Pleasures of Home or 16 Ways to Be Together
I refuse to use the cliche staycation, its like fashionista, recessionista, and other annoying “now” words. I think of what that word refers to as really just making the most of your time that’s not at work and enjoying the pleasures of home with or without taking time off. This weekend is probably the last one before the snow sticks for the winter so its got my thinking cozy thoughts.
Half the time when we have the weekend together without Army or travel to interfere we spend it mutually tuning each other out with the tv on, the laundry running and both of us on opposite ends of the sofa on our laptops until one of us says “That’s it, am I seriously killing time on Stumbleupon at home?!” and then we actually do something. This weekend we got a headstart and made a list of things to do together to enjoy the pleasure of being home. Tonight we’ll cap it off with an end of summer BBQ. May as well get some use out of the deck before the snow flies, even if it means flipping burgers and watching our breath rise. Smores are definitely in order.
This list is my version of the one on this Zen Habits post. Since we are still childless I edited down to more couply ideas for a weekend in, but see the original list for family ideas.
1. Play together in the snow, rain or leaves, then go inside for a cup of hot chocolate made with real chocolate and marshmallows.
2. Make a large bowl of popcorn and snuggle in front of the DVD to watch a movie you’ll both enjoy. No chick-flick that he pretends to like, but something you are actually both interested in.
3. Have a picnic. In wintertime, it’s just as fun to have a picnic indoors.
4. Snuggle together in bed on a cold Sunday morning.
5. Go out for a leisurely Sunday brunch.
6. Just talk. The art of really truly communicating with each other takes practice.
7. Grab a board game. My husband and friends play a mean game of Risk
8. Cook together. Then eat without turning on the tv.
9. Visit the library. Part of the beauty of staying home and not traveling is that you don’t have to buy books to enjoy new reading material.
10. Have a family make-your-own-pizza night.
11. Go for a hike. Maybe in your neck of the woods its still warm enough for this. Right now we’re in that odd period where its too chilly for mountain hikes and not cold enough for snowshoing. Fall actually makes for nice bike riding too.
12. Go to the museum. Play tourist in your own home-town by hitting up the local museums.
13. Go ice-skating/skiing/snowboarding/sledding.
14. Make breakfast foods for dinner, together. Then eat it in bed. Almost as good as room service and a far better value.
15. On a warm fall night, it’s fun to go camping in your own backyard and sleep in sleeping bags, under the stars. We actually drug our mattress into the living room once when it was -20F out just to shake things up a little. We lit candles instead of a fire. Silly, but memorable.
16. Get moving together. Our community has free dance lessons on Saturday nights and Latin dance nights once a month. We have also tried Aikido, fencing, swimming and ultimate frisbee together.
October 3rd, 2009 at 21:01
Thanks for the ideas. DH is deployed and doing a shadow Army 10 miler tomorrow. So, the kids and I did No. 16 in his honor. We went to the local rec field and did a 2 mile lap. They have work out stations, and I gave my kids a “PT test.” Now we’ll all have sore muscles to complain about when we talk with him tomorrow.