Life and the Peeling of Hazelnuts.....

Skybluepinkish commented on my post yesterday that life was too short to peel hazelnuts. Her comment got me thinking about all the things that I omit doing because they are too fiddly or time consuming to be bothered with. For example:

1. I never seed tomatoes and rarely peel them. When the recipe instructions call for  3 tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped, I skip over the "peeled and seeded" and go right to the "chopped." It's roughage right.

2. I don't seed cucumbers either. I guess one could say my Gazpacho is a little "seedy"  :)

3. I rarely make desserts. I don't mind the fuss of making a dessert, but that has to be the event of the day - no other cooking, cleaning etc is done just The Decadent Chocolate Cake from "The Silver Palate" or any one of their other desserts.

4. I don't clean silver, so I guess it's fortunate that I don't have any. I used to work with a woman who took a day off every December to clean her silverware for Christmas.

5. I don't collect "things" because you have to maintain your collections. If it's ceramics, they have to be dusted. I had a friend who collected those beautiful painted Easter Eggs - lovely though they are, the dust still collects on them.

My only collection

I am sure there are more and I have reserved the whole concept of "ironing" for another post. Here is what I do make time for in my life which many would consider a waste of time:

1. I knit. It's not so much about the finished garments, which are often cheaper to buy. It's about the rhythm of the activity, a kind of marathon for the hands.

2. I weed. Where others may put down grass for easy maintenance, I dig it up and put in gardens that require weeding. Again, it's an outdoor marathon for the hands and knees.

3. I write. Sometimes people ask me how often I blog and when I say daily, they look stunned. Now I know most people in this group blog daily. But there are a lot of people who do not write a blog, never tweet and aren't on Facebook. For them, these activities are a huge time suck!!

4. I cook from scratch. Given that I really dislike the taste of processed foods, I make most of my meals from the basics, even though a lot of the basics today are preprepared. I am seriously thinking of cooking with beans from their dried state and maybe freezing tomatoes in the Fall to avoid using the tinned ones.

5. I do crossword puzzles. Time wasters, yes, but they are absorbing and I almost never watch TV.

What do you find that's a waste of time or what do you like wasting your time doing :)