3 Ideas for Taking Full Advantage of Widows’ Weekend
Ah, November.
With the end of a Wisconsin fall (because let’s be honest, it’s pretty much over after October), comes the beginning of a new season, one that takes up that magical time between autumn and winter.
Hunting season.
In Stoughton, we know it well. Our husbands, boyfriends, brothers, fathers (and sometimes our sisters and mothers!) start donning camo and talking about the “big one” that they saw on their deer cam footage. They start packing their hunting camp bags, and then, one weekend in November, they head out of town in droves to try to snag a buck worth mounting.
Opening weekend, AKA Widows’ Weekend, is one of our favorite weekends of the year. It’s the time when we can kick back, relax, and do the things we want to do. It’s the ultimate girls’ weekend, full of feminine energy and a devil may care attitude.
Some years, we spend it holed up in our homes with our best girlfriends, drinking wine out of antique glasses and watching our favorite guilty pleasure television. This year, we want to be a little more intentional with our time.
Read on for our three best ideas for Widows’ Weekend 2019!
For your cooking pleasure
Remember ladies, this is *your* weekend! You should spend it how you want: doing what you want, watching what you want, reading what you want, and eating what you want.
You heard us - this is the weekend to make all of your favorite dishes! Back to back to back, even if they don’t naturally go together in your mind? Scrambled eggs with a side of french toast for breakfast? Yes! Pie for every meal? If you’re into that sort of thing!
Take the time to make the act of cooking luxurious, adding a little bit of extra butter to your shrimp scampi or choosing a slow meal like risotto that you normally wouldn’t have the time to cook. Use your best dishes and silverware when you eat, styling the table to make it look its best for yourself and a few friends. If it brings you joy, make it happen.
Create for creativity’s sake
An entire weekend free of plans could be intimidating. We often fill the need to fill an empty schedule with productivity and long, unnecessary to-do lists.
This Widows’ Weekend, just let yourself create what’s calling to you. Open yourself up to the idea that you can spend an entire weekend filling in a coloring book, writing short stories, painting a wall, or styling shelves without any desired outcome.
Creativity doesn’t have to equal productivity. It can be just as exhilarating to make something with no goal, no technical purpose. Allow yourself to let go of your preconceived notions of what is wasting time and consider what it means to let yourself explore something new for the sake of creativity.
Lose yourself in a book
What’s better than curling up in a vintage armchair next to a roaring fireplace, or at least that fireplace setting on Netflix, and diving headfirst into another world through the pages of a book? It’s rare that we’re able to set aside time for ourselves to read for fun - it can feel like we either need to be consuming educational content or doing something productive (there’s that word again) and reading a novel for fun can seem superfluous.
This is your weekend to soak up life’s little luxuries. You don’t have anyone to impress, any commitments that you need to adhere to. Grab that coffee table book you’ve never opened and peruse the pages with intention, or revisit your favorite fictional series. This is your time - use it how you want to.