Travel Man’s been working close to home quite a bit recently, and it’s been quite the shift in our daily household routine. He has been driving back and forth to work each day for a few months now. That may seem elementary to some of you, but for my Travel Man it’s a whole new way of working. This means commuting on the Southern California maze of freeways, navigating around town, and dealing with the exhausting traffic. Plus this is not his “usual” or his favorite mode of transportation to work. The “usual” mode meaning a drive to the airport, and jetting off to his work destination. In case you haven’t read about my Travel Man before, he’s what I lovingly refer to as a Road Warrior. He travels quite extensively for his job, and prior to the past few months is normally “on the road” Monday through Friday each week. You can read more about our crazy lifestyle here.
This is the first time in a long, long time where he has been home at some point each night and gotten to sleep in his own bed. What I find interesting about this scenario is that there are a few things I need to make sure I’m watching out for that I would have previously not worried about too much during his “usual” work week.
Here’s a list or my top 5 things I’m paying more attention to and observing around the house:
#1 Laundry– The main thing I need to remember is check the laundry. On most trips Travel Man gets home and I empty his suitcase into the washer. Not the case right now, I have to remember to pay attention to how full the hamper is (or the space immediately in front of the hamper) Ha!! This has been a big, huge change for the household organization. Not in a bad way, mind you, just a change.
#2 Menu Planning- The menu planning needs to be in place each week to keep me sane. A lot of times when Travel Man is “on the road” I might just have a simple toasted cheese for dinner or a chicken patty sandwich. But knowing that he is coming home for dinner at some point every night I have been much more diligent with my menu and meal planning. This is a good thing for the entire family. Eating out less, and eating home cooked meals more.
#3 After work routine– When Travel Man is “on the road”, I don’t usually see first hand how tired he is after work. He needs his quiet time, and his reboot time, that’s what he does. I don’t usually see this side of his work life, until now. He has carved out a little desk space for himself in our garage/ his workshop, and so far he’s able to escape the noise of the household when he needs to the most.
#4 Hobby Time – Notice that doesn’t say “Hubby” time, although I do enjoy my hubby time. It says hobby time. You see as a “Road Warrior” there is so much of your work week spent traveling, hoteling, and eating out that it does not usually leave a lot of time for hobbies once you are back home. But now with Travel Man not having to jet away somewhere each week I am finally seeing my husband have a little time of his own to discover and enjoy some hobbies. His favorites are wood working, tinkering with our trailer-getting it ready for the next trip, and selling “stuff” on Craigslist.
#5 TV Time– This is kind of unusual but here it is. There are certain TV shows that I record on our DVR each week. With Travel Man gone so much (previously) I would watch “my shows” while he was out-of-town. This may seem trivial to some, but it is definitely a shift in our home life. Now we watch more TV together, and I record less of “my shows. Or we are able to just listen to music, and read together instead of watching any TV at all.
Travel Man’s crazy schedule has calmed down so much over the past few months if he starts to fly all over the country again we’ll probably both go nuts missing one another. I’m not entirely certain we’ll be able to successfully manage shifting the matrix back to the airport life. We are always so grateful and blessed to have our time together at home. Of course we’ll do what ever is necessary for Travel Man’s work world, but the Road Warrior lifestyle would be on a different path once again.
