That could be fun. Lately I’ve gotten really into native plants. I joined a couple of Facebook groups about native plants for my region and have learned so much. I am considering looking into volunteering at our local botanical garden, might check that out a little more.
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Aside from hiking, I would say that language learning and teaching is my primary “interest” right now. I volunteer as an ESL teacher for adults in my community. I am also taking an online TESOL certification course through the University of Arizona’s Center for English as Second Language. It is a bit redundant for me as this was my focus in college and grad school, and I don’t anticipate getting a job where certification would be required anyway, but I like keeping up to date in my field and a lot has changed since the 1980s! I enjoy online learning and have taken a number of creative writing classes online as well.
At the same time, I am working on increasing my fluency in Spanish. Once a week I go for a walk with one of my students where we speak Spanish for two hours. And she got me hooked on a telenovela which I can’t get enough of and watch obsessively in my free time. Such a fun and painless way to learn a language!
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- board and card games
- New York Times Crossword and acrostic Wall Street Journal meta are the ones dh and I do regularly
- gardening - moving towards mostly native plants, no longer have a front lawn
- reading (and CC bookclub)
- Chinese ink painting and western watercolor painting (these I do semi-professionally)
- hiking
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I play Bridge though not enough. I needlepoint and read.
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Bridge player here…still playing online at least once a day. I’ve started teaching a small group in my 55+ community.
I read a lot, but mostly listen to a variety of books. I also started a book club here about 2 years ago, and it has jelled nicely. We choose books from a set of nominees using ranked voting, and I’ve read several books I would not have chosen on my own.
I also enjoy designing small surveys, and collecting and analyzing the results, for our local bridge organization as well as the community.
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Birdwatching, plant ID while hiking/walking, reading, and sporadically painting walking sticks. I got the most satisfaction from the last one, but it’s time consuming so I don’t get to do it often.
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Painting walking sticks sounds really cool. Do you paint scenes on them or are they abstract? I like to do plant ID while walking/hiking too.
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Pickleball
Reading
Volunteering at the Animal Shelter
I would love to play more cards and games - preferably in person. I only play when the kids are home.
Would love to see a photo of one!!
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We have a once a week game with friends from Caltech. We always play Screw Your Neighbor (card game) on Steam’s Tabletop simulator (lots of well known games like Carcassonne are available) and have played various other games other places- Codenames is on Horsepaste, some games we’ve been able to play totally over Zoom.
I usually paint them with colorful stripes, then embellish the stripes with patterns. I’ve also done small paintings of birds on a couple, done some Chinese peasant painting themed ones, and even did one that I called a survival guide on a stick. That one was the hardest. I found online or drew various small nature tips like how to tell black from grizzly bears, what poison oak and Ivy looks like, the lightening crouch, list of things to take on a hike, how to find the North Star, a ruler, etc. then I printed them on a clear adhesive vellum, and stuck them on the stick. Which was hard, because I was dumb and used a natural stick instead of a smooth broom handle type and it was difficult to affix the stickers without wrinkles. I then sprayed a few coats of lacquer to protect the drawings. I donated my best sticks to non profit orgs for fundraising auctions and the survival stick was a big hit. I’ll post some photos tomorrow!
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I’ll post some photos tomorrow!
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Ok, here are my sticks! The bucket ‘O sticks is my collection of rejects and my girls’ efforts when they were younger. My very first one I made is the one on the right of the container. The ones I took photos of from my computer are the ones I donated to fundraising auctions. Too lazy to transfer the files to my IPad. Some are Chinese peasant painting themed - my girls are from China and I love peasant paintings. One is a Chinese zodiac stick. The curvy one is just a decorative stick I made for my dad. It has his favorite birds on it.
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Gorgeous work!
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Wow! Those are great!!
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Amazing!!! 
I love, love these!!! You’re very skilled and it must be a delight to create one!
I love them all even the ones in the bucket.
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Yes, several of those are precious to me for sentimental reasons.
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Thank you! Yes, each was satisfying in their own way.