Cheap & Cheerful Suppers for the Third Week of July

Another week of home-cooked meals. We're using a lot of garden produce at all meals right now. Berries with breakfast, salad greens and berries at lunch, different greens for cooking, salad ingredients, rhubarb, berries, various fresh herbs, kitchen-grown lentil sprouts, last year's green figs (canned), plus pickles and relish from homegrown ingredients.  All of this produce is really helping to stretch our grocery budget. Plus, I know how my food is grown, and that matters, too.

Here were our evening meals for the week:

Friday
pepperoni pizza, beet salad, sautéed Swiss chard, rhubarb-grape soda jello

Saturday
hot dog cook-out, hot dogs in homemade buns, garden salad, fried kale, spiced fig applesauce

Sunday (I wasn't feeling great. My husband made pancakes for dinner.)

Monday (still not feeling great, but made a quick dinner anyway)
chicken in mushroom sauce over brown rice, steamed frozen peas

Tuesday (I made a late afternoon tea for dinner, motivated by finding the open jars of spreads in the garage fridge that had been a Christmas gift to us form our son and daughter-in-law.)

egg salad sandwiches, beet and carrot cream soup, fresh raspberries, homemade scones, a couple of spreads for the scones that were gifts at Christmas, rhubarb bar cookies, other cookies that were a gift at Christmas, almonds, chocolate candy that was a gift at Christmas, iced herb tea and hot black tea

Wednesday
ground beef, kale, canned tomatoes and garlic over rice, fresh strawberries and raspberries

Thursday
smoked sausage sautéed with Swiss chard, garden salad, drop biscuits, rhubarb sauce

After reading the comments last week, I visited the YouTube video with a demonstration for making rice wrapper salad wraps. (Link here) I remembered that I had some sort of wrap in my pantry. It turned out to be a package of tapioca flour wraps. I decided to give making a salad wrap a shot for my lunch on Saturday. This was easy and tasty. I made a peanut sauce for dipping, too. I tried to tighten it up after sealing it and it tore a hole. Otherwise it turned out okay. I used Swiss chard leaves to reinforce the tapioca flour wrapper, then filled with more garden greens, sprouted lentils, and nasturtium blossoms -- the foods I had readily available.

Anything especially summery on your menu this week?

How to Save Money on Vacations

Create the life of your dreams, so you never feel the need to take a vacation from it. 

I've seen variations on this sentiment multiple times. I've been rolling this over in my mind all spring and summer. I believe this is what I've been doing for the past few years, without really putting words to it. I have been pondering what it is that would bring me joy in my day to day life. And how can I add those activities and surroundings without extra cost. Fortunately, I find enjoyment in the simpler aspects of life, such as watching the sun come up over the trees in the wee hours of the morning in summer, or growing plants and tracking their growth, or listening to the frogs talk to each other as the sun is going down. Yet, simply knowing what I enjoy isn't enough. I have to make the time and plan for these enjoyments.

There are some qualifications to the above statement. 

I don't think it's realistic to create such a life that you never, ever want a break from it. Doing even the most wonderful earthly thing becomes routine after a while. I try to build in some breaks from the tedious for myself, either getting ahead on some chores or asking for help from other family members. Even so, I do look forward to going new places every so often. But the sentiment stands, loving my life means I don't want to escape from it.

Obviously, it's helpful to choose a vocation that fits one's personality type. I'm more of an introvert, so whatever I do each day, I need some peaceful time away from others. I also prefer to be forthright in all of my dealings. I'd make a terrible used car salesman. However, choice isn't always an option. Sometimes, we have to take a job that doesn't at all suit us, simply to provide for ourselves and perhaps others.

Which brings me to this, I need to feel like what I'm doing has a purpose beyond just making someone else wealthier. When a particular job wasn't the greatest fit for me, in my younger years, I continued with it until I found something that was better. But all the while I worked knowing that I was taking care of myself on my own. And this was something for which I took pride. Work that supports oneself and family is a purpose in itself. In the same way, I cook and clean for my family because I want them to have a clean house and good meals to come home to each day. My purpose is serving them.

Gratitude and appreciation goes a long way in finding a life of my dreams. Whatever task I'm working on, I try to find enjoyment, either in the work itself or in some added benefit discovered while working. -- finding the lovely or pleasing in whatever I'm doing. I didn't always love some of the tasks of being a stay-at-home parent, but I really enjoyed getting to see first hand the funny or sweet things my kids did on a daily basis. In keeping the gardens, I don't enjoy some of the work, but I do invoke "grower's privilege" when it comes to picking that first juicy raspberry to pop into my mouth or the first ripe tomato to add to my lunch salad.

The life of my dreams isn't just about a job or role. It's enjoying the moments before my workday begins and after my workday is completed. It's finding joyous or peaceful activities for downtime or weekends. It's noticing the beauty of a sunset. It's taking in the aroma of the first cup of coffee on a cold morning. It's reading a story on a lazy Sunday afternoon that calls to mind far-in-the-past times. It's trying a new craft or baking cookies with my kids or writing here. 

I think I am on the path to having the life of my dreams, one where I don't feel the constant need to escape from it.

You may be wondering about the photo above. Keeping the produce gardens is a big part of my role right now. I spent a couple of hours in the hot sun preparing a new spot for growing blueberries next year. It was hard and very sweaty work. Towards the end, I certainly was not having fun. So I rewarded myself with a visit to the front yard pumpkin and sunflower patch when I finished the bit of work with a saw. My reward? Seeing the first of the sunflowers open its yellow petals. This made my heart smile.

Are you living the life of your dreams? If so, how did you get there? If not, what changes would you want to make to have the life of your dreams?