The Weekend Assignment is posted each Friday at Outpost Mâvarin; a roundup of responses goes up the following Thursday, so if you’d like to join in, you’ve still got some time. Karen says: Don’t worry if you don’t get your entry in by the end of the weekend. It’s called the Weekend Assignment because John Scalzi originally designed it to give folks something to write on weekends, but times have changed since then. Now the meme is launched on Thursday nights / Friday mornings, just a little later than Scalzi used to post it, and you have a whole week to respond. Still, I for one am grateful if you don’t all wait until the last minute!
Weekend Assignment #218: What do you do to have fun? Since you’re reading this blog, let’s assume that one of your leisure activities is blogging and reading blogs; we don’t need to rehash that one, nor the subject of books, which we covered just recently. What else do you do for fun? Are you a runner, a hiker, a birdwatcher, a surfer? Or do you prefer to lie on a beach? Is cooking a joy rather than a chore? What do you enjoy doing, when you’re not doing the usual stuff?
Extra Credit: What fun thing (no restrictions) do you plan to do next?
Well, if I’m not allowed to mention books and blogging – geez, what do I do for fun other than that?
Television: I’ve never been someone to turn the TV on just to have background noise, or when there’s “nothing else to do,” because there’s almost always something else to do. For a long time, I’ve been an “appointment” television viewer; I have certain shows I enjoy watching, I schedule time for them, and that’s pretty much it. Since we got a DVR three years ago, I can make my “appointments” at my convenience, and I love that. We don’t record reruns, so when new episodes of our favorite shows aren’t available (do we have to wait until January for Lost to start up again?) we’ll turn to our TV on DVD collection. Last summer we watched all of the prior seasons of Scrubs. During the writers’ strike this past winter, we caught up on the first season of 30 Rock, which we had just discovered. This summer, we’re planning to start working our way through Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Arrested Development, and on the DVR front, we’re looking forward to new episodes of Burn Notice starting in July.
Movies: Again, this is an “appointment” thing – sometimes we’ll go for a few months without going near a theater, and sometimes we’ll be there every other weekend. It depends on the movie-release season: summer popcorn, autumn awards bait, dregs-of-winter leftovers. We don’t mind going a little out of our way to catch a movie if the closest theater where it’s playing doesn’t have stadium seating, and for the movies we’re most excited about, we’ll buy our tickets online and reserve our seats at the ArcLight.
Clothes shopping (this also includes shoes): As you might expect, this is more fun when I have some money to spend. It also tends to be more fun when I’m not looking for something particular that I really need, because those are the times when I don’t find something I truly like but end up buying something anyway. I have fun clothes shopping for just about anyone else, too, not just myself – and I’m lucky to have married a rare guy who also enjoys it (and has a definite sense of his own style – maybe that helps). I love seeing the new styles – and snarking on the ones I don’t like. I enjoy checking out the fabrics and textures. Being a hard-to-fit size (super-petite height-wise, less so in other dimensions), sometimes the trying-on can be a little disappointing, but I love making finds – and even exploring catalogs and websites for ideas – that make me look and feel good.
Music: This is sort of related to shopping, in that I always try to have money on my iTunes account; I’ll even buy myself gift cards to add to it if necessary. I like to troll iTunes for new tracks – things I’ve read about, or heard on the radio – and hunt down old favorites I had half-forgotten. I really do like being able to buy just one or two songs at a time when I’m not sure about a whole album, and I have fun noodling around with my playlists. If I could just get a good adapter to play my iPod in the car, I’d be all set.
Walking: It’s the best way to explore places up close. It’s good exercise for both my dog and me. It gives me a chance to think – or not – and to take in the scenery. It’s also as close to a participation sport as I get on a regular basis. As far as those go, I like miniature golf and bowling, but am not very good at either; and I enjoy the water, but since I am blind without my contact lenses and don’t like to get water in my face, I don’t swim very much.
Traveling: We’re getting ready to leave on a nine-day road trip in a couple of weeks, the day after school gets out. But for me, travel can be a day trip, or even a drive up the coast (yes, even with the price of gas…we’re not going to put our lives on hold and sit at home all summer just because of that). I like to check out new places and visit the local attractions, whether they’re the standard ones like museums, or the more quirky ones. I like planning the route, or working out the flight logistics on a longer trip. I like choosing the places where we’ll stay, and looking for ideas about the things we mght do while we’re there. I get into planning what to bring, and even enjoy the packing. I enjoy shopping for gifts and mementos of the trip to bring back home; my standard travel collectibles from the places we visit are Christmas-tree ornaments and refrigerator magnets. My husband is an avid photographer, and although I’m not nearly as serious about it (or good at it) as he is, I love taking pictures of whatever strikes my fancy with my tiny digital camera.
Baking and cooking: When I have time to spend on it, I find it a great way to get task-focused and even be a little creative. In fact, I think I’m going to make a batch of brownies after I’m done drafting this post.
This assignment was quite a bit of fun in itself. Aside from blogging and reading, what do you like to do for fun? (If you already wrote your own Weekend Assignment to answer that, please leave a link to it in your comment!)
What a great, in depth response! Some of that resonates with me, and other parts are interesting precisely because they don’t match my experiences. But I love that you found so many different activities and aspects of life to enjoy. I think the term joie de vivre really applies here!
So, what don’t you like to do? 🙂 That is a very good list. I agree with you on music. I do the iTunes surf every once in a while to try and find new bands.
Here is my post.
Karen – I’m glad you thought so! I was just trying to make ome fairly routine stuff sound more interesting, since most of my hobbies are pretty ordinary. But I do try to find some element of fun in most things that I do, so I guess that helps.
Mike – Camping, fishing, and watching football – I really don’t like any of those :-).
I can’t stand camping and I don’t like fishing much better. The hook is always stuck way down the throat and I can’t get it out!
Appointment TV watcher. I’d never thought of it in those terms before, but that’s definitely what I’ve become over the years. I grew up in a household where the TV was always on–I still remember family dinners where we’d all be in the dining room and the TV would be blaring in the family room–my dad was the only one who had a perfect view of that TV. I do sometimes turn on the TV just to see what’s on, but it’s not often.
Movies, walking, music, and traveling are also things I like to do. We haven’t done much traveling in recent years though. I do like going to the theater to see musicals and also going to baseball games when I get the chance. And I like eating out. A little too much probably. LOL
I’m an appointment TV watcher as well. The TV is off unless there is something I want to watch. It’s one thing that drives me crazy when we visit the in-laws, they have the TV on all. the. time!
My other main thing I do for fun besides reading and blogging is definitely taking pictures. Plus it gets us out visiting various places in and around Tokyo.
Literary Feline – I know JUST what you mean about enjoying going out to eat a little too much :-). I like baseball games too, especially minor-league ones. The play isn’t as good, but the ballparks are smaller and I can see better.
Tanabata – I’m not surprised that you love photography; you post some great pictures on your blog!
All of those things are things I love to do, too. Toss in Photography and it’s complete 🙂
Janet – I love my little digital camera and have it with me all the time, but my husband is the real photography nut in our house – if he could make a career out of it, he would.
How do you have the time for all those things? I never thought of having an appointment for TV. I think I’ll try it.
I used to have appointment TV, problem was I had appointments scheduled for almost every night. Since I’ve been working second shift, I’ve pared down my list of favorites to just a few, and usually stay caught up with them online at hulu.com or abc.com or whatever.
Kiva – Who says I do have time for all of them :-D? The truth is, I do some of the things on the list pretty often, and others only occasionally.
FDTate – I haven’t really gotten into watching TV online yet, but I do love having a DVR.