What to Do When You're Bored

There's really no way around it-- having a husband in Dental School can leave you with a lot of spare time on your hands. Here's my super creative list of things you can do if you are feeling bored:

1) Exercise-- go for a walk, go for a bike ride, take a group fitness class, go swimming, pull up a workout video on youtube (or buy a fitness DVD) and follow along in your living room, look up equipment-free exercises on Pinterest and create your own workout routine. 

2) Get a job (or volunteer) somewhere-- you don't have to make it your career, but it's just something to get you out of the house and interacting with people (I think this one is more important if you are an extrovert. Me? I like having all my quiet alone time).

3) Explore the city where you live-- visit a zoo or museum or garden or sculpture park; I especially like to try out new places in my city using Groupon.com.

4) Go to Barnes and Noble and read a book or magazine.

5) Keep a journal or blog--about being the wife of a Dental Student, about crafts, about recipes you like, about cats wearing funny hats, whatever you want. Sometimes it can be so therapeutic to just put your thoughts down on a page. It's also amazing to look back at the things you've experienced.

It's a blog within a blog... Have you seen the movie Inception?

6) Go to SuperTarget-- I can seriously kill so much time at Super Target without buying a single thing. I just like looking at stuff!
 
7) Clean-- it may just be me, but I feel like there is always something in my home that could be cleaned whether it's laundry, the bathtub, the kitchen, the cat litterbox, the windows, etc. My favorite thing to do is pull up Pandora on my phone. start my Hillsong United station, and place my phone in a bowl to amplify the music while I clean. I have had some of the most wonderful times of worship while doing the dishes.

I found this trick on Pinterest. It really works at amplifying the sound!

8) Join a Bible study (or invite other women over to your house for one!)-- my friend and I have been doing the Esther Study by Beth Moore and it's been such a great time! We split the cost of downloading the videos for the weekly sessions and meet up once a week to watch them together. Then during the week there are 5 days of personal study at home that take maybe 20-30 minutes each day.

9) Hang out with other Dental School wives-- if they have kids, offer to babysit for them so they can have a break. Their husbands are just as busy as yours so they know what you're going through!

We are awesome Dental School wives

10) Go to Hobby Lobby-- not only is there a lot of fun stuff to look at, but they also offer craft classes. I am thinking about taking a Bob Ross painting class at Hobby Lobby. I'll let you know how it goes!

11) Write a letter-- to a grandparent, to an old friend you haven't seen in awhile, to your husband to tell him how much you appreciate him. Who doesn't like receiving letters?

12) De-clutter/Organize your home-- go through your clothes and pull out items to donate; go through your makeup (or lotion or hair products, etc) and toss anything you haven't used in the last couple months; Pinterest has tons of pins on how to organize your home on the cheap

13) Pinterest.com-- do I really need to explain this one? :)

14) Visit thrift stores and garage sales-- I haven't done this yet, but I think it would be fun. Especially if you were just looking at Pinterest and got a great idea but didn't want to spend a ton of money to accomplish it.

15) Try out a new recipe-- Robbie particularly appreciates when I make him gluten free baked goods as a surprise for when he comes home from school.

16) Wimp.com-- this is a site that picks 5 fun and interesting videos each day that are family friendly. Topics range from funny animals, to science, to funny pranks, to sports, etc.