Grad School Widow

I am a grad school widow.

Here is what a typical weekday has been like for us all summer.

Chuck wakes up, takes a shower, and leaves for class before I even get out of bed. Once he's gone, I shower and quickly get ready in just enough time to walk the 1 minute across the parking lot to work.

I work 8:30-5. Chuck has classes and meetings all day at various times. His class schedule is different every day so honestly I don't even know what he's doing most days, I just know he's busy.

I get home at 5:01. Depending on the day and the workload, Chuck comes home any time between 5 pm and 1 am.

Here are some things I do while I'm alone from 5 pm -? depending on my mood, the weather and my boredom level on that particular day: Wash dishes, make dinner, put dishes away, check Facebook and Twitter, pin things on Pinterest, watch TV, go for a run, walk to the mall, go to the grocery, do laundry, do wedding planning things, watch movies, read a book, look out the window and take pictures of cool clouds, call friends and/or family, skype with friends/family, clean the apartment, hang out with other SOs who are also grad school widows, search the internet for things I want to go do in Boston on the weekends, bake muffins.

I've been making a lot of muffins since we moved here. When we move to our new apartment and we have a real and normal size oven with numbers on the dials and I don't have to use our toaster oven as our oven anymore, I have a feeling my baking is going to get out of control. I love to bake. In high school I used to make cakes all the time for no reason except that I liked to bake. And cake is good.

Chuck and I mainly spend our fun time together on the weekends now. Though some weeknights if Chuck doesn't have a lot to do, we do get a chance to do fun things together, like go to karaoke with his classmates, go out to dinner, or watch some Friends on DVD. Sometimes if he has reading homework, he'll sit on the couch with me and read while I watch TV. We aren't talking a whole lot and he's not watching TV, but it makes it feel like we're hanging out.

Sometimes when Chuck is in the apartment doing homework while I'm just hanging out, he'll try to make me do some of his homework with him. He tries to make me watch videos he has to watch (I've watched a couple, including a Japanese movie that was all in subtitles) and he tries to make me read things (I've only been talked into reading one article so far and I didn't even finish it.)

I can't say I'm super surprised that Chuck is this busy. I mean, he's at MIT, working on TWO masters degrees at the same time.  And he's really intense, so I know he's doing everything 100% which also does not surprise me or anyone else who knows Chuck at all.  

It's ok. The limited fun time just makes us appreciate the weekends more and gives me a lot of time to try out recipes I found on Pinterest.

Y'all are all gonna want some of my cupcakes and casseroles when we're done with these 2 years here.

Here are a couple of pictures to illustrate the difference in our lives right now.

Chuck's life right now:

 I came home the other day to an empty apartment and found this. Desk covered in papers. Floor- also covered in papers.

My life right now:

 Chillin by the Charles River.

I'm obsessed with cool cloud pictures, if you haven't already noticed from past blog posts or my Instagram feed. I used to want to be a weather girl. Side story, totally unrelated to Boston or grad school: In high school one of my friends asked me at school one day- "Rachel, did I see you running down your street yesterday afternoon with a camera in your hand?" To which I replied, "Yes. Yes you did. I was running to get a better view of some cool clouds over my neighborhood...."  Cool cloud pictures and I go way back.