First of all, I've been attempting to read (or at least skim) my whole elective curriculum this week. [1 full book and 3 half books down!] My elective next semester is a college prep. (read "college freshman level") class on Utopian & Distopian Fiction (people making up societies that are either seriously wishful thinking or satirical). Thus, Brave New World, The Time Machine, 1984, and More's Utopia have been on my mind. AND my husband and I watched a post-apocalyptic sort of movie called The Road . . . which I will never watch again.
Aside from imaginatively traveling into the future, I feel that my hobbies are taking me back into the past.
This week we've been harvesting from our little garden. It's been doing ok, but not great. I can't imagine living in a place (or time) when I didn't have the option to run to the grocery to pick up extras of whatever didn't grow well in my garden.
Then, in the interest of maintaining our health, being financially smart, and preserving the "women's culinary culture" very much lost in our society, I've been making lots more food from scratch this summer. Finding uses for fresh produce like cucumber salad or a layered tex-mex dip is delicious and fun. I also made a pie crust from scratch for the first time in years and discovered it to not be nearly as hard as I imagined.
I've also attempted to make scones from freshly ground flour. This is MUCH better for you than store-bought flour or bread/wheat products. However, getting used to the rougher cut grain is tricky. The scones were a bit "nuttier" in flavor, courser in texture, and heavier in crumb than I'm used to. I added blueberries because they make everything taste delicious. I'm still going to have to work on this one . . . and I'm not even grounding the flour myself!
Lastly, I went shooting with my hubby for a date today. I think learning how to shoot his larger "home defense size" hand gun will be a good remedy to whisk away vulnerability dreams stemming from that horror movie I watched with him. [Do other moms get those too??] I wish I had a picture. I really enjoyed myself and appreciated my husband's patience with my many questions as I sought to improve my accuracy. It was not my first time handling a gun, but a deeper knowledge of firearms gives me an increased respect for the power of a gun and for the healthy enjoyment sportsmen gain from them. It also makes me feel like one of those women during the American Westward Expansion--they knew how to use a firearm. That was about as normal as using a shovel back then. It's only this polished urban mumbo-jumbo from the media that makes us think that guns are mysteriously dangerous on their own. Those women of the past would probably agree with the snarky bumper stickers that read: "Gun control is hitting your target."
I like pursuing hobbies that connect me to things people have been doing for hundreds or even thousands of years--things that were done a hundred yesterdays ago and then again today. New things (like blogging) are nice, but they don't have the depth, value, or aurora of timelessness that these older arts have.
Top image source: http://media.photobucket.com/image/time%20machine/MBLOOM777/ALPHABET%2520SOUP/the_time_machine_large_01.jpg
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