Blogging

The hobby I have been trying out for the past few months is blogging. Blogs have been defined as, " web sites that maintain an ongoing chronicle of information. A blog is a frequently updated, personal website featuring diary-type commentary and links to articles on other Web sites."*
With blogging, I have been able to increase my ability to write about feelings or knowledge on various subjects. The theme I have used in my blogs has been hobbies. In exploring hobbies and writing about them, I have unintentionally found blogging as new hobby. It is an enjoyable way to express myself, explore new ideas, and enhance my writing capabilities. I think that the hobbies that we just happen to find are better than the ones that we try hard to find.



*http://codex.wordpress.org/Introduction_to_Blogging

Snowboarding!

The hobby this week was snowboarding. According to wikipedia.com, “the development of snowboarding was inspired by skateboarding, surfing, and skiing." I have enjoyed the activities that inspired snowboarding so I figured I would enjoy it as well.
This is a hobby that I could only do in the winter, but I thought it might be nice to have something to look forward to when it started to snow. Well we had a couple of passes to The Canyons in Park City so we drove up for a day of snowboarding. Needless to say, I think we went up a little too late in the season because the snow was slushy, and I was sweating the whole time. Other than the heat and the slushy snow, I thought snowboarding had the potential of being pretty fun. After this first experience I don't know that this would be something to look forward to every winter, but I am definitely going to give it another try. Next time I will go earlier in the season, when the snow is fresh and it's not quite as warm.

Origami or "paper folding"

This week I had a harder time deciding what I wanted to try for a hobby. I kept thinking that I should do origami, but then would try to think of something else because origami sounded like a strange hobby. Regardless of what I thought before I actually found origami to be quite fun, although I'm not sure of its practicality. I had no idea what was involved in origami other than a square piece of paper. So I found a square piece of scrap book paper and then looked on the web for an origami "how to." After looking around at a few different options, I thought that the crane looked like a neat origami design. I then found a video on youtube.com* that took me through step by step instructions. After watching and rewinding the video I successfully completed my project. As strange as it may seem I found origami to be quite relaxing and satisfying. I don't know that it is something I would do all of the time, but it is definitely something to add to my hobby list.

*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSijU52XJ7w

Time for a treat!

This week I decided it was time for a hobby that would really help me enjoy life. After deciding this, the first thing that came to mind was cookies. After looking online at various hobbies I found that cooking is a hobby and so I decided cooking cookies would also fit. Then came the hard part, deciding which cookie I wanted to make. After looking over various recipes I found a recipe for homemade Oreo cookies. These sounded delicious, and I also had all of the ingredients necessary to make them. I found the recipe below on cooks.com:

Homemade Oreo Cookies

1 devil's food cake mix
1/2 c. shortening
2 eggs

Mix the above ingredients together. Roll the dough into dime-sized balls and place on a cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 8 minutes. Cool cookies.

Frosting

8 oz. cream cheese
1/2 square butter
2 tsp. vanilla
2 to 4 c. powdered sugar

Mix all of frosting ingredients until smooth. Frost BACKS of cookies and place together to make sandwich cookie.

After just a short time the cookies were out of the oven, the frosting was ready, and I was excited to give them a try. I then took the cookies and smeared frosting on the inside and put them together like a sandwich. Once I was done I relaxed, enjoyed quite a few cookies, and thought of how this is a hobby that I can really enjoy regardless of how the weather may be.

The fourth hobby I decided to try was starting a scrapbook. Scrap-booking is one of the bonding activities for the girls on my husband’s side of the family. I figured that since I have almost been in the family for two years it would be a good idea to see if it was something I could enjoy as well.

In order to start my scrapbook I first had to decide what part of my life I wanted to document, the pictures I should use, and how I wanted the pages to look. I really enjoyed decorating the pages with different colors of paper and fun cut outs. The hard part, for me, was deciding which pictures to use, as well as how to lay the pictures out on the page. Looking at all of the pictures and remembering all of the good times made this hobby very satisfying and enjoyable.

"Just as pieces stitched together in a quilt warm our bodies, scrapbooks bind together memories to warm our hearts." ~Author Unknown*

This quote really sums up how I felt about the pages I created. I think this would be a great hobby because it is a good excuse to go through pictures and think of all the memories they represent.

*http://www.quotegarden.com/scrapbooking.html

You don't have to be rich, to have style.

The hobby of the week was making homemade earrings. According to Ehow.com, "making homemade earrings is an inexpensive way to keep trendy styles and have a lot of variety of color and types of beads." When you are a poor college student, it is always nice to find a way to save some money. I thought that learning how to make earrings instead of buying them would be a low cost way of adding some variety to my earring collection. After attempting to make earrings, I found that they were much less expensive, more unique, and matched my outfits perfectly. These earrings are less expensive; however, they also take a lot more time and planning. Not only do you have to figure out a combination of beads that will look spectacular hanging from your ear, but you also have to bend the earring post just right so that both earrings will look the same. This is a hobby that will take a little bit more practice, but is a great way to save some money and add some variety to your earring selection.

The first hobby I decided to explore is one of my husband’s favorites - video games. Generally he will relax after work and play computer or video games. I have never understood the appeal so I decided to give it a try.

There are so many different types of video games, so the first step was determining which one to try as a hobby. I decided to do some research to help with the decision. After reading an article called *Study on Fitness Benefits of Nintendo Wii Released, I found that, “While playing the Wii does not produce as good a fitness benefit as playing the real sport, the video games proved to burn more calories and increase energy expenditure than playing a sedentary video game.” I enjoyed the idea of a video game that would also get me up off of the couch, so I decided to try Wii Sports.

I have found that I really enjoy playing these games and the more I play the better I seem to become. I thoroughly enjoy playing tennis, golfing, baseball, boxing, and bowling. I even found that after some nights of playing I would wake up sore the next day. Unlike spending my spare time lounging around and watching a movie, Wii is a way to get up and move without having to go out into the bitter cold. This is definitely a hobby that can be done in both the winter and the summer months.

*http://www.nowpublic.com/health/study-fitness-benefits-nintendo-wii-released

How about a Hobby?

A year and a half ago I got married. Since about the first month of marriage my husband has been telling me that I need to get a hobby. I feel like I do have some hobbies. I have always enjoyed spending time outdoors in the warm summer months, swimming, camping, hiking, and longboarding. However, I do live in Logan and those warm summer months come and go rather quickly. When the winter months come along I keep myself quite busy with work and school, but when I get some spare time I tend to just sit and watch a movie or clean the apartment. My "bad weather" hobbies, as far as I've noticed, really don't exist. As a goal for this year I am going to find some hobbies that I can enjoy regardless of the weather. Each week I will take some time trying out one new hobby and I'll let you know how they go!