5 Minutes for Books – Part 2 – A Book for You…

May 14, 2007 by Guest Contributor

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This is the second review of today’s double feature here at 5 Minutes for Books. We are separating the reviews into two posts so that you can enter your comments separately. The children’s book review is a contest with three copies of the children’s book available to win. If you missed that post, click here. (On the home page, it should be right on top of this one.) To enter the children’s book contest, make sure you leave a comment on that post. This book review is written by Jennifer and includes five copies to giveaway. To enter to win this book, just leave a comment on this post.

Do you have a hobby?

Did you used to have hobbies that have fallen by the wayside since you’ve gotten married and had a family?

In the foreword to Get a Hobby!, Dr. Miguel Figueroa writes that “reputable studies have shown that chronic stress contributes to poor health while regular relaxation promotes good health.” He goes on to define a hobby as “any thoroughly absorbing pastime that you engage in outside your regular activities that focuses your mind on something that is not your usual worries. . . . A good relaxing hobby is a personally pleasing occupation that brings you entirely into the moment. While you are practicing your hobby, you are not worrying about the difficult meeting you had today, or planning your kids’ soccer schedule.” (page 8.)

So do you have a hobby? If not, don’t you think that you should find one?

In Get a Hobby!, author Tina Barseghian has compiled “101 All-Consuming Diversions for Any Lifestyle.” The book opens with a slightly tongue-in-cheek quiz to determine your hobby personality. Each of the 101 hobbies is given a two-page spread which includes all of the essentials:

overview
history
what you’ll need
resources (books and websites)
a project
and sometimes a neat section that offers additional suggested hobbies if you already enjoy this hobby.

Tina Barseghian is also a mom and lives in the Bay Area with her husband and daughter Lucy, who is almost four. She was kind enough to answer a few questions.

5M4B: How have your hobbies changed since becoming a mom?

TB: One of the things I used to do much more before becoming a mom was traveling, and that was as much for my job as it was for pleasure. Since Lucy was born, we still travel a fair amount because she’s a champion traveler – we go to Hawaii and New York and Los Angeles regularly, and we’ve even taken her to Ireland and England – but obviously we don’t travel as much as before we had her. And now that she’s in preschool and will start grade school soon, we’ll have to plan our travel schedule according to her school schedule, so that’ll be an adjustment.

Also, I used to play piano at home much more regularly before I had her. Now when I go to the piano, she’ll want to come and sit and play with me. Though it’s not the same experience as playing a classical piece in its entirety, I still love to play piano with her.

And lastly, I picked up a hobby: coloring. I hadn’t colored since I was a kid, and now I do it everyday!

5M4B: Do you share any hobbies as a family?

TB: We work on the garden, planting flowers, pulling weeds, and watering on the weekends. We go to flea markets together and look for little treasures, whether or not we find them (the fun part is the hunt, of course!). We take the ferry across the bay back and forth. Indoors, we love to color together (yes, I have my own coloring book!), we make up long-winded stories about imaginary characters and make our own story books. Of course, we also bake and cook together – but that’s more my husband and Lucy with me watching and taking their photos.

5M4B: I think that I do a good job of enjoying my leisure time, even with a daughter in school (and all the activities that go along with that) and a three year old son at home. However, in reading the book, I’m not sure that the way I spend my time would be classified as a hobby. I enjoy reading, writing, and travel, but didn’t find any of those in the book. How would you define “hobby”?

TB: That’s integral to the point of this book. Personally, I define any way you spend time enjoying doing something – regardless of what it is – a hobby. It doesn’t have to be tied to an end result and it doesn’t have to incorporate any specialized skill. Reading, writing and travel absolutely are great hobbies and ones that I love doing as well. The only reason they didn’t make it in the book is that they’re fairly self-explanatory, and don’t require any clarification, like some of the others do, such as falconry or mushroom hunting.

5M4B: I’ve had a couple of new interests surge and take up way too much of my time. Do you have any advice about keeping your passion for a new activity from becoming all-consuming (financially as well in hours spent), and yet giving it enough time to enjoy it?

TB: Ahhh, the obsession. In my opinion, if you’re lucky enough to find an activity that consumes you, I say go with it, as long as it doesn’t harm you or anyone else! Soon enough, your level of interest is bound to dwindle over time, so until then, enjoy it as much as you can.

I agree with Tina 100% on this point, and I was glad she was able to clarify it for me. I know that some hobbies (can you say blogging?) became quite an obsession for me, but after a couple of months, they settled into a nice balance with the rest of my life. Other interests dwindled altogether. The point is that they were a nice diversion from regular life, which is what they are meant to be.

I think that this book would be a great gift for a college graduate, retiree, or even for a wedding shower along with some of the resources or project supplies suggested for hobbies you think might interest them. Thanks to the publisherHarperCollins, we have FIVE copies of this book to give away.

If you would like to win a copy leave a comment by Saturday. And just for fun, tell me what your favorite current or past hobbies have been. Winners will be announced on Monday. Edited to add: This contest is open to Canadians!

Jennifer Donovan enjoys reading, traveling, cooking, and blogging at Snapshot.

It’s Mother’s Day!!! Here come the prizes…

5 Minutes for Books – Part 1 – A Book for Little Ones…