What hobbies have you picked up during lockdown?

LRangerR

Local Legend
i tried my hand at cooking a little more often, which i do enjoy though i hate handling meat hahahah

i've also been reading more :)
Lol, what's wrong with meat? xD I just cut up a bunch of chicken last night and tossed it in the freezer. I'm going to repack some bacon today.
 

LRangerR

Local Legend
i don't like the way it feels and i hate how i have to wash my hands every time i mess with it, just personal preference
Yeah i get that. Especially bird meats. It's even worse when you're handling both chicken and red meat at the same time because you have to keep everything separate, and have an entirely different set of tools for each.
 

starbrite

Sodbuster
I started exercising and working out a lot more! In my past jobs I had to walk around and lift heavy things a lot, but now that I work from home I sit a lot so I figured I needed to get up and do something sometimes haha. As cheesy as it sounds, I also started watching sunsets, snow falls and stargazing when it's not too cloudy out. I started appreciating nature and space a lot more I guess haha. I also picked up pen-palling which is very fun and my now preferred method to meet new people because of COVID restrictions. As someone that has always loved to collect things, I can get back into collecting digital penpal stamps :D

That's the only new thing I've picked up though. I have a lot more time now to read, cook more, work on my novel, play more video games and work hard on learning new languages, but those were old hobbies :)

edit:
Not so much a hobby, but I've learned to slow things down. Before I was all about rushing around burning myself out but since lockdown 2.0 in the UK I've slowed things down and realised it's OK to not have everything done immediately.
I was the opposite when the pandemic started! I was burning myself out because I felt like I wasn't doing "anything" (despite working + studying + learning a new language all day long) because I was just sitting at home. I was so used to constantly going places or traveling that I had to adjust to repacing my life. I'm now finally learning to slow down, pace myself, and it's OK to not finish a project or a lesson in one day. Sometimes things do take time and it's OK to take breaks. It's OK to not be busy 24/7.
 
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LRangerR

Local Legend
I started exercising and working out a lot more! In my past jobs I had to walk around and lift heavy things a lot, but now that I work from home I sit a lot so I figured I needed to get up and do something sometimes haha.
Yeah you gotta be careful with that, especially in today's "lockdown culture". If you don't keep it up your muscles will atrophy and/or turn to fat before you know it.

Seems we have a lot of the same hobbies though. One of my favorite things to do is to go somewhere and get above/away from the pollution and just look at the stars that you normally can't see with all the smog. It's so pretty to see how they fill the sky and then i think "This is the sky our ancestors knew."

I was the opposite when the pandemic started! I was burning myself out because I felt like I wasn't doing "anything" (despite working + studying + learning a new language all day long) because I was just sitting at home. I was so used to constantly going places or traveling that I had to adjust to repacing my life. I'm now finally learning to slow down, pace myself, and it's OK to not finish a project or a lesson in one day. Sometimes things do take time and it's OK to take breaks. It's OK to not be busy 24/7.
Yeah i used to burn myself out for fun. Then one day i realized that it's actually a really really bad thing to do, so i kinda just...stopped. It's not as easy as it sounds though, and meditating that **** out of your system is a lot harder to do if you're not used to it. It's a skill that comes with practice though, and i practiced for a very long time until i was actually pretty good at it. Needless to say, i've been practicing a lot more lately, haha. Even so, it's still annoying more than anything when you want to finish something and you can't manage to do so, even if the outcome would be incredibly sweet, poignant, and meaningful.
 

starbrite

Sodbuster
Yeah you gotta be careful with that, especially in today's "lockdown culture". If you don't keep it up your muscles will atrophy and/or turn to fat before you know it.

Seems we have a lot of the same hobbies though. One of my favorite things to do is to go somewhere and get above/away from the pollution and just look at the stars that you normally can't see with all the smog. It's so pretty to see how they fill the sky and then i think "This is the sky our ancestors knew."


Yeah i used to burn myself out for fun. Then one day i realized that it's actually a really really bad thing to do, so i kinda just...stopped. It's not as easy as it sounds though, and meditating that **** out of your system is a lot harder to do if you're not used to it. It's a skill that comes with practice though, and i practiced for a very long time until i was actually pretty good at it. Needless to say, i've been practicing a lot more lately, haha. Even so, it's still annoying more than anything when you want to finish something and you can't manage to do so, even if the outcome would be incredibly sweet, poignant, and meaningful.
Exactly! I'm lucky enough to live somewhere where there isn't too much city light glare/smog, but nothing beats going out into the country side and seeing all the stars and planets. It's beautiful.

omg for fun? haha~. And true, it is really hard to get out of that mindset! I still sometimes think, "I need to do something" haha.
And I feel that way all the time! I'm working on a lot of projects for my certificates right now and I get so close at the end of some days to finishing a certain part of the project, but it's so late at night I know I have to stop and get some rest. But the other part of me still wants to work on it and just finish it up so I can move on to the next one tomorrow. But eh, I stop myself and tell myself to go enjoy a game or read a book before bed or I will be unproductive tomorrow. The project ain't going anywhere and I can finish it tomorrow with a rested mind lol.
 

Dr. eeL

Farmer
I'm a big fan of star watching. All the county and national forests were officially closed to the public during the shutdown, but if you knew where to park, no one would bother you. Like Maru, I too have a telescope, and I used it a lot more than usual. I saw a pair of really nice comets.
 

LRangerR

Local Legend
I'm a big fan of star watching. All the county and national forests were officially closed to the public during the shutdown, but if you knew where to park, no one would bother you. Like Maru, I too have a telescope, and I used it a lot more than usual. I saw a pair of really nice comets.
That's pretty awesome. I didn't know we had any comets zipping by recently.

And yeah all the parks and forest are technically closed but nobody's really gonna bother you if you go there. It's a lot better than going to a crowded area somewhere in the city.

Exactly! I'm lucky enough to live somewhere where there isn't too much city light glare/smog, but nothing beats going out into the country side and seeing all the stars and planets. It's beautiful.
I agree only too much. Ugh, you're making me want to go camping somewhere again haha. Btw, if you've never seen some of the gas giants from a telescope you really should. It's one thing to see pictures of them from the internet somewhere and another thing entirely to see the rings of Saturn, for example, with your own eyes. Speaking of pictures from the internet, I recently saw a picture from one of the probes we sent out past Pluto. It was a picture of Pluto and it's moon, Charon from a close orbit horizon of Pluto, with the camera turned around and taking a picture of the sun. It was really cool, and kinda surreal when i stopped to think about it for a second and realized that the Sun seemed to be only marginally smaller than when viewed from the Earth.

omg for fun? haha~. And true, it is really hard to get out of that mindset! I still sometimes think, "I need to do something" haha.
And I feel that way all the time! I'm working on a lot of projects for my certificates right now and I get so close at the end of some days to finishing a certain part of the project, but it's so late at night I know I have to stop and get some rest. But the other part of me still wants to work on it and just finish it up so I can move on to the next one tomorrow. But eh, I stop myself and tell myself to go enjoy a game or read a book before bed or I will be unproductive tomorrow. The project ain't going anywhere and I can finish it tomorrow with a rested mind lol.
Lol yeah, for fun. It was a passing thing though, and I realized then just exactly how bad it is to burn yourself out. It was never a habit of mine before and since then i've learned even more just how important it is to pace yourself. It's a really weird feeling to feel your synapses just...quit, lol. I don't recommend it to anyone if they need their brain for more than breathing. Even so, sometimes there are still projects I really want to get done.
 
Yeah, we're going with the "there is no bad weather, only inadequate clothing" theory of raising children. It gives them something to complain about!

And I realized I had another thing I've learned to do recently, that's kind of due to the pandemic and the fact that I have to take a pack lunch to work (cause we're down an income with my husband needing to stay home and take care of the kids): I finally have learned how to do hot water pastry dough, and it's awesome. I can now make meat pies and Cornish pasties for my lunches.

Hey! Those sound awesome do you have some links to a recipe or a youtube on how to make it? I would love to learn something like that! All I have so far is a sweet dough which is used for red bean buns... and that is a treat food... Also If you have the name of a recipe or the dough I can look it up easily.

I started a youtube channel, closing my etsy shop soon... now I am making a teachers pay teachers shop, but it's mainly because I make the worksheets for my kids now anyway... So why not sell them too. I am getting better at cooking, too 😋
 
I've gotten really into making treats! Cookies, caramel, flavor syrups for coffee... Oh, and I've also started working on a webcomic! (Still very early in development, but it keeps me busy.)
I've also discovered how much fun it is to get creative with soup. I do love soup.
 

LRangerR

Local Legend
I've gotten really into making treats! Cookies, caramel, flavor syrups for coffee... Oh, and I've also started working on a webcomic! (Still very early in development, but it keeps me busy.)
I've also discovered how much fun it is to get creative with soup. I do love soup.
That actually sounds amazing. Homemade snacks are the best.

For soup, I've learned that I like to put hot sauce into soup.
 

LRangerR

Local Legend
I'd say I became more anti-social, though I was already very anti-social before the pandemic started. I also started getting into digital art, new shows, and new book series.
Creating or perusing digital art?

Yeah the virus has been very hard on all of us for one reason or another. I'm sorry to hear that you've turned into even more of a turtle than you were before. Unfortunately it doesn't seem like there's any end in sight for the pandemic, but hang in there okay?
 
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