Free Time Guilt

 By Kelly Bridgewater

 Do you have tons of projects that you think to yourself . . . If I had a week off, I could do this or if I was retired, I could do that . . .

 My husband is a master at using that sentence. During Covid, he had weeks where his boss would only make him come into work Tuesday through Thursday and had four day weekends. When the pandemic hit, he was all on board to remodeling our laundry room. We finished it about two weeks with the four days off.

But then as the weeks moved by, he just wanted to lay around the house and watch YouTube during the day, then whine when I suggested cooking dinner.

See I still had to go to work outside the home five days a week, so I thought he could make dinner on Monday and Friday and the boys could worry about the middle of the week.

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I also, feel guilty if I tried to do some of my hobbies because I know another hobby that needs attention.

I enjoy cross-stitching. For the past couple of birthdays and Christmas, my mother-in-law has purchased me a number of kits that I have asked for, but I feel guilty if I picked these up.

I need to be working on my World War II historical suspense novels, so I don’t do those either. Even though I do enjoy writing and cross-stitching, I feel guilty if I spend time on these when I know that I should be doing something else.

 So I read another book. And another book. And another book. Sometimes I get tired of reading and reviewing all the time.

How about you? Ever feel guilty about spending time doing your hobbies when you could be doing something else?