Allocating hobby time?

I'm struggling with this at the moment. My twins are graduating from high school this year so there is a lot going on with that and the whole college thing along with dance competitions on weekends, my daughters knee injury, my new job, other random family stuff going on and I have never-ending housework to catch up on. I can't seem to get my act together. I haven't had the chance to do any hobby stuff. I'm also VERY behind on digi-scrap and photo organizing. I'm sure my poor PC hates me.

 

Like @meganmecrazy , I have a senior this year, so it seems like my brain is always working through something related to that and getting ready for a graduation party and the invitation, etc, so I find that my week night free time has been a lot less this year. BUT, I have a IRL friend who also likes to scrabooking digitally, so we plan a weekend for scrapbooking about 6 times a year and we just hole up at her cottage of in my basement craft room and we just ignore the world and scrapbook to our hearts content. Lol. That really helps me attempt to keep mostly up to date on my scrapbook stuff.

As for my other hobbies (crochet, art journaling, painting, building stuff, reading etc) I just fit it in when I finally get the strong enough urge to need that as an outlet. Mostly I read just before I go to sleep every night, so I don't often fit that in during the day unless I'm really into a particular book. A lot of the time I will work on a crochet project while I watching TV with my hubby because I hate just sitting there and only watching TV. Ha ha! And then the painting/ art journaling stuff I just go in spurts when I have time. If I'm making an actual painting (to hang on the wall) I need a big block of uninterrupted time, otherwise it's not worth squeezing the paints out and wasting them because they dry out, so I usually wait until I have a weekend day with no other obligations to do that and then I just announce that I will be unavailable for ANYTHING while I paint. My kids are old enough to feed themselves when I do this, so that really helps too.

All that to say... I don't manage all my hobbies super well either, but I don't let it stress me out too much either. I find time when I really want to (need to). Lol.

 

Mine too!!! It was kinda like Christmas in summer. I have always loved school shopping, and poured over the new curricula!

 

I've got a mini labradoodle, Taz, and a mini aussie, Remi. My daughter lives with us and she has an aussiedoodle, Bella. We are overun with dogs

 

Ooooo ... thanks for the heads up. I know you live in Northern VA, so I Googled the center b/c I need to start decluttering my paper scrapbooking supplies.

 

You might check with your recycling center too! Ours has "The Little Red Schoolhouse". We can drop things off that aren't typically recyclable, but that crafters/homeschoolers/teachers often will use. They take the Styrofoam egg cartons for example. Then homeschoolers/teachers/etc can come over to it and "shop" taking things for their projects for free. It's really cool! The teachers and homeschool coops can even call and request a certain item and the center will request it from the community for them. Like last year, there was a time when someone wanted paper towel rolls so they requested that we bag those instead of throwing them in our recycle bins.

 

My older grandkids elementary school had “think tank” … which was a room devoted to crafty stuff where the kids could go before school and at certain times during the day to craft with supplies donated by parents and the PTA … egg cartons, yogurt containers, paper towel and tp tubes, string, fishing line, fabric … on and on.

It was great b/c unlike art class the kids could craft their own ideas.

Thinking about it, I ought to call over there and see if they still have it and could use scrappy crap.

 

If the elementary school doesn't want it, preschools often do. I've heard that senior centers and hospital pediatric wings do, too, but the only one I have firsthand experience with is preschools.