Once again, Saturday has arrived and it is time for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun with Randy Seaver on Genea-Musings.

Here is this week’s challenge:

1) What hobbies or pastimes other than “genealogy” do you have now, or had in the past as an adult?

I’ve had two activities – one a hobby and the other more of a pastime – in my adult life.

The Hobby – Back in the early 1980s, I started to learn how to quilt. It wasn’t many years after I started working on the family history. I took classes and a couple of my genealogy buddies also liked to quilt.

I consider myself only an intermediate level quilter today, mainly because I haven’t done any sewing for about six years. (Funny, that’s about the age of this blog.)

My favorite quilt is the one I made out of my son’s baby clothes, about which I’ve blogged in the past.

However, there have been lengthy gaps in between my quilting spurts, as I quickly realized that genealogy and quilting are both full time obsessions. On top of that, I was teaching and had an infant to care for. Something had to go on the back burner and it was quilting. Genealogy took up way less space and letter writing meant waiting for replies in the mail. Library visits to Los Angeles could be done on Saturdays.

When we moved to Tucson, I decided I wanted to get back to quilting. Retirement afforded me the time do continue full steam with genealogy research, but to also get back to all those pretty fabrics with colors and patterns that I love.

There must be something about genealogy and quilting that go together because several of my new genealogy friends were also long time quilters. I joined a couple of welcome clubs and attended the quilting get-togethers.

I also started collecting fabrics again – from local stores, from shops discovered on vacations, from Hawaii, Europe and any other place where I could fit fabric into my suitcase and haul it home.

I did get back to sewing for about 4 years. My fabric stash got huge!

I have to admit, though, that now my genealogy research and blog writing fill my days. Although my intentions are good, I haven’t get taken out my sewing machine to actually stitch any pieces together.

I also proudly admit that my quilting genealogy buddies have done little sewing either – because I’ve created several new genealogy addicts. I am very proud of that!

The Pastime – For years, I tried to convince my husband to take a cruise. He thought he’d feel bored and confined on a ship. I had never been to Alaska and heard that a cruise was the way to visit for the first time. We have a goal to visit as many national parks and sites in the U.S. as we can and Glacier Bay National Park is accessible in only one way – by boat. (Or in a small water plane, which isn’t every going to happen with me!)

Some friends who cruise a lot convinced Dave to take an Alaskan cruise in 2011. We did, I loved it and he loved it, too.

Since then, we’ve taken about 35 cruises, sailing the seas to Europe to the east and Tahiti, Australia and New Zealand to the south.

Obviously, with the pandemic, cruising is on hold and it may be a thing of the past for us. It will depend on what happens when covid-19 fades. I’ve heard that many cruises for 2021 are sold out, but we aren’t booked. I’m glad we’ve done as much traveling as we have.

Thanks, Randy, for this week’s challenge.