Do you have 3.6 absorbing hobbies?

HoneyNut

HoneyNut

Well-known Member
Location
Maryland
I watched a YouTube video that said that the happiest retirees have 3.6 absorbing hobbies.
My plan is to retire soon (sometime between next month and next March). I hope to "slow travel" (tho still uncertain how to make it affordable and practicable with a cat), and I don't see how I could develop more hobbies while doing that.
My ideas for hobbies are in their infancy. I bought a couple microscopes some years ago but other than spending quite a number of hours staring at interesting tiny things scooped up in puddle-water I didn't get much into it. I can't really see myself carrying microscopes on travels and studying puddle-life in various places.
I am kind of fascinated by the Mark Rober creative engineering online class, though I am not sure I would have the patience for attention to detail which I suspect it needs.
In fact I am extraordinary bad at any physical attention to detail, when I cook (rarely) I don't have the patience to measure ingredients and substitute ingredients (and then wonder why the product turns out so poorly! ha). If I measure something I get a different size everytime and just feel all tense and frustrated trying to measure things (I'm thinking the baseboards that I still haven't tried to cut to size to finish a project that has sat for more than a year).
My attempts at gardening don't do well (except in 2010 when I was out of work and still young enough to crawl around for hours weeding). I am trying this year to have vegetables in pots on my deck but impatiently put the whole package of seeds in pots, so now I have masses of squash plants, pea plants, cucumber plants and bean plants, but they require a ton of watering and so far only one little squash and one little cucumber. Lots of leaves and blooms though.

So everybody, please tell me about your hobbies, how many do you have, are you passionate about them, did you start them after retiring? Please tell all!
 

3.6 hobbies?? 😂🤣
Far more.
I have sewing, woodworking, woodcarving, painting, ( water colour and acrylics ), baking, saxophone playing, keyboards and vocals, gardening, needle point, and hair jewelry making. Oh and I dabble in photography but it’s not actually a hobby.

The only hobby I started when I retired was hair jewelry making . My entire life, I have had plenty of hobbies. In fact, I probably have too many hobbies if there is such a thing. Lol

Creative engineering flies right over my head. I’m not quite that intelligent but good for you if you like it. To each their own.

And YES I’m passionate about ALL my hobbies. That’s why I chose them.
 
Well there's lots of crafters & musicians on here, I'm none of those... but my passion is photography. I didn't wait until after retirement to start taking pictures, but I spend more time doing it now...

I'm a passionate reader as well, of Non fiction... I soak up facts and information...

I love the internet, I use it like a musician uses the black keys on a piano... .

I travel a lot ( pre covid)....

I have large-ish gardens which take a lot of upkeep so I'm always out there spending at least an hour a day on them.. if not more..

I sometimes make Videos of the family & friends and add music to them...

..and of course.. this Forum is where I am to be found every day... some would say probably my biggest hobby... :D
 

- My main outdoor hobby is gardening. Love being able to immerse myself in all things flowers, shrubs, and trees, and forget about life. Hours sometimes go by and it feels like minutes to me. I seldom hear sounds, just get into my own little world and lose myself. How often can we say that.

- As for indoors, I love to cook and bake. Anything in the kitchen makes me happy. It's a double-happy reward, the joy of putting together a yummy smelling meal from scratch, and then digging in and enjoying the mouthwatering deliciousness of a meal prepared with love.

- Over and above those two things, hubby and I get out in the wilderness for day treks, and that's always so very rewarding. Fresh, pure, clean mountain air, fresh, pure, clean mountain spring water, nature, birds, the peace, the calm, the value of being able to enjoy something that we take for granted, something that so many other people in this world will never even get a sniff of in their lifetime.
 
I have far more hobbies than 3.6.
I've gotten to the point where I have to stop watching so many interesting subjects online. I can't handle anymore.

Just a couple of years ago I started sewing. I embroider, read, try new recipes and garden,
I like to paint and love to find beat up old figurines and give them a new look.
Recently I found several videos on rock painting. I intend to do more of that this winter. This involves walking and picking up stones I can use.

Houseplants have always interested me and recently started a collection of snake plants and succulents. One thing led to another and I've researched the origin of the plants, Made little signs for each pot with their botanical and common names.
I hope to add more to my collection.
A person can make a hobby out of most anything, once you start researching a subject that you are interested in, It all falls in place and you come up with more ideas.

I knew a lady who collected the little soaps from motels where she had stayed. Just researching soap online she started a little soap making business and makes soap for gifts as well.














kee
 
Top three hobbies and when I started them.

Reading -- I don't remember learning to read. My dad spent hours holding me in his lap reading to me as a very small child and so I learned before the age of my first clear memory which was around two years old.

Crochet -- Was fascinated watching my grandmother as a small child and I learned at 16 years old. She tried to teach me earlier but I couldn't pick up on it by watching just her movements. Learned later that I'm the type of visual learner that needs to see diagrams.

Jewelry making -- have been doing that around 10 years. I mostly buy gemstones, components and put them together using original designs. I'm renovating my craftroom to expand to a beading loom and possibly a kiln to fire ceramic and precious metal clay components.

Others are a renewed interest in botanical identification, gardening and canning.

oops! Edit to say genealogy is high up there ever since I took a independent study course to complete a MILS in 2014. I took what I thought was the easiest final course and ended up falling hook, line and sinker. Love reading about ancestors who were active at the founding of the nation ...though not proud of all them! The greatest find so far has been my abolitionists Mississippi ancestors; the great, great great grandfather of fighting age went to back to his Kentucky birthplace to join the Union Army in the Civil War. He did return to Mississippi following the war but settled near Jones County which was strongly Union.
 
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Yes, I had many, many hobbies and so many ideas for creations that I had to hone them down to a few!
I now only (MOSTLY) only do painting, sculpting, writing poetry, books and articles and studying ancient philosophies!
I'm afraid I still have to immerse in other things that come into my head but am trying SO HARD NOT TO DO THAT!
Probably a good thing that I'm not married as I would be immersed in HIM! Haha!
 
My hobbies have gradually fallen by the wayside.

I enjoyed cooking but I've reached a point in my life where I don't have anyone to feed and I don't need the extra calories that come with baking or preparing complete meals.

I used to enjoy collecting things, refinishing furniture, repairing/binding old books, but those hobbies create stuff and I'm at the point where I don't need or have an outlet for more stuff.

I'm still interested in many things, enjoy learning new ways to live inexpensively, and remain independent in the years ahead but I can't say that I have any hobbies.

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Zero hobbies that keep me busy these days. I wish that weren't the case.

I love gardening, but circumstances (apt.) don't let me do that these days.
I love reading, but my eyes won't let me indulge anymore - I do have my kindle with large print, but rarely get it out.

... and as for sewing and crochet projects, I've made so many things over the years that there isn't much left
that excites me to get involved... I look at different ideas, but nothing seems to get me motivated.
Guess I'll just enjoy all the things I've made for myself and others.
 
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I suppose I could say I was gifted with a born of the air knowledge.. I picked up things rapidly, never had higher ed. I never attended mechanics school or took computer science classes but I read books and taught myself how to rebuild a car engine, how to assemble computers from parts. I could never design a car engine or electronic circuit boards. I do posses a high IQ.. I took cleveland institute of electronics correspondence courses long enough had I taken the final tests I could have had a first class fcc license with broadcast and radar endorsement.
But staring at an oscilloscope tracing a faint signal to find what was wrong with a circuit and reading 10010101 or fe a6 b4 was blaaaahhh boring....so I collected boxes full of computer components, video cards, audio cards, modems, memory sticks, ethernet cards, and a jungle of cables for all.
I hacked computer codes to see how they made the computer do what it did and learned to write code after that, until it expanded to the point it now takes 50 times as many people to write programs, it has gone from 8 bit programs to 64 bit and that aint hay!!! from a processor speed of 4.5mhz to 3ghz or nearly tripple in speed and memore requirements from 256kb to 4gb. the cost has not changed much either. It cost me 25-30 for a computer case with 300watt power supply, a motherboard was 80 and the hard drive was 80. optical drives were about 30-35 and memory sticks new were 40(used 20)usd. so to break it down, cpu speed 366mhz, 640mb memory, 128bit video card with its own 200mhz processor, stereo audio card, 128k modem total just under 300usd...
prices then shot up to nearly double for a few years, then whoop the bottom fell out of the home pc market due to smartphones and you can buy a boxed home computer for 450usd.
 

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