The wife and modeling

WOW.

Bills, our first child and only one income in the house forced me to sell a whole gun safe full of stuff along with tons of associated equipment. Toss in a marital separation a few months later and enough sitting around doing nothing and I was just short of nuts.

I came back to these forums and began to read. Soon I fell back in love with a hobby that I had abandonded when I met my wife. A tax check and a few trips to the hobby store later and I'm back in force! And I'm not giving it up again. For anybody.

I look at it this way. In a nutshell I gave up tens of thousands of dollars worth of a hobby and investment in the name of responsiblility. I countered with about $1,000 worth of modeling gear and kits. I can do it at home and there is no danger to our boy as long as I keep the chemicals locked up. And I enjoy modeling about as much as I enjoyed my firearms so to me it's a fair trade.

My wife is pretty cool about my hobby as long as the bills are paid which is pretty nice. And if I ever move back in she will hopefully continue to view what I do favorably. But if not that's just to bad. I'm not gonna hide it from her and she don't have to like it. It just has to be ok that I do it.

When I met my wife...she had a friend who asked, "Does he have any habits?" My wife replied "Yeah, he smokes"....."No, I mean like does he play sports, or buy stuff..."

Think of the connotation of the word "habit" in her question. She equates "hobbies" with some type of distracting or harmful fetish. Over the years, I've realized that to her, a "habit" is ANYTHING that distracts attention and/or MONEY from her. She wound up marrying my best friend a couple of years ago. He loves going to concerts, playing guitar, watching boxing with his father and playing video games. Those are his "habits." (And he caught a LOT of grief for them).

I've had my squabbles with the wife over my through the years, but the simple fact remains: It's something I love doing, have been doing since I'm a child, and I'm not giving it up. I've seen friends give up season tickets to their favorite sports team after getting married, flood e-bay with their "toys", or worse...throw them out. Yet whenever I go over their house, I get to see the "good" china in the breakfront, the doll collection, the jewelry...etc.

In a lot, but certainly not all, of the situations it comes down to selfishness.

Coincidentally, my wife accompanied her friend down to her lawyer today. Her friend was filing for divorce.

My wife does a lot of needlework (cross stitch) so when we bought our current house I made sure the model room had a loveseat in it with plenty of lighting over it. We can work on projects at the same time, in the same room. Occasionally I need to kick her out if I'm going to be doing some airbrushing, but most of the time we're fine working at the same time.

Of course, we had our first child last fall, so the routine is pretty much out the window...

Matthew Usher wrote:

Great story! When I started at FSM, Bob Hayden was the editor. Bob was an avid model railroader, and had an AMAZING layout that wound around his basement. Bob was (and is) a real craftsman, and the bulk of the layout was scratchbuilt -- the buildings, the scenery, etc. but even the rolling stock. It was an HO scale, narrow-gauge layout, so none of the stuff was off the shelf. Basically Bob hand-made every piece of it. When non-modeler would see it for the first time, one of their first questions was inevitably "How much did all this COST?" Bob's answer was simple: "About $20 a week. For about 20 years..." Modeling's not the cheapest hobby in the world, but when I figure the "cost versus time spent equation" I always feel like it's a good deal. Matt

Great story!

When I started at FSM, Bob Hayden was the editor. Bob was an avid model railroader, and had an AMAZING layout that wound around his basement. Bob was (and is) a real craftsman, and the bulk of the layout was scratchbuilt -- the buildings, the scenery, etc. but even the rolling stock. It was an HO scale, narrow-gauge layout, so none of the stuff was off the shelf. Basically Bob hand-made every piece of it.

When non-modeler would see it for the first time, one of their first questions was inevitably "How much did all this COST?"

Bob's answer was simple: "About $20 a week. For about 20 years..."

Modeling's not the cheapest hobby in the world, but when I figure the "cost versus time spent equation" I always feel like it's a good deal.

Matt

MortarMagnet wrote:

Here comes something off topic.  Where does the name come from?  Do you fly or is a fav plane? BTW my wife is pregnant so... it gets loud and weepy.  She's my sweetheart and I don't like it when she's upset.  I'm a softy.  The DAVID VOSS stuff was all in fun, but I admit I got swept up in the excitement of it.  Things did become regrettable.

MortarMagnet wrote:

Here comes something off topic.  Where does the name come from?  Do you fly or is a fav plane? BTW my wife is pregnant so... it gets loud and weepy.  She's my sweetheart and I don't like it when she's upset.  I'm a softy.  The DAVID VOSS stuff was all in fun, but I admit I got swept up in the excitement of it.  Things did become regrettable.

MortarMagnet wrote:

Have you ever spent money that you shouldn't?  It's a big hassle.  I was exaggerating for comic effect.  Maybe I should use more smilies.

MortarMagnet wrote:

Does anyone else ever feel as though getting model stuff is like a high stakes game of international intrigue where model kits and happiness hang in the balance?  I do OK avoiding trouble.  Even though I run the finances she manages to keep an account of all things coming into my work area or closet.  I do my best to fudge things.  I also have an off-site facility for storing some things so I can always fall back on it. She's coming this way....

I only have to live up to two of  wifes rules. first I have to build what she wants me to. Ok, sound a bit off till she sees a pic of a Banff wing mossie and says to get to it! (current project btw). second, and one I try to cover my tracks on, what ever I spend on modeling-she gets to spend on whatever.

Not too bad for the most part.

Drew