ABC Wednesday

Z is for Zumba

Tink and I took a Zumba class last year at a Red Hat convention....which means it was beginner....and geared towards those over 50.....which we are not....over 50 I mean. Zumba is an aerobic exercise that uses Latin dance moves to keep it fun and energetic. And energetic is an understatement. I was sweating and tired by the end.....of the beginner class for over 50's! LOL! But it was a blast and I loved it. They do offer some Zumba classes in my area but it cost more than I wanted to pay to exercise. Another one of those "some day" things in my brain.

Round 4 of ABC Wednesday is over. I won't be doing another round but if you want to keep up with others who are or join yourself, keep a watch at the ABC Wednesday site.

ABC Wednesday

Y is for Yoga


A couple years ago when Tink and I were working out at a local gym we decided to try the yoga class they offered. Figured it would be good to get some flexibility in this aging body. Man oh man was it hard! The first class totally kicked my a**! We were brave and kept going back, determined to get better. I bought a book to practice at home. Bought a couple of DVD’s for the same purpose. The gym ended up changing the time of the class to evenings and I hate going out at night……..and don’t need much of an excuse to not exercise…….so that was the end of yoga classes for me.

I tried to continue working out at home with my favorite yoga DVD called “Yoga Prayer” but I’m just not disciplined enough. I’d put the tape in and end up just listening to the pretty background music! Tried again when my doctor told me to take up yoga or Pilates for my back (I have scoliosis)…..but problem was I am still me…no discipline. So maybe one day I’ll find the perfect class, at the perfect time, for the perfect cost and be able to take up yoga once again.

Round 4 of ABC Wednesday is just about over, be sure to check out more Y entries.

ABC Wednesday

X is for Xylophone

I think this is one of only two "x" words I could think of.....x-ray being the other.....and this one actually is a hobby for some! While we all played with a xylophone as a toy as a toddler no one in our family continued or even dabbled with this instrument as a hobby....thus I really don't have much to say about it. Hee, hee.

Check other blogs to see what folks came up with for X.

ABC Wednesday

W is for Wood Carving

Years ago we had one of the cedar trees taken down (too close to the house). I was leading a 4H group at the time and one little girl's parents were both principals at local schools. Her Dad asked us if we'd donate the tree to his school and we said yes. I don't remember now if it was for a class project or a school-wide project....I think it was school-wide. Anyhoo!

A woodcarver changed our tree into a Native American looking whale. It's really neat!

We are nearly done with the alphabet. Be sure to check out more blogs.

ABC Wednesday

V is for Vampires

Yes, Vampires are a hobby for many. If you don't believe it, just google something like "vampire blogs" and see what you find. And it's not just young girls in love with Edward! :)

I remember being fascinated with vampires when I was young....but I don't remember why or what sparked the interest. I tend to watch vampire movies even if I have to turn them off halfway cuz their too gory. My favorite is actually a miniseries that the BBC showed called "Ultraviolet"....loved that one. Twilight (yes, I saw it!) wasn't bad but it wasn't great either. I still don't get the hype...and yes, I've read all the books.

When searching for a vampire image I found this one from Underworld (another vampire movie I liked):

It's not a classic vampire picture.....but doesn't she look great? I want an outfit like that! And she looks tough....an "I can kick your ass" kind of look! This image got me thinking about another female actress from another movie I loved. Trinity from The Matrix:

And one of my all time favorites.....Sarah from Terminator 2:

Hummmm.....I see a trend! It's my fantasy self showing. Shhhh....don't tell. :)

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ABC Wednesday

U is for uh......?

I've been dreading the end of the alphabet. So far, I've been able to highlight hobbies that we do or dabble in or at the very least have a friend who does. But I've pretty much run out of ideas. ;)

I had to ask around to even come up with some possibilities for "U".

UFO's?

Unicycles?

Underwater caving?

How 'bout you? Any "U" hobbies you come up with?

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ABC Wednesday

T is for Theatre

Hubby and I met in high school via the speech team. I followed him around like a love sick puppy! And since he was in the drama club I had to join that too! My only drama background...if you can even call it that....was playing Lucy in "A Charlie Brown Christmas" in the third grade. Nonetheless, love is fearless, so I followed him into drama. Our first play together was called "The Imaginary Invalid"...in which I just played a servant girl who had to walk on stage carrying a tray of drinks and stand there...absolutely NO lines....but I was terrified anyway. Hubby is the exact opposite. He loved acting and did it till we had kids. Drama club did mean one other fun thing --- a senior trip to New York City where my love of musicals was born. My favorite one we saw? A Chorus Line!

I actually got to see it again a few years ago and it was interesting how differently I saw the show as a woman in her 40's than I did at 17.

We have maintained our love of theatre and once our kids were grown we got season tickets to Seattle's 5th Avenue Theatre. The last show we saw was Grease. Now we wait for a new season to open in the fall.

This is another hobby I expect we'll keep doing for quite a while.

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ABC Wednesday

S is for Stamp Collecting

Years ago hubby's grandma gave us all her stamp collecting stuff. It consisted of several old albums and a box of loose stamps that she hadn't done anything with yet. She actually had some fun old stamps...like these from 1940.

As much as thought it was cool and loved looking at them, we also never did anything with them. We collected our own from letters and even bought some commemorative sets. One year our son took a bunch of the Christmas stamps and made a wall hanging for the holidays. We still hang it up each Christmas....makes us smile.
Maybe the next person to inherit the collection will actually do something with it! :)

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ABC Wednesday

R is for Reading

This is my favorite hobby!   I've been an avid reader my whole life.   I read so much, in fact, that I don't even think of it as a hobby....and I'm always surprised when I find out someone doesn't read at all!  What?  How can that be?   It's just as natural a part of my life as eating is.  My current favorite book is "The Book Thief"...if you haven't read it yet, add it to your to-do list.   

R is also for Rock collecting

We are not serious rock collectors.  Mostly it's just this bowl full of rocks we take from places we've visited.  Have you ever seen the Lucille Ball & Desi Arnaz movie "The Long Long Trailer"?  In it Tacy (Lucille Ball plays her) collects rocks from places they go and they are huge!  Makes for funny funny movie scenes.  Anyhoo...we don't take big ones...just little ones that fit in our pockets.  And we don't label them or anything.   I just know that this bowl holds rock-memories from beach walks with the kids, from Scotland, from our honeymoon location, etc.  

Be sure to check out other ABC blogs for fun "R" topics.

ABC Wednesday

Q is for Quilting

So this hobby is a duh coming from me!  Besides a few baby quilts, most of the quilts I make are lap size and up. However for this post I thought I’d share some pics of smaller ones I’ve made. First though is this miniature a friend made for me. It’s only 13 inches square. Perfect piecing for such little blocks (the blocks are only 3 inches) and the embroidery is adorable.

This is a little quilt I made that is the size of a piece of paper. It was the result of a challenge another friend gave me. I had fun interpreting her challenge and giving myself the additional challenge of making that curved unit of flying geese. I even hand quilted this one…easy when its only 8.5x11 inches!!!

And these 4 are the size of postcards! I made all but the autumn leaf one. Fabric postcards are quite popular and yes, they are actually mailed.


What’s fun about smaller quilts to me is that my investment in them is not long. So I’m more willing to challenge my skills or try some new techniques.


Lots of folks participate in ABC Wednesday, be sure to check out more blogs!

ABC Wednesday

P is for Pottery

Our dabbling in the hobby of pottery is probably similar to everyone out there with kids. Whether its at school or summer camp kids make us something with clay! I am the proud owner of the two mugs below. My hubby has always wanted to learn to work with clay....maybe someday I'll buy him classes for his birthday!

P is also for Painting

I'm including painting not because my family has dabbled in this hobby too, but because I have a close friend who does. Below is a painting she made for me several years ago. I just love it. So, this is a shout out to you, M! Thanks again.

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ABC Wednesday

O is for Origami

I think everyone has done some paper folding at some point in life. My earliest memories are from grade school. We would make these paper "fortune teller's". I remember putting numbers inside and someone would ask you a question like "how many kids will Cindy have" and then you'd open it up to reveal a number that would be your answer. There was some way we were suppose to open and close it before you revealed the number but I don't remember that part. Does anyone else remember doing this?

My favorite origami memory is from the year we hosted an exchange student named Fumi. Fumi brought origami paper with her to teach the kids, as well as folded gifts for us all. She even made this beautiful book as a thank you to us when she left. It had origami on every page and the front and back covers. I still have it...it was quite beautiful.

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ABC Wednesday

N is for Numismatics

Now there’s a big word, huh? I bet your wondering what hobby that is.

Well, here’s the definition:
The study or collection of coins, tokens, and paper money.

For us, this would be coin collecting. Something we have been doing for many years.

We are not serious coin collectors. Just have kept those left over coins from our travels and added others that friends and family have kept for us. The kids used to play poker with them! LOL!
I took a quick peek at some to give you an idea of coins we have. There are some from England, Honduras, Mexico, Spain, France, Norway, Austria, Japan and more.

This is my favorite one. We can’t remember where it’s from….either Japan or Korea.
We’ve also been collecting the state commemorative quarters. We have all but Minnesota, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Arizona….those four keep alluding us. How many of you are collecting those?

That's it for N! Be sure to visit other ABC blogs for more N posts.

ABC Wednesday

M is for Martial Arts

Our son took Taekwondo for several years when he was a teenager. He has always excelled at physical activities (unlike his Mom...I tried learning his white belt level stuff and was too uncoordinated....it's a miracle I can do Scottish dancing!) and martial arts was the perfect sport for him. He didn't need a team to practice. He wasn't reliant on others for advancing. It was just him and his own discipline and self-motivation. This picture is from his black belt testing. I love the determination in his face. :)

Remember to go visit some others who are participating in ABC Wednesdays!

ABC Wednesday

L is for Leather

There are some amazing artists out there who work with leather. Just look at this beautiful water bottle by Paul Krause of PK Bootmaker:

I would love to have that water bottle!

We haven’t much experience with the hobby of leather working. The kids did a few odds-n-ends like knife sheaths when they were little. And we did learn how to tan our own hides during the years we raised rabbits and sheep. But we never did anything with them. One time Hubby and our daughter took a class at the local bead store on making small beaded leather bags. Here’s the one our daughter finished:

That’s it for “L”!

Lots of folks participate in ABC Wednesday, be sure to check out more blogs!

ABC Wednesday

K is for Knitting

 

Knitting is a fairly new hobby for me.   Some where in my past I learned how to do it…but I can’t remember when or who taught me.  I was never good at it so stuck with crochet.  

A few years ago I started knitting scarves while watching TV at night.  I was wanting something mindless to keep my hands busy and hand quilting/appliqué was requiring too much of my brain!  The wonderful fuzzy yarns were so helpful in hiding any mistakes too! Love that.  I gave most of them away but here is a picture of one I kept:

Scarves were all I did until last October when I decided to try making myself a felted bag.  I’ve already blogged on that so if you want to see, just click here.  They were fun and easy and fast. 

Right now I’m trying my first hat.  I’ve only had to take it out once (I don’t know how to fix mistakes so have to take the whole thing apart if I mess up…..some day I should learn that skill, huh?).   I've not gotten very far...just a teeny bit past the brim edge.   Notice the cute button-up denim bag behind my knitting?  My friend Tink made that for my knitting from an old jumper she had.  It's so cute.

I doubt I'll ever make anything fancy but knitting has been a great tv hobby for me.

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ABC Wednesday

J is for Jigsaw Puzzles

I have lots of memories of puzzle making. My Mom was a whiz at it. She could sit for hours and work on one. I’m more like my Dad…come in for a 5 minute stretch and then off to do something else. There was often a puzzle going at camp in NY when we’d go there in the summer. It’d be set up folks would stop by as they passed and put in a piece or two. By the time our vacation was over it’d be done.

Here’s a pic of my hubby and son-in-law seriously at work on a puzzle at our lake vacation this summer:

Even our cat likes to get in on the fun:

J is for Jewelry Making

This is something new I get to do. I have a friend (one of the Yaya’s) who has been making jewelry for a long time. She’s really good at it. Well, due to a conversation about earning badges we Yaya’s had, it was decided we’d make charm bracelets to commemorate certain events and to symbolize meaningful things to our friendship.
I’m so excited about this project! And I’m so glad I have a close friend who already is good at this hobby and can be our teacher.

Lovelies to choose from:

Some of our homemade charms and objects to add:


I'll have to remember to post a pic of our finished charm bracelets once their done.

Lots of folks participate in ABC Wednesday, be sure to check out more J blogs!

ABC Wednesday

I is for Ice Skating

I couldn’t think of any hobbies other than things to do with ice….ice sculpture….ice hockey….ice climbing…that sort of thing. I chose ice skating since it’s the only one I’ve had any experience with. Can anyone else think of hobbies that start with “I”?

When I was little I loved watching ice skating when the Olympics came on. I dreamed of being those girls in the pretty outfits…twirling away on the ice. My parents even signed me up for lessons! I loved the pom-poms on my white skates and my cute little skirt. I was sure I was the prettiest little girl ever. It was a short lived hobby. Like everything else I tried growing up…I’d take a class, love it, but want to move on to the next thing. I’m such a dabbler!

I’ve skated on and off since I was little. Mostly outdoors when I lived in upstate New York and in Montana. There’s an indoor rink here and I’ve gone a few times. We took our kiddo’s skating too, mostly when we lived in Montana….unfortunately I have no pictures.

They had the cutest little double bladed skates and I do have a picture of Jenn’s:

Check out other "I"s this week at the ABC blog main site. See you next time.

ABC Wednesday

H is for Hiking

We have always loved hiking. We hiked even when the kids were little….short ones, but still the mountains called! It was easy when we lived in Montana cuz the mountains were so close…20 minutes of driving and you’d be somewhere beautiful. Here in Washington there is a lot of wonderful hiking too…but it’s always a drive. Which has made it become more of an event than a spontaneous “what’cha want to do” sort of thing.

All my pics of hikes are fairly recent ones. I looked all over for some from the backpack trip hubby and the kids took over the Olympic Mountain range….their longest hike…but couldn’t find a single one. Shoot!

Anyway. Here are some others to peek at:

Hubby and kids camped at Lake Ozette and hiked out to the beach. Miles of boardwalks.

Hubby and I at Glacier National Park. This was a beautiful 5 mile or so hike that ended at that half frozen lake. Gorgeous!

Saguaro National Park in Tucson. My first look at the desert and those amazing cacti! And my first non-mountain hiking experience.

Hiking in Mesa Verde, Colorado.

Hiking in Scotland. On this particular day we were hiking along a bay to get to that little castle in the distance...in the middle of the picture. Its the castle ruins on the land that belongs to the MacLean of Lochbuie clan....my Scottish heritage.

Lots of folks participate in ABC Wednesday, be sure to check out more blogs!