INSPIRATIONAL Hobbies, Hobbies, Everywhere! It all started as a hobby. I love to write. I always have. It began with journaling to get all of the thoughts from whirling around in my head down on paper. The journaling turned into poems and stories, the stories developed into articles, and well, here I am. After focusing more and more on my writing hobby, I began to really see the importance of having a hobby. A hobby is a great stress reliever and can be relaxing and therapeutic. It can alleviate boredom by giving you something to look forward to, a sense of purpose and something to get excited about. Some hobbies increase social skills while others Sue Erickson in her garden. improve self-con?dence. Hobbies recharge us, making the body and mind more active and increasing our level of happiness.(1) I polled seventeen women and asked them about their hobbies. I would like to extend a huge thank you to the ladies that participated. The women were ages 24-70 and every one of them had at least one hobby. The most popular hobby was reading (read on, ladies!), followed by baking, gol?ng, camping, gardening, traveling, boating and bowling. There were many more hobbies listed: hiking, riding bike, driving motorcycles, being outside, playing volleyball, ?shing, walking, yoga, Zumba, golf, organizing, collecting and reading cookbooks, ?ower gardening, genealogy, watching T.V. and movies, working out, running, playing with Karen Prickett (front) & daughter Kari Prickett (back) their kids, entertaining, fostering dogs, cross stitch, scrapbooking, house renovations, working in the yard and wine sampling. There was such a wide variety of hobbies mentioned and some of them I had never even thought about before. What Got You Hooked? When asked how these ladies became interested in their hobbies, many of them were involved in the hobby because it had been something that they had grown up with or had learned when they were young. For instance, a couple of women commented that their www.visioncareassociates.net PROTECT YOUR EYES HARMFUL UV RAYS FROMTHIS SUMMER HOBBIES continued on page 16 2701 Fox Run Parkway Yankton, SD 57078 605.665.7762 Styles available from: Ray Ban Oakley Maui Jim Costa Kate Spade And many more... VISIONcare ASSOCIATES HERVOICE JULY/AUGUST 2014 v 11