If I were to pick my very favorite past-time, it would be leafing through magazines. Yes, I am totally serious. I love me some magazines! Not gossip magazines, celebrity stuff, or anything like that, but pretty much any magazine with ideas & information useful to a "domestic goddess" (recipes, crafts, household ideas, parenting/kids stuff, holiday decorating, etc)
FamilyFun is always a good one. Taste of Home (plenty of pictures, which are a MUST), Martha Stewart Living, RealSimple, PaperCrafts, etc. The magazines that come out more frequently (Family circle, Woman's Day, Woman's World) are less prized, but I usually can find at least one or two interesting things in those, too. The best magazines of all are the holiday (October - December) issues because they have all of those lovely gift ideas and tons of recipes/craft ideas I can use.
Of course, I hate paying for magazines. I broke down and got a subscription to FamilyFun when I bought some things on Amazon.com and they offered a 1-year subscription for $5.00, but other than that I'm pretty much at the mercy of the free used magazine exchange at the public library. Sometimes I don't find anything I want, sometimes I walked with a big stack. When we moved from LV to PDX years ago, I about went into shock because they didn't have a magazine exchange at our library. It was very painful. Now that we're back in LV, I'm in magazine heaven again.
I hoard all of my precious magazine ideas into my notebooks. I have several notebooks that I keep them in, otherwise I'd never be able to find anything. I sometimes wonder if I'm like one of those old ladies who compulsively glues random newspaper clippings into a scrapbook. I rationalize it by telling myself that I only keep practical things that I will actually use.
If its a magazine I bought, or I only want one page from a free magazine, I don't feel guilty about tearing whole pages out. With magazines that have a lot of pages I want & I plan to return to the exchange, I use our scanner or copier to make copies (or even make a sketch if I don't want to waste the ink). If I have a whole page, I put it in a sheet protector as is. If its smaller, or just a sketch, I can put several ideas on the same page to save room.
I've got a LOT of notebooks: recipe notebook, a Christmas gift notebook, a craft notebook, a cardmaking/scrapbooking idea notebook, and a church notebook. I used to have a baby-planning notebook (ideas for names, photos of nurseries, cute clothes, list of things I needed to buy), but now that W is here its been retired (for now).
Recipe notebook: self-explainatory. I try to keep them in some sort of order so its easier to find things.
Christmas gift notebook: I usually try to start planning Christmas & birthday gifts early in the year and I put a lot of thought into planning everything out so that I will have time/ideas for making things and making purchases over time so I don't get overwhelmed at the end. I also include family birthdays in here because we have a lot of December & January birthdays, so it makes it easier to lump all of my planning for the year in there, while I'm at it. In the front of the notebook I have a page for every person I need to buy for so that if I see something that they would like (or just get an idea) I put it there (otherwise I would definitely forget). I keep little notes like "hates chocolate" or "likes star wars" and I also write down what I'm planning on getting that person (once I decide)...that way I can check it off when I've bought it. The notebook also has general Christmas gift ideas (like things I might make for the neighbor, etc).
Craft notebook: Craft ideas that I like (seperated by holiday if needed). I have a section for baby gifts in here, too. This used to have scrapbooking/cardmaking ideas too, but it got too full, so I made that a seperate notebook.
Scrapbooking/Cardmaking notebook: this one is self-explanatory, too. If I see an idea for a cute card or scrapbooking page, it goes in here until I can get around to using it.
Church notebook: This usually isn't stuff from magazines, but its a good way to keep everything together. I keep a list of our home and visiting teaching families & their contact info, handouts about activities, and whatever we need for Sunday (lesson plans, etc).
I go through the notebooks from time to time to weed out any ideas that I won't use or turned out to be duds (otherwise all of the notebooks would be overflowing). John teases me about my notebooks, but I just remind him about life BEFORE the notebooks, when my torn magazine papers didn't have a home (and wound up everywhere). And I really use them all the time - multiple times a day. I usually need to pull out at least one recipe and constantly have to refer to the others for ideas for a card or a gift idea.
So if I ever have any free time, I'm sitting on the couch happily leafing through my free magazines. Or wishing that I was.
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