Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Making evenings work

What are your evenings like? Ours go like this:

4:30pm: pick up A from daycare
4:45pm: arrive home; someone walks the dog
5:30pm: hopefully have dinner ready, depending on how much I've planned out
6:00pm: dishes and playing with A
6:30pm: A's bath
7:00pm: Storytime
7:30pm: A's (hopefully) asleep
7:45pm: curl up on the couch, watch old episodes of Being Erica or read a book. Tom goes downstairs, watches old episodes of Top Gear or works in his shop.

There's not much "wrong" with this schedule until we hit about 7:45/8 at night. Then suddenly we become couch potatoes - and separate couch potatoes at that! No fun Scrabble games, or interesting conversation....just a boring old couple too tired to do much else.

Last night I was angry going to bed, because I realized that in addition to sitting all day long at my desk job, I basically sat all evening long, and went to bed with a sore back and neck. I've never thought of myself as a couch potato until I had a child, and now I'm the queen potato!

So, today at work (yes, I am actually working as well, but must take a break from the monotony of spreadsheets), I have compiled a list of things that Tom and I could be doing in the evenings. Some are projects that we can work on together, while others are personal goals of ours that we should be attempting to achieve.

  • Using our indoor bike trainer (Tom)
  • Doing yoga (Misty)
  • Creating a family budget
  • Planning for our 2012 garden!
  • Finishing our downstairs bathroom renovations
  • Meal planning
  • Work on a new website/blog for me!
What do your evenings look like? Any tips for ways to reconnect as a couple?

6 comments:

  1. I have no tips. We are the king and queen of the couch potatoes - it's just so hard to WANT to do anything after the chaos of the day :P

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  2. My DH is rarely home in the evenings so I'm usually a coach potato all on my own...I rarely have any energy at the end of the day to even do the dishes. When DH is home we do a similar thing...me on the computer, he watching TV. I really hate these things for that reason - we have so much to talk about and do but we waste time just veging out. The summer's are much better. I hate the cold, dark winter evenings.

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    Replies
    1. You're right, the summers are so much better. I know we used to get out to the park every evening after dinner!

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  3. It isnt that I really want to veg out at the end of the day. I am always so disappointed that I havent accomplished anything in the evenings. It just seems that there is too little time after the little one has gone to sleep to get too involved in a project in the evening. As Alicia mentioned, it might just be that the evenings seem shorter in the winter.

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    Replies
    1. True, and really, who wants to get out for a nice walk or do something when it's dark and snowy? Curling up on the couch is the antidote :)

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