I love to go out with my husband at least once a week, whether it be to a movie or wal-mart for groceries. We always feel better after an outing. I also love music so I try to find videos on youtube of old songs from when I was in high-school. I like to sit outside in the morning and drink a cup of coffee before the "rush" starts. I love to go swimming and seeing things around the city that I have never seen before-the old buildings, the river, ect. I try to remember that it is so much easier to take care of my family when I take care of myself and do things for myself. I used to be only mom and wife but I started to feel trapped so I started doing little things for myself and it really helps me to relax. :)

My koi fish and pond, reading, cooking, spending time with my grandson, boating, traveling, my 3 cats and 2 dogs, gardening... and like amber, I love to get up at sun rise in the summer and sit outside and have my coffee for some quiet reflection.

Amber and Cindy may I join you for a cuppa? One of my favorites too. I love to go for a run with my dog we usually go to the river and I always hope to see the dolphins. We have lots of them here and they come up the river, an amazing sight!! Otherwise I might go in the kayak to see them a bit closer.
I also enjoy doing crochet, the whole town has one of my scarfs by now. Reading books, yes. Cooking, yes. Watching tv, yes. Oh and vacuuming, my floor has to be clean!

Well I guess I should answer my own post. In the last few months I have taken a few sewing classes and started making things. I made pj pants for our family, made stockings with the kids for Christmas, and just finished making some purses and clothing with my sd's.

I also joined a gym a few months ago and try to go a few times a week with my ss. He goes into the childcare area while I work out. He has fun while I get to catch up on my soaps and work out. And as much as I HATE exercising I feel so good when I am done!

I have also begun reading again. For so long I felt like I just did not have the time to read but I am trying to make time.

It's good isn't it? At first when I just met the skids I felt bad if I would spend time on my own things (but I still did anyway). But over time I've learned not to feel bad, we don't have to be entertainment central!!
We have a nice balance and it's just so much better in the long run. :-)

Traveling, and we do it a LOT as my husband works all over the country and I join him whenever possible, but enjoy cross-country cycling most of all. We go "credit card camping", which is a common cycling term meaning that instead of bringing a tent, we "make camp" by handing a credit card to the hotel desk clerk. We love hunting out unique events to attend, sites to see "off the beaten path", and staying at the most unique and exotic places we can find.

Video gaming, especially DDR! "Dance, Dance, Revolution" the video game played with your feet where you jump around like a maniac--INTENSE aerobic workout! I compete against the teenagers in my neighborhood and am completely obsessed. I also buy and repair broken DSs and PSPs, to resell on e-bay, and also compete with people in games from all over via "wifi".

Love my work and love to shop, but love playing with grandbabies most of all!

Before I met my husband, I went to concerts a lot & went out dancing. I also loved going on cruises and San Francisco. I really enjoyed the single life.

While we were dating, we'd take bike rides around Folsom Prison on the weekends, watch movies, and ride quads in the sand, which were things HE liked to do before he met me. We'd also go to concerts and took a couple of cruises and trips to San Francisco, which are things I liked to do before I met him.

Since we have been married... well, the custody battle ended the week of our first wedding anniversary. We got custody soon after so our lives were in a tail spin for the last year. We went on a cruise before the custody battle started and have gone to San Francisco & concerts a few times but for a while, life has revolved around the issues with SD and her adjusting... counseling, getting her involved in activities, school, etc. My business has grown and I just acquired another business that are keeping me busy and my resolution this year is to disengage from the issues related to BM. I have a new daughter in law and a grandson on the way, my oldest son is in the Army, my other son is in college and my daughter is working in my second business with me. So, with all the changes, my life evolves and the things I do change constantly but I am still planning another cruise for 2010 and there will always be trips to San Francisco. DH would like to drag me to an amusement park... not my cup of tea but I may give it a try... I'm always game for new things. (and another trip to Vega$!)

I like honesty and long walks on the beach . . . :-)

Truthfully, my obsession would be home decor and design. Most of any free time I have goes to planning our third total house gut and remodel. . . . I'm very well versed in pretty much everything from faucets to flooring. When I'm not planning I like to be executing. DH and my idea of a date is dinner and a trip to a flooring store or granite yard. When the house is done we'll get to enjoy another 'like' - entertaining. Sadly we do little of it though because once we finish a house we get bored and buy another. We've owned 3 houses all within the same elementary school boundary in 7 years.

I also love to read and squeeze in a little every morning while I blow dry my hair. I get up and walk or work out with a girlfriend every morning at 5:30 and that covers two 'likes' - exercise and socializing.

I've danced since I was little and teach/coach now. I love not only the chance to dance again but the group of girls I work with.

Wow - that makes it sound like I have a lot more spare time than I feel like I have!!

While we were dating, we'd take bike rides around Folsom Prison on the weekends,

imamommy,

You must be fairly close to where my husband is currently working! The house I rented for him and "the boys" is located just off the American River Trail--which was the reason I chose that particular house.

I LOVE Vegas too! Right after the un-Thanksgiving Sunrise Gathering on Alcatraz, we flew out there for a nice long weekend. Vegas always has such great deals! We actually paid less for our "Vegas package" which included airfare and 4 nights in a luxury suite at the Venetian, than we paid for just 1 night at the Imperial Palace in San Francisco!

Some go for the gambling, others for the shows. We go to attend sleezy timeshare presentations! Carrying lots of internet printouts to distribute to my fellow attendees to show them that almost indentical timeshare on the resale market can be purchased for roughly 1/10th of the seminar price! If the presenters haven't already thrown me out, I then sit with their salesperson and "crunch the numbers" and attempt to convince them that what they are selling is a "ripoff", and try to talk them into finding a job where they can earn an honest living.

They sometimes get rid of me in as little as 20 minutes, but always reward me for screwing up their "scam" with FREE show tickets! This last trip we went to "Penn & Teller", "Jubilee" and "O" at the Bellagio, all courtesy of these "shysters" (My own personal opinion of them, of course.)

Aside from considering this my civic responsibility, it's also another one of my very favorite all-time hobbies.

A morning of coincidences with Ima and Dis, and now me Dis, headed for Vegas in a few weeks and was just thinking this morning about the excruciating 3 hours spent trapped in a Marriot timeshare presentation!!!There was no escape!!! I was with my brother, who was a crusty hardcore homicide detective and HE couldnt even get us outta there!!! He told the salesperson he had low blood sugar and we had to leave and she screamed I WILL GET YOU A PASTRY!! LOL All we got was Platters/Coasters/Drifters tickets and lost 3 hours of our lives that we ll never get back....Dont get trapped people.....

lol, I've suffered through a couple of timeshare presentations but the best one was in Mexico. I got off the cruise ship with my kids (before I met DH) and was stopped to see a new resort in Mazatlan. They took a bus full of us down to a beachside resort (with a private beach), gave us free lunch & I had a couple of Margarita's. We spent most of the day hanging out on the beach, I parasailed and listened to Mariachi's. They were not high pressured, they did try to sell me on it and I listened, sounded really interested and then told them I'd love to buy it, but my credit was so bad I don't even own a car and I just lost my job and have three kids as a single mom... and this cruise was a gift from a family member. I guess they didn't want to waste anymore of THEIR time with ME, but I had fun. They were very nice and told us to spend the day on the beach. The only catch was we had to find our own way back to the ship, so the day cost me the price of a taxi ride back to port. $10.

I am an artist. It is not just a hobby per se because i am a professional (have education in the field of fine arts, regularly exhibit, sometimes do commissioned art) But..it is not my occupation, not my main source of income so i consider it a passion and a hobby. i also belong to art assocciation and societies (local and national) and artist groups that keep me busy.

Other than art i read like crazy, belong to several book clubs.

i do jazersize. I love it. I try to go as much as I can. several times a week.

I am a movie buff, watch a lot of movies.

I travel when i can, several times a year. last year travelled to Europe twice.

i love nature, have to have at least one vacation to the nature once a year. other than that I am a city girl, grew up in a city. love cities.

I love museums. No, don't find it boring. lol

cool thread, :)

....Dont get trapped people.....

Dotz,

You are absolutely right and I really should have warned against attempting this!

DON'T TRY IT! I am a professional at doing this and have been at it many years. The ONLY reason they don't use "high pressure" tactics any longer is because that got them in a lot of trouble with the Feds, but they are very smooth talkers and have about a 50% success rate at "hooking" the unsuspecting and unknowing.

The truth is what they're trying to "sell" you is usually a 1/52th interest (1 week) in cheap condos for about $15,000-$20,000! What this actually means is they end up selling a condo worth maybe $150,000 for appox. $750,00 to over a million!

So many people are trying to get out from under these, you can often pick them up for nothing more than the price of the annual maintenance fees and taxes alone! I always bring proof of this with me, along with extra handouts for my fellow attendees.

But why buy one? We stay at timeshare properties all the time, taking advantage of their unused inventory that's been traded through the RCI system, available through skyauction and other internet sites. We usually pay no more than a $195 cleaning fee and $15 processing fee, total of $215 for the entire WEEK! The most we've ever paid was $400, but that was for 1 week in a luxury 2 bedroom oceanfront condo at "The Galleon" in Key West--which is a PREMIUM resort!

To get people to waste at least 1 1/2 hours of their vacation time attending their timeshare presentation, they usually offer a fairly decent "incentive", but we NEVER accept their first offer! We hem and haw until the manager comes over to "sweeten the pot" and then we play him for a while, until he's thinks he's got really BIG fish on the hook and gives us his BEST offer. We average about $150 in "freebies" on each one, and get it in WRITING before we agree to attend the presentation.

The longest they've ever kept us is about an hour, but usually get rid of us much sooner--before I've scared off too many of their potential "suckers". The law requires they make good on their promise so they hand us our "freebies" on our way out the door, as we go to their complimentary dinners, shows, attractions--all kinds of goodies!

This is not recommended for most people, these slimeballs utilize all kinds of sneaky underhanded tactics! Turning the tables on them is also just part of my competitive nature--they're good, but I'm better!

My hobbies have really centered around being a mom a lot. I volunteer at my DD's school for lots of things, and I was active in her preschool before that.

I love to workout and do some sort of cardio about 4-5 days a week. I sometimes run outside, but more often go to the gym.

I LOVE to read.

Let's see....as a couple, DH and I like to eat out...we both appreciate good food and different food, so we are always trying new restaurants. We have become pretty good friends with some of the other parents of kids in my DD's class, so we socialize with them on a fairly regular basis.

We usually have one meal with my mom or dad once a week, as well. We kind of alternate the weekends. Tomorrow night, we are going to my mom's house for dinner. Last weekend, we went out to breakfast with my dad.

In nice weather, we play tennis pretty often.

I love scuba diving, and DH is going to try a resort course when we go on our trip to the Carribbean in March--I am hoping he loves it b/c then that will give us something to do together and we can look forward to annual dive trips!

I play on a co-ed softball team. It's soooo much fun and I feel like I have license to be an adult there. DS loves to go with me and he ahs fun playing with the other kids.

I love going to Vegas. I don't care too much for the gambling, but there are soooooooo many other things to do there that we stay constantly busy. I almost forget to sleep!

I love to read although I don't get much time. I would bury my head in a book for days if there wasn't household chores to do.

I don't really like working out much, but I do it anyway. I feel so much better after a good sweat fest!

I really enjoy going to church and life groups. I'm the first one to admit I'm not perfect. So when I go, I find ways to turn my imperfections into something positive.

When I first got divorced, I didn't know what to do with myself on the weekends when DS was gone. I had to "find myself" again. Especially since I was so young I didn't have my own identity. It's so easy for women to get lost in their alternate identities and lose who we really are. I love being a mom, and cant wait to be a wife, but first and foremost I am Ashley and really, knowing me helps me be a better mom.

What do I like to do?
I like to read.
I watch some t.v....just got finished with watching the past seasons of Lost so we could watch the new season....now I can't stand that I have to wait a whole week between episodes!
I like to watch movies when we find the time.
I love to make jewelry. I sell my stuff online.
I love making things for my dd. But I havn't used my sewing machine for about a year now because the little man who is almost 18 months, is a holy terror and I don't dare bring it out for fear that he will break it. I need my own sewing/craft room for sure!
I like to be online too.