I just heard from Alfred, a friend who I have made since I started this website. We exchange letters every so often, and I always enjoy hearing from him. Alfred has been great about sending me recommendations of new Cozy Mystery authors who he thinks really belong on the site. And, he is always right about those authors! He also gives me the heads-up on when some of the Cozy Mystery authors are publishing a new book.
Recently, Alfred started reading his current book and realized that he wasn’t in the mood to read it. With that, he started thinking about hobbies, and thought it might be interesting to find out what other hobbies you all enjoy doing when your latest Cozy Mystery just isn’t cutting it for you!
I’ll start the ball rolling by telling you that one of the things Alfred enjoys doing is Word Search Puzzles. Another thing he enjoys doing is listening to the old radio shows from the 1940s and 1950s. And, since he has subscriptions to two word search magazines and also has CDs of old radio shows, he is able to combine both of these relaxing hobbies. He also enjoys jigsaw puzzles.
(One of my brothers enjoys jigsaw puzzles and word searches, also!)
Now I’ll tell you about some of my hobbies >>> I love my Sudoku Puzzles! I have to admit that I’m not too terribly fast at them, and sometimes I have to put one down and then try coming back to it another day, but I still love them. Also, I enjoy my needlepoint, especially with those little Mill Hill glass beads… even though I am almost sure that they are the reason I have had to up my reading glasses prescription! (Anymore, I feel like Sprite is a “hobby” of mine. Carrying her from room to room, giving her all of her many pills, making sure she doesn’t take certain pills on an empty stomach, ETC!)
Do any of you have some hobbies that you wouldn’t mind telling us about?
(PS>>> Alfred, thanks for the great entry idea!)
Barbara Thompson says
Obviously my first love is reading, mostly mysteries but I do read other stuff. I love crossword puzzles. I work them while watching shows we either dowload for our Roku box or get from NetFlix. I also enjoy working outside in my yard.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Barbara, I knew you really enjoy yard work, but did not know about the crossword puzzles! When I do crosswords, it all has to be quiet on the home front!
karen says
Wow! What a great topic! I have so many hobbies that I have to schedule time for each! I try to do at least a little of all every evening. I do needlepoint, knitting, crochet, piano (although I teach that, so I don’t know if it still qualifies as a hobby). I also breed Japanese Chins. Of course I’m always reading!!!
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Good grief, Karen! You do have a lot of hobbies >>> No wonder you have to schedule time to do each of them… (Oh, those little Japanese Chins are SO cute!)
Linda says
Reading is my passion. But I also love quilting, crossword puzzles, jigsaw puzzles, baking, and cake decorating.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Linda, I am so sorry I didn’t learn to quilt years ago, when I had the chance. And, I wish I enjoyed baking… I know my husband would like me to have a hobby that produced good food – rather than more refrigerator magnets!
Rebecca says
First and formost I love to read, I also like to surf the internet where I found you and your blog. When I am not doing either of those I like to do counted cross-stitch, I do that while watching the TV, and like Danna my dogs are another hobby.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
There you go, Rebecca. Those are my types of hobbies!
Maria (BearMountainBooks) says
Oh, this is an easy one! Anyone who has read my blog knows about my two feral cats (Junior and his Mom, Scamp). They are certainly enough work to count as a hobby!
I’m an AVID gardener. I keep trying to grow things in the Texas heat, the Texas cold–anything! This year was a great year for lettuce. I am soooo hoping for a good crop of snow peas and tomatoes! Keeping that watering going!
I had quilted (not good at it), made soap (mixed results) and I love to bake. My latest cooking endeavor is baking bread and also…making chocolates! I bought a HUGE bar of chocolate to turn into dainty treats (or in reality they will be funny shaped “roundish” balls that are kind of drippy and lumpy…)
Maria
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Maria, I am very familiar with both Junior and Scamp! You have been so good to them both… Having two engineers in the family has come in handy when rigging up all of the special gadgets (like doors, etc.) for them.
I still maintain that Texas is too doggone hot to garden in… Anyway, that’s my excuse!
Chocolate-making is a hobby I could perhaps enjoy, at least the trial and error part of the process.
Ann says
Great post. I’m always busy doing something, gardening, quilting, knitting, writing and if I have an extra burst of energy I slap paint on something.
Ann
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Yikes! Another Texan gardener!
Ann says
Oops, meant to add to my comment. I’m having a giveaway on my blog if you’re interested.
Cozy In Texas
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Ann, thank you for telling us about your FREE giveaway.
AND
Congratulations on High Tide, the new British Cozy in your Lowenna Mystery Series!
Laura Alden says
Making chocolates sounds like the best hobby ever 🙂 I’ll have to try that one of these days!
Besides reading, I love to play the piano, ski (snow and water), sing (church choirs are always looking for altos), and mess around with my camera.
Plus right now we’re in maple syrup season. My husband and I have been collecting gallons and gallons of sap and this weekend we start cooking. Yum!!
Danna - cozy mystery list says
I’m with you, Laura >>> about that great hobby: chocolate making!
It sounds like you keep really busy up there in Michigan. I never would have dreamt of a hobby like maple-syrup-making!
Laura Alden says
We starting cooking maple syrup to make the mud season bearable 🙂 For maximum sap production, we hope for lows around 25 and highs in the forties. Just like today — hooray!
Jewel says
Oh fun! I love to hear what other people do for fun! I love to sew and knit in addition to read. I have found that I like to have a book to read when I am somewhere things are quiet; where I don’t have to carry on a conversation. However, when I know others will be around to speak with, I carry my knitting. I try to never be without my knitting and a book.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Jewel, I carry my audible down-load of my mysteries every time I go to a place where I know I will have to wait. (I used to carry my needlework with me every place I went, but I don’t do that anymore.)
Linda says
I enjoy crossword puzzles and I also like to quilt.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Linda, I’m going to repeat myself here: I wish I had learned to quilt when I had the chance! Now I feel like an old dog about learning new “tricks”…
Donna says
I design and sew clothes for baby dolls and then sell the clothes online, and collect antique/vintage thread crochet patterns and try to figure out how to work them, since the old-timey stitches often had different names than the ones used in today’s patterns. It’s quite a challenge! But my favorite hobby will always be reading, especially cozy myseries!
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Donna, I hope you read the Needlecraft Mystery Series by Monica Ferris. Her books should be right up your alley. I remember one of them that specifically used an old lace pattern…
Donna says
Thanks for the suggestion, Danna. That sounds like interesting reading!
Laura Alden says
Donna, that sounds fascinating. I have the sewing ability of a soap dish and I greatly admire people like you!
Donna says
Thanks, Laura! And I wouldn’t know how to begin collecting maple syrup, but I’m thankful for those of you who do know and make my pancakes taste delicious.
Carol says
I like to crochet in the winter. During the summer I like to get outside and work in the flowers on the weekends or if I take some vacation time from my library job. I always make sure I have a book to listen to while I pull weeds–otherwise it would be really boring.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Carol, I knit (mostly scarves for my daughter’s Massachusetts winters) and have crocheted a few afghans that I have around the house… no fancy shapes of any sort, all rectangles, either long and narrow (as in the scarves) or long and stocky (as in the afghans). I’m not good with the dropping and adding of stitches.
Carrie says
I like doing cryptic crosswords, jigsaw puzzles (although I only ever seem to do them in winter when we have long dark evenings) and, when I get the time, watercolor painting. I also like making my own pickles, although sometimes it becomes less of a hobby and more of a chore! Maybe I should try making my own chocolates like some of the posters above … that sounds like much more fun!
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Wow, Carrie! I just had to look up cryptic crosswords and am SURE they would frustrate me to the max! I see that they are very popular in the UK, and wonder when they will start appearing in more than the Sunday New York Times….
Vickie B says
I have four books going at any given time, one is usually a cozy/amateur sleuth and a whole big ol’ bunch of shelves of books to choose from if one of those books isn’t getting it for me.
Other than that, I have my Nintendo DSi XL that Santa brought this past Christmas and I play Bookworm, Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?, etc…I love my Nintendo DS.
I may start cross stitch again now that Lady K is out of the tangling thread age since she’s 8 and all….
Gardening both flowers and veggies….
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Vickie, B, I know I have said this before to you>>> I simply do not know how you can have four books going at one time. I would be so confused with the different plot lines. I have two (a “real book” and my audible book) going at one time, and, if I have left one of them a little longer than a day, I have to refresh myself on the who, what and wheres of the plot line…
Carol A says
Reading mysteries on my Kindle is my favorite hobby followed by flower gardening, playing games on my iPod and taking care of one dog and 11 cats.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Carol A, that’s a lot of pet food!
As much as I love flowers blooming, I am just not willing to toil the earth in 100*+ weather…
Anne says
Must say that I admire all of you who can do needlework and watch tv at the same time. Or read more than one book at a time. I must not be much of a multitasker since I can only do one or the other! I do enjoy needlepoint and crochet but can barely listen to music and do it, too. Since I keep my granddaughter every day I guess she takes up more time than most hobbies so when I get some alone time I read.
Love this thread.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Anne, I remember when my children were little and am guessing that you do a whole lot of multitasking while taking care of your little granddaughter. I remember when even doing something as easy as making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich meant multitasking with a little one in the house!
Annette says
WOW this sparked a lot of comments. Well, I am sorry to add to it, but I also quilt, hand and machine, and NOBODY is too old to learn how to do this. I started in 1998, and I had never sewed anything before except for playing when my mom sewed. But it has been great. It is a great hobby, but I still read my cozies! Annette
Kay says
Since it seemed all I was doing was reading and writing I needed to find a hobby to get my butt out of the chair. I enjoy Sudoku, but unfortunately it didn’t move the butt. So last fall I took up tap dancing. I joined a group of mature tappers lead by a former Rockette who works our butts off! We rehearse two days a week and tap “out” at fairs, events, or nursing homes on request. At 56, I’m one of the youngest. The oldest is in her 80’s. Butt is definitely not in the chair on tap dancing days.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Kay, I hope you inspire some of us (especially me!) to take up a hobby that sounds like that much fun!
Frostie says
Wow, well …. Thank You for asking.
Besides reading the next big hobbies would be as time and money permit…
Photography, sewing, embroidery, apartment gardening, and helicopter lessons.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Wow, Frostie, that’s quite a list of hobbies! Helicopter lessons… I wouldn’t even want to go up in one, let alone fly one!
Yvonna says
I read mysteries – all kinds. I quilt, design quilts, and write quilting patterns. I also like samurai sudoku puzzles and cooking.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Aha, Yvonna, another quilter! I had never heard of a Samurai Sudoku… just looked it up>>> Those look complicated and way out of my comfort zone!