This Week...Beyond Money 6/22 -6/28

For me, a life beyond money is making choices so that you can live the best possible life, regardless of your income level. Obviously, you have to make a living, but there are many ways to improve your quality of life without increasing your income levels and correspondingly your expenses. This regular post will be some of the ways that we improve our quality of life beyond just trying to make more money.

Gardening:
* Harvested 5 cups of greens from various spots: mustards from the shade garden, lettuce microgreens from the garden beds and front-garden containers, kale from the front porch container.
* Harvested some baby radishes.
* Ate thinnings, about 1 cup's worth.
* Harvested a couple of garlic scapes that grew in late.
* Some horrible green caterpillars are eating my kale down to nothing. I've been killing them as I find them, but it is heartbreaking. I'd been getting such good kale harvests!

* I was going to attempt to clean out some of the poison ivy in the flower beds, but it was overwhelming. Instead, I mowed everything down (and then ran inside to wash clothes and shower). I will lay down some cardboard over the beds before winter to smother things out and then put on some compost/soil and fresh mulch. I'll start fresh, with the exception of a few plants I'll leave alone.

Cooking/Groceries:
* I made Chinese buffet for us at home one evening. I like to do that sometimes when we are good and resist the siren's call. I made: fried rice made from leftover rice cooked in pork stock, vegetable stir fry with sweet chili sauce, spring rolls, crab Rangoon and egg drop soup. All of it is pretty simple once you know what you're doing. I had the whole thing pulled together pretty quickly. I had leftovers for lunch the next day.
* We grilled out one evening. I had purchased some kielbasa burgers on manager's special for $3/lb (25% cheaper than regular ground beef in these parts). We ate 3 of the 4 (the remaining burger will be used for stuffed peppers or a lunch). I also grilled an eggplant, a sliced potato (tossed in oil and grill seasoning purchased for $.05 at the salvage grocer) and two heads of garlic (incredible! I squeezed mine onto my burger...sigh). For dessert, we had grilled banana splits made with the three bananas that were getting kinda dark on the counter.
* We had popcorn for snacks.

Fun:
* I'm enjoying books, audiobooks and movies from the library. I listen to audiobooks on the way to and from work which I love. I'm currently listening to The Elegant Universe by Brian Green.
* Cheap coffee dates with our travel refill mugs.
* I went to see my sister bowl in a tournament. She won second place for her division. I was very proud of her.
* After my sister's bowling tournament, my parents, my other two sisters, one of my sisters' fiance, and I went to a local park. We walked around, bird-watched and ran the obstacle course a few times. I love being able to work out with people.
* It was my best friend's birthday, so I went out with her and some of her other friends. I didn't spend a lot of money. We went to an arcade that had free play and she taught me how to play the games (that I really don't have the skills for, but I had fun). I gave her a vintage cookbook I found while picking, a steamer basket (on her kitchen wishlist) and a big jar of apple chips.

Nature:
* I got outside almost every day to just enjoy life.

Frugality:
* Walked to the library instead of driving.
* I bought a pair of new-to-me dress shoes since my brown pair was worn out pretty bad. They are leather and wood with metal heels.

Waste Reduction:
* Composted lots of weird things.

Work:
* I worked over 1.75 hours of overtime between my two days.
* I brought my lunch to work each day.
* Thursday started my break from work for July 4th. We get the week off. I volunteered to come in on the Sunday before break ends to help get the place to start up again the next day. I will get paid double time.
* Trucker brought home a bad of cookies, scones and muffins from his job that would otherwise have been thrown away.

Future:
* Trucker encouraged me to start a fun challenge. I've been talking about writing an ebook, but life always gets in the way. While I'm on break from work, I'm going to write a short ebook. I need to write a minimum of 1400 words a day. First day in, I wrote 1572 before 6:30 AM.

Health:
* I've been running the obstacle course at a local park a couple times a week. Monkey bars, over-unders, balance beams, stomach crawls, rope climbs, wall jumps, log runs, tractor tires. It's a blast. And I hurt.My parents, sisters and I went to the obstacle course together one afternoon when they were in town. We kept it pretty easy and fun.
* I've been running daily, at least a mile. Sometimes I go out two or three times.

How was your week?