What are your hobbies?

[chanteuseCarey]

lots, here's a few...

singing "the standards", and worship songs too as a member of our church's choir, sewing, model trains, watching old movies, social ballroom dancing, tea parties going out to and hosting in our home, exercising for fitness and as a hobby I guess, collecting depression era glass, and porcelain head dolls. I've dabbled in calligraphy, and done professional hometown Clowning as a hobby and as a business.

 

[Maguire]

I breed exotic cockroaches and other interests creatures, read anything relating to history or politics/philosophy/religion, and play some computer games. That's more or less as far as it goes.

 

["Skeet" McD]

Wow Skeet, thats really cool that you have many layers to your interests like myself. im not roman catholic but i was born into it, whos your favorite saint or guardian that you feel watches over you Skeet?

Dear FS,
I think BEING interested in stuff is the ticket....if you truly have the desire to learn, you discover quickly that EVERYTHING is interesting...if you know enough about it. Now, none of us can know everything...so we tend, and rightly so, to gravitate to the things we find MOST interesting. Keep learning: keep being interested.

Now, before going on: there is much about my Roman Catholic religion of which I believe I am justly proud....but there's also a tremendous amount of stuff that makes me ashamed. This could be said, I think, about any group of humans, however you want to divide us up. But, having said that:

Like most Catholics, I've always had a great devotion to the Blessed Virgin. I find it remarkable to consider that all of Salvation history boils down to one roughly 13-year-old girl saying "yes" to a completely insane concept. This, in a word, is faith.

My favorite saint, personally, has always been St. Thomas More...a man who loved the good things in life: music; family; learning...and who lived fully IN the world, at the highest levels of power. But he "cast his crown" at the foot of his Saviour and went to his own death for what might seem a rather obscure legalistic point--when almost all of his peers "went along to get along"--because he honored truth as he saw it.

As someone of Irish blood, I also have a special place in my heart for Saint Patrick...whose real story is much more interesting than the "drive the snakes out/green beer" mythological/commercial version: a fully-romanised Christian briton of good family, stolen away by Irish pirates and sold into slavery in Ireland who really MEETS his God in the silence and solitude of his new position as a shepherd. He escapes, returns to his family after a long and difficult journey...and then, in a dream, hears "the voice of the Irish" as he reports it in his "autobiography" begging him to return and bring Christianity to them....against the will and advice of all his family and friends he DOES return to Ireland...and the rest, as they say, is history.

I also have a strong devotion to the as-yet uncanonized saint John Paul the Great.

You can see that my heart runs to those who live out their faith in the world; but among contemplatives and mystics, I particularly like Saint Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross.

Keep yourself open to all things, and pay attention to what your conscience/soul/whatever you want to call that voice inside you tells you about them. "Hold fast to that which is good!"

Cheers,
"Skeet"

 

[just_me]

My main hobby (and life-long passion) is horses. I've loved everything about horses all of my life and been involved with horses my whole adult life. My current horse Harvey:

Photography has been another hobby on and off over the years.

 

[Fedord Spaniard]

everyone here seems to have really cool hobbies and interests.

 

["Skeet" McD]

wow Skeet, i see that you are passionate about your faith thats a very good thing. yea most of the saints have interestin stories of when they were alive. my favorite even tho he was never a human is Michael the Archangel ive always felt a connection to him. thank you so much for your advice and words of wisdom Skeet.

Dear FS: Yes, they do have interesting stories...and you have to say that many of them were probably very difficult people to live around! Following your conscience almost inevitably means standing apart from the crowd to a greater or lesser extent.

Important to remember: it wasn't the Church canonizing these people that made them saints....the way they lived their lives made them saints. The Church just acknowledges it officially, in some cases. We are surrounded by saints right now....you probably know some. Who knows? We might even be saints ourselves, if we live as we should.

I expect that Michael feels a strong connection to you, as well. Keep that connection strong!

All the best,
"Skeet"

PS: I expect you will notice that your original "Hello" thread has been merged into the "New Members" thread...and it continues to accrue "Hellos!"

 

[Solid Citizen]

HARVEY

My main hobby (and life-long passion) is horses. I've loved everything about horses all of my life and been involved with horses my whole adult life. My current horse Harvey:

Photography has been another hobby on and off over the years.

HELLO Harvey

 

[Eyemo]

Photography and a bit of drumming and a bit of running...

And a bit of painting...

 

[scottyrocks]

Ive been interested in many things over the years. Never been much of a collector, though. If theres a certain type of thing that I like, I obtain a few/several/dozen, depending on what they are, and how expensive they are. Hats, model cars and motorcycles, movies on DVD, CDs (actually mp3s nowadays) - all collected in moderation.

I spend a lot of time surfing the internet, mainly reading discussion boards like this one.

I play West African drums - namely jembe and dunun. I teach this to kids at school and play in two 'bands' or groups.

I have two motorcycles that I dont ride as much as I used to. But I think thats due to the extreme changes going on in my life these days. I need to get back to a more stable way of life, but thats a whole nother story.

My gf takes up a huge amount of my time that I love giving to her. She's actually my favorite hobby and my life.

 

[SamMarlowPI]

recently i've taken up cooking...

i just picked up a pasta machine and started my first batch of fresh pasta...

cooking is cool...

 

[Thwack]

Wow...

I feel like I'm the most boring person on the lounge! Those are some pretty interesting hobbies. I like to draw and sketch, I've really progressed over the last few years but I wouldn't say I'm any good. I picked up the guitar for a while but got to a point where I wasn't learning from books anymore and couldn't afford lessons so it dropped off. I play a few video games here and there, read, watch movies. Like I said, boring

 

[KeyGrip]

I have a few collections going; knives, flashlights, and of course hats and bits of clothing that I find interesting. I've recently got into skeet shooting after a friend and I bought a used Remington. I play harmonica and washboard in a band with some friends, and I'm learning mandolin and picking up clarinet again since I haven't played in earnest since Jr. high school. My family's hobby is grassroots motorsports, and we attend time-trials every few months.

 

[Gutshot]

I like to try a multitude of things... that leads my friends to either describe me as a Renascence man, or as suffering from spider monkey syndrome (i.e. "Hey look, something shiny!").

I'm at times a voracious reader.
I draw, pain, sculpt, and otherwise craft.
I hunt, fish, hike, and camp.
I collect knives, hat, curios, and what ever else strikes my fancy any given
week.
I've tried brewing.
I've kept aquariums.
I learned to knit long enough to make myself a scarf and a hat.
I've done a little gunsmithing.
I do a little leather work and a little knife making.
I do love to cook.
I experimented with metal casting.
I make the occasional walking stick.
I've done some body painting for a photo shoot.
I'm something of a gamer, more board now than video.
I've played with flintknapping.
As a kid I collected rocks....

I could keep going I'm sure, but I think I've already made my point

 

[DaisieWilde]

Oh goodness...my hobbies!

Burlesque and roller derby are my two biggies. I'm currently in the process of starting a roller derby league here and it's taken up quite a bit of time! I have a fabulous sewing machine I'm just dying to try out on some vintage patterns. But I do suppose that I means I should learn to sew first! I plan on going to law school so studying for the LSAT will become a hobby this summer.

I love to study other languages. I dabbled in French for a few years in High School. I've taken Latin, a bit of Greek (highly disliked it, maybe because verbs had a ridiculous amount of principal parts...), Biblical Hebrew, Ugaritic, and a semester of Spanish. I completed three years of Modern Standard Arabic, a year of Egyptian dialect and a year of Levantine dialect. As a result I cannot understand Moroccans for the life of me

I REALLY want to teach myself Persian. SO BEAUTIFUL!

As a former professional archaeologist, I love everything old. I go dump digging and love finding vintage artifacts. I cannot believe how much I love historical archaeology considering all I studied in college and grad school was the ancient Near East and Mediterranean.

I'm also an amateur geologist and rock hound. Spent my birthday camping in the middle of nowhere collecting rocks. Best birthday ever.

I like rocks and dirt I guess!

 

[Tatum]

Since everyone asks about it, here we go. I'm a beekeeper, and have been for about two years now. It's fun, a little expensive sometimes and nerve wracking at first but I love it. When we bought our historic house, there were bees in the wall. The beekeeper that came and removed them put them into a hive, which I asked if I could keep. Now, I am an officer in our local bee club, I have six hives of my own, and don't get to set my hair half the time because I'm getting sweaty in a bee suit. I got about seven gallons of honey last year, of which I promptly sold out thanks to my neighbors. I help more experienced beekeepers do removals and generally have a lot of fun.

I picked up a birdhouse full of bees on Tuesday and two mentors came and helped me hive the bees yesterday. Here are some photos.

The birdhouse with my home hives...

What it looked like when we opened it up!

 

[rue]

That is so neat Tatum! Scary.... but really neat

 

[LocktownDog]

Very nice, Tatum! I really need bees for my garden too. We haven't seen any for two years. What are you doing to attract them?

 

[Tatum]

Very nice, Tatum! I really need bees for my garden too. We haven't seen any for two years. What are you doing to attract them?

Just keeping them. If you need bees for your garden, put an ad on Craigslist and see if there is a beekeeper in your area that would like an outyard. Lots of hobbyists need places to put more hives!

 

[Edward]

I've let a lot of my hobbies slide over the past few years, alas. I've had a long, long remodelling project of my flat going on (limited by both time and having my own health issues which mean I don't keep the place so well). Hopefully once I get that properly seen to by the end of 2012 I'll be better able to get back to some things. I've played guitar badly for twenty years now.... maybe one day I'll go for some lessons. I have my eye on a few new guitars, but I need to sell some of what I have first to fund it. I watch a lot of films, and have a small DVD collection (probably 150-200, almost a third of which are zombie related at the last count). Music has always been big - big CD collection. I don't buy new stuff as often as I used to, nor go to gigs so often anymore, need to correct that. I enjoy travelling, though as I get to visit some great places through work, as a single guy I rarely take holidays other than an extra few days wherever work takes me. Used to paint 25mm scale figures and game them (Warhammer 40K primarily), though not had the time or space for a decade. I'd like to get back into that if I still could. I keep two cats, but that's less a hobby and more a position of servitude... Vintage in clothing terms I don't consider a hobby - it's simply my wardrobe. I don't collect vintage or repro for the sake of collecting - only buy what I can and will wear. I don't have the space to collect stuff I won't use, really.

 

[Atticus Finch]

I play guitar...but I'm mainly just a back porch player.

I salt water fish. I have several boats that sop up more than a bit of my time and disposable income.

I dabble in local politics.

I build (and sometimes restore) furniture.

I collect vintage jackets...mainly military flight jackets. And vintage hunting stuff...mainly decoys. And North Carolina suff...mainly pottery

AF