Let me start this week’s blog off by saying I love my husband. I really do.

That said there is a genuine pleasure in having the house to myself for hours at a time. After more than a year of attempted retirement my husband went back to work this week. He was bored and restless, and I supported him returning to the workplace because as much as I have been enjoying retirement it was clearly not working for him.

As a very guilty bonus I am getting hours of alone time in the house. Time to do Duo Lingo without fear of interruption. Time to write without distractions. The ability to watch the news without first asking, “OK if I turn on the news?” etc. The freedom is intoxicating.

In just the half a week he’s been working I’ve gotten tons of writing done, had a leisurely outdoor lunch at a local Thai joint, and just been generally more relaxed. Oddly enough I’ve even done more cleaning since if I clean when he’s around I usually get critiques which can include:

This should never have gotten this bad

Instead of cleaning this I’d rather you cleaned that

Now that you’ve cleaned this, why not clean that next. And by next I mean right now

For some reason he’s never cottoned on to the fact that criticizing how I clean results in less cleaning. I love him, but no one’s perfect. And before I get comments about how different people have different standards of clean he’s no neat freak. The result of him nagging me to clear the dining room table of junk mail, bills, and random cruft is usually a giant pile of things HE has left on the table put into a box and left on his seat so he can deal with his mess too.

Anyway, having a wonderful time, but also feeling a wee bit guilty over it.