Refreshing Romance

I enjoyed reading the few posts about "what bugs you", but come on ladies! I know we have a few more pet peeves than that! I hope you will continue to add what bugs you to the blog. It's nice to know we all have our little issues with our traveling men.

My husband and I just got back from a weekend away. It was so nice to get out of town and away from any responsibilities. Even though we try to save our weekends for fun, it makes a different when you couldn't do anything productive, even if you wanted to. (out of sight, out of mind)

How often do you and your husband take time for a little vacation? I think it's hard some times to take time away, when they're away so much during the week. When my husband is home on the weekends, I hunger for normalcy and often the last thing on my mind is a weekend out of town. I like seeing him AT HOME, sitting on th couch, doing mundane things like channel surfing together. But I realized again this weekend how important it is to travel together.

What Bugs You?

Here's a wild card post .... write about anything that drives you crazy about your traveling husband. Does he leave his towels on the floor like he's at the Hilton? Does he never want to go out and eat on the weekends because he's having all of these fabulous meals on the company dime during the week? No complaint is too big or small.

I'm going on a ski weekend with my husband today so I'll be away for a few days from the internet, but I'm looking forward to checking in when I get back!

Time for My Stuff

I don't know about you guys, but when my husband is home, I have a horrible time getting things done I need to get done. Between trying to spend time with him, and help him with a few things, there's little time left for things I need to do. I guess just need to make time, but in my mind, I think - "well, I can do that after he leaves."

The end result is that on the nights he's gone, I'm squeezing in a lot of little things in I need to do. My personality is I have to get the "need to" things done before I do the "want to" things. By the time I'm done all of my obligations, I rarely have time left. I know I need to work on this. My husband is incredibly good at goofing off even when there's stuff left to do. And to his credit, things are always done eventually, when they absolutely have to be. Not sure if this is a gender things, or personality trait.

Anyway - does anyone have the same problem?

*the picture is one we took a couple years ago in Warsaw, Poland.

Back to Reality

My husband is back in town for this week after being gone all last week. It's always hard for us to balance the things I've been waiting on him to do, with what he needs to do to catch up from being gone. Sometimes it feels like a tug of war. I know he's got to get caught up, but I've been waiting to do things (like tonight it's sealing off some windows in our drafty old house (just bought an 1830's row house)). Right now, he's bogged down at work so I've been running around taking care of it which is what I said I wouldn't do. He'd promised to help, BUT, I can tell he's stressed and I just keep telling myself it's not as if he's going to see a movie. He said he'll help when he gets home, but I don't want to do it at 10 at night.

Aside from the "honey-do" list - I just want to spend time with him, catching up on our favorite shows, and relaxing. Thankfully, this weekend we have a long ski weekend planned in Colorado so we'll have some QT there.

How do you guys balance what your needs are when your husband gets home with what he needs to take care of?

Have a great weekend!

I hope you're getting to enjoy some time with your husbands. Mine is still out of town - so it's a girls weekend for me! Talk to you guys on Monday!

Unexpected Irritation

I don't know what got into me this morning, but for some reason I got irritated at my husband. He wasn't even here and last night when we talked all was fine. But something switched when I went to work, and his crazy schedule the last week got under my skin. We've hardly talked because he's been so busy and I've tried so hard to be cool about it and understand that this really is a crucial time. But this morning, I left my "coolness" at home and sent him a "nasty-gram' email about something he hadn't done that I'd asked him to do. He immediately took care of it, and then I felt a little silly. But should I have felt silly? Fourteen days (I counted) isn't unreasonable to expect something to be done.

Share your thoughts - The Honey Do List

Here's a topic ... how do you gals handle the "honey do" list? In a traditional marriage, men are home all week, they can help out around the house, they can change a light bulb or call a repairman. For us weekend wives, things are a little different. If our husbands try to squeeze all of these responsibilities into 72 hours on the weekend, we all miss out on quality time.

I try to do everything I possibly can during the week so the weekends can be mostly fun. Of course, I do this with my own selfish motivations, but in the beginning I REALLY resented my husband. Here I was getting home from work at 5:30 and cleaning, fixing, whatever - and he was off in some Hilton eating at Mortons.

Then one night during a fight about this very topic, my husband said, "I feel like you're complaining about mowing the yard when I'm out digging a ditch." Things changed a lot after that night for us.Their life might seem glamorous on the road, but bottom line (at least for my husband who is a consultant) they're working 16 hour days. And the Hilton is nice, unless you've been there for 8 months and at that point the novelty has worn off. I work 8 hours a day. If I have to put in 2 or even 3 hours a night around the house, I still have the better end of the deal. At least I'm at home. I guess, for me, it came down to finally accepting his job as my own as well.

What do you think? How do you deal with household chores? Do you have a hard time accepting the responsibility? Even though I'm more at peace with things, I still have a hard time occasionally.

Have a good night ladies!