Sep 5 - Took a walk

Exercise: a no-brainer for making one's life better, right? However, it's not something I manage to do. I'm like Jim Gaffigan. "Didn't get to the gym yesterday, that makes um... three decades." I hate the gym. Maybe it's because I'm fat.

So, I took a walk at a local shopping center that has a gaming area, a food court and a couple of shops I like. I first got in my required step count using a pedometer then I just watched people game, hit the craft store, hit the bookstore, and then went home. The place is very multicultural, and quite multilingual. I heard at least six different languages as I walked by people playing chess, eating dinner or just talking. I also saw a book club having a meeting outside the used bookstore.

The smells, too. Oh, how nice the smells were. Lots of different food items for the offering. Yes, I managed to not eat anything. I went after I'd eaten so there was no desire to eat any further.

I try to do this every day now. Not always at this particular shopping center, but walking where I can blend into the general populace and experience life as we live it. Definitely makes my life better.

Jan 30 - Bought someone a Kindle book

Many people I know have Amazon wish lists. A friend of mine who recently moved several states away has one and I look at it occasionally to see what's on his "like to read" list. Today I saw a couple of $2.99 Kindle books on there and thought, "Oh, let's surprise him!" I bought three of them. With tax it came to just under $10. When he next turns his Kindle on: BAM! New books.

I didn't pay off his mortgage, but I know it'll be a pleasant surprise. Sometimes, you have to make someone else's life a little better, no matter by how small that little bit is, for your own life to be better.

Jan 28 - Paid with cash

When I say, "paid with cash," I mean paid with actual, physical money. Many books on personal finance use the phrase "pay with cash" to mean not using a credit card. This can include using a check or debit card. Well, many places won't take checks these days and as of January 27, 2013, retailers in most states will be able to charge customers a fee to use their credit cards (including purchases used with a debit card that are run as credit).

So, when I went to a local merchant today, a small business, locally owned, I paid in cash. How does this make my life better? Several ways:

1) I'm still not using consumer debt.

2) I feel better in that the merchant doesn't have to pay one penny of fees to any bank so therefore gets to keep more profit from my purchase.

3) The coins I get back in change go into a container that every month gets taken to a Coinstar kiosk at the grocery store and turned into a store gift card for on-line retailers that we use. This allows me to shop on-line without using a credit card.

4) No bank or credit card company can track that purchase since I paid cash. I'm not particularly paranoid about my bank tracking my purchases, but still, every so often one has to wonder who is watching.

Try it yourself! You may even find yourself switching over to only using cash. I think it'd be better in general if we used cash more often.

Jan 26 - Revisited childhood books

I spent some time today on Amazon perusing Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, Trixie Belden and my personal favorite kids' mystery series: The Three Investigators. I'm not sure what got me thinking about them or wanting to read them again, but it brought back a lot of great reading memories and it made me want to find copies and give them to children I know who might enjoy them as well.

I was very sad to see that the Three Investigators series is long out of print and there are no plans to bring them back into print, even in digital-only format. If I had money, I would do that.

I also had the pleasure of meeting one of the writers of the original Three Investigators series: William Arden. His real name was Dennis Lynds and he also used the pseudonym Michael Collins. His wife is Gayle Lynds who has written fiction under her own name and wrote three of the Three Investigators Crimebusters books under the name G.H. Stone.

I remember going to FedCo or The Price Club with six dollars and the hope of finding two Nancy Drews I didn't have. I usually managed to get at least one. I even remember picking up The Thirteenth Pearl (Nancy Drew #56) where it mentioned #57 (The Triple Hoax), but subsequent printings omitted that as the owners of the brand changed publishers. I still have that copy of the book, in fact.

So how did this make my life better? It was a reminder of simpler times and a gentle nudge that I can still have those simple moments and should for that matter. I plan to turn off the TV at times in the near future and just dropping into a novel.

Jan 23 - Reduced and shredded my mail pile

As often as we are asked by companies to go paper free these days, we still get a lot of mail. Most of it is junk, of course, and a lot of it is offers for credit cards or personal loans (i.e. ways to get yourself into serious financial trouble).

Most of the time, I throw it in my inbox thinking I'll get to it, and of course, I don't.

That was until this morning when I pitched and shredded a lot of mail. Mostly shredded. Can't be too careful with those credit card offers. Now I can see the bottom of the inbox. The trick here is keeping it that way, but I'm working on that.

However, I feel a lot better knowing that a big task has been taken care of, and that definitely makes my life better today.

Jan 21 - Rested when I was sick

Early last week, I started coming down with a cold or flu. It was pretty minor until Wednesday when it hit me like a load of bricks. Now, because I work from home, I considered working anyway and just pushing through it, but one of my leads told me, "Don't you think it'd be a better idea to just rest and take care of the cold rather than make it linger by pushing yourself too hard?"

That was wisdom I couldn't argue with, so that's why I haven't been posting. I've been really, really sick. I'm somewhat better now.

Really, resting was the best thing for it. I'm sure I'd be a lot worse off had I not done so.

Jan 11 - Took the garbage out

I live in an apartment on the third floor of a complex. When the garbage can is full, we tend to change the bag, then put the full bag right outside the front door because taking it down immediately usually is a bit of a problem.

So, this morning, I made a special trip to just take down the garbage, including a bag of recycling materials. Coming back up to the apartment, I saw a garbage free entryway. You can't beat that.

Jan 10 - Gave someone a ride

Today I drove someone home after rehearsal. It wasn't that far out of my way, added maybe five to ten minutes to the trip home and gas wise cost me only a few cents at most. But what I ended up giving the passenger was worth so much more.

You see, he missed the bus by mere seconds because we were kept a couple of minutes late. This meant he'd have to wait at least fifteen minutes in the cold for bus #1, then wait again in the cold for bus #2. It would take him nearly an hour to get home. If he'd caught the bus, he'd be home in thirty minutes.

So I took him home. He was there in ten minutes, and now had time to relax, unwind from the day, and prepare for tomorrow. We had a nice chat in the car and I drove home knowing that in just that little gesture of offering a ride, I made someone's evening.

Finding ways to help people is always a great way to make my life better, but tonight just goes to show that you don't have to save the world in order to bring some happiness to someone.