Ideas 4 Hobbies

Tarot cards and Psychic readings

A fascination with the tarot cards, the history that surrounds them and what the psychic’s can us has been held as an interest by many for centuries. The dates of how far back it goes are woolly some believing as far as the 1300’s. However it was during the late 1700’s and into the early 1800’s that the tarot cards that are still popular now seems to originate from.
When it was created, the first Tarot deck, incorporated religions the elements in nature (fire, water, earth, air), and what were believed to be powerful astrological events and symbols. There are even references to scriptures from The Bible shown in some of the cards.

The tradition of the cards and Psychic readings have been adapted to the modern way of life. Even though the principles of readings are still the same, even old traditions have expanded to the technology of the day. You can have a Psychic telephone reading or even have your tarot reading sent to you over email.
The idea of Tarot readers, Astrologers, and Psychics, has become more popular and openly discussed with all the TV shows and media round now. What was once a Voodoo conversation or crazy idea, now sparks interest and is always a talking point, everyone seems to have had an experience or knows someone that has.

The one thing though, most importantly, to bear in mind is that the idea of the Tarot cards is that they reflect thoughts and actions in our subconscious and conscious mind’ very loosely like reading your horoscope, looking for answers for love, relationships of all kinds, money worries, career and happiness. They are not magical and definately to not provoke evil.

Leaf Walks

Another idea for a cheap activity fro the kids over Easter. Granted it may not initially sound exciting but it is a way of getting the kids involved in nature and out of the house

Go for a walk in near by park or woods and get the children to find leaves of different shapes and colours and flowers (only if flowers have dropped or wild). Then when get home put them together in a scrap book and get the kids to have a look on the Internet or library to find out what tree they have come from.

Another idea is to paint the leafs different colour and stick on on A4 paper to make colourful pictures, look I know its not a playstation game but its activitie that children and you can have fun together with learning and its cheap!

Building a PC

A great hobby which can make you or save you some money is building your own PC, a hobby which I like to dabble in every now and then! Here are some easy steps to get you going.

1) Find a decent case, aim for a clean environment

2) Before you fit your motherboard check that everything will together as you want it to, it will save problems later !

3)Take care when fitting your CPU, it will only fit into the socket one way!

4)When fitting the memory line it up carefully, when in place lock it with the white connectors, next connect the IDE cables.  Use one channel IDE 1 for hard drives and one for optical drives.

5)If your using more than one optical drive you will need to set their status, one to master and one to slave using the jumper settings on the drives.

6) To connect the power supply, push it into place ensuring the locking clip connects.

7) The gfx card should just fir in to the pci slot, some may need connecting up to the power supply and if fitting two don’t forget the SLI bridge.

With your drives in there selective bays you need to supply power to then using a molex connector that runs from the power supply.

9) Attach the monitor using the respective cable.

10) Select boot form CD in the bios and insert your operating system CD, you will then be prompted to activate windows/vista. Wait until all your hardware drivers are set up before you do this.

Hey presto your up and running.

The History of Egg rolling

Well with it being nearly Easter I thought I’d look back on an old traditional Hobby, that is still alive and well in some parts today Egg Rolling. Believe me it can be a good giggle!
Egg rolling, or an Easter egg roll is an old Hobby and game that is simple as it sounds played at Eater and basically involves throwing a load of eggs down a hill. It was had various versions over the years with whether you use chocolate, boiled or even soft eggs decorated, the end result is still the same; the winner is to get your egg down the hill and in one piece.

In America there is a slight twist that resembles a little like Hockey. There is an annual tradition with the Easter Egg Roll that is held on the White House lawn each Easter Monday for children and their parents. The children push an egg through the grass with a long-handled club and there is also exhibits of artistically-decorated eggs.
Dolley Madison, the wife of President James Madison, began the event in 1814 and hundreds of children brought their decorated eggs to join in games.
As mentioned in the UK we just chuck them down a hill. It does date back though hundreds of years and is known as “pace-egging”, from the Old English Pasch meaning Easter. In England, Germany and other countries it is thought that the egg rolling symbolises the rolling away of the rock from Jesus tomb before his resurrection.

I love the next bit I found out the there is an old Lancashire legend that says that any broken eggshells left ove at the end should crushed or they will be stolen and used as boats by witches.

Easter ideas for the kids

Well on Monday morning its 2 weeks off for the kids for Easter.
I thought this was a good opportunity to get them actively and find a new hobby other than television. Not everything has to cost a fortune so here are a few suggestions. I though I’d try and bring an Easter theme in, can you spot it!!

Egg painting
Bit old and traditional however its abit of fun, mess and involvement
For young kids boil the eggs and then paint away with glue and glitter you can fill a water spray bottle with poster paint and gives a spray effect (life span 2 days or else they will be wiffy!)

For older children you can make some egg work – sorry artwork that will last a lot longer. Make a pinprick at one end of the egg shell and a very slightly larger hole at the other end slowly blow through the pinprick to get all the egg out. Then let you delicate creative juices flow

Easter bonnets
So grab an old sun hat have a look in the charity shops or worse case scenario get some plain card party hats Look out for those tiny yellow chicks you get for decorating cakes to give an Easter touch , or simple stars and feathers from an old duster will do the main think is to have fun

Weekend Walks: Longendale Trail

One of my favorite weekend pass time is a lazy morning followed by a bracing work will my dog and hubby. Every Week end I’m going to post fantastic places to go that have a different edge to them away from the push bikes and prams.
History fact: The reservoirs were completed in 1877 and were the largest artificial expanses of water in the world at that time.

Longdendale Trail

You can find the Longdendale Trail within the Peak District National Park – south of the A628 and north of the town of Glossop. The good thing is that as it’s made up of 5 reservoirs you can gauge how hard or how long you want to walk for. The best time to really go is either first thing on Saturday or Sunday morning. By the afternoon you get all the day trippers

The trail is about 13 miles circular around all 5 rivers starting from Hadfield, Derbyshire to Woodhead Tunnel before crossing the A628 towards the Yorkshire border at Salter’s Brook and back. Like I said thought the good thing is that you can time it to what you suite and all the reservoirs are a circle route back on your self. Depending on how fast you walk you can average one reservoir all the way round in about 45 minute.
I have been walking here fro years as I am lucky to have it right on my door step. If like me you are a regarded there are many a little path to take you off the beaten track – but first timer better stick to what is officially there

The route follows what was the Manchester to Sheffield railway and to get started find it via Platt Street, Hadfield, Torside Car Park.

What is a Hobby?

Well what does Hobby actually mean? When trying to find a new Hobby the first thing is to understand what having Hobby actually means

Whether it be collection stamps or traveling the world the key is to finding a pleasure or interest in a subject or pastime you enjoy. Does this extend to watching TV or playing video Games, well as times have changed so way not but to a degree. You’re not hurting anyone.

So in brief:

Something that you like to do for pleasure in your spare time.

To go back to the idea that watching TV is a Hobby, I would like to stress that I mean if you have a particular interest in say for example Old Movies or your enjoy watching your team play on the sports channel. By stating you watch TV is too general as everyone does that. It would be like staying going to bed is a hobby!

One top tip and quote I thought was rather amusing is from Benjamin Franklin

‘Beware a hobby that eats’

Computer says no !

The modern computer can be used for a number of things, word processing, photo editing, games, music, chat, multimedia and even the humble blog! But what do you do when your computer says no! This I find is often a problem with my other half and parents who are not so computer savvy. Here is what I tend to do to try and locate the problem and but following this little guide hopefully it may help you as well in the future.

Turn it on and off again – yes I know this sounds a bit too easy but often does work when you see that blue screen of death or the computer freezes!

Are the cables connected correctly! Is the power on?

If all the above does not work then the main culprits tends to be a hardware problem such the graphics card, the memory, motherboard or the chip is fried.  Viruses are not that common despite what the software vendors would have you believe and are not often the cause of a computer failure, if you have an up to date virus software and you do not download or open any un-trusted files then you should be okay.

Hardware problems can often be rectified by a simple process of elimination which ill go into more depth at a later date, major software problems can often be rectified by using system restore, running a spy ware/virus scan, uninstalling any recent software that may be causing the conflict or as a last resort re-installing the operating system, again Ill go into more depth another time.

There is always your local PC repair shop, if you take this route than make sure you receive any parts that have been replaced!