My addiction

I might have said "hobbies" but that's so Valerie Singleton, don't you think? I have recently weaned myself off genealogy but I'm afraid it might be only a temporary weaning... I can feel the pull already and it's hard to resist going back. The truth is I haven't found a substitute for it yet and it's all oh so interesting and important. I have been forced to look at my surroundings today for the first time in a long time and I realise that we need to get some home improvements done - especially the paintwork. However I'm probably not going to start on this today, but I'm thinking May might be a good month for painting. I wonder how much I can get done in a month.

However, my addiction is still beckoning... When it comes to "hobbies" I'm an all-or-nothing person. I took up art because I was inspired to create a single painting but it escalated to the point where I had a one-woman show of some 25 paintings in a bookshop two years later. But then I was burned out and in the four years since then I've painted next to nothing. Genealogy was what took over, and I devoted hundreds of hours and hundreds of dollars to discovering my ancestors. Twice I tried to give it up and twice I was lured back in. It's a bit unhealthy to spend so much time getting excited about the past when I have a young family in the present so reluctantly I've put it away again but if I manage to live into my 60s I'll be able to work on it again without neglecting the family who will all by that time have gone on their merry way.

Apart from realising that my house is in need of redecoration and restoration, I'm currently in search of a replacement hobby. I'm spending altogether too much time on the computer and my hands and fingers are uncomfortable or in mild pain almost all the time due to clicking and typing. (Mostly because I'm using a laptop with a touch pad, and an iPod touch, so there's a lot of finger-dragging.) I honestly can't get excited about cleaning and maintaining the home - the endless laundry, vacuuming, cleaning and such, so I must find something else to get excited about. I've tried various crafts on and off and usually I complete a project (or not) and then lose interest and try to find something else to do or make. I have a number of unfinished projects around too, which isn't helpful. Maybe I should have a grand clear-out of all the hobby stuff. If only I could make money with my hobbies the way I spend it!

I'm listening to music on my iPod at the moment. I don't have anywhere near my entire record collection on it yet (in fact I don't even have CDs of most of my LPs) but I have just enough to get a reasonable variety of music to listen to. I like the Genius feature very much. I selected Green Day's Boulevard of Broken Dreams and let the Genuis take it from there. Predictably it has played tracks by Linkin Park, Coldplay and Nickelback, but it also selected Lady Gaga's Just Dance, Tom Jones, and now Bridge Over Troubled Water and all the songs are flowing in and out very nicely. I suppose it also helps to recognise just what one's preferred style of music really is. Trés cool.

I've been following Stephen Fry on Twitter recently - it feels more like stalking, especially when you end up reading the Tweets of other celebrity Twitterers. DD2 is receiving Ryan Seacrest's Tweets on her cellphone, and today I almost got involved in the lives of Jonathan Ross and Alan Davies, but thought better of it. It really is none of my concern what they are doing and they sure aren't interested in me. It would be much nicer if I could get a few more of my friends back home to start Tweeting but I guess they're too busy living their lives than singing about them. (Memo to self: Must get a life.)

Well the second bathroom beckons - it's supposed to be DD1's job to clean it, but she doesn't bother so I must get the job done myself. Only three more hours of solitude left....