What Do Empty Nesters Do on Weekends?

It's Friday evening. Most of my colleagues have left the office for the weekend. I arrived late (no thanks to my lactose intolerance in the morning) so will leave in another hour. I will return to my empty nest - yeah, since Abby, the second one, left for college.

But I was the scheming b**ch who foresaw the nest becoming empty, and jumped into a few things but many parents, especially the single ones, would not have expected life to change dramatically after the kids leave home. So, how does one keep oneself occupied on weekends, especially if you are single? Here are some of the things that I do and am planning to do:

1. Get rid of the washing machine! Hey, and I mean it. Get rid of the washing machine and if you are very hardworking, hand wash your clothes especially if you have a place outside the house to wring and dry them. Else, go to the nearest laundry bar and spend some time there washing your clothes. If you meet interesting people, have a conversation, else, take a breather from your home. I hand wash my clothes, a couple of times a week, more so on weekends. Saves money, too!

2. Stop enriching food delivery companies! Yeah, cook your own food, try new recipes (it's okay, if you have no one to share it with, at least successes can go onto FB, failures into your dustbin 😏) but you can hone your culinary skills and who knows you may become the next Master Chef of your country. It all begins with a dream. On weekends that I do not travel to Cyberjaya to see my daughter, I buy groceries on the preceding Friday and eat to my fill during the weekends. A bit extra around the middle, is permissible indulgence :)

3. Get a boyfriend/girlfriend/new friend! Seriously? Yeah, if you are a single parent what's stopping you from dating again? Or just going out with someone for a movie? Many of my single friends opt to go out with known friends. But why? If you are going to try and tickle your brain, go meet someone new. Meet someone who is totally opposite of you-just someone new, not the knucklehead who has been your friend last 30 years! See, you need not do anything remotely illegal, just dinner, or hangout at some pleasant place or shisha joint where you could just have a conversation that would boost your morale plus keep some hours of your weekend occupied. You will come back refreshed, trust me, not that I have been doing that every weekend, but that is certainly in my 10-things-to-do-list💃

4. Pick up that hobby again! I have - started blogging so that I need not spend my entire weekend working on customer orders. On weekdays I work 15 hours a day, on weekends up to 18 😵. But these days I am smart. I start early in the day, on weekends and stop earlier and watch something on Netflix or read some book that I have been planning to read, or just pick up that needle and start some embroidery! And that is a form of therapy, too.

5. Do some part time work! Yeah, actually, if one is all for money (not that we need that much for old age), it is no harm to do some gigs on weekends. Pop up stalls, fast food joints etc, where people need gig employees. Me? I am doing on the Net. If it clicks, trust me, the money is good. And you get to meet new people, too. 

Well, have a great weekend, go out there and pursue your dreams. Nests may be empty, our lives needn't!


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ain't Goodbye, Dad!

Image
My dad passed away and I got thrown out of the family. Yeap, that happened.  On 2nd November, dad was admitted to a hospital about 150 kilometres away. Suddenly, a family Whatsapp group was created, I was added (!) and updates were made on his condition. It was pretty much assumed that he was dying and probably that hospitalization could be his last. I was deliberating to visit him because my car was not in the condition to travel far. Then, the news came that my sister who lives in the US was flying down. I figured I needed to visit him, in case that was his last hospitalization. And my Gaza muscle man said he can drive me to Malacca. Claudia, yeah, that's my car, did not have aircon then, it was under repair the preceding 18 months. So, it was a very hot 150 kilometres drive to Malacca and thank God Raed did not speed and could withstand the afternoon heat. I discovered later that the car was in no condition to speed. Dad was sleeping when I reached the hospital. The rest w
Read more

Living with the Virus - A New Beginning or Revisiting Olden Way of Life?

Image
The Facebook was swathed with memes about learning to live with the corona virus. One meme said it is like getting married, first you try to reign in your wife but after numerous attempts, you just learn to live with her and her ways - adapt. The same is said about the virus. A vaccine or even cure seems very far away, countries are trying to contain the spread - some going into lock down, others have started living with it from the beginning - Sweden. Sweden did not shut down its economy and ask people to stay home. No, life goes on as usual. Number of deaths was third highest in the world during the last count. But the economy did not shut down probably because someone had the foresight that humans on planet earth will have to learn to live with the virus until some kind of vaccine or drug is found. That's precisely what the Indian government has advised it's citizens - learn to live with the virus.  Though now a Muslim, I was a Hindu once. Hindu - does not relate to any reli
Read more

Success...The Father Who Made Winners, What's Your Excuse?

Image
Mention Gaza and one would imagine ruins littered in a city which would have thrived at one time in history. Governed by Hamas, it is a land 140 square miles (363 square kilometeres) wide along the Mediterranean Sea, northeast of the Sinai Peninsula. Embargoed by Egypt and the United States, controlled by Israel, import of goods including medicines are very limited. Basically, life there is a game of survival.  In this land which the war had torn apart, lives a man of steel who had made his three sons winners, in their own right. Yes, Dr Azir Shinpary, an expert in Physical Education and former President of the Palestinian Weightlifting Federation, had spent four years of his life in New Delhi, before returning to Gaza and rising into a renowned weightlifter, which eventually brought him to presidency of the federation . And in his course of life, has also moulded his elder son, Raed Shinpary into the first place winner of the Palestinian Bodybuilding Championship in 2016. 
Read more