Things I’d Like To Do More Of In 2019

Create Art

When I was younger (I’m talking pre-teens), my hobby was always focused on or around art. It sounds somewhat vague but if you would have asked me what my hobby was when I was younger (aside from singing and writing *cough* masterpiece, stage plays for myself and my friends to perform), I would have answered with ‘art’…Creating art, doing arty things and basically taking a huge leaf out of Neil Buchanan’s book and making art, out of basically anything I could get my hands on, was my thing. And I mean, anything. I went as far as ‘collecting’ the insides of toilet rolls, which I’m pretty sure drove my Mother mad at the time. But I never knew when my next creative project would require such unique and versatile props, and let me tell you, the middle of a toilet roll came in handy for a number of my ever dynamic projects.

Moving into my teens I thankfully abandoned the hoarding of loo roll middles. Long gone were my days of creating ‘art’ out of random bits of cardboard, which had been stuck together with PVA glue and professionally finished off with a bullet proof coating of Papier-mâché…but my love for creating did not subside. If anything it grew and with it so did my passion for drawing and painting.

I’m going to boastfully toot my own horn here, and proclaim that I was very good at art growing up (if I do say so myself – but so did my art teacher *toot, toot*). I loved to consume art and I loved to create it. I even used to have a boy in high school pay me to do his art homework because he wasn’t very good at it and, well, I was…but we won’t get too much into that adolescent fraudulent activity in today’s post.

Basically much of my life growing up revolved around being arty and in particular drawing and painting. This lasted right up until my university years…and then, I stopped. I’m not entirely sure why. I guess it’s that age old thing (excuse the pun), of getting older and ‘no longer having time’.

Then into my 20’s my hobby and outlet for being creative evolved into my blog, which then evolved into my job…and then I wound up here, in my late 20’s and hobby-less.

I think it’s important to have hobbies and to be able to tune out to something that isn’t just work related all of the time. Whilst I love my work, I also love having something else outside of it, or else work can become too all consuming without me even realising it. So in a round up to this rather long winded summery, I basically want to get back to creating more tangible art. The stuff that’s non-work related, on paper, or canvas, and maybe even something I can hang on my wall if I fancy. We shall see.

Do More of My Other Hobby

Okay, I tell a lie. I do have hobbies, which I do still practice, I just don’t think I spend enough time on them as I should do.

Another one of my hobbies, which I wish to spend more time on, is acting. I actually got back into it for the first time in a loooonng time, this year. I did two short films this year and I have to admit, I was very rusty getting back into the swing of things. But, it didn’t matter, because ultimately I had fun, and that for me is what it’s all about.

I spoke about ‘things I maybe could have been but wasn’t’ in a previous post a few months back, and an actress, was one of the things I’d mentioned. Acting has always been a passion of mine, which I went as far as to study at university. And whilst I don’t pursue acting as a career, it’s still something I haven’t lost my love for. It’s almost a passion I forget I have until I exercise it and then my love for it comes flooding back. For me it’s such a great escape from the real world, when I’m learning a script, developing a character and then performing. I really do enjoy it and after having got back into it a bit this past year, it’s definitely something I want to do more of, purely for the enjoyment of it.

Drive

Now this next one is not a hobby, in fact, I’ll go as far as to say, it’s not something I particularly enjoy. I don’t hate driving but I wouldn’t say it’s something I’ve ever been excited to do and I certainly don’t have ‘fun’ doing it. Quick back story, for those of you who don’t know, I passed my driving test back in June . After having put off having driving lessons for years and years…and years, I finally decided to bite the bullet back in March and learn to drive. I surprised myself and actually flew through my lessons, and then surprised myself even more when I passed first time. It’s just another example that it’s never too late to learn something new, (even if it’s something you’re not that interested in). Don’t get me wrong, I’m definitely glad I learnt to drive but I still don’t have that eagerness or excitement to get in a car and actually drive anywhere.

I’ve neglected my (no longer so) newly learnt skill and I’m still not confident enough to drive on the roads without someone in the passenger seat (preferably Damien – although I’m pretty sure I make him nervous).

The hard part is over. I passed the test. I have the little pink ID and all that, I just need to get off my butt, or actually get on my butt more, and off my feet, and get on the roads! So this year, I need to get back to practicing and building up my confidence driving. I know it will benefit me in the long run and then I won’t have to always rely on Damien to drive us when we need to do a big shop and I’ll be able to go homeware shopping whenever I like too. An excellent benefit.

Write

Well, here I am, writing. Technically, my self proclaimed mish-mash of a job title that is ‘blogger/creative’, implies that I spend the majority of my time writing and whilst in some ways I do (emails are the bane of my life), I actually don’t, in the way in which I’d like…

Blogs are making a comeback. There, I said it. How do I know? Because I said so! Okay, I don’t know, but even if they’re not, I know I want to write more, and my blog is the perfect place for me to do just that. I know this comes back to my job, but I also want to continue to write more of the personal, more diary style posts (like this one) too. Hence me writing right now, because if you hadn’t noticed, this little corner of the internet has been getting a bit more action than usual recently and I have to say, I’m pretty happy about it.

Along with my 100 other, partially abandoned creative related hobbies that need dusting off, writing (surprise, surprise) is also one of them. So to bring it back to my initial point, I’ll be doing more writing here and offline going forward this year.

Exercise

Now before this sounds like a cliche ‘new year, new me’ segment, it’s actually more a case of ‘new year, more of last year me’. Okay that sounded rubbish, but maybe you get my point. I’ve mentioned a few times on the blog about how Damien and I started PT sessions back in August, and if you follow me on Instagram and watch my Instastories then you’ll definitely know that we have since become avid bootcamp/gym goers over the past several months.

I’d go as far as to say it’s actually changed our lives, the whole, getting into fitness thing. It’s been a small, yet at the same time big life change and we’ve just added a new element into our routines that includes working out. Having the PT was just the push we needed to get us into the swing of things and I couldn’t recommend JAG fitness enough who have helped Damien and I so much. For someone who has a job which at times can have no real-routine when it comes to work, it’s actually nice having the routine of working out. For me it helps me mentally as much as it does physically, if not more. It serves as a great time out for me and when I start my morning with a workout I feel like my day is off to a good start.

Read

And if I didn’t already have enough things I wanted to do more of, here is one more. Read. I want to read more books and even more blogs too. I used to love doing a lot of both but in the past year or so I’ve done very little of either.

I feel myself wanting to revert back to my old ways and slow things down a little. It’s often hard, with social media and the online world, as everything is quick and in your face. As it’s a big part of my job, I often feel obliged to constantly been involved in the online world and it’s hard to digest everything, and if I’m honest I can find it quite overwhelming.

Switching off from social media over the festive period has made me realise how much I value my uninterrupted time spent offline too. Things like reading a good book can easily get pushed aside for mindless scrolling and in the end I rarely come away with anything of value. I wouldn’t even say I’m that bad for spending too much time on my phone but I still want to cut it down even more.

Sometimes it’s so easy to procrastinate when working alone from home, or at least, it is for me anyway. When ideas or thoughts just aren’t flowing the way in which I’d like them to, to enable me to work, it’s all too easy to pick up the phone and have a scroll. If anything it can leave my mind feeling more congested and out of sorts than it did to start with.

I’ve come to the realisation that I’m always going to be somewhat of a procrastinator, that’s just how I am…but rather than filling that inescapable procrastination time with nothingness, I may as well fill that time doing something that I actually enjoy and which fills me with something useful. And so, I’ve decided to fill those moments with reading. Be it a chapter from a book I’m currently reading or an interesting article or blog post. I at least want to fill my ‘idle time’ with something that gives me a little more back. So I think reading is a good replacement for that, plus it’s something I thoroughly enjoy when I get into it.

Yesterday I picked up my first book of the year – it’s one that my mother passed onto me a few months ago and I still hadn’t got around to reading. I finally started reading it and I couldn’t put it down. An hour later and a few chapters in and I was ready to get on with some work. The best thing is, unlike when I procrastinate on social media, I didn’t wind up feeling bad about the time wasted, because it didn’t feel like time wasted at all. That saying is true; ‘the time wasted doing something you love isn’t time wasted at all’. I must remember that one this year.

Samio x