“What are you going to do with all your free time?” Someone asked me that question the other day, when I told them I was getting ready to complete my post-graduate studies. Yes, after 5 long, long, LONG years, I am almost done. The end is in sight. Shortly after I post this my final paper and project will be turned in and then I will be free of the worst professor on the planet, and the countdown to walking graduation will start, and on December 15 I get to make my mom cry a few happy tears. But I digress.

Free time? What’s that? Oh yeah, it’s what other people have…insert snicker here. I used to know what it was. I was going to ask the people around me what they do in their free time, you know, like family and friends. Here’s the problem with that. After a few years of having no life, what do we do? We surround ourselves with OTHER PEOPLE JUST LIKE OURSELVES who also have no lives. ARGH. I’m in trouble. So I’ve started to dig deep into the recesses of the brain closet for old hobbies to resurrect.

Quilting was something that I liked, so I’ll probably try that again, hopefully I’ll have learned some patience over the last 5 years. And some precision. I do have a project that I started a number of years ago, and I never finished it so it would make a good one to tackle. My grandmother started a quilt when she was a girl, in the “granny’s flower garden” pattern. The blocks are hexagon shaped, and are of course hand quilted. When she did it, she accidentally put too many blocks together, so the center ended up oval. The pieced block ended up the wrong shape and she got stuck and ended up with 31 blocks that are about 12″ x 8″ that she didn’t know what to do with, and she quit. She ended up giving them to me, and I started by cutting hexagons to try to piece them by hand, but boy is THAT putzy. So maybe I’ll try to figure out something else. I could do…..

Knitting…now THERE’s an old lady pastime! Sitting in a rocking chair by the fire, kitty at my feet. Crap, there goes the cat again, chewing on the yarn. “Stop it! Let go of the yarn” and I stop my foot. “That’s $20 a skein from England and is a gift for Amy, darn it!” (not really, Amy, don’t get excited.) Or I could….

Probably the one I’m most excited about is photography. We do have several cameras and lenses and I love getting out and just shooting nature, and trying different things. We have some fabulous locations close by here and I can’t wait to just take a chair and sit, and have the time to just wait for the opportunities to happen. Isn’t that a lovely phrase? “Have the time to just wait”? How often do we ever do that? For anything? Yeah, me neither. But it’s a nice thought….

In the meantime, it’s 26 days, 11 hours, 43 minutes until graduation. But who’s counting? It’s not like I’m impatient or anything.