Celebrating Life's Simple Joys: The Heartfelt Art of Hobby Pursuits

When I stumbled across a free upright piano, it was like unearthing a lost treasure trove of personal delight.  We revel in the pure joy of hobbies—those precious activities we cherish for their innate pleasure rather than the lure of profit. As I share the story of my newfound piano adventure and plans to nurture my musical side without any ambition of becoming the next concert pianist, we'll explore the art of keeping hobbies just for ourselves, a sanctuary from the pressure to monetize every passion.

Have you ever found liberation in the imperfect strokes of a paintbrush or the soothing rhythm of yarn looping around a crochet hook? This episode is an ode to such moments, a celebration of hobbies as a conduit for continuous learning and mental well-being. 

Embrace the challenge of new skills and the comfort found in the social fabric of shared interests, as we affirm the significance of dedicating time to activities that replenish our spirits and rekindle the sparks of unbridled creativity.

Today's doodle is a frog!!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:06

Welcome back to Brutifrey Made. Happy Friday, happy February, happy Groundhog's Day Just a whole lot of stuff going on today. So let's dive into the choice for the Doodle of the Day. Again, we're going to go to Elo Lovey and see what the prompt is, because I wanted to change up the challenges and it looks like it's a frog. My friend Kathy will be very excited that I'm going to draw a frog today, doodle in along with some color, adding some color now to my drawings while we chat and it's funny that this topic, this idea, came to mind just because I've pretty much used real life scenarios to come up with things to chat about.

Speaker 1: 1:03

And I am part of a group which I talked about these kinds of groups a couple episodes ago where you can get free stuff and we call it a common table around here. My kids call them by nothing groups on Facebook where they live. But if you have something and you don't want it or need it anymore, you just place it on there. And so I got an upright piano for free in this group and Brian and I went and picked it up and had it and I'm going to take lessons and it just made me think about, as a creative person. What can you do as a hobby and not monetize it? It's so funny to talk to people who are creative and find out they're very much like me and they have interest in all sorts of things, and then they dive in getting supplies for those you know ventures, and then you end up like really getting into it and then, okay, now I'm going to start selling this too. It just happens like organically, naturally. But what can you do as a hobby? Or how do you tackle something as a hobby and not want to turn it into something that you're selling or not turn it into something that you're offering as a service? How do you approach that? How do you have a hobby as a creative person? So I wanted to, you know, share some thoughts around that and share some of the things that I have started and not monetizing them. And really, you know, how do you gain something out of it for yourself? How do you look at that and enjoy it as a hobby? So I just thought that would be a very fun topic to talk about and I would love to hear how you look at things that you consider a hobby and what are those in your life. I would love to, you know, hear some feedback on that. So I'm drawing my little frog. I really think that this piano thing is gonna be really just for pure enjoyment for me.

Speaker 1: 3:30

When I was like five, five or six, I started taking piano lessons. I didn't have a piano, my grandma had one. My uncle played beautifully, like just beautiful piano player, and I loved playing the piano by just trying to figure out like how to do what he was doing. So I started taking lessons and I got to the point where I was playing with two hands and we moved out of like where it was very convenient for me to go take lessons and go to my grandma's to practice, and I quit. I quit taking the lessons and I remember the last song I can play with two hands on the piano and I've always remembered that. And I can play the scales. I better one hand at a time than both, just very, very rusty. And so I'm practicing that.

Speaker 1: 4:34

And then I have a friend who reached out to me with a piano tuner and I have his name. And then another friend reached out and said, hey, my ex-husband's a piano tuner, and it was the same name. And I was like, oh my gosh, how ironic is that the first friend who shared the name of the piano tuner she also teaches lessons, and I thought she just taught kids, but she's like no, no, no, I teach adults too. So after I get some of the rest knocked off, I'm gonna take some lessons and really learn how to play. I can read music. I played clarinet in high school, in school, until I got to high school and, like I said, piano, so to a point I can read music. I'm not like super good at it, but I just think it's very fun to tackle something new.

Speaker 1: 5:30

And the other thing, as a creative person, people look at what you do and they're just like what is it that you can't do? And my go-to answer has always been I don't know how to crochet and I don't know how to knit, and so I've had quite a few friends, which I've talked about before, try to teach me, and I still very slow at picking up on it. And so I'm like I am investing in those wooboo kits. I'm gonna get some of those kits because they seem like they are showing you how to do that Pretty seamlessly, based on the reviews. So I got some of those kits and I got to make one and it was very wobbly, wooboo, it was so out of whack but I did it.

Speaker 1: 6:20

I made a coffee cup and then I bought some of the accessories. So then I made a mini coffee cup and I'm getting a hang of it and it's just totally for my pure enjoyment. I absolutely love it and I love yarn, I love the fibers, I love different just aspects of something creative that I don't have to worry about making a million of them because I'm never gonna sell them. I just like doing it and I'm making some for my granddaughters and it's just fun. So, between the piano and my crocheting and yarn ventures, those two things for this year are my hobbies and I have big goals to know how to do it very well by the end of the year. So I have 11 months now left because I just got the piano last weekend and I've only had the crochet kits for like two weeks and I've got some other ones to make. But it's just kind of nice to be able to sit down and if I'm done drawing and done working on things that I have for, like you know, my creative business, I have something that I can do.

Speaker 1: 7:36

So what do you do if you're creative. Like if you're a painter, do you like something else? Do you play guitar? Do you like sculpting? Like if you bake, do you like making something else to you know, as a hobby, what is it that you like to do just for fun? Maybe you ride dirt bikes, maybe you do hiking. You know, maybe there's another creative endeavor that you want to jump into and you want to explore that just for the sake of just pure enjoyment. I want to know what that is and I want to know is it hard for you to not get caught up in? I'm really doing well at this. I think I can, you know, sell this or maybe somebody be interested in it.

Speaker 1: 8:29

It's hard to not have those expectations. It's hard to go into something just pure, you know, clear mind and not have these grandiose expectations when that's what you do, when you tackle your creative like hobby that's turned into a job. I that's how I feel, like with art. I've always I love art so much and I love sharing that, so it's turned into a job for me, and it's hard to step into a new role of doing something creatively for pure enjoyment, sharing it. You know like, look, I'm making this just for me. And then people were just like, oh, I want that, that's not happening with piano, that's not happening with with crocheting at all. But you know to find other people to surround yourself with that or doing that for pure enjoyment. I think that that's important.

Speaker 1: 9:27

I went with a friend to a brewery a couple of weeks ago and she was going to, you know, sit there with her friends. I got to meet them and we were crocheting for like three or four hours. That was just very relaxing and fun and there was no expectation coming out of it. I mean, it took me four hours to do a magic circle. It was ridiculous. I was so slow and I ended up pulling all the yarn out anyway because it sucked. It was so bad. So it's okay to be bad at something.

Speaker 1: 9:57

I love that saying, be brave enough to suck at something and don't have an expectation in it, and that is so freeing and just exploring that as a hobby. I love it and I think it's important to look, look at different mediums, like dive into different things that you're not used to doing. I was taking some art classes. They were all remote, they was to windowsill chats and they were windowsill workshops and they were things I had never done before, like printmaking and stuff, and so the investment for the materials weren't like too too bad, so I was not like spending hundreds of dollars and it was really interesting to find all of this like new experiences through those classes, and so I loved that and I think, doing different mediums, it could turn into something that you incorporate into your creative business. But I think going into it expecting it just to be a hobby and just to be something for pure enjoyment is really really important and it doesn't have to be shared. So you know some of the things that I will try. It wasn't like these giant social media posts or anything like that. It was just like look, I'm tackling this, I wanted to try this out, and you may not even see me do it again. I mean, it just was something that I tried and that's important. I think that it's really important to never stop learning. I don't care how old I'm going to get, I don't want to not learn something new.

Speaker 1: 11:41

I think I've talked about my mom. She's in her seventies and I love her to pieces and she's very creative. But you know, as time has gone on, arthritis has set in and so it's really difficult for her to draw much anymore. At least that's what she says. I keep telling her it would help so much if she would draw and paint with her arthritis to keep her hands moving. She just doesn't want to listen. It's just too much work and my siblings, my brothers and I and their wives they have but like canvases and paints and brushes and eagles trying to encourage her to have all the supplies there for her to do something and she just doesn't. And I'm like I can't wait to have that time one day to just create all day long. That's so exciting to me.

Speaker 1: 12:40

I want that and I think that that's Really helpful as you get older, to concentrate on things that you don't know how to do and Learn something new. I think it's really important for your mental health. So that's something I want to encourage you to do on a regular basis is to find something new. Even if it's a New Year's resolution that you're gonna learn something new every year, that's a wonderful resolution. And just regularly trying something If it's alone, if it's with a group of friends, that's so much fun. That experience, that moment that you're capturing those are great memories. So don't lose sight of doing it just because it's fun.

Speaker 1: 13:25

You don't have to be a pro at everything. You're not gonna be a pro at everything and even if you are a pro, you're gonna have mistakes. You're gonna make them and it's okay. It's alright to you know stink and it's something, even if it's something that you're used to doing. Not everything is gonna be a hundred percent perfect. Quit expecting perfection and I Think sometimes I'll see these creative challenges, which I love. This you know, right here, drawing these little challenges, that's. That's one of them. I love sharing that, but it just keeps your mind fresh.

Speaker 1: 14:00

Maybe you didn't think of that subject matter, or maybe you didn't realize that you could do this or that and you find those on Social media. That's a positive thing for social media, and I'm not talking about take talk challenges that are dangerous. I'm talking about creative art challenges and I think that you can even spend those if so, if you have a business and there's a creative challenge, turn it into. You know you want to sell so many of certain color of something and then you run a sale based on that. You know, take that to a level that's important to you.

Speaker 1: 14:34

If it's on your business side or if it's for a hobby. You know, maybe somebody is sewing, let me. They're joining the hundred day project and they're making something Hundred of something and you didn't think that you would join in. But now you're practicing something for a hobby and you're not got selling, maybe you're. So maybe I'm gonna make a hundred stitches and those stitches are gonna be a different Stitch every day and you're gonna hand embroider those, or maybe you're going to try to knit that. Who knows? A Hundred days, try it, try it for a hundred days. I mean, that's a third of the year. It's something to look forward to every day. Just even if it's ten minutes, that's something that you can say. And a hundred days this is what I did and then look back at it, good or bad, take that challenge and really, whenever you're doing something for a hobby, you're really doing it for yourself and we don't do enough for ourselves. We do things for others all the time, for companies, all the time for other businesses, for customers, for clients, but we're always last.

Speaker 1: 15:39

So a hobby to help you clear your mind and being creative and learning something new. It's so important. So create for yourself for the first time, maybe ever, and enjoy that process. Enjoy those moments that you're taking to do it. There's tons of workshops, there's tons of classes, so if there is an interest there, maybe you don't wanna invest in all the stuff it takes to make stained glass, but you wanna go take a class to find out what it's like Do it. We took a class with a bunch of friends for a glass blowing. It was fun, so much fun. We made Christmas ornaments one year. I loved it. I wanna do it again. I'll never have all of that stuff to do it myself, but I can take a class and take it with friends, and it's an experience that when we get those ornaments out or go to one of those houses, we see them and we talk about it. It's so much fun. What great memories we made the whole thing around having the hobby.

Speaker 1: 16:40

Just for you, though, I think most importantly is that the mindfulness that it brings. We have to find moments in our day to be very mindful for ourselves, and it really helps clarify and refocus ourselves on our dreams and what's important and calms us, and so I think the mindfulness part of having a hobby that's not monetized is the most important thing of all, and I love hearing what people's interests are and share that. I would love to know what you're doing as a hobby, especially if you're a creative person, and how you got started or how you're interested in it. And yeah, just share that with me, because I'm very interested to hear what other creative people didn't know how to do and they're learning how to do and they're doing it just for the pure enjoyment for themselves. So that's my little thought for the day for the week, and it is brutally made. I promise you it is because it's made by you.

Speaker 1: 17:54

So I hope you like my little frog here. It's the most color I've used on a doodle oh, my gosh, ever so. Oh, but it was fun. It was fun watching the markers. These are dual edge markers, so I like trying to use the broad ones to color things in. And yeah, it's a frog, so springy, so fun. So, take care, have a wonderful Groundhog Day. I'll probably watch that movie a couple of times and yeah, and it's supposed to be first Friday around here, so anxious to go. Tonight there's a quilt show at the Camp Museum of Art and then there's a Groundhog exhibit at the Stark Parks, and so I think we're gonna do that too. But have a great weekend, be safe and happy February again. Take care. Bye.