Not Just a Mom: Our Hobbies

 Hi there! I hope you had a good weekend! The kids seem to have gotten their first bug of the school year. Just a little head cold thank goodness. Luckily, nobody has had to miss any school, but we definitely rested on the couch a little more than usual this weekend. Luckily there was some good football to watch and both kids are finally at an age where they are somewhat interested in it--  woohoo!

Ya’ll, I do not know how you full-time working mamas do it!! I’ve only ever worked part-time since having kids, and I gotta say, this is an adjustment! All moms are superheroes, and I have a new appreciation for moms who work full-time. My bedtime isn't too much later than the kids!

Today the Not Just a Mom crew (Adrienne, Dara, Jen, Joanne, Sarah and I) are linking up to share our hobbies. Life has thrown us some curveballs this year, so I haven’t had as much time for my usual hobbies lately, but I know eventually I’ll get back to them. These pictures may be old, but the passion for the hobbies is the same!

Blogging:

Baby Lily Grace, from my early days of blogging

Obviously, blogging is a hobby of mine. I've written before about the story behind why I started my blog (part 1 and part 2 here). After Lily Grace was born, and I decided to cut back to working part time, I was a little bored. All of my friends were still working full time, and Lily Grace napped twice a day. There was a lot of dead time, and I wanted something productive to fill it. After reading other peoples blogs for years, I decided I should start my own. And while I may have significantly less time for it now, I still love it!

Reading:

I have always been a bookworm, and I have always loved reading. I remember being obsessed with the American Girl series back in the 90s, and the Dear America series too. Oddly enough, I was never super into Harry Potter… I liked Harry Potter and read them all, don’t get me wrong, but they started to get a little too dark for me as the series went on. I know I'm not alone in thinking that!

Running:

I have written about running many times, (like in this post here about running a half marathon), but running is one of my very favorite hobbies of all. What's funny about that is that I used to HATE running. One year I set a New Year's resolution for myself to do something "outside the box" for me. Well,  for someone who hates running, giving it a shot was definitely outside the box. It turns out I don't hate running at all, I just hate the first mile haha!

Yoga:

I’ve been practicing yoga regularly since college and love everything about it. I love that it is a physical workout, but also so good for you mentally as well. I always feel significantly calmer/less stressed out after a good yoga session (after any exercise, really).

Crafty Things:

I have always loved expressing myself creatively, via some sort of art or craft. While the crafts used to be just for me, now that I have kids, we do a lot of kid crafts together.

Baking:

I LOVE baking, but let me be clear… I’m not whipping up an original recipe from scratch. I’m very happy to start with a box mix of cake/brownies/cupcakes and add some stuff to it to jazz them up. I just play around with it and have fun. If a recipe doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out. No big deal. 

I love making cupcakes and cookies with the kids and then decorating them. I have the best memories of doing that with my mom and grandma growing up, and I’m so happy to do that with my own kids too! In fact, we made Halloween cookies yesterday (yes I realize it’s mid-September, but there are so many fun Halloween activities to do and I like to spread the joy out a bit instead of cramming it all into one month). 

Those are a few of my favorite hobbies. What do you like to do for fun? If you're a blogger, please link up with us below!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter