As for me and my house

we will flush the toilet paper.

I try my best to be a lady and not bring up unbecoming subjects, but this is one I cannot avoid any longer! My very first trip to Belo Horizonte, Brasil was back in July. I was so excited to come check the place out and get all immersed in a new culture. About my third day here, I began to notice that every public restroom had a trashcan in each of the stalls. Now, for you ladies, you know that this is not an uncommon practice. BUT, I started noticing that the trashcans were all full of little wads of toilet paper. Now, my first thought was 'wow, these people blow their noses a lot!' On the fourth day, I became a little suspicious and I asked Eric, "Are there trashcans in the stalls of the men's bathrooms?" He hadn't noticed any, but he surveyed the situation for me on his next restroom visit. There were indeed trashcans there too: all with little wads of toilet paper. I presented him my oh-good-grief-these-people-don't-flush-their-toilet-paper! theory. He thought I was crazy at first, but the more he paid attention, the more he realized that oh-good-grief-these-people-don't-flush-their-toilet-paper! We are in a city of 5 million people and they aren't flushing toilet paper and this concerns me from a sanitary and hygiene standpoint. Especially since trash pickup works by piling the bags of trash on the sidewalks each evening and the trash truck comes around and picks them all up (and since the are a lot of people on the street going through the trash bags looking for cans and other recyclables) . . . yes, I know . . . EEEEEWWWWW!

Now this brings me to the present situation at hand. I did some research and apparently the reason for the no-flush rule on the paper is that the in home sewer lines tend to be small and paper clogs them easily. Well, now we have our own apartment. And I'm going to be real honest with you, clogging a pipe is a risk I am just going to have to take! Because as for me and my house, we WILL flush the toilet paper!

Sorry. That's been weighing on my mind for some time now and, boy, do I feel better sharing it. hehe ;)

Anyway, I believe I promised some pictures that I haven't delivered yet, so here they are: our new apartment!

Coming off the elevator on the 5th floor, here is our front door

Just inside the front door on the left, is the social bathroom (half bath)

On inside, this is on the right, it is the first part of the great room. Where the TV is sitting on the floor, will be our entertainment center and the couch we just ordered will go in front of the window on the left of the picture
Standing next to the TV now, these are built in shelves along the wall that divides the kitchen from the great room

The built ins are on my left and this is the great room area that we will use as our dining room for now. This is a table that was left here that we are using for now until our tables gets delivered in January. Going through the doorway on the left takes you into the dining room


Here is standing in that doorway looking towards the master suite and all the other bedrooms. The kitchen is just to my left
And here is standing in the kitchen doorway

And the door is to my back now as I take a peek into the kitchen

Continuing through the kitchen and to the left, you enter the laundry room, here is the maid's quarters which is off the laundry room (don't be fooled, the only way this is getting used is if Eric's maid [that would be me] sleeps in there!)
Across the laundry room, this is the maid's bathroom, again, probably won't get used too much!And here is a shot through the laundry room back towards the kitchen. The maid's quarters are on my right and bathroom on the left
If you go back through the kitchen and into the dining room, you can access all the bedrooms. Here is the first one if you go to the far right. This will be our main guest bedroom.

The next room you come to is the office. It also has a twin bed in it, but on the right is a built in desk and bookcase, so we will mostly just use it as our office.

The next doorway in the dining room is the oh-so-lovely avocado green bathroom. Someone described it as walking into a forest, um, okay. I would tend to go more with walking into a giant vat of guacamole . . mmmmm, now I'm hungry. :) This is the main guest bathroom though.

Next up is the other guest bedroom.

And, here is the last doorway in the dining room, it takes you into the master suite. There is a walk in closet on the left and the bathroom is the second door on the left.

With my back to the bathroom, here is our bedroom (yes, I was supposed to be packing my suitcase, but took a break to shoot a few photos!)

And here is a peek inside the master bathroom.

And, then standing in my bedroom door, looking through the dining room. The kitchen door is on the right and the great room is straight ahead.

Well, that's the best tour I can give in blog-land. You'll have to come down here in person to get a better one. :)

We leave in just a few hours to head towards the airport and make our way to Chicago. We hope to see lots of you soon!