1.20.2010

Me Time

If you consider the fact that I have a 40-50 hour a week "career" job, run an Etsy street team, keep up with 2 blogs, spin yarn, dye and card fibers and make jewelry for 2 Etsy shops then you'd be pretty darned impressed at how I manage to find time to do other things. I know, I know, what other things are there in life? Well, eating, for one. Oh, and sleeping, that's important too.

Okay, okay, eating and sleeping could be considered as mandatory. However, painting vintage metal shelves for my growing creamer and sugar collection, pieceing blanket tops and filing taxes without the help of an accountant are all things I've managed to carve out time for. See, it can be done.

I'm often amazed at people who just don't have time for hobbies. We all know these people. Heck, I work with quite a few of them. They work during the day and when they see me with my hobby at nights and weekends, they are blown away that I would have time to do something for me. I'm just a bit confused. Where does the extra time these friends and coworkers have go? Do they give it away for a gift? Do they think it has a stink and it gets thrown away? I'm just baffled. We all have 24 hours in a day, right? I know it's not sleep that takes up their time. I'm the queen of sleep and probably get WAY more sleep than the average person. I don't think it's cleaning their houses (I've seen some of their houses, it's definately not cleaning their houses). They profess not to watch TV so either they are lieing to sound intellectual or they don't watch TV because they go into a coma when they get home.

So what is it? Are people afraid to find time to have hobbies? Do people complain that they don't have time for hobbies because they aren't creative enough to come up with some? Here is my plea - people of the world, find 30 minutes a day to take for yourself and do something just for you. Go outside and clean out a flower bed in preparation for spring planting, learn a new recipe, dust off those piano keys and give the ivories a tickle. I know you want to.

But please, please quit looking amazed when you discover that I have time for me.

5 comments:

Junque Rethunque said...

I will continue to look amazed. It's my hobby.
I know I could carve out 30-60 minutes a day, but the problem is scheduling that time. I might think "I'm going to go straight home and sew for an hour before making dinner." Then, on my way home my daughter says she needs to go to the store to get something for school. I think I'll spend some time after getting the youngun to bed... but then I realize that I have laundry waiting to be done. It's just hard to protect that time when there are other people involved.

Or, I'm just a lazy cow.

idyll hands said...

Delaney can do Laundry and Griffin can take the girls to the store if they need to go. He's tall enough to drive... right?

There, problem solved :)

Ann said...

People go home and watch 3-4 hours of tv a night. they're addicted to shows and they schedule their lives around it, then go "i have no time to do anything." or if there's 2 people with 8-5 jobs, the only time to go grocery shopping is after work, when everyone /else/ is going grocery shopping. people with kids get their time eaten up by the kids. you're a producer. other people are only consumers.

idyll hands said...

Okay - I need a disclaimer. People with kids was exempt :)

But people who have to buy groceries after work or on weekends are not exempts - I'm one of those people.

Usually the people who are most amazed are the single, kid free kind. I'm not sure if it's the time to do the hobby or the actual doing that amazes them. My life is full of hobbies so it's always hard to imagine not having one.

Anonymous said...

I think it's TV and now internet/email. Add that in with people just letting time get away... there you have it. Once you're logged on or in front of the bob tube it's easy to not realize an hour has gone by. I found all my hobby time after I utterly stopped watching TV. Now that we're in a small apartment and it's hard to do my hobbies, though, the internet is starting to eat away that time, but I'm working on rescuing it.