When you have down time at home, what do you do with it? Are you the type of person that enjoys sitting on the couch and watching TV? Do you find things to do around the house? I am struggling with the fact that my husband and I have very different answers for these questions.

My husband took a couple of days off to make it a 4 day weekend. The options were to 1. go spend time at our 33 acres working on the interior walls of the cabin so we can connect the wood stove and 2. work on things around the house that are on his to-do list. The to-do list was created by him, not me.

Well, the truck check engine light decided to come on the prior Sunday and the husband couldn’t get it into the shop until the Monday after his 4-day weekend. The truck is typically what we take to the land. We really needed to take it this time so we could pull the trailer and bring the mower. Since my husband isn’t comfortable with fixing the truck himself, the trip to the land was removed as an option.

That meant the only option for his time off was to check a few things off his to-do list around the house. The first day of his 4-day weekend, he slept a better part of the day. It was a holiday, so we visited my sister and her husband for dinner and came home. Nothing got done around the house on day 1.

On day 2, I had to work, so it was up to him to do whatever he wanted to accomplish. He slept until about 2 pm. Now, keep in mind that he works nights so he normally sleeps until lunch anyway. However, he went to bed early the previous night so I figured he would be up earlier. Then he sat around the house watching TV for the remainder of the night.

Ok. Maybe he just needed another day to relax and catch up on sleep. I’ll give him that. However, he has yet to do anything different than what he would have done in a 2-day weekend.

Day 3 is now Saturday. I get up, have my morning coffee, and go outside to start on some of the exterior work. One of the things we had discussed doing was pulling out the shrubs in front of the house. We want to make sure the dirt work is correct and I’d prefer different landscaping out front. I spent all morning cutting the shrubs and hauling the debris around back to the burn pile. When I was finished, I came inside for a bite to eat. The husband was just getting out of bed. He makes a comment about burning on that day.

He gets up, drinks his morning coffee, and watches TV. Then, he watches more TV. We go eat dinner and then he watches more TV. Sometime during the evening he makes a comment about him not accomplishing anything this weekend. That tells me he knows it, but for some reason couldn’t find the motivation to do anything about it.

It’s now day 4, the last day of his long weekend. It is supposed to rain this afternoon and when I get up, it looks like it could rain sooner. The burn pile is still full. I am trying to decide if I should just burn it myself or let it sit until he does it. I’ve already washed all the towels in the house because no one else apparently knows how to do that. I need to work in my garden and the bathrooms and kitchen need cleaning.

I’ll probably do work while everyone is sleeping. Then, when they get up, I’ll give in and sit on the couch and watch TV with them. It’s hard to do all the work while everyone else sits on the couch and watches TV. The alternative is unacceptable though. It would mean living like we did when I was a kid and I refuse to do that.