It is well into tax-season, which means it’s time for my tax-season hobby.
My husband is an accountant, so from January-April he works late hours. That means I have to find ways to entertain myself while he’s busy. Most television shows we watch together, so I can’t catch up on TV, and I read all the time already. I usually need some kind of creative hobby to keep me entertained and to fulfill my need for a project.
And since my husband works from home a lot, house projects are usually out of the question. Hard to work when your wife is hanging drywall or painting a room over playing loud music and singing. I try to be as unnoticeable as possible.
Last year, my hobby was crocheting. This isn’t a new hobby, it’s something I learned to do as a pre-teen and have stuck with on and off. It’s like riding a bike, I never forget how to crochet. You may remember me mentioning crocheting in past columns, as last year I started making crochet foods. I made a donut, and a few slices of crochet cake. I debated picking that up again this year, because I’d like to crochet a blanket for my guest room.
But then I kept getting Tiktoks on my for-you page about book-binding, and it looks like a lot of fun.
I have a lot of hobbies, but I’m always happy to add another one. I’m my father’s daughter in that way. I have many fond memories of cooking-related hobbies with him, such as making and canning salsa, tomatoes, and jelly, cheese-making, sausage-making, and soup-making. He has many other hobbies too, but I remember those most.
To this day the only jelly I like is homemade elderberry jelly.
And, like him, when the opportunity for a new hobby presents itself, I think why not? How hard could it be?
Very hard, is usually the answer, but I’m happy to try, and I’m usually happy with the result.
Anyways, I see a lot of videos of people re-binding their books by tearing off the covers and creating different covers. That’s not something I think I could do, as I love my books exactly how they are. But I’ve also seen videos of people biding their own notebooks, short stories, lyric books and many other things. It’s a hobby that combines other hobbies of mine, such as sewing, painting and books.
I saw a really cool, bound copy of all Taylor Swift lyrics. And while that sounded like a fun idea for someone to bind copies of all the lyrics from their favorite artist, eventually the book would be out of date as new music is released.
Especially Taylor Swift, as she re-records her old music and releases new music. And I like Taylor Swift’s music, I always have. She was popular when I was young and still is, and I love her lyricism.
So I decided to make bound copies of each of her album lyrics, which means I also get to design and create the pages myself on my computer, another hobby I love. And then each book can have a different color cover, and I can paint the edges to look nice.
Luckily, my husband and friends support my hobbies, and take on random hobbies of their own all the time. They’re all just as interested to see how they turn out as I am.
And I have book binding supplies being delivered this weekend.