Amanda Rothaus

My husband and I decided a long time ago to go down from two cars to one, and we're finally doing it. He's the only one of us currently working outside of the home, and we now live within walking distance of the school my son will go to whenever he goes back in person. It will be incredibly easy for us to manage having a single vehicle. We've decided to keep the smaller, more fuel-efficient one, and if we ever have a one-off need for a bigger car, we can rent one. It's not the easiest to be without a car in the suburbs, but it's definitely possible, and I look forward to walking more and driving less.

For Halloween this year, I decided to make my son's Halloween costume using only materials we already had. He wanted to be a clown, but not a specific one, so this made it easier to be creative with the design. I sew, and I had a pair of pants I had started to make for myself that I was able to quickly alter into clown pants. I made an entire hat with fabric and other materials, and I had enough makeup to do a full creepy clown face. He was happy with the result, and I didn't have to purchase a single thing. :)

This week, I started a new method of meal planning for the purpose of reducing food waste. (By "new method," I mean "an actual plan.") I typically go to the grocery with specific meals in mind, but I end up leaving with bags and bags of mismatched ingredients. This leads to things spoiling before they're used (although, I did just get a chest freezer, which will also help!) The lack of planning also leads to us eating out too often, since going into the kitchen with no direction whatsoever is overwhelming. We ordered dinner from a restaurant one night last week, which is a reduction from our recent average of about [redacted] times per week. ;)

In order to use all of the rosemary I brought home from our field trip, I decided to freeze it into cubes of chicken broth. I cook chicken in a slow cooker with fresh herbs every week. I can just toss one of these cubes in instead of constantly buying fresh rosemary and hoping I use it all before it goes bad. (RIP to all the herbs that've rotten in my fridge along the way.)

I went to the trails behind my former home, where I spent more time than I had realized. I grew up quite literally in the woods, so whenever my mind is needing to reset, that's still where I'm drawn to. Even in the years I was living in Portland proper, I still felt as though I had easy access to relatively quiet, green spaces. It's definitely become a priority for me to find a natural space near my new home that will provide comparable solace.

Shortly before the pandemic, I had made reusable produce bags out of muslin fabric for grocery shopping. Most grocery stores stopped accepting customers' reusable bags and containers last year, and understandably so. I've made an effort to reuse all of the plastic bags I've ended up with in one way or another, but I'm thrilled to have realized this week that all of the places I shop have finally returned to accepting reusables.