Hobbies

I have a tendency to get into hobbies of various sorts. I go crazy with said hobby for a while then life gets busy and I set it aside, sometimes just for a while, sometimes permanently. The bad part of this hobby-habit is when I spend all sorts of money on new supplies, then lose interest and have all that stuff left over taking up space in my house. What do you do in that case?

Scrapbooking, for instance. I really enjoy scrapbooking when I get into it, but I haven't had time for it (or made time for it) pretty much since we moved into our current home six years ago. I've done a few pages here and there but nothing to speak of. Now that we have digital cameras it's too overwhelming to even think about! I have the supplies, though, taking up half of the storage space in our den/computer room.

I've also been into birding/bird watching, but that was before the little ones were born. Birding with The Wild Child? I don't think so! At least the supplies for that, a few bird books and some binoculars, don't take up a lot of space.

My latest hobby is butterfly gardening. I'm sure my interest in this new hobby will fade one day too, but I'm enjoying it for now. The Middle Child is fueling the fire; she loves her caterpillars. Plus it's more like two hobbies in one; both watching the butterflies and creating the habitat, which involves a lot of gardening. I never was much of one for flower gardening, preferring low maintenance plants that don't necessarily flower, but now that I'm getting into it I'm finding I love finding new flowers to plant. The Middle Child and I enjoy going to Home Depot to look for new flowers together. We're also getting really inventive with finding new places to tuck milkweed for our beloved Monarch caterpillars!

Along with the flower gardening I'm hoping to get some vegetables to grow this fall. (I live far enough south that planting season starts in the fall.) I haven't had much success with veggies in the past but I keep trying! I got a compost bin for Mother's Day so I'm hoping that adding compost will help. (Yes, my gift for Mother's Day was a compost bin. Yes, I realize that's strange, but it's what I wanted.) I'm realizing the importance of the soil to a successful garden, something I never bothered with in the past. We have friends in our homeschooling group who are very successful gardeners and they are encouraging and helpful. The kids took a tour of their garden and we learned a lot from that, so now I have someone to call when we need advice. I've been bugging DH to set up our planting bed so that it will be ready for the fall; we need to get it set up now so we can cover it with heavy plastic to kill the grass, which will then be tilled back into the soil.

But for now, I just want to get out there and go for a bike ride, one of my favorite hobbies at the moment.