Tricky Hobbies

While I don't have much time for hobbies anymore while chasing after two kids and their interests, when I did name hobbies, they were easy, non-complicated things like reading, cross-stitch, and scrapbooking (okay, so the scrapbooking can get a bit out of hand...).

 I'd always wondered at people who's hobbies were so close to their jobs that they needed things like laboratory ovens or fax machines to have a good time. Yes, I had a friend buy a fax machine when they were new. I think she's a stay-at-home mom like me now. But I digress...

Can you imagine a 'hobby' that kept you from going on vacation? That limited your - and your family's - other hobbies and activities? I talked to a woman this morning at my daughter's bus stop who described their sheep as her family's hobby since the 1970s. It was her dad's idea originally, but her mom carried on the torch, and now the woman and her kids have moved back to the house where the woman grew up. And the barn with the sheep.

Luckily she's willing to share the fun, and we don't have to get sheep ourselves for Maggie to be able to see sheep-shearing, or baby lambs come February or March. It's an experience the woman is willing to share with the neighbors, if we're willing to put up with the cold.