Hobby Swap

[cjsmith]

Here's a swap meet I'd love to go to. Hobby swap! Bring your old hobbies and go home with secondhand hobbies you get from someone else!

I'll probably never make candles again, so I'd bring my books and molds and paraffin and colors. I'll bring my rollerblades with elbow and knee pads. I'll bring my cake decorating books and my collection of fancy icing tips. I might go home with pliers & dowel & a bunch of thick wire to turn into chain mail, or perhaps a power sander, or a beginner's archery bow and arm guard.

Comments

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

Oh man, if I could bake a better cake, I'd go for the tips. That sounds like a great swap meet! Would there be cheese? :)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

There might be cheese MAKING equipment! Cheesecloths, books (ok I have one book on how to make cheese)... :-) :-)

If I host it, of COURSE there'd be cheese. LOTS OF CHEESE. A big sideboard with cheese and crackers. The hobby stuff would be over *there*, in the corner, where there's no good light, and everyone would be clustered around the cheese and gabbing merrily.

[dawnd.livejournal.com]

I think that's a great idea. purplerabbit might be a good candidate for the tips. I think we have all we need.

I have a bow I'd be willing to LOAN you for a while, if you'd like. Basic recurve, not very heavy (maybe about 30 or 31" pull?), pretty short. About right for you in height, in all likelihood. :^) I haven't used it in years, so my closet wouldn't miss it. But I'd kinda like right of first refusal on it, since we HAVE discussed going back to the SCA, and I might actually want to use it again sometime in the not terribly distant future.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Oooo, that loan of the bow is a really good offer! For a long time I've wanted to learn (re-learn, I suppose) how to shoot bow and arrow. I haven't done it in nearly twenty years. (Oh darn, last time I tried I was a B cup. If I do this it is not going to be pretty...)

[lindalee.livejournal.com]

I would so go to that swap meet.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Now I just need someone with social/party-hosting clue to create it! You could probably instigate one in your area too :-)

[deedeebythebay.livejournal.com]

Hmmmmm, now this is a good idea!

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I'd love just browsing all the hobbies!

[lesliepear.livejournal.com]

I've got some old ski clothes, skis and boots and a basket of surplus craft stuff I can bring!

[lesliepear.livejournal.com]

And I'd take your cake stuff :)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

The cake stuff is looking popular :)

[quasigeostrophy.livejournal.com]

my collection of fancy icing tips

Aw, but those could be used in other... um... creative ways. ;-)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Something tells me I don't wanna know. ;-) I certify that my icing tips HAVE NOT BEEN used in creative ways -- they have held ONLY ICING!

[dawnd.livejournal.com]

So... WHEN?

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

And WHERE? (if not at my place?) I don't know yet, but it's cool enough to keep thinking about it!

[therobbergirl.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, that'd be great! I have some needlepoint stuff I don't work with anymore.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

And I have a crochet hook, books, and a small amount of yarn that I really should admit I'll never use. Oh! And the model airplanes! How could I forget those?

[datagoddess.livejournal.com]

I have a bunch of cross stitch, latch hook, and a few other odds and ends I could bring.

And I want your candle-making stuff!!!

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Lots of crafty stuff could change hands at something like this! Man, this'd be a great party, 'specially if I could get ALL my LJ friends list in one place for it. (Heck, ignore the hobbies -- just getting all my LJ friends together would be wonderful!) :-)

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

you have the nicest party ideas :)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Now if only I didn't suck at hosting stuff. :) I need an accomplice who will do the hard part.

[firecat]

Oh, I'd go to that.

What seems hard to you about hosting?

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Cool!

Hosting: Just, um, everything. A lot of it seems to be tied up in the "must please all of the people all of the time" idea.

One side branch of that is the "all social gatherings must have food" concept linked with the "every single person in the Bay Area is allergic to a different set of foods than every other person in the Bay Area" thing. There's just no way I can deal effectively with food. I honestly have no clue how people do it.

There's my worry that my indoor-only cats will get out and I won't discover it until morning -- they're not all chipped, and that's my job if I'm going to have non-pet-owner sorts of folks over, and I haven't done it. There's the whole issue of child care and my completely un-child-safe house (house not made safe from them, house not made safe FOR them). There are people who won't be able to come and will be disappointed, people who will come and will make snotty comments about the fact I used paper plates, people who will pile into the hot tub until enough water splashes out that after the party is over the pumps suck air all night and get damaged, people who will vanish into the guest bedroom upstairs and get walked in on in an "embarrassing" situation by someone in search of a bathroom... I dunno. It just ALL seems hard. I suppose I take responsibility for too much.

[jcgbigler.livejournal.com]

I love the idea of a hobby swap, but I need to have more of a hobby yard sale. I've already got more hobbies than I have time for. In addition to my job (high school chemistry teacher) and parental duties, I manage to actually keep up with the hobbies of being a professional musician in two orchestras and the foreman (dance teacher) of a morris dance team. I still roast coffee regularly. I still get the bicycle out occasionally, and still press apple cider once a year. It's been forever since I've been caving, scuba diving, skiing, turned on the ham radio, took any pictures with the real camera, brewed beer, looked at the coin collection, picked a lock, used the candle molds, or gone climbing or rappelling.

I often joke that my "A" life consists of the things I actually manage to make time for. My (imaginary) "B" life consists of the things I'd love to do but just can't make time for. This includes the above hobbies that I've put on hold, plus a host of others that would be interesting but I haven't even had time to consider.

So I'd love to go to your hobby swap, but mostly only to browse for things to add to my "B" life.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I'm laughing ruefully. I, too, have a rich and varied "B" life. It's been forever since I've been caving, skiing, running, hiking, backpacking, camping, rock climbing, candle making, quilting, talking on the ham radio, or taking decent photographs. It's been a while since I've baked anything. I haven't flown an aircraft in over two years, I have a half-finished shirt sitting by the sewing machine covered in year-old dust, and I have wine making equipment that has never been used.

Part of the idea of the hobby swap would be that I could lighten the load on my "B" life. By passing these hobbies along to others, I could free myself from the guilt of not doing them.

My "A" life contains (work and cats and Rob and) square dancing. I need a hobby to replace square dancing. That's the main thing I'd be looking for at a hobby swap. It's a tough slot to fill; most hobbies with that level of social interaction *and* learning *and* travel associated with them will also require the ability to stand up and walk. On the plus side, square dancing is a huge chunk of my life, so this new hobby can have an awful lot of time if that's needed!