10 Things for Hunting Widows to Do

In case you didn’t know, bow hunting season began last weekend. If you have a hunting obsessed significant other like I do, then you are probably glad hunting season finally started and their endless countdown (that began when hunting season ended last year) is over. I’m a bit bi-polar when it comes to this time of year. I miss my husband when he’s gone, but I also enjoy him being gone because I get a little me time too. Over the past few years, I’ve come up with a list of things that I enjoy doing when my husband isn’t around to object.

1. Sleep with the dog on the bed. Before I was married, my dog was my bed partner. Since then she’s been demoted to the floor. So, when my husband is gone, my good old dog gets her side of the bed back.
2. Enjoy not picking up his dirty socks and underwear that never quite seem to make it into the laundry basket. I’m not sure why this happens, my husband was a great basketball player when he was younger.
3. Eat cereal for dinner. I personally love having cereal for dinner. However, my husband doesn’t consider anything dinner that doesn’t have meat.
4. Go shopping. He’s not here to ask how much I spent or roll his eyes at the third pair of boots I bought in preparation for the weather change.
5. Not shave my legs. If there’s no one around to shave my legs for, why do it?
6. Not do a single dish or clean until I have to. I wait for my husband to call me on his way out of hunting camp, and then feverishly clean and do the dishes.
7. Eat in bed. My husband detests crumbs in our bed, but I love to watch TV late into the night and snack.
8. Watch chick-flicks. I will spend an entire week watching every made-for-TV movie that Lifetime has ever made. I need some female perspective to help erase the hours of hunting shows I’ve been forced to watch in preparation for hunting season.
9. Sleep with all the windows closed. My husband loves having a cool breeze whip through our room at night. So, this means I often go to bed in my snowsuit. When he’s gone I can actually just wear normal PJs.
10. Whatever I want. No one is here to tell me not to do it, so I go for it!

Joy Larson is a mother of four boys, graduate of The University of Montana, animal lover and writer.