Title: Having Fun On Your Weekends Without Spending A Penny Word Count: 539 Summary: Lately, weekends have been a thing of the past. I’ve been putting in extra time with my husband, trying to get our new business opportunity up and running. All of our extra “fun” time has gone into keeping the yard up, pruning the hedges and keeping the garden up to par. It’s been difficult trying to keep our schedules together and to have any time we can actually call “free”. In order to restore sanity in our marriage, we’ve decided that weekends are going to be just for us.... Keywords: weekend Article Body: Lately, weekends have been a thing of the past. I’ve been putting in extra time with my husband, trying to get our new business opportunity up and running. All of our extra “fun” time has gone into keeping the yard up, pruning the hedges and keeping the garden up to par. It’s been difficult trying to keep our schedules together and to have any time we can actually call “free”. In order to restore sanity in our marriage, we’ve decided that weekends are going to be just for us. We’ve decided to take breaks on the weekends so that our business lives don’t end up being a seven-day per week proposition. Our lives had become just one chore after another and we decided that if we didn’t actually plan for a weekend off, we would never really get one by accident. When we took our first weekend away from home, we thought a scenic highway drive would be fun. We thought it would be nice to stay at small, quaint places – like the bed and breakfasts we had always read about. We really had fun except that we ended up going back and forth, talking about business and worrying about each and every penny we spent. Finally, we decided that these great getaways, while fun, were costing us more than our stress level could handle. So we changed gears altogether and elected to take a little bit of time away from our Saturday work and a little more time away from our Sunday work. Instead of going away, we’d take the time to do something as a couple or just visit with friends. We found that this was a great idea. We’ve spent the last couple of weekends really enjoying ourselves. I’ve even gardened a lot without feeling like it was a chore I had to do. I took a bike ride and even invited my neighbor to come with me. It was really fun. We cooked some fantastic meals and ate them leisurely, enjoying ourselves and enjoying a relaxing time together. Even a boring chore like doing the dishes was enjoyable and left us without stress. While we spent our time doing the simplest of things, we allowed ourselves to engage in some quality time together. Even better, it didn’t cost us an extra penny! By scheduling our weekend time off while remaining at home, the weekends have lasted longer and we enjoyed the fact that we didn’t have to keep packing our bags every day. Our vacation spot was right at home. We’ve enjoyed our weekends off so much that this week we’re planning on inviting a few of our closest friends and neighbors over for some games and a taste of a new dessert recipe we found. The next night we plan on heading to the local pub for a couple of drinks with some of our other friends. Again, while these things seem simple, they give us peace and decrease our stress level. Surprisingly, this new lease on life has given me more energy than I’ve ever had before and I’m even more enthusiastic about the business we’ve started.