ElizabethT
Full time employment: Posting here.
One of my fears upon our initial FIRE some 10 years ago, when I was in my late-40's, and DH in his mid-50's, was what we would do with all of our free time. I did land on a lengthy list of activities, many of which I detailed here in a thread about our lives six years into FIRE (https://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f29/fire-update-year-six-82430.html).
To my pleasant surprise, however, even after 10 years we are continuing to discover and embark on new hobbies. Here is a list of new hobbies that came into my life in just in the last 12 months:
- Acoustic guitar. Bought a guitar during the early days of COVID, and then an online app (Justin Guitar). Learned to strum and play about 25 chords on my own, then last month decided to invest in in-person lessons. First lesson the instructor introduced me to finger picking, and I'm having an absolute ball going back through my music sheets and finding the songs that sound fantastic as finger picked songs.
- Bridge. Restarted bridge lessons this week after a brief attempt to learn the game a few years ago, due to the opening of a bridge center near us. First lesson was so much fun, I'm kind of shocked. Lots of lessons to go, but already social groups are starting to form to get together and play in between lessons.
- Sailing. The harbor near us has a social sailing club that owns something like a dozen sailboats that can be rented by members. I'm not interested as of yet in actually captaining a sailboat, but I'm very much interested in crewing on one. The club also offers lessons, and I'm all set to begin them in a couple of weeks. Afterwards, I look forward to time out on the water crewing with other club members. Fees seem reasonable to me as well, at $50 a month for non-boat owning social members.
I thought it would be interesting to see what new hobbies are being taken up by other FIRE'd folk, not only to see what activities others are enjoying, but to possibly provide additional ideas that haven't yet crossed my/our radar, so I hope some of you will have at it.
To my pleasant surprise, however, even after 10 years we are continuing to discover and embark on new hobbies. Here is a list of new hobbies that came into my life in just in the last 12 months:
- Acoustic guitar. Bought a guitar during the early days of COVID, and then an online app (Justin Guitar). Learned to strum and play about 25 chords on my own, then last month decided to invest in in-person lessons. First lesson the instructor introduced me to finger picking, and I'm having an absolute ball going back through my music sheets and finding the songs that sound fantastic as finger picked songs.
- Bridge. Restarted bridge lessons this week after a brief attempt to learn the game a few years ago, due to the opening of a bridge center near us. First lesson was so much fun, I'm kind of shocked. Lots of lessons to go, but already social groups are starting to form to get together and play in between lessons.
- Sailing. The harbor near us has a social sailing club that owns something like a dozen sailboats that can be rented by members. I'm not interested as of yet in actually captaining a sailboat, but I'm very much interested in crewing on one. The club also offers lessons, and I'm all set to begin them in a couple of weeks. Afterwards, I look forward to time out on the water crewing with other club members. Fees seem reasonable to me as well, at $50 a month for non-boat owning social members.
I thought it would be interesting to see what new hobbies are being taken up by other FIRE'd folk, not only to see what activities others are enjoying, but to possibly provide additional ideas that haven't yet crossed my/our radar, so I hope some of you will have at it.
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