When Josh Is Away, I Get To Play: My Husband-less Lifestyle

When Josh goes out of town for work, I tell people that I feel like a teenager whose parents are gone for the weekend. And while I'm a lot less fun than any 15-year-old, I fall into youthful habits that bring me back to my childhood (and also make me sound like a crazy person because I'm like, 32 years old).

Here's a recap of things I always do when Josh is gone:

Take extra time off at work. I'll cash in a sick day, or just make sure my schedule allows me to maximize time at home by myself. I love being married. I love my husband. My favorite thing in life is being his wife (and also, eating pizza). But, he works from home, which means if I'm home, he's home. I like that 98% of the time, but sometimes it's nice to have the whole house to myself and have conversations out loud with our dog without judgement. 

Mindlessly shop. Especially at Target, Sephora and craft stores. I'm usually a really fast shopper, or I order everything online. It's not often I like to slowly meander aisles of stores because I feel like there are so many other things I could be doing that are more productive. But for some reason, when I'm there by myself with no husband to go home to, I take my sweet, sweet time while out shopping. And I usually over-buy. And I kind of love it.

Eat like a seven-year-old. I break out the PB&J's, animal crackers and fruit gummie snacks. Why? I have no idea. Maybe because if I ate like this in front of Josh, I'd feel incredibly lame. But at home in my PJs by myself at one in the afternoon? Oh, it feels sooooo good.

Go to a fancy grocery store and get ridiculously over-priced treats. Josh is practical when it comes to shopping, and while I know I can always buy whatever groceries I want, he's rubbed off on me over the years, and I find myself making better, more budget-friendly choices. But, when he's out of town, I treat myself. This time around, I found these pumpkin cheese cracker things for $5 per box. So I basically go to Fresh Market and say, "Here, you take ten dollars, and you give me two things."

Side note: As much as I try to love expensive, fancy pants gourmet ice cream with like, normal food in them, I can't. I have a bite, and I'm like, "That's nice, but I can haz mint chip now?"

Watch stupid and non-stupid-but-they're-not-Josh's-favorite movies. I have a core collection of movies I pick from to watch when Josh isn't around. Some of them good (Penelope is one of my favorites - so whimsical with a great, fairy tale-like story). Some of them awful, but I can't stop watching them (Dirty Dancing. I carried a watermelon). And some of them really great (Fried Green Tomatoes. Towanda!). Sometimes, I'll watch three movies in a row and stuff my face with cheese puffs. Whatever.

Take long walks with Betty. Betty isn't really an "outdoor" dog. She likes to pee, poop, take a few extra steps outside to stretch her legs, and then come back to the couch to recover from that for the next six hours. But, I feel like her and I are in sync when it's just us women, and we both like some extra fresh air and quality time outside together. For Betty, a long walk is about 10-15 minutes, but still, I'll take it. And I really enjoy it. Especially now that we have all this land to explore. It's fun doing it with a fluffy white 7-pound dog by your side.

Go to lunch alone. This isn't necessarily something I only do when Josh is away, but it tends to happen regularly when I have alone time. I find something relaxing and liberating about eating lunch out in public without anyone's company. I never really go anywhere fancy with a wait staff, and I never bring anything to do or read, necessarily. Just clear my head, enjoy my own company and eat some noms.

For the record, I actually went to Whole Foods first, but they didn't have any vegetarian sandwiches that day, and I really wanted a sandwich. Since there was no other place to go for a sandwich where I was at the time, oh darn, I had to go to Five Guys. Believe it or not, I kind of love their veggie sandwich. And this is one of three sodas I get per year (and I only have about five sips and toss the rest because that's what I actually feel guilty about consuming - not the half pound of french fries).

Throw myself into an organizational or crafting project. Because it appears that I'm pretty lazy when Josh is gone, maybe a part of me feels a little guilty. Somehow, I always find myself knee-deep in a project while he's away. Last time, I designed our wedding album (five years after said wedding), and a couple of years back, I hand-made all our Christmas tags and gift embellishments (I had a lot of time that year because it was my wedding off-season). Because my life these days is one big project - I'm either working on something around the house or I'm working on something at, well, work - I kept my productivity minimal this time around. While out shopping, I found some really pretty photo albums (for half off!) that went so nicely with our living room decor, so I decided to go through all our old photos and organize them into the new albums. I also went through all our photos online and decided which photos we should have 4x6 prints of. Then, I pulled a Betty and retired to the couch for the rest of the day and considered myself productive-ish enough. Also, what is it about having actual photo albums to look through? It almost felt antiquated even thinking of making prints to put in an album. But sifting through photos on my laptop just isn't the same.

Stay up way past my bedtime and fall asleep to TV or movies. Normally I'm out by 11 or 11:30, and never fall asleep to the sound of TV. But here's the thing: I'm terrified of ghosts and I'm convinced that when Josh leaves, they're going to come after me. I wish I were kidding. So I have a harder time falling asleep when he's gone and I usually stay up much later than normal hoping I can fake out the ghosts and show them I'm not going to bed anytime soon (go haunt someone else, gosh!). I feel like if I look away from a computer screen for even a second, a stranger that's conveniently lacking blood flow or full opacity will appear around the corner, and I will either die of a heart attack or worse, have to deal with the fact that I saw a ghost. This was the first time I was home alone overnight in our super old, probably haunted, house way out in the country, but I think I did okay all things considered. I was definitely averaging a 1:30 am bedtime though, which is late for this old lady!

What do you like to do when you have your home to yourself? Get takeout every day? Online shop until 3 a.m.? Walk around naked eating a bowl of cereal? No judgement zone here, my friends.