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Life Without the Wife (Hubby’s Take)

Yesterday I talked about living in Budapest for almost three and a half months without the Hubs, and promised to share his take on things too.  He emailed his thoughts to me without knowing mine, so it’s funny how different his perspective – even his train of thought – is.  Because I had to, had to, interject, his text is teal and sandwiched between the next two photos and my interjections are the regular text colour and in italics.

Three and a half months alone.

It’s been awhile since I lived on my
own.  With Tanya overseas for an extended
period of time, here are a few things I noticed about being home alone:

The house sure is quiet.  If I don’t talk, NOBODY talks.  TV or radio is my friend.  I don’t think the silent house appreciates my
sometimes lame sense of humour like a human can (it can’t recognize sarcasm).

Shopping at Costco takes a little more
thought when only feeding one person. 
Sure, it’s easy for two people to eat ten bananas before they go
bad.  One person?  A little harder.  I only did that once before deciding to buy
fruit that I can keep in the fridge. 
Mmm, strawberries.  Although I
still had to power through those.  They
are Costco-sized, after all.
 

TANYA: He mentioned this ongoing Costco buying saga often.  I am surprised he didn’t mention the joy of loitering by the watches (every single time) without me saying, “let’s GO already!”

I use a lot less of the house on my
own.  I think I ate in the dining room
once.  Of all the chairs in our house I
used three.  One in the dining room, one
in the kitchen, and one in the office.  I
could have gotten away with two, or one and the sofa.

TANYA: He determined that sixteen chairs is too many for our house (that’s seriously how many we have . . . after I gave one away) and has since bugged me about this so much!


For this reason, I am sure there are things
that Tanya put down before she left that will still be there for her
return.  I kept the house tidy, but if I
didn’t need to put it away (or, more likely, I didn’t know where it went), it
probably got left alone.  This will add
to the time warp she will experience. 
“It’s like I never left” will probably be said.
 


I am surprised that I had the self
discipline to make the bed and fluff the pillows on the sofa almost every day
(I admit, I missed a few).  I used to
think that I only did that because there were others to think about.  Perhaps I do care a little what the house
looks like.

TANYA:  Cue evil laugh: MWAHAHA!  Soon he will be asking for MORE pillows, MORE pillows I say!



I still dislike doing laundry, and with
just me in the house I am less likely to put it away until I absolutely have
to.  Basically when I needed the laundry
basket for the next load.  I still
haven’t pared all the socks, though.


Overall it was an interesting
experience.  I worked quite a few extra
hours and was not home a lot.  Now my bachelor-dom
is coming to a close and I get to go to Hungary to see Tanya!  I can’t think of a better way to wrap up the
year!

He’s tall, I promise, I’m just always wearing really high heels when we’re photographed!  And we’re patenting a certain dorky awkwardness when photographed together that you wouldn’t expect after 11 years of posing for various photos (my prom among them).

So, there are Hubby’s thoughts on being sans Tanya for over three months.  It was clearly a super weird feeling for him to have the house to himself!  That’s kind of cute.  We normally do a lot of things, like grocery shopping, together or I just do them myself.  I think those routine things do become weird, when all of a sudden you’re alone.  Are there any other home alone kids out there? (That’s what my grandma calls me when she phones knowing Hubs is out). 


P.S.  Speaking of matters of the heart (although Hubby seems more enthralled with his fruit consumption), my pal Amy, from Vintage Marketplace, is having a really sweet from the heart (+ Starbucks giftcard) giveaway right now, so take a look.

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12 Comments

  1. erica | wicked bride
    December 6, 2012 / 3:10 pm

    This is hilarious. And those Costco strawberries are enormous.

    • Tanya from Dans le Townhouse
      December 6, 2012 / 4:45 pm

      Are they?!? Because in Hungary I've been running around grocery stores saying, "My GOD looks how TINY this is!" I have gotten so used to 18 eggs, but you can but 6 here! You can buy yoghurts SINGLY – like one at a time (79 forint, by the way). I am hoping I'm not floored when I make my way back to a costco after four months. I'll be like, can I buy one banana please?

  2. Vintage Market Place
    December 6, 2012 / 4:19 pm

    O my gosh, you had me laughing so hard.It is amazing how guys deal with the girl being away.I so badly wanted to set up a hidden camera while I was away for 4 days to see what really went down while I was gone. Hubby was left with child for the first time alone ever…You guys make the sweetest couple and I am going on 13 years of being together so I get it. :)OH and I tower over my hubby without heals so I understand that too, lolThanks for your support of my giveaway!!!Amy

    • Tanya from Dans le Townhouse
      December 6, 2012 / 4:47 pm

      We have so much in common 🙂 I don't need a hidden camera, I just need a laptop camera to know what Hubby is up to. I think he has enjoyed lots of uninterrupted internet time, without me saying "laundry, dinner, errands, what's the weather, wanna run the swiffer around, whatcha doin?" Haha.But I think those nanny cams are cheap if you go away again, lol.Your giveaway is amazing – it needed to be blogged about.

  3. Dana@Mid2Mod
    December 6, 2012 / 5:22 pm

    That had me laughing so hard. Since I've met your wonderful hubby, it makes it even easier for me to picture him fluffing pillows, power-munching through a case of Costco strawberries and not pairing his socks. Yes, I definitely see more pillows in your future…but he may have more ammunition for the less chair argument now that he's conducted an official experiment on how many he needs. (Yay to more pillows, and boo to fewer chairs, I say!)

    • Tanya from Dans le Townhouse
      December 6, 2012 / 6:35 pm

      Nooooo, I LIKE my many chairs!! I want to keep them ALLLLLLL. And put pillows on them, lol.Haha, funny that you can picture him being a good little home alone kid, being all tidy and eating copious amounts of fruit. I think this post does a good job of showing off how pretty darn cute he is! Glad to make you giggle.

  4. Amelia @ House Pretty
    December 6, 2012 / 9:24 pm

    I loved both of these posts. I'll always remember when my husband went to Syria for a few weeks to visit his brother towards the beginning of our relationship (although we were living together) and I had no way of contacting him as he had limited internet access. I missed him so much I was totally depressed and could barely eat! Meanwhile he missed me, but was busy having all these awesome adventures and seeing amazing sights. It's so funny to think back on now, because even though I love him even MORE now, we can totally be apart for chunks of time without it being a big deal. Young love, haha.

    • Tanya from Dans le Townhouse
      December 7, 2012 / 6:31 pm

      Awwww, I hear ya!! I was much less nonchalant about being apart in the early (well, earlier) days, esp when we lived together already. When we moved the another city and he'd go, I was esp. blue because I knew NO one. Maybe partly we're also too busy to be sad??? Back then, I didn't have so many responsibilities and work!! Now I just don't have the time to blue, lol.

  5. cred
    December 7, 2012 / 3:12 pm

    Aaaahhh! your hubby is so cute. It's fun to see a man's perspective. And while you know the personal component is still huge for them, they're less likely to spill it.

    • Tanya from Dans le Townhouse
      December 7, 2012 / 6:32 pm

      Thanks for noticing his cuteness, lol.His perspective was so funny to me – it was all about the day to day details. Very straightforward. But he will send me random emails throughout the day to say "I miss you!" so I know it's not just all about the strawberry overload.

  6. barbara@hodge:podge
    December 15, 2012 / 3:38 pm

    Great post! You always wonder what the man of the house thinks of the house when the wife is away. My husband lived in Virginia on his own for 6 months before we moved down to join him. He was used to being a bachelor in his apartment that when we all arrived ( 4 of us) he just about had a coronary because we messed up his unusually tidy apartment! Now 6 years later and back in Canada, that cleaning bug seems to have disappeared, LOL. Glad your trip was a success and an adventure. Good luck writing your paper! Nancy Marcus from Marcus Design blog just wrote and defended her PhD last spring! Good luck!

    • Tanya from Dans le Townhouse
      December 17, 2012 / 4:53 pm

      Really? I didn't know that! So funny that he was tidy when you WEREN'T there. If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to here it . . . lol. I knew Nancy was doing her PhD, but didn't know she finished it! Good to know it's possible!! Sorry I didn't realize, I would have congratulated her at the time.

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