@alexasteph great coffee mug collection! I love the idea of getting a mug from places I've traveled. I have a few that have special memories so when I use them, it reminds me of those times.
@Kim888 My mom is really the big collector of them. She makes sure to get them from every city/state/country she goes to. It started with magnets, but after we go a fridge were magnets don’t stick, she needed something else, so it’s Starbucks mugs and Christmas tree ornaments haha.
Anonymous
02-26-202205:52 AM
02-26-202205:52 AM
Re: Hobbies/Collecting. What's yours?
@alexasteph so many 😍 do you drink tea or just coffee in them?
@Anonymous Usually coffee, but I do enjoy tea on occasion as well! I always have some black tea, green tea, and an herbal tea on hand for when the mood strikes!
Lately I have been enthusiastic about investigating fragrance samples and colognes, sparked by the Atelier Colognes leaving the US and Canada markets. It's been fun to search!
@tsavorite I have collected perfume samples for decades, but the ones that are the cute little versions of the normal sizes. I remember those years when the samples given by the perfume brands were the little bottles and not the standard tubes that are given now. Now I use my Sephora points to get the beautiful mini sample perfumes when I find any I don’t have.
@Samtian photography art books! 😍😍😍 I love them! I don’t collect them but I love when I go somewhere and they have them! I love to get lost in their beautiful images...
And what can I say about the cats..... if I could I would have dozens! 😻😻😻
I like pie plates! I like the vintage Fire King light blue ones, and also modern ones. I don't have a large collection. Collecting vintage plates show that portion sizes used to be so much smaller than now. Do you have a thrift shop that you can browse? Or eBay?
--Pigs: A lot of you already know about this one. I have so many since I've been collecting them since middle school. They really are in every room of my house basically. I have all kinds but my favorite subset collection is the now discontinued Enesco This Little Piggy line. I have most of the ones they released years ago.
--Holiday Village Houses: We have a ton of these for both Halloween and Christmas. I definitely mix and match rather than sticking with one village type (or even brand). But they're so much fun to set up each year. I wish we had the space to keep them on display all year, not gonna lie.
--Old Books: I love antiquing and one thing I'm always on the hunt for is interesting older print books. As a former teacher, I especially love to find old textbooks.
--Cookbooks: Another cookbook collector here. I love reading through them and looking at pics and picking out what recipes I want to try.
Hobbies:
--Reading: I don't read as often as I used to, but I still usually have at least one book going at any given time. I've been on a mystery kick lately, but right now I'm working on Not All Diamond and Rose, The Inside Story of the Real Housewives.
--Cooking: I love both cooking and baking. Trying out new recipes is always so much fun. I'm a meal planner and love to create the weekly menu with my stack of cookbooks and lists of recipes.
--Traveling: (When there isn't a global pandemic...) I love exploring new cities, places, and countries. There's almost always a "next big trip" being planned in our house. I love reading travel books and perusing hotel sites. At times I think I missed my calling and should have been a travel agent.
--Knitting: I'm trying to teach myself how to knit with the help of youtube videos. So far, I am unsuccessful, LOL, but we'll see how it goes.
@quspork yum lots of cookbooks sound fun! Do you have any special ones you really like? There's always themed ones from TV shows or other fandoms I see and those always look fun!
Oh I love a themed cookbook, @Kim888! I do have one of The Downton Abbey cookbooks and absolutely love it because it's got great snippets from the show mixed in with why they included each recipe. I think they have a newer Christmas one that I need to pick up.
Music boxes - especially with 36 or 72 note movements, though I also love the charming simplicity of 18 and 30 note movements. I still don’t own a 144 note music box, but I’d love to have one.
Coffee mugs - I don’t buy identical mugs in sets. At most, I might buy a pair of the same mug. But far more often, I just buy one of a mug that catches my attention. I do have a collection of geiko (geisha) mugs; each one features a different geiko. They have to be a specific design (geiko drawn in a specific style) for me to buy them; not just any ol’ geisha mug. I'd take photos of mine if they weren't all in the dishwasher right now. 🤦♀️ Maybe later.
Sterling silver rings - I haven’t worn any rings since 2020 (too much cootie-trapping opportunity there) and, 2 years later, it still feels super weird to leave home with naked fingers. I have rings with and without precious stones, for all 10 of my fingers. In The Before Times, I’d sometimes have both hands full of rings, but usually I just wore 2 or 3 on each hand. I miss wearing rings daily—and this reminds me to polish them all soon. My 2 favorites are a 3-peridot ring and an onyx (with stripes) ring.
Japanese kitchen knives - not a huge collection because they’re kind of expensive and I try not to buy knives I won’t actually use. Most of my knives have cores made of shirogami 2 (easier to sharpen) or aogami super (holds its edge longer) steel, wrapped in stainless steel. My favorites are my Masakage knives (Yuki and Koishi lines). I sharpen them all by hand on water stones and use a leather strop to hone them between sharpenings. The only knives I can't sharpen myself are my 2 bread knives, because I lack the patience to evenly sharpen each individual tooth. (One bread knife gets used only for thick-skinned squash.)
Wine - I usually keep 6-12 bottles in my apartment and store the rest in rented wine cellar storage. I don’t have a huge wine collection because, well, I actually drink it. 😄 But I do stash bottles to let ‘em continue aging, so I can enjoy them a few years down the road. Especially when I buy Bordeaux futures, which I try not to do unless the price is reasonable. My absolute favorite varietals are Chateauneuf du Pape, various other Rhone Valley reds (heh, I’m just a Rhone Valley fan), Rioja, Barolo, Nebbiolo, and grassy citrusy—but not sugar bomb—Sauvignon Blanc. When it comes to sparkling wine, Champagne’s fine but there are plenty of great Cava (Spain) and Prosecco (Italy) wines that cost less. Also, Chenin Blanc kicks Chardonnay’s butt.
Aimlessly exploring places, including my own city - I’ve lived in Chicago over 20 years and still haven’t seen the whole city. In fact, I’ve probably not seen a good 2/5 (or maybe even 3/5) of this town. “Seen” = walked around an area, paid close attention to details, casually watched and listened to bystanders go about their day, browsed shops, dined at eateries, etc. That’s how I like to explore any new-to-me place, be it in the US or a foreign country. “Aimlessly” sometimes does kinda sorta have a loose plan… kinda like “visit [area] for 1-2 hours, then head over to [other area]” or “visit [specific shop/park/eatery/attraction/etc.] and learn the area on your way.” Chicago gets lots of tourists, even in these cootie times. When tourists ask me for help or just strike up friendly conversation, I oblige them because I figure they’re feeling out the city, much like I get to know various places. Plus, I’ve had many interesting chats with folks from all over the world while waiting at Chicago bus/el stops, waiting in coffee shop lines, wandering around neighborhoods, etc.
Travel - I miss this activity so much. I kinda hate airports but hey, they help me get to other cities, states, and countries. I know some folks feel it’s safe to travel lately, but I’m not there yet—not with my health issues—so I’m still waiting. The last place my practical side wants to be right now is a cruise ship, but I even miss cruising now.
Roller coasters - if you (safely) build it, I’ll ride it. Cedar Point has been one of my favorite places since I was a little kid, riding my very first coaster (Blue Streak) with my dad, just barely tall enough to ride. I haven’t been to Cedar Point since Maverick opened, and I didn’t get to ride it at the time. So many other good coasters (at various amusement parks) have been built since, and I wanna ride ‘em all.
Photography - once upon a looong time ago, I willingly spent several hours each week in a darkroom, hand-reeling my own film, sitting at an enlarger, and developing prints. Digital cameras sure have changed things! The fun part of having a camera on my phone is seeing what kinds of spontaneous images I can capture with it, and showing folks how I see the world around me.
Piano - I’ve been playing since age 6. My technique isn’t nearly as good as it used to be (long story), so I’m trying to rebuild that. But playing piano is one of my happy places. I still have my old upright piano, plus a digital weighted-keys piano I can play late at night while wearing headphones, so as not to disturb any neighbors in my building. You know you’re kinda obsessed when you’ve crammed 2 full sized pianos into your apartment.
Cooking - goes hand in hand with my knife collection. I rarely follow recipes exactly unless I’m baking something. Some people get annoyed with me because I usually can’t tell them exactly how I created some of the dishes I cooked; I don’t have exact measurements, I just eyeball things and imagine how different ingredients will taste together. I also enjoy—well, almost enjoy—prepping foods. I rarely use my food processor. I’d rather chop fresh veg, fruit, and roots by hand, even if it means suffering through an onion or two.
Writing - first and foremost, I’m a writer at heart. I mean, y’all see how long this post is, right? 🤣 Someday I’ll try to get something published. Someday. I’m in no rush. I especially love to write short stories, poems, and non-fiction pieces. I also like to research things, which is how I end up deep in 10 different rabbit holes at 4 AM after wondering about specific things.
Reading - all true writers are also readers. We sometimes read a few different ways: as a writer, an editor, and a reader. That means some of us read a piece at least 3 times, from 3 different perspectives, because we’re a crazy bunch. I have never gotten through James Joyce’s Ulysses. Not because the novel is “difficult”; eh, I started to read it in middle school, then tried again in high school, then again in college, then again in my 30s, then shelved it through nearly all my 40s. The reason I can’t read Ulysses has to do with the way Joyce beats readers over the head with the obvious Odyssey theme of his story from the very first chapter—as if the novel’s title wasn’t an obvious enough hint. I roll my eyes EVERY bleepin’ time I read those paragraphs, and then I just wanna ragequit the novel. I’ve gotten past the first chapter, but no matter how deep into the book I get, that flaw taunts me until I can’t take it anymore. Anyway, there are plenty of other books I love. One of my favorites is Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s 100 Years of Solitude: rereading it is like settling down with an old friend over good wine and tasty snacks, retelling memories to restrengthen our bond.
Ongoing learning - I love to learn new things. I’m not a big Harry Potter fan, but I don’t have to take the online sorting quiz to know which house I’d belong to. Must. Know. All. The. Things! And it’s not enough to know how something works. I also have to know why it works. I need to know the philosophy behind it. If I could earn a truly livable wage as a continuous student—if that was my job title—I’d accept that job offer. Sometimes I learn best by doing. Other times, I like to study and conduct my own research, corroborating findings and writing my own abstracts. The pursuit of knowledge might kill me someday, but I know no other way to live.
Music in general - I love so many different genres, from many different countries. One of my favorite concert videos is Kenji Kawai's 2007 cinema symphony orchestra concert, which includes a live minyo chorus for Ghost in the Shell and Hyakkin. I even love a lot of video game music, and some people's remixes/performances of those game themes. When it comes to loves, music is second only to writing. Some days, music is first.
Speaking of anime... I'm a longtime Cowboy Bebop fan, and I did not appreciate Netflix's recent life action series attempt for a few specific reasons. I like a lot of other animated series, including some American and Chinese series (Mo Dao Zu Shi is a triumph, despite all the story changes required to pass the CCP censors).
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