The start of my first rowing calluses. I’m very excited about this 😆⁣ ⁣ So I have a confession to make: I haven’t read romance in years. After writing it all day, I wanted something different in my leisure time. Unfortunately, even mystery, YA, and dystopian aren’t hitting much anymore. I haven’t finished a book in months. ⁣ ⁣ And I really miss reading. I don’t know what the problem is, but I decided to start a rowing class in June as something to replace that outlet, because it’s also something I can do where I’m not thinking about my job or bookworld or social media for 2 hours. All I’m thinking about is not tipping over lol ⁣ ⁣ But yesterday I did! No idea how, but I was in the river before I knew what was happening. I didn’t feel dumb, because it happens. What aggravated me was that I couldn’t get back in the boat. The river was deep, I couldn’t stand up, and I didn’t have the muscles to haul myself out of the water. So, I had to push my boat to the shore, which was far away, the whole time cringing at all the imaginary (or maybe not) body parts that are underneath me in the dark abyss or whimpering every time a blade of grass brushed my legs, because “ew, what was that?!” ⁣ ⁣ I didn’t handle it well. ⁣ ⁣ Learning new things, I think, is harder as you get older, because you’re tired of life being frustrating. Jobs are stressful. Raising families is difficult. Paying bills sucks, and so do a dozen other things happening in our lives. I think as time goes on we don’t want to add one more thing that’s going to be hard or stress us out. ⁣ ⁣ But hobbies are just as important as an adult as they were when you were a kid, because they work. When we have a hobby, we don’t think or worry about all the things we do when we’re home. ⁣ ⁣ I just thought I would share that, so the next time you’re trying to challenge yourself or learn something new and you just want to quit, because you “don’t need the hassle”, remember that I fell out of my boat yesterday, and my 18 year old instructor Mary had to tell 45 year old Pen to stop cussing and shake it off, because I was acting like a large child. 😉⁣ Do you have something you do outside of reading? Or want to learn?