Life Happens
All too often life gets in the way of my good time. I remember back to when Seth and I started dating. I waited for his call mid-week to ask me out for our next date. It was always exciting to see what he would plan — he is so creative! As our date approached, I’d rush to get my chores done so I could enjoy my time with him.
Fast forward to marriage. How did my chores multiply?? There’s hardly ever enough time to get it all the basics done, not to mention the “fun” house projects we like to sprinkle in. And you want us to date too? Now you’re talking crazy!
Seth typically works a 6-day week (normal expectation in the ag industry), but it definitely weighs on us our entire marriage. Work, work, work all week then hurry up to rest, relax, enjoy and reconnect on Sunday after church. Seem unattainable to anyone else? Us too.
Don’t get me wrong, the past 3 1/2 years haven’t been all work, no play. We’ve had some great weekend adventures. But for the most part, Sunday has been a pain point. To add to our lack of time, I recently started working a part-time job with some good friends. Very part-time, but even still, working every other Saturday afternoon/evenings makes for even less time together.
We Need a Solution
Being the solution focused people we are, we are eager to try new things to improve our situation. We’ve tried a number of things over the last few years to help us “connect”. But, after putting all this work in to help us to connect, we learned that wasn’t the only thing our marriage was needing. Seth also needed down time.
So what we really need is more days in the weekend and since we know that isn’t going to happen, we decided to play with the two days we have. What we came up with is: If Seth works later during the week, and even brought some work home, he would be able to stay home on Saturdays! Of course, there are a couple of times of year where this will not be an option, but he agreed to make it happen during the times of year when it will be acceptable to not be at the office.
One month into the solution, we are loving this solution! Sundays are less stressful. We see each other more. Seth gets to do things he enjoys doing like spending more time at the gym, meeting with guys, zoning out, and thinking of new things for us to do together. We are both more relaxed and it ends up making the weeks go better for us too! What it’s meant for us as Team Huenink is that we have more opportunities relax, get our chores done, prep for the upcoming week, fit in some house projects, do social things, and even DATE!
Creative Dating
Creative DatingEven with Seth home the full weekend, I still will work every other Saturdays evenings so we need to be creative about our “dates” on those weekends. Sometimes that means Sunday Funday dates. Other times we rally on Friday nights (rare).
This past weekend was my “on” weekend, so Saturday night date night was out. We also had a friend’s birthday party and a few other things on Sunday that didn’t allow for a date time. We both had hectic weeks and needed the zone out/veg out time on Friday. But all of these challenges did stop us from dating! We got our workout in and spent time stretching side by side. I was reminded of how intelligent and passionate he is as he shared things he has researched. Not only would he show me a stretch, but he’d tell me the whys and why nots. It was really interesting and helpful. Our day was off to a great start!
Like I said, Seth has always been a creative date guy. So next, we wrote our grocery list, grabbed our totes and headed to the stores. Yes, stores. Eating Whole30 will teach you, you shop the deals! Let me also mention that Seth hates that we need to do this. Going to 3 different grocery stores is not his idea of a good time. But this was our time together and we made the best of it! We laughed, discussed potential recipes, high-fived over savings, noted all the things we liked to cheat with some day, shared stories, and enjoyed iced coffees. I’d take grocery shopping with him any day!
Life happened and our weekend flew by, but we managed to connect in the aisles of grocery stores. It wasn’t glamorous, but it did what we needed it to, and for that we are grateful to be ready for another week!
