Pursuing Your Own Passions

As a parent many times our own passions/hobbies/loves get pushed to the wayside and we start focusing on our children's passions. I don't think that is a bad thing but I do think we should work out a way to let them both coexist. Sometimes I do admit that it is easier to kind of live vicariously through my child but that can be dangerous. What happens when they grown up and leave home? At that point what are we doing with our own lives? I am sure that may be where the empty nest term started coming into play. I don't want to be one of those moms. I want some things that are completely my own.

I'm sure many of my readers will say, "You do have your own passions, like blogging". Have you every noticed though, that most of my blog posts do revolve around my daughter and our homeschooling adventure. Believe it or not there are some things that I want to learn on my own or passions that I used to have that I want to start working on again. Up until a few years ago cross-stitching was a big passion of mine. Every night I would watch television and cross stitch. Same with crocheting. At some point it ceased to happen and I never really picked it up again. I loved quilting and spent all my spare time with it about five years ago. My old sewing machine went kaput and I never tried to do anything else with it. Last year I started art journaling and did really like it. My main problem with this is I don't draw well and would get frustrated fairly easily. I love taking pictures for my blog and now for Instagram but again I am not very good at it and I never really learned how to use our new camera.

So this is where I stand. I want to pick up one of my old hobbies and go back to it. Tonight I will sit down with each and see where I get this most creative juice flowing. My next challenge will be to learn something I am not currently proficient at like sewing, art journaling, and photography. I will tackle one challenge at a time. This means I need to buy a new sewing machine and start watching lots of tutorials on Youtube as well as hit one of my best friends up for basic sewing technique tips. I recently found an ebook that I am very interested in trying to get the juices flowing with art journaling at this website Bare Branch Blooming. The last one will be a little tricky but I would love to attend a photography class to learn how to use our new camera better and to take exciting and beautiful pictures.

What kind of passions have your left by the wayside in your life? What would you like to get back creating? Please tell me your struggles with time and keeping passions of your own alive. I would really love to hear about them.