Hey Pandas, How Did You Find Your Favorite Hobby?

I liked building stuff from a young age. When I got to secondary school we did two years of metalwork and woodwork (mostly theory, nothing major) then you had to choose one for the third year (small practical items like coat racks etc). From the start I feel head over heels for woodwork. Metalwork scared me with the welding. I didn't get to further my woodworking at school because I got pushed into academia however I've keep making little projects over the years. I gathered tools little by little, finally got a cheap worksite table saw this year at the ripe old age of 34 lol and just this holiday I made my own bookcase. I'm working on a bedside table currently and I've enjoyed ever minute of it.

My granddad loves to make projects out of wood and has made incredibly amazing things and give them to us. He made me a gorgeous desk that I designed.
Anyways, when I was little, he decided to come up with woodworking projects to do on Christmas Eve. This way, he can teach us how to use certain tools (I've been using a band saw since I was five. Don't worry, it's always with supervision) and be with us.
About three or four years ago, our project wasn't so much as building something, it was creating a piece of art on them. We made hiking sticks and burned designs on them.
I've made some pretty amazing pieces with this woodburning tool and even upgraded to a fancier one than the one he gave me. It's not a hobby I can do often, but I absolutely love it.

I love to read! A long time ago when I was a little kid, my father would be working out in the barn and my mother would need to go grocery shopping. We kids were each seated in a place in the living room and given a book. The rule was we could not get out of our seat and were to spend our time - until she got back or my father came in from the barn- quietly ‘reading’ our book. We did this every Thursday night. There were four of us. Nobody was in charge of us. We were each in charge of our own behavior. Well, every one of us turned out to love books! (This would be considered some kind of reason to call child protective services these days but it wasn’t then.) We listened to our parents and obviously did well with this routine. There are some things I look back on my childhood and whine about but this wasn’t one of them. We learned, and practiced, self control and really got to love those books!