Usually, my wife and I watch Korean dramas on TV Friday through Sunday. The latest drama we were watching ended this past Sunday. I enjoy spending time with her but I’m getting sick of sitting in front of the TV, plus we have to schedule our weekends around the show (have to be home when it starts, have to cancel events that might cut into the start time.)
So, I’d like to do something else on the weekends with my wife. Couple stipulations:
Can’t be too expensive (especially with taxes due in just another month.)
Shouldn’t be in front of the TV just watching something else.
Should be interactive where interacting with each other is the majority of the activity.
Should be something educational or provide an opportunity for personal growth.
Can’t be overly time-consuming, maybe a total of 10 hours from Friday to Sunday.
Our brainstorm so far:
Origami. (Frontrunner so far.)
Making 100-level friends (problem here is that she thinks we should go out and make separate groups of friends first, then introduce them to each other.)
Model building. (Very, very expensive. My wife wants to do jigsaw puzzles, I want to do plastic models that range from $200-400.)
Starting a blog or other Internet project. (Problem: we’re both very personal and private people.)
Collecting something. (I’m interested in expensive crap like football cards and comics, but would also be open to collecting mp3’s and/or making playlists of our existing songs.)
Whatever you guys suggest would be great…but hurry! If we don’t figure something out by this week, I’m afraid she might latch onto the next k-drama that replaced the one that just ended.
We looked into ballroom dancing classes in our area, none on the weekends.
Less than $100 per weekend.
In a largish city, 1 million pop. Near beaches but not near camping/mountainous areas.
She likes to learn things.
I like to play games.
Vegetable gardening. You can start seedlings now indoors and seeds and soil are pretty cheap. Digging out your spot is pretty much free. Planning your garden and determining what will grow best can be down from internet information. You can even container garden if you don’t have a good yard. That may cost a bit more, but you maybe able to find containers on th cheap, even at thrift stores.
Geocaching (geocaching.com) is fun, and can be cheap if you already have a GPS or a GPS enabled smart phone. Cheaper and low tech is letterboxing (http://www.letterboxing.org/). Spots for either can be found online and the actual activity costs nothing.
What about a walking group? That would probably be free and you might find one that featured interesting neighbourhoods in your city that you haven’t seen before.
Join Culinary Historians in your area and go to their events, meet people, find new restaurants and recipes. It’s cheap, social, and you get food and edumacashun.
Join the local chapter of the American Mycological Society and learn how to hunt for your won wild mushrooms. You get botany, hiking, food, all in one package. The forays are fun even when you don’t find dinner. Also cheap.
I had the same question. The very first site I found has lots of kits for under 20 bucks, hardly anything over 50.
You can work on your models while she does jigsaw puzzles – you’ll both be doing something you enjoy, and you can converse while doing so. Sounds like a nice Saturday to me.
This isn’t quick, unfortunately, but hubby and I ordered a dozen weird sodas, at random, online (they didn’t want to send them in the below zero temperatures, but we insisted, and they arrived packed in styrofoam unharmed). Then we have our own nightly taste test. So far, of the obscure cream sodas, the clear winner has been good old IBC…And we are doing the seedlings, too, the seeds have already sprouted. This doesn’t take up a lot of time, unfortunately, but gardening later on will.
When all else fails, you could get some coloring books - simple things meant for 5 year olds or the stained-glass-on-parchment-paper things they sell in bookstores. The Big Box of Crayons, or some fine point colored markers - have a glass of wine to get over feeling foolish, and go to town, releasing your inner artiste.
