On Friday afternoon, my wife loaded up the kids and headed over the mountains to my in-laws for the weekend. For the first time since my kids were born four and a half years ago, I had the house to myself for the weekend, and wasn’t working! I also had no writing projects I needed to get done, and no project around the house I needed to take care of.

In short, I was a bachelor for 48 hours. Par-tee time!

Well, not really. I barely left the house, except to get groceries and cut the grass / pull a few weeds. I did lots of laundry. I had intentions of going for a bike ride (something I used to do a lot of when I lived in Colorado back in the 90’s), but a fairly constant drizzle nixed that idea. I lifted weights instead (twice), something I’ve been neglecting the last few months.

The rest of the time, I vegged. Actually, I power vegged. I watched / finished 5 movies (thus far) including:

• Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince –Very good
• The Parking Lot Movie – okay… kept thinking of two of my brother-in-laws while I watched it
• Ip Man 2 – Fight scenes were tremendous, but I couldn’t help but compare it to Rocky 4 and the propaganda of US-USSR from the 80’s now being used for China vs ‘The West’
• The Black Death – First half, very good, but second half weak
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 – Very Good

I also caught up on all my missed episodes of Deadliest Catch.

I ate like a bachelor (frozen pizza one night, barbequed steak sandwich the next) and enjoyed a couple (okay 3) beers. I’ve been unable to find my old standby at the grocery store lately (Labatt’s Blue), and have been wandering through various types of micro-brews. I finally found one I like: Fire Station 5 Golden Brigade Blonde Ale. Definitely a pick-up-again kind of taste.

I did spend a good chunk of the weekend reading a book for work – The Nomadic Developer by Aaron Erikson. I’m not going to review it here, since it’s more of a technical / day job career book, but I will probably put something on Devscape when I’m done. I’ve got quite a bit of technical reading to get done in the next couple of months, and I really enjoyed this one.

It’s completely weird not having the kids running around the house. Yes, I do miss them. Part of me considered myself a bad parent for wanting a down weekend to myself, but I’m realizing that I really needed a recharge. I was always tired, and getting grumpy with the kids, and it wasn’t them — it was me. Between travelling a couple of weeks ago, and having to work last weekend, and working a few longer days the last couple of weeks, and trying to get my secret writing project done, I hadn’t had a chance to just sit down for a few hours in my own house in a couple of months. I really needed a break, and am so thankful that I got one.  Hopefully this shows up in both my attitude towards my kids, and in the energy for my job in the coming weeks. I highly recommend it, and hope I can somehow allow my wife to do the same before the end of the summer. As I write this, it feels like this giant weight has been lifted off my shoulders, and I feel good for the first time in a very long time.

As for the rest of the day? Maybe some more reading. Maybe a video game. I’ll wander down to the mailbox and get the mail (if it ever stops raining). Maybe even another movie. Something light like IronMan 2.  Maybe a nap.  I’ve got about 4 hours left of bachelor life, and I’m going to make sure I don’t do anything stupid to wreck this vibe.