This past week, Ken and I went out to the East coast of Canada. Travelling within your own country is great—no worries about currency exchanges, border security, or paying exorbitant amounts for cell phone plans. We decided to rent a car, visit friends, and then drive the Cabot Trail. It’s the perfect time of year to do it because the fall colours are just stunning. And doing so much driving gave Ken and I a lot of opportunities to have very important conversations.

Me: The other day, I got an Amazon delivery and I was about to throw away the box, but I didn’t.

Ken: Because it was a good box?

Me: Obviously. We’ve officially reached the age where we keep empty cardboard boxes because they’re good boxes, not because we actually need them.

Ken: They always end up coming in handy—that’s a guarantee.

And we realized that it’s not just boxes…

Gift bags: You know the ones I mean—not too big, not too small, holiday-neutral but fancy enough for any occasion. Even better if the gift tag hasn’t been written on. If you know anything about me at all, you’ll know I have the gift wrapping skills of a five -year-old (actually most five-year-olds can wrap a present better than I can) so gift bags and tissue paper are my go to. And anytime I get a nice one, someone else in the family gets it back.

Wood: Ken does a lot of woodworking and wood can be expensive so we have no issue grabbing a piece of wood off the side of the road to use later.

Me: Ooh, stop! There’s a lovely pallet at the end of that driveway there!

Ken: Nice! I see a coffee table in our future!

We actually did make a coffee table out of a wood pallet once which I sold it for $75 bucks pure profit. The one thing I never nagged Ken about cleaning up is his woodpile. Even if Ken has no plan for any of it at the moment, it’s still all good wood and might come in handy later. And you can scoff, but he’s almost finished the new little cabin he’s building me and he did it all with his late dad’s “good wood” as well as our own finds and offcuts. The other day, we went by a dumpster and found several pieces of good wood that I might do something with—or not, but at least I have the wood.

Bubble Wrap: Who in their right mind ever throws away a piece of bubble wrap? That stuff is like gold. If you don’t use it, you can pop it. It’s multi-purpose.

Envelopes: I don’t do it often, but I have been known to keep a good envelope. They go with the loose Christmas cards I have stored in the dining room closet. And there’s nothing like the satisfaction of matching an envelope with a card…

I’m finding it really hard to concentrate because I’m in the airport waiting at our gate and there’s a woman talking very loudly on her cell phone to someone and apparently she has 120 oat cakes in her carry-on and just got a tattoo in Halifax with “the best line work she’s ever seen” but she can’t show it to the person she’s Face-Timing with because it’s on the inside of her thigh. But we’ll be home soon, so it’s all good. Also, Happy Thanksgiving!