Variety is the Spice of Life

Do you feel like you are doing the same old thing day after day? One of the ways to add variety to your life is to venture beyond your daily route. I am pretty adventurous and one of my greatest passions is doing new things, visiting new places and tasting new foods. I am always looking for fun places to go and travel too. The travel gets limited on a routine basis due to work and school committments so to translate my interests into a daily routine I try to do the following:

On the eating end, I am always reading articles and getting inspired to try new foods when I sample things at either Whole Foods or Trader Joes. It is fun and rewarding to try new variations on recipes. I keep basic items of meat, vegetables and pastas in my house and use various seasonings and spices to create a variety of menus. In addition, I love visiting farmer's markets and meeting up with local vendors for fresh ideas. This leads to my next suggestion.

Whenever possible, time permitted, if I need to carpool or drive my kids somewhere I read up on local shopping areas or coffee shops near the destination to make my trip an adventure. For example, instead of driving home between round trips today to the high school for a two hour sports practice I decided to take the between time to visit the farmers market in Natick Center with my little dog, Delilah. A beautiful morning turned into an opportunity to get fresh air on a nice long walk and chance to buy farm fresh tomatoes, just picked apples and even delicious bagels!! Before I knew it the two hours flew by and it was pick up time and I built an appetite to eat the delicious farmer's market goods. Now I am looking forward to driving again next Saturday morning when I have more time to sample new foods and gather some new recipe ideas!

If you have any suggestions of places to visit during future team practices let me know.