The morning news sometimes gives me ideas for this column. Early Monday, WGME Channel 13 had a nationally generated segment on how learning a new hobby (the spot featured arts and crafts) could improve your brain functions.

My longtime hobbies are photography and reading. I think they have both kept my brain functioning well. My wife’s hobbies include online puzzles and games and word search books. She has also knit in the past and she just bought a couple of hands-on crafts where you place different colored pegs to form a 3-D picture.

We would like to put together jigsaw puzzles but it would mean trying to keep our two cats away from the table as they both investigate anything new that comes into the house – and I am sure they would grab and run with the pieces.

We have colored pencils so perhaps I will take up doing one of those color-by-number books. Tedious but nice to look at when you are done.

Maybe I will use my photography in some different way other than for the newspaper and Facebook. Or go to the library more often to borrow books that I have been wanting to read.

Hope you are keeping your mind active by having a hobby. If not, go for it in 2025.