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Blog, Catskills, Destinations, Domestic Travel, Entrees, Excursions, Exploration, New York, Topwind Diner, Travel, Upstate New York, Valley Moments, Valley Moments Video

Valley Moments: Exploration – Naan Pizza Picnic in the Catskills of Upstate New York

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Hey it’s been awhile! Due to covid I haven’t really been doing a lot of International travel but admire those who push through the regulations to make it happen. I feel like I’m too spontaneous to deal with the changes. Anyway, I’ve taken an interest in car camping and domestic travel to fulfill that need, last winter I bought a small trailer that I’m converting into a camper – for example. In the mean time I’ve been working on making my sedan more camper friendly, I got a car air mattress that actually works pretty well. I’ve designed a kitchen setup for the sedan that I’ve been dying to try that won’t break the bank. Regardless, I did my first over nighter last weekend in Catskills park in Upstate New York in a pull off. No one bothered me but I’m pretty sure there was someone who shown their lights through the car!

Thankfully with the car air mattress it fits in the back of the seat, so it was actually pretty stealth. Unfortunately after only four hours of sleep (which is actually a minimum for me), I woke up to rain at 1 am at night. It was pretty quiet and the rain came down hard. I made the executive decision to leave for home and good thing I did as it continued to rain throughout the morning. I wasn’t prepared for car camping as initially I wanted to do a wild tent camp from iOverlander coordinates but could NOT find two spots I had picked out in the Catskills! Dinner went swimmingly well, I had my famous naan pizza. I pre-made the dough and brought peppers, onions and garlic. Before dinner, I cleaned out the car and moved whatever was left over from my move to the trunk and blew up the air mattress. I was definitely under prepared as I didn’t bring a pillow and no heavy blanket, but still got some sleep.

I think my next trip might be local or to Westport, CT for some mussel and clam foraging! Whatever comes first, with these gas prices these days it makes it even more difficult to do domestic travel so I’m sticking to super local destinations for now. Check out my YouTube video of my adventure below:

Blog, Blum Lifestyle, Lifestyle, Zero-Waste Lifestyle

How to fund your zero waste lifestyle

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I recently moved into my second long-term apartment and made a promise to myself to reduce plastic and waste in general after seeing how much was lost in the pipe bursts in the last place. I have been doing an audit on my belongings and identifying things that are single-use or are not sustainable. Here is what I have learned and have done so far.

In general I have been mastering facebook marketplace. I love that it’s like online thrifting, and involves traveling to new places (to pick the items up). It is also way safer than say craigslist and has a good Free Stuff section. 

In my recent move, I was able to sell a lot of what was heavy and/or that I picked up from the Free Stuff section. I made sure to make it easy for the buyer by offering wire/online payment options such as paypal and venmo: although for smaller amounts venmo is much better! 

For auditing your belongings you would want to look at things that are single-use. For me this was battery operated candles. There were 9 of them in a set I bought off amazon, They also took 2 AA batteries, which meant 18 batteries in total, batteries come in a variety of pack sizes but can also be expensive! I then wondered if amazon had rechargeable candles and they do. While you get three less than the original 9 in a set, I found I didn’t really use all of them in the space. 

Also look at the longevity of an item – the battery operated candles may be OK for short-term use, but are you really going to keep throwing out 18 batteries at a time? If you put the batteries in all at once, there’s a chance that they will all die at once. There are also many articles on pinterest and elsewhere on the internet about home waste audits. Check out my Home Waste Audit board below! 

#zerowaste, #lifestyle, #fund, #facebook, #marketplace, #reducereuserecycle