hun, i'm going to be in a similar situation and have been trying to get my head around it big time! my DH is a truckie that works away between 5 and 10 days at a stretch. my plan is to cook up a heap of food (we're still catching up now on all the food we lost when the fires went through) - i do have family semi locally (20-30k's away) that i can call on if i really need it, but i am planning on trying to do everything myself. we bought a heap of plastic meal sized containers. cooking up heaps of casseroles and stews and things. one day a week i'll go to mum's for something "different" for dinner, but the rest of the time i'll be doing it solo. school holidays start soon down here, and my niece and my aunt both love cooking but neither have real skills, so both will come out - we'll have four slow cookers on the go (they are your best friend cos you can cook up to a dozen meals at once!) - and we'll just buy bulk meat and veg and cook it all up into meals. thankfully, this is something i'm used to doing as we do it for DH all the time.

DH will leave within a fortnight i think, and as much as his boss will try to get him home a bit more, i understand that he'll be away a fair bit and this is something we have to get used to.

my plan is to make sure i stay on top of the baby's washing while DH is away - i have enough for myself that i can wash once a week without a drama. so if that has to wait for DH to be home, so be it.

i have already said to my mum she is welcome to visit Gremlin whenever she wants, but i won't be waiting on her. if she is here, she can make her own cuppas etc. if she is feeling helpful (she's not particularly healthy so i won't push it) she can help out around here. my sil already does this when she visits...