In an effort to get to know everyone better, I though it would be fun to do some "getting to know you" type threads.  I'm starting with this question - What are your hobbies?  I mean, of course, in addition to reading! 

So, tell me, what do YOU do when you actually can tear yourself away from the current book you're reading (and you're not working, doing house or yard work, tending the family and pets, etc.)? 

When I'm not reading, I'm running, kayaking or watching basketball or football (running year-round, the rest according to their seasons).  I'm a lifelong Minnesota Viking fan and a fanatical Utah Jazz fan--eat sleep and breathe them Nov-May. My hubby is a lifelong Lakers fan.  It usually takes me a week to get over playoff elimination, but it's worse when it's the Lakers.  Egads, I've hated them for longer than I've loved the Jazz ... or my hubby, for that matter! 

I speed garden in our little townhouse backyard.  If it's the weekend and hubby is somewhat awake in the morning and somewhat watching the kids, I hop outside and move small amounts of dirt, compost, worm poo, weeds, seeds, etc. in my pajamas.  The kids have been begging for ground cherries this year.  They love to pick and eat outside.  I used to call our little backyard my "pot farm", but I got funny looks.  The technical term, I believe, is a "container garden."  

Oh, and I try to go to the gym twice a week.  I guess it's not really a hobby, but it sure takes a lot of work to finagle schedules to actually get to the gym.  The gym is next to a Baskin Robbins and a KFC.  =(

Shelley already knows this, but HOCKEY HOCKEY HOCKEY!  Rabid Washington Capitals fan.  Also write a fairly well-read blog on the topic.  I'm also a fan of the "farm team," the Hershey Bears, so I like to travel up to Hershey, PA when I can to see them play.  Also a big Chicago Bears fan.  I love music and like singing.  I'm still attempting to play the guitar.

I was a minor in art history in college, so I also love taking advantage of the wonderful museums we have here in Washington, DC.

Great responses, guys!  Keep 'em coming!  Guess I should answer my own questions.  I've had many hobbies come and go over the years, although some have been enduring. Here's what's currently keeping me occupied -

Physical Fitness - Yeah, I'm a freak that loves to work out.  I do it all - cardio (everything but currently dance and kickboxing are my favorite forms), weights (usually low weight/high rep and body weight stuff), yoga, ballet or barre-inspired workouts, fusion stuff of any kind (ballet, dance, yoga, pilates, kickboxing, etc. - love it when stuff is all blended together). 

Hoopdancing - This is my current obsession. I picked up a hoop and started learning to dance with it a short time ago, but I'm already hooked.  This is one art form I plan to stick with and master. Hooping makes me very, very happy!

Gardening - I don't do as much as I'd like, but I do have a vegetable garden I share with my friend/neighbor.  Hoping some day when I'm not busy with work and the kids I can expand the garden and also learn to can.

Kayaking - This is a new one for DH and I.  We borrowed kayaks last year and fell in love with kayaking!!  We discovered it is an activity the whole family can enjoy, so we are in the process of buying kayaks for us all! 

Camping - This is another new one!  We acquired a 5th wheel camper last fall when my DH gave up his hobby (dirt track auto racing, and NO, we are not as white trash as we sound!!!) and we plan to use it a lot this summer. We have no intention of being weekend warriors at commercial campgrounds.  We will keep it at my in-laws' lake cabin for the most part (so we have our own space when we're there), but we also plan on some camping trips to various state parks around the region.  Next year we'd like to take a trip out to the Black Hills.

I love all of these things, but still . . . sitting in a lounge chair at the water's edge with a good book is very hard to beat in the summer! 

I love animals. I'm the crazy woman you've all seen behind a fast food restaraunt trying to stuff spitting and snarling feral kittens into her car. I drag them home, spay or neuter, then find them new homes.

I walk every day and work out, but I don't love it. At all. I do love for my ass to fit into my jeans though so I suffer through it.

Last year, I developed an addiction to Hidden Object computer games. I might be the oldest known member of BigFishGames.com.

I love the beach and the lake and I love to camp, but, like Shelley, I do it in a fifth-wheel where there is A/C cause it's hawt here, only I try hard to be as white trash as possible.

Honestly, right now, I spend most of my time feeding and caring for teenage boys. My house is the hangout and I'm basically a nurse, psychologist, and beer-sniffing cop. Yeah, it's real fun.

I have two TV shows I watch obsessively: The Tudors in the spring and Dexter in the fall.  In the summer I go yard saling just about every weekend and I take the crumbsnatcher and the smelly mutt down to lake Michigan to go swimming and we go fishing a lot.

I love travelling and I collect Gone with the Wind stuff.  I used to love shopping but I can't really stand crowds so I rarely go anymore. And thats all I can think of for now because my brain shut off about 2 hours ago....

Valli - Silly!  It's not the camping that's white trash it's the stock car racing!  LOL!  No, I don't mean to offend anyone.  My DH has been around dirt track autor racing his whole life.  It's a family hobby.  I'm certainly not saying everyone involved is ummm, well, you know, but you do see some interesting folks at a dirt track race! 

I am a master gardener I donate my time at "Ask the Gardner" booths at various farmers markets  and I love to cook, I  collect old church cook books. I swim 3 to 4 days a week.  I draw and paint mostly florals and landscapes.

Shelley, if I go out on to my back porch on weekend nights, I can HEAR the races! Part of the reason my husband wanted this land so bad was because it's near the track. At any time, we have one or two cars being worked on for the races. Ya really can't get much more white trash than that!! When we moved out to the country, I had to embrace my own white-trashiness or go crazy. ;-)

You could never offend me! Ever! I should have added some smilies to my earlier post to show I was being silly.

What an interesting group you all are! Valli, this is not really a hobby - but one of my major time-snatchers is my involvement in the local Humane Society. I am on the Board of Directors and also spend a fair amount of time at the shelter helping out in a more "hands-on" way. Our facebook page is Stephens County Humane Society of Oklahoma & on the Wall Photos is a picture of Sophie - the canine member of my family. We have recently started a Trap-Neuter-Release program for feral cats (grant awarded by PetsSmart) and that has been a real learning curve!

I ride motorcycles - more, of course, when my husband was alive, but I have gotten mine out this Spring & am looking forward to spending more time on the open road. Bil taught me to ride in 1991 on a Sportster Hugger; I now ride a H-D Road King. 

My most recent "other-than-reading" hobby has been genealogy research - absolutely fascinating and like a great puzzle - which is something else I really enjoy when time allows.

I also enjoy gardening - on a very limited basis - a few flowers, a small herb garden, a hosta flower bed, a tomato plant, etc.

Kelly

My husband and I play a lot of board games and go to gaming days or nights at friends houses. Theae are not monopoloy games but more complex strategy games, (Settlers of Catans, Puerto Rico, ECO). A nice way to spend a day. I spend a lot of time watchign kids sports (daughter 15, son 12). My parents are 88 and 90 so I spend a least one day a week caring for them. I do lots of cooking and making extra meals for my parents. Today my son and I put in a patio vegetable garden (squash, tomatoes, cukes, peppers) we will see how it does. I have 4 cats and  dog too. I used to go to more movies and watch TV but I prefer to read these days.

Alice

I like to "pot garden" too Shannon, but I mostly grow roses and some herbs.  We live on the edge of a wetland so we have lots of birds that come to our feeders and we watch the ducks and geese and red wing blckbirds nesting in the spring.  There are several miles of paved trails too so my husband and I walk our two King Charles Cavalier spaniels in an effort to keep all of our hinders from getting any bigger than they already are!  My latest hobby is my granddaughter, Lily.  What a delight she is!  Today she and Mommy stopped over and the first thing out of Lily's mouth when she saw me was"um num num"  (baby talk for where's the treats grandma?)

Kelly, I don't know why, but it doesn't at all surprise me that you ride a bike! You are too cool! Riding my own bike is my dream, but it's not one that is ever going to come true, alas. My DH tried to teach me on his, then got one more my size and paid for lessons at the Harley shop, but that guy told me he didn't think bikes were my thing, so I guess I'm just stuck in the bitch seat forever. I just don't seem to have the reflexes to drive a bike. Oh, loook, there's a car, it seems to be stopping, maybe I should stop too, crash, bam, boom. Not good. Luckily, the only thing I actually crashed into was a gokart and I toppled over into the grass, no harm done, lol. I've been riding the new "crotch-rocket" in my yard a bit lately and seem to be doing better with that kind of bike. I don't have any plans to take it on the road though; that isn't fair to the other people driving on the road. ;-)

Well,Kelly, you are now one of my hero's. Smart, funny, and SHE RIDES A BIKE. Way cool.

Wow, Valli - you know the very best praise is when it comes from someone you like & respect! Thanks for your kind words. 

For some reason, I really took to m/c riding. It was always a little of a mystery to Bil because after several years of trying, he finally had to give up on teaching me to drive a standard car! The brake/gears/acceleration coordination on a motorcycle is no problem - but a complete foreign language in a car!

Kelly

What a fabulous idea for a thread!

for you NASCAR types--I'm not into it but I live 15 minutes from CLT Motor Speedway...and work 2 minutes from it---so if you make the trek to NASCAR groud zero, my home is always open to you!

Kelly--my 3 guys are avid motorcycle riders (Dad on a Goldwing, our boys on crotch rockets) and I usually occupy the 'queen seat' on Dad's---but they are restoring a smallish Kawasaki that I will train on and get my permit with .... then who knows what I'll ride! We love it, do it as a family, and make an annual trek to the Tail of the Dragon in  TN, which is only about 4 hours from us.

Otherwise, I don't have a lot of leisure time as my professional life is intense---I'm the top lawyer for a telecom company and my work life is very hectic, long, and travel intense---which is why my reading hobby works well, lots of plane/hotel time!  I love to decorate our nest, and when I have the time, one can find me wallpapering, sewing curtains and/or various accessories, etc. I don't love exercise, but love the ass-in-jeans thing as Valli does, so I run, do lots of cardio and am crazy about Pilates--mat and equipment-based. I am a gourmet cook, but usually can only cook the way I like to on Sundays or for special occasions. My two toy poodles are the loves of my life, after my DH of course, and we both love to take them out for walks and outings.  Lastly, I am fortunate enough to live on a beautiful lake and we have a boat, so lazily sunning myself on the boat has got to qualify as a hobby as well!

Er...  Can someone explain what a crotch rocket is please?  I'm afraid I'm coming up with highly improbably mental pictures.

I'll tell you what a crotch rocket is if you draw out some of those mental pictures for me. :-P

Colleen - I thought collecting shoes was a hobby of yours. 

BWAHAHAHA @ Valli

Yeah...I'm just hanging out here refreshing the page over and over again, just waiting for someone to come and rescue me from Valli and the spot she has put me in....  

Anyone?  Please?  =)

Here you go Shannon!  This is a crotch rocket. 

Now I am waiting for you to answer Valli! LOL

  Shannon is this what you were thinking of HUMMM naughty girl!  Cause I was! LOL