drew me his rendition of a rainbow. had the sun in the middle, and all the colors going out. Ask me to put it in that pretty frame, and I did. It still hangs here in my den :-D And the picture never did get framed, somewhere in a drawer. :lol: :lol:

I love cloth napkins!! But my family will set them aside and use paper towels.........arghh.....and I USED to love going to restaurants that used them until a couple weeks ago, at a restaurant this man took his napkin and blew his nose on three different occasions..............now I wonder how these are laundered and should i just ask for a paper napkin?????? (kind of like those hidden cameras in hotel rooms).......

That's good! Why use napkins when the crumbs fall and are caught by the 'womanly' figure? Always thought a bib would probably be more appropriate.