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I watched my Mother sew. I was given a piece of fabric with a threaded needle when I was four. 61 years later I am still doing the same thing--using a threaded needle with fabric and creating things.
I love hiking. I'm not some extreme hiker. I don't have expensive hiking boots or fancy backpacks, nothing like that, but I enjoy spending time outdoors and seeing pretty views. I discovered it my freshman year of college when I was living in the dorms and had 0 privacy. I had to have time where I wasn't surrounded people and could decompress, so I started hiking 2-3 times per week. Now I go hiking every weekend that the weather cooperates.
I didn’t find my main hobby, it found me. Cars. I literally learned to read in the auto dealers section of the yellow pages. Restored four Mustangs with my Pa, and have been doing DIY maintenance on my cars and some on my parents’ and in laws’ cars for a decade or more now. I am definitely a car, driving, and mechanical enthusiast, although contrary to most car enthusiasts, I’m not that much into sports cars or fast cars; I much prefer big, long classic American cars, up through the early 1970s - three row family wagons as well as Cadillacs, Lincolns, Chryslers, Imperials and Packards.
My other hobby is arguably related to the fascination with mechanical things (and their gauges!): watches. Fun hobby which takes a bit of money, but doesn’t take up much room. It’s really cool having mechanical, usable things on my wrist of different styles, colors, and aesthetics, not to mention being able to play with different straps and such. I’m also thinking about building my first watch with off-the-shelf components from AliExpress and Esslinger, among others. It’s a fun little hobby with a lot of fashion versatility and an outsize dose of novelty for what you pay (which can sometimes be as little as $20).
Barefoot hiking/walking is another which found me. I have never liked wearing closed-in shoes. Flip flops are fine, but even then it’s just that extra bit of attention to pay so they don’t just ride off your foot. A lot of new-age folks will claim benefits from “grounding”, though for me it’s very simple and not pseudo-scientific at all: it’s neat to feel the textures of the ground. It’s beneficial because it forces you to use your musculoskeletal system the way it was designed to be used, so it works a whole different set of muscles than even wearing flip flops. There’s also I suppose a hint of excitement over doing something taboo, although as a compromise with society I take care of my feet so they look presentable and avoid barefooting in places where food is present, like restaurants or grocery stores.
Guns are a hobby I liked up, like watches, later in life, but for some of the same reasons related to my admiration of all things mechanical. Like cars, I prefer vintage guns to modern tacticool stuff. And unlike a lot of gun bros, the shooting and feeling a gun going “bang” aren’t all that’s fun; to me, especially doing long-distance shooting, there’s a discipline and zen-like calm to doing it correctly and safely which I really, really enjoy as much as the guns themselves. The gun going off and seeing the bullet hit its target is after the climax for me, more pet of the denouement than anything else.
It's funny, as I'm nearing retirement people ask me how I am going to "fill my time." I think that's a hoot, since I am having a hard time finding enough moments for all the stuff I'm interested in, but I know that work, for many people, is their life. I do enjoy my work, but I work to live, not the other way around.
First and foremost, I paint, landscapes on canvas, in oil, mostly in studio but also some plein air. Been at it for 40 years, and I think I'm learning new things for every picture I finish. I also enjoy going to art exhibits and galleries, but quality naturalistic landscape painting can be hard to find these days, other than in museums. Still, Western art is one area where landscape painting has never gone away. How did I get into painting? I've always been drawing, ever since I was 3 years old, but it was after a trip to the western United States in my 20s when I felt the urge to put my landscape impressions on paper (watercolor) and canvas.
And I knit, while watching TV, uncomplicated things I don't have to look at much while I am following a movie or a documentary, and working with my hands. We've got the house full of CFF-created sweaters, caps, dickies (= loose turtlenecks! So useful!), scarves, etc. even throws. On occasion I donate them. How long have I knitted? Since high school. I used to knit fashion sweaters for high school friends, and made a little bit of money that way.
I, too, am interested in genealogy, and have put several family trees together in photobooks. I don't do original research myself, but I try to tell stories about family members who have passed, so the new generation can have some kind of mental image of their ancestors as real people. How did I get into that? My dad was a fantastic storyteller, with sad and funny tales of old family members he'd known in his youth, and those stories now live on in my photobooks.
And I love movies and film history, and we've been movie location hunters for more than 30 years, before it became popular, documenting the location of a favorite movie with screenshots and maps. Nowadays you can find great books about movie locations, but in the 1980s and 1990s we had to invent our own methods of research. How did I get into that? Finding out that some of my favorite movies were filmed in areas I was visiting, and getting a kick out of "standing there."
Reading is hardly a hobby for me, but as essential as breathing. I'm always reading a novel. Not so much nonfiction, because that's the kind of stuff I read for work, but I could imagine getting back into enjoying nonfiction once I retire and I don't "have to."
Oh, and then there's music. I used to play guitar, but it's too hard on my fingertips these days. They've gone too soft. But I play the piano almost daily, usually popular tunes and folk songs. I'm not good at reading music, so I play by ear, on the family upright my great-grandparents bought in 1908 when they won a small sum at a local lottery. I do love family history...
I should add that the most important pastime these days is planning and finishing our retirement home in the woods of North Idaho. Is that a hobby? I don't know! But it is hugely enjoyable and frustrating at the same time.
It's funny, as I'm nearing retirement people ask me how I am going to "fill my time." I think that's a hoot, since I am having a hard time finding enough moments for all the stuff I'm interested in, but I know that work, for many people, is their life. I do enjoy my work, but I work to live, not the other way around.
First and foremost, I paint, landscapes on canvas, in oil, mostly in studio but also some plein air. Been at it for 40 years, and I think I'm learning new things for every picture I finish. I also enjoy going to art exhibits and galleries, but quality naturalistic landscape painting can be hard to find these days, other than in museums. Still, Western art is one area where landscape painting has never gone away. How did I get into painting? I've always been drawing, ever since I was 3 years old, but it was after a trip to the western United States in my 20s when I felt the urge to put my landscape impressions on paper (watercolor) and canvas.
And I knit, while watching TV, uncomplicated things I don't have to look at much while I am following a movie or a documentary, and working with my hands. We've got the house full of CFF-created sweaters, caps, dickies (= loose turtlenecks! So useful!), scarves, etc. even throws. On occasion I donate them. How long have I knitted? Since high school. I used to knit fashion sweaters for high school friends, and made a little bit of money that way.
I, too, am interested in genealogy, and have put several family trees together in photobooks. I don't do original research myself, but I try to tell stories about family members who have passed, so the new generation can have some kind of mental image of their ancestors as real people. How did I get into that? My dad was a fantastic storyteller, with sad and funny tales of old family members he'd known in his youth, and those stories now live on in my photobooks.
And I love movies and film history, and we've been movie location hunters for more than 30 years, before it became popular, documenting the location of a favorite movie with screenshots and maps. Nowadays you can find great books about movie locations, but in the 1980s and 1990s we had to invent our own methods of research. How did I get into that? Finding out that some of my favorite movies were filmed in areas I was visiting, and getting a kick out of "standing there."
Reading is hardly a hobby for me, but as essential as breathing. I'm always reading a novel. Not so much nonfiction, because that's the kind of stuff I read for work, but I could imagine getting back into enjoying nonfiction once I retire and I don't "have to."
Oh, and then there's music. I used to play guitar, but it's too hard on my fingertips these days. They've gone too soft. But I play the piano almost daily, usually popular tunes and folk songs. I'm not good at reading music, so I play by ear, on the family upright my great-grandparents bought in 1908 when they won a small sum at a local lottery. I do love family history...
I should add that the most important pastime these days is planning and finishing our retirement home in the woods of North Idaho. Is that a hobby? I don't know! But it is hugely enjoyable and frustrating at the same time.
I am asked the same thing about retirement (which I hope to have soon). I have so many hobbies, first is gardening/landscaping. I have big yards that need a lot of work to get them the way I want, I like to paint, make pottery and ceramics, I have plans for several quilts and have all the materials, just not the time, I love to hike and travel. I will always be busy.
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