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Lovely photos, mathjak! Next year, when biscuitpop joins me in retirement, we plan to do a lot of genealogy travel and take genealogy-related photos that mean something to us, like family tombstones, old churches our ancestors attended, pics of locations where they lived, etc. We also like photographing funny or quirky signs.
I'm only a few months into retirement and am not ready yet to commit to a volunteer schedule. After 45 years of having to "show up" for work, I'm loving the freedom. Eventually I'll ease into some flexible volunteer gigs, where it'll be ok for me to take off without giving notice.
My big fun thing is spontaneous travel - mostly short trips so far, some just overnighters.
Other than that I've been concentrating on nutrition/fitness. Since I made some pretty drastic changes to my workouts and my diet, I was often zapped by midafternoon. Now my body's adapted, I'm loaded with energy, and my new routines have become just that: routine.
So it's on to other things - redecorating, genealogy, learning about and playing around with technology. And, like jghorton, reading. My Kindle goes with me everywhere. And I watch Texas Rangers baseball, there's a game on TV almost every day.
Nothing I'm doing seems to qualify as a "hobby" but it all keeps me happily occupied. In fact, the days are just too darn short!
Gorgeous photos mathjak. We're thinking of spending a lot of time taking photos, too. I'm not as artistic as you, though. I'm more of a journalist. I'd like to do one of those "Daily shots" blogs that chronicles something I saw every day in retirement.
we are thinking of dabbling in a little business when we retire doing website and real estate photography.
we figure we are out shooting every chance we get so if we can make something why not.
we sell photos on our website from time to time.
we shoot a car show sponsered by sears and sell quite a few photos from that. one guy bought a poster of his truck for 150.00 bucks.
No new hobbies, but finally have the time to spend on my previous hobbies. For me that's sewing, cooking, baking, and gardening. We've had a rough year with my husband's health, otherwise we would have spent some time fishing and going for walks, as well.
When I first retired I had thoughts of learning a second language and a few other ambitious ideas, but as it turns out I'd rather take it easy. I think that after so many years of working in a high pressure environment I'm just happy to be able to finally relax.
I sort of fell into the trap ,like many, of making my work the hobby. Of coarse this ment working seven days, 24/7 ,hating the week ends,and spending,most of my waking moments thinking about what new project I could start, in order to refine, and or make more and more commitments and reasons not to slow down .
It's always been my way of thinking this, even before I quit working for others and starting my own business. This line of thinking goes way back into my late twenties , living tHe single life,only having to think about myself, so a seven day work week seemed natural an who cared anyway,it was just me.
Then one day I started to think more about what I was doing to myself , how I had become withdrawn from others my age, how I always made excuses trying to avoid any activity outside the workplace. As a result I begain to hate others who seemed to be successful , yet could come home, turn off the office, and have a sort of normal existence, mostly in the social world.. These thoughts manifested about the day I turned 30. I changed a lot, started dating, drinking more,( in order to relax and enhance my social life).
These changes quickly be came more a part of why I did what I did, why I thought my outside social life seemed to fit right in. I got married , brought my new wife into my world, and my business, we went right back into the business mode, except now there was two of us, I worked harder, back to weak ends, nights , again avoiding anything that was not a part of work..... Well I guess it all cost me a marriage , got divorced , bur kept right on living the same life, but now, I was more confident, worldly and could turn off the work week about any time . In reality I fell into the single world, was enjoying life like never before, life was good.
Why things had to change wascall apart of it too, I fought back, but in the end got married again. Of coarse, this time it would be different... Well it was not. I convinced my new wife to quit her public carrier and join me as I had been before, working all the time. Down deep I knew I was again giving up the best part of what I had developed, a social life . This time however it stuck, we continued to live the same work life along with involving a social life around work by joining trade associations, travel, and just a little free time. I got things back to where I wanted it, twenty four seven, once again.
Little changed, just went on through life the same. The years slipped by, we did start several expensive hobbies, but always it Was work, except now the hobby grew larger than work, cost more time and money....I lived that life until retirement... When , one day I woke up, and I was old. Only thing different was there were no choices, no turning back, .... The bottom line, I felt trapped, unhappy, and all with less control along with less Monet to be creative. In general, life was not much fun anymore.
That brings me today, loanly, unhappy, and wishing I was much younger, could turn back the clock, restore my bulletproof personality, and be free again once more. That's my story, I am here that's about it, old.
I've been reading and taking classes all my life. Retirement allows me to take more classes and join a book discussion group. I've also taught 3 retiree classes since I retired.
I took a photography class the year I retired and developed an interest in outdoor photography which led to joining two camera clubs in retirement, a fascination with post-processing of photos, road trips long and short related to photography, a fascination with bird behavior (my favorite photography subject) and bugs, and an interest in competition. I've always liked being around competition even if I'm not a participant.
I also watch more movies (rather than TV shows) since I retired and I'm more news oriented.
I developed a new hobby, riding two wheelers, one of the more enjoyable aspects of my life when we're not in travel mode. Turn the key, take off and one is free to ramble the backroads without interference from anything. Its a sense of freedom thats hard to beat. I still enjoy sports cars but have moved more to two wheeled vehicles for fun.
My other main hobby/leisure activity is exploring the ancient sites of history - primarily in Europe/Russia. It wasn't an option when I was a working stiff. Its one thing to read about Catherine the Great's palaces - quite another to actual walk the halls. The US has much to see and we did quite a lot of enjoyable RV touring therein but Europe, where 500 years is a pittance, is much more interesting to me.
The evolution/convolutions of social development evidenced by ancient sites is simply amazing. The Etruscans had indoor plumbing 6,000 years ago - London - not until the 18th century. Go figure! I'll be long dead before I get bored with exploring my hobby of looking at the past.
Or as Kermit the Frog says, "Time's fun when you're having flies."
Don't know if it's a hobby or merely a pastime but since we moved to the region we are intent on seeing and learning as much about the Ozarks as we can from history to topography to the society going back to the beginning of its settlement by French traders and people from Appalachia. It makes for wonderful day and overnight trips and tons of sightseeing and browsing.
I don't think we'll run out of places to go and things to see and do anytime soon.
Always liked that area a of the Country, it's not like where I lived ( The Blue Ridge) as it once was anymore ,old and worn down,.....O' Excuse me, I thought were talking about the people! Lol.
I now live in the Huron Mts. Here in Upper Michigan, same sorta thing, only older than any of them ( now I am talking about the topography ). One of the nice things,your winters are not so harsh as was the Blue Ridge mostly "tempered by the latitude - influenced by the elevation", one of my favorite sayings I made up.It was hard to get outsiders to understand,due to the elevation that we had colder winters than up here in the UP.( extreme spikes)
I grew up in the flat lands of Iowa....could not wait to get out,never looked back. Really enjoy the place, and understand why it is what it is, sounds like you are doing that. I did the same, everywhere I lived, mostly befor I moved there. One of the reasons CD is around, it worked for me.
Lovely photos, mathjak! Next year, when biscuitpop joins me in retirement, we plan to do a lot of genealogy travel and take genealogy-related photos that mean something to us, like family tombstones, old churches our ancestors attended, pics of locations where they lived, etc. We also like photographing funny or quirky signs.
I'm only a few months into retirement and am not ready yet to commit to a volunteer schedule. After 45 years of having to "show up" for work, I'm loving the freedom. Eventually I'll ease into some flexible volunteer gigs, where it'll be ok for me to take off without giving notice.
My big fun thing is spontaneous travel - mostly short trips so far, some just overnighters.
Other than that I've been concentrating on nutrition/fitness. Since I made some pretty drastic changes to my workouts and my diet, I was often zapped by midafternoon. Now my body's adapted, I'm loaded with energy, and my new routines have become just that: routine.
So it's on to other things - redecorating, genealogy, learning about and playing around with technology. And, like jghorton, reading. My Kindle goes with me everywhere. And I watch Texas Rangers baseball, there's a game on TV almost every day.
Nothing I'm doing seems to qualify as a "hobby" but it all keeps me happily occupied. In fact, the days are just too darn short!
BiscuitMom - you and I enjoy some of the same things - spontaneous travel, genealogy (I am doing my genealogy for the first time), decorating, reading (I have a Kindle Fire) and nutrition and fitness. I love to wander around good antique stores for a perfect piece of silver or wonderful old book. My husband and I adore gardening and spend part of nearly every day in the garden. We do bird watching too - nothing serious....just in the neighborhood - there are so many beautiful birds here and we are trying to get to know the different varieties. We would like to learn to be better photographers and have been talking about which camera to purchase....Mathjak's photos are gorgeous!
I started photography in a minor way a couple of years before retiring. Upon retirement, my wife and I traveled the National Parks in an RV and did photography everyday. That has become a serious hobby over my past 9 years of retirement. It is strictly for fun with exhibitions and an occasional sale. I certainly do no promotion and no shooting specifically for sales. Between my wife and I we currently have about about 2 dozen works hanging in local galleries and similar locations.
Since retirement I have taken a dozen or so Olli courses mainly in the arts and photography. I took up pastels 3 years ago. I have exhibited and sold a few of those as well. I returned to my old archery hobby and practice several times a week including at least one visit a week to a local range. I still travel about 4 months of the year. Last trip was in the fall of 2018 and the next is tentatively planned to start in March.
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Old hobbies are hard to break
