Free Time Ideas – #1 Have a Picnic

We all have to eat, right? And if you are like me, you really need to eat or else you’ll get hangry*. If you have a longer lunch break than usual, why not make it special and eat outside?

My husband was on winter break the last few weeks and we’d been spending so much time on our couch watching TV – we watched all the seasons of Game of Thrones in 10 days so you have an idea of how bad we are. If we weren’t taking care of some of our neighbors’ pets, we wouldn’t really have a reason to leave the house; so taking our lunches outside by making them into a picnic is a great way to do something different with our extra free time.

There seems to be a misconception that to have a picnic you need a huge preparation. In our experience, it really doesn’t need to be like that. Just take a look at what you already have in your fridge and pantry, gather some things and put them in a cooler, then take them out! Simple as that! Don’t forget drinks, cutlery, and some napkins. Other than that, it’s really a no-brainer. If you have kids it’s still that simple, you probably have already some treats and portable food that you can take with you, as wells as a big with all the stuff you need so they are entertained on the go. If you are still wondering what to take: as a rule of thumb, if you don’t need to cook it, you can eat it anywhere *wink wink*.

We’ve taken anything from cheese and salami with freshly baked bread (which I happen to bake often), our regular lunch sandwiches and chips and even leftover from our New Year’s Eve dinner. I’ll confess, that sometimes, we do think ahead and buy stuff with the intention of having a picnic, but this means that we got a fancy cheese instead of the ordinary sliced cheese. Usually, it’s what we would already have for lunch – we don’t really put too much thought ahead.

We are, though, very privileged to be living in Irvine, CA. There are so many parks around, that in our case we can just walk to the nearest one with our cooler or drive 15 minutes and find beautiful ocean views to have a picnic. Raise your hand if you wished you lived in Orange County right now! But any outdoor space can be turned into a great picnic spot – your backyard, for example; or even your small patio. Just last week, for instance, we decided on making ourselves brunch and eating it on our patio just to change things a bit. The whole idea of having a picnic is to eat outside breathing fresh air; moreover, a picnic is a way to make an everyday need special.

So next time you’re staring at your fridge thinking “what should I eat?”, why not add the question “where can I take it?”.

I’d love to hear some of your picnic experiences. I bet you have some great ideas for foods to take to a picnic and unexpected places to have one.

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