It's been a day

[sillygoosegirl]

One of the hardest things for me, in getting used like after college and married life, has been making good use of my weekend and evening time. For 8 years in high school and college, I pretty much always had homework to do on the weekends and evenings. I wont pretend it took up all my time (though occassionally it certainly did), but it did mean that I didn't really feel like I was master of my own time. Further, you wont be surprised when I say that I'm not really interested in all that many things anymore that I was interested in 10 years ago before I started high school. And finally, when I lived with my parents, of course they planned things for a lot of my weekends, and at college, there was almost always interesting stuff going on.

Well, now, not so much any of that stuff. I leave work at work. I am married to the biggest home-body I know (not that I'm complaining; it's just part of who he is). I don't really know my way around the new responsibilities associated with co-running a home... I'm getting better certainly, but I'm not real comfortable with it yet. And as I said above, I'm not even interested in most of the things I did back in the day as a pre-teen. Furthermore, I seem to have all these time-killing, homework-avoidance habits that aren't serving me at all.

I had anticipated the transition from college to the real world to be difficult, but not like this. Everyone talks about job and rent and paying bills and generally making ends meet... arguing with your spouse about money and chores and sex. These are the sort of things I had anticipated struggling with after college because I thought these were the things everybody struggled with after college and after marriage. But I haven't been struggling with those. I've been struggling to find enough fulfilling ways to fill my time off, since I'm not the sort of person to be content doing the same thing every day or every weekend. Additionally, I've completely surprised myself by having developed a strong desire to live in a nice, clean, relatively clutter-free home... something I never would have guessed I'd grow up to want, and something I am having a very difficult time accomplishing. I have a long list of cleaning and organizing, building and purchasing projects which I hope will help me accomplish this goal.

This weekend, Josh is spending getting ready for quals, which are in a week and a half. I've been working on my projects. So for today:
- I've cleaned the kitchen... twice.
- I've cleaned out, organized, and vacuumed my closet.
- I've cleared off the top of my dresser for the first time in as long as I can remember.
- I repaired one of my wedding earrings, the one that broke.
- I varnished and hung a bar on which to hang my necklaces.
- I baked rhubarb pie (with Josh).
- I watched my garden grow for a little bit (exciting, I promise!).
- I brought a load of stuff to the second hand store, including our old kitchen table (this was with Josh also).
- I bought a book from 1970 entitled "The Handyman's Do It Yourself Around the House Encyclopedia" and two Modern Physics books (1920s and 1950s)
- I accompanied Josh running because he is concerned about his health and doesn't like to go alone (I still hate running as much as I ever have)
- And I've frittered away the rest of the day avoiding the homework I always forget I do not have anymore...

Comments

[origamist.livejournal.com]

If you'd be interested in coming down here for gaming or something tomorrow, we'd like to have you, unless that falls under the category of "doing the same thing every weekend".

[sillygoosegirl.livejournal.com]

Actually, Josh's dad is coming to see us this afternoon, so I'm not really available. Thank you though.

[origamist.livejournal.com]

Okay. Have fun!

[zixi.livejournal.com]

Is there some place you could go volunteer, say every Saturday or once a month of something? A Boys and Girls club or a museum or an animal shelter or a state park or something?
Maybe you could go together?

I dunno. Was just a thought.

Sounds like you got a lot done anyway though. And I think I sorta understand that problem too...though not yet to the same extent you've faced it.

[partly-cloudy.livejournal.com]

There's a book called "The Joy of Not Working" that has some helpful insights for figuring out how to handle free time. It's not as snarky as the title makes it sound, but it occasionally does get kind of campy.