Wanna know the truth about hobbies? A lot of people make them seem a lot harder than they are. Why? Because it feels good to have people be impressed with your skills. Is that a bad trait? Nah, a lot of people just like validation and love, and nothing is wrong with that. What sucks about it is that a lot of blogs, instructional books, Youtube videos, and podcasts make a killing off overly complicating things that really aren’t that difficult.

Economical BARRIERS TO hobbies

Hobbies cost money! People are told that you need golfing attire to golf. Or you need a Le Creuset dutch oven to make the best stew. Ok, yeah, sometimes those things can be nice. BUT – they make people who can’t afford it feel isolated from being able to try it out.

You would be surprised how little of the “necessary” items you need for actually trying out a hobby. Just recently I started looking up how to build up my garden soil to be healthier. Basically everything online said I need good compost, loam, and manure. I calculated out at least $1000 in just soil costs. I did more research and found something called lasagna gardening. It is a bit more work, but significantly cheaper; however, it required WAY more research to find those resources and the knowledge of someone who has gardened a lot. It should not cost more to plant a garden then to just buy the veggies from a grocery store!

SOCIAL BARRIERS TO HOBBIES

A lot of women are not taught to have hobbies in general. I am saying this from the POV of a women – but I am sure many men feel this way too. Running errands/shopping/cleaning the house/organizing are a lot of “hobbies” girls are taught at young ages. Learning a hobby as an adult can be intimidating, but its so worth it to find your passion.

There are also a lot of men told they should not do certain hobbies because its not masculine enough. I mean this is so gender-normative in a way I can’t even describe, but it also creates a lot of pressure on men to not follow hobbies they actually enjoy in fear of judgement.

Basically, on top of a bunch of patriarchal bullshit, people need to have the time and ability to weed through information on how to do things that really aren’t that hard in the first place.

Hi, I’m Steph

I love making sourdough everything, baking in general, cooking Italian food, hiking, gardening, and DIY home projects (I have many other hobbies but we will get to those later on). I want to help people demystify some of the hobbies I have. Who knows, maybe I will learn new hobbies along the way and share my trial and error (after I trudge through failures and research)! But my overall goal is to be able to show you how doing what makes you happy is not that difficult.

ANYWHO – that’s enough chatter from me (oh, did I not mention we also plan to make our posts as simple and to the point as possible while still sharing amazing info?)

My co-blogger and best friend, Hailey, will be writing posts about her hobbies later this week – stay tuned to learn about her.

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