Making Time for your Hobbies

It is the problem with any hobby, passion even profession; making time to do the things you love. It was easier in earlier days, school and university provided endess hours to follow the callings of our hearts and minds though few people I know - myself included - made "good" use of that time prefering instead to fritter the time away with sleep, drink or teenage lust. As I grow older and personal time seems to be something of a scarce resource I regret not making better use of those endless hours and days.

Those with children know how their needs and desires eat into our personal time; I am not in any way lamenting this fact, my son provides me with endless enjoyment it's just that sometimes at the end of the day; after work and shopping, homework or cooking, toothbrushing and the ever prevalent bedtime argument I find myself slumped somewhate exhausted in an armchair wondering how I could have made more time for personal consequence.

My question to you is how do you make time for the things you love, like photography, something which may or may not be shared amongst those closest to you? Some of the time I photograph my wife's hobby, equestrian show-jumping, which works quite well but other aspects are not so family friendly; the hunting of bugs for macro shots - though a huge hit with my seven year old - requires some finesse and quiet which are not overly child friendly.

Every year seems to pass faster and faster and my pool of self-time seems to be drying up; what to do ... what do you do?