[from Section 33.] to spend: The first half-hour was spent in piling up the fire, lest she should suffer from the change of room. Jane Austen, Pride & Prej., Ch. XI, 57.
Many of them spend their lives first in eating and then in trying to work off the effects of overfeeding. Dor. Gerard, The Eternal Woman, Ch. IX.
Note: Besides the above, the usual construction, there are some others, as is shown by the following examples (see also 35): i. Katharine spent more time than necessary over dressing for dinner. Mar. Crawf., Kath. Laud., II, Ch. XIV, 267.
ii. He spends all he has on dressing well. Grant Allen, That Friend of Sylvia's. (appears to be especially common when the spending of money is in question.) [. . .]
[From Section 35:] After to employ, to spend, to waste, and verbs of a similar import, and also after the adjective busy and its synonyms, the preposition in is sometimes dispensed with. This changes the status of the ing-form, converting it into a present participle in the grammatical function of predicative adnominal adjunct . . . . After to spend and to waste, the omission of in is met with only when these words are accompanied by an adjunct denoting a length of time.
i. * Sybil employed herself arranging some papers. Mrs. Alex, For his sake, II, Ch. VII, 124.
** You can't laugh at a man who spends his whole life preaching and singing hymns among the Whitechapel roughs. Besant, All Sorts, Ch. V, 48.
There he would spend long hours sketching. Galsw., Man. of Prop., III, Ch. III, 298.
Amansai spent all the morning washing the buggy. Jean Webst., Daddy-Long-Legs, 88.
He spent every spare moment until the summer holidays making pictures. Temple Thurston, Antagonists, Ch. IX, 74.
I could spend hours standing there, and watching the gulls, and never think of feeling dull. Dor. Gerard, The Eternal Woman, Ch. XV.
I have spent many hours in the last few weeks reading the Treaty. Westm. Gaz, No. 8121, 4 b.
-- Poutsma, H. A Grammar of Late Modern English, Volume II, pp. 897-8 and 903-4. Groningen: P. Noordhoff, 1929.