Last Saturday morning, as my husband and I sat sipping our morning coffee, I lamented to him that we didn’t do a wide variety of fun things any more.
“But it’s winter,” he said. “The weather is too bad to do much of anything.”
I admitted that the weather wasn’t great for, say, camping in the woods. But I felt like we had gotten into a bad rut of simply spending our (very limited) free time together doing the same old, same old. I spend the vast majority of my free time running and blogging, which are both solitary activities, and he spends the vast majority of his free time watching movies by himself. But together, we simply don’t have a wide variety of hobbies.
“Well, what do you have in mind?” he asked.
“I dunno,” I replied honestly. “Anything! I’m not saying we need to spend 24/7 together going on grand adventures across the globe. Just more mini adventures here and there would be nice.”
And so, the idea occurred to me to create an Adventure Jar, a place to put in ideas for mini adventures (and I do mean mini!) to draw upon when we’re in a rut.
Later that day, I rummaged around for a large mason jar (y’all know I love me some mason jars), some chalk paint, a little burlap for decoration. The only thing I had to go buy was a little chalkboard luggage tag, to symbolize adventure.
A few coats of paint, a little snipping, and some hot gluing later, I had my Adventure Jar all ready to fill.
Next came the task of coming up with ideas of realistic mini adventures with which to fill it. Here’s what we’ve come up with so far:
- Do a crossword puzzle
- Go on a coffee date
- Camp out in the backyard
- Make s’mores in the fireplace
- Go on a hike
- Play a card game
- Invite friends over for an impromptu get-together
- Shoot around a basketball
- Play a match of tennis
- Go bowling
- Tour a local vineyard or brewery
Of course, your list of mini adventures might look different. Maybe you love ice skating and just haven’t gotten around to do it in forever. We both are terrible at skating! Or maybe you and your partner enjoy going to the cinema. Whatever it is, write down fun activities that you and your partner both enjoy, but either always forget to do or don’t make time to do.
My goal with the Adventure Jar is not just for us as a couple to get out of a rut, but also personally for my own mental health and well-being. I honestly get so caught up in my “serious” hobbies of running and blogging (which are literally like part time jobs for me in terms of the hours they eat up), that I often forget to do little frivolous things like a random crossword puzzle.
Tell me, what would be in your Mini Adventure Jar?
Until next time,
xoxo Charlotte
mosaicca.blog 
Beautiful jar. I have done somthing similar with local places and local walks
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What a wonderful idea! 🙂
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This is a great idea! I’m going to work on this for my little family of 3, Dear Husband, Bambino, and me. We watch a lot of movies, and enjoy it, but there are times when we say “what should we do to get out of the house?” Thanks, fellow unicorn!
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I do this too! It’s always in the execution that we get tripped up. Complacency is our biggest stumbling block. Have fun!
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I think that complacency is our biggest stumbling block as well! I am the first to admit that I am a creature of habit and that I oftentimes have a hard time forcing myself to be spontaneous.
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I like your jar idea. I’m currently doing a list of days out for us to do. There’s loads to do in our local area but we often spend so long trying to decide where to go that we never get around to it. Some of the list is local walks, towns or villages to have a mooch around, some tourist spots like castles, stately homes etc. We used to spend a lot of our weekend walking our dog so now we have to find something new to do. January is a difficult month and it’s easy to go into hibernation.
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Oh I totally agree about January being so easy to fall into a pattern of hibernation. There aren’t any holidays on the horizon to fill up the social calendar, and the weather is often not pleasant for spending time outdoors, so it can be a difficult month to stay motivated to go out and do things.
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Thankfully January is nearly over!
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There’s an awful lot of familiarity in this post. The problem is that neither I nor my girlfriend ever come up with suggestions. At least ones that aren’t costly, which in this age are few. An idea like this sounds good. I despise the feeling of guilt I get when she’s bored and some kind of remedy for that problem would be beneficial.
Another cog turner of a post. Bravo!
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Oh, I totally agree how hard it is to come up with things to do that don’t cost an arm and a leg. Particularly in winter, when most of the free things involve going out of doors. In a way, I am grateful that I loathe movies, otherwise going to the cinema on the regular would be a very costly diversion. At least here, you can’t go to the movies these days without dropping upwards of $30, and significantly more if you like food.
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Yeah, the cinema is a massively expensive date nowadays. I haven’t been in a long time as I’m really not into getting fleeced. But there are fun activities to do that don’t cost much at if you know where to look and are prepared to do them
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Agreed! I love finding local state parks. They are generally either free or only cost a few dollars to enter for the day.
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There are plenty of parks regionally, but I generally don’t much care for the clientele they attract when I’ve been in the past. I’ve had the serious urge to take my son swimming of late, but even that now is so costly
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How does that work if you want access to a pool? It’s a bit frustrating here, because to access any community center’s indoor pool, you have actually have to prove you reside within that community, and then pay a yearly fee on top of that.
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Charlotte, I ADORE this idea! You guys are my kind of people. Also, judging by your blog, I think you might be interested in my most recent blog post about living adventurously. Check it out if you have a chance!
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Aw, thank you so much!!! I will most certainly check out your post! 🙂
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