The "Your New Favorite Hobby!" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Reading a story in my latest Reader's Digest about "Finding Your New Favorite Hobby."  The story is to give you suggestions as to how to learn new things and how to get started in the right direction.  Story begins by telling you that Kate Hanselman's home is a shrine to hobbies past and present.  She has fencing gear next to her rock climbing shoes.  You can find yarn everywhere in her house since she also loves knitting.  Oh, Yeah...she also has stacks of puzzles, her partner's bag of golf clubs and equipment from his flying lessons.  Their house is like a hobby station!  How many of you have a hobby?  One of my favorite hobbies is sitting with my computer and writing stories to post to my blog site.  Challenging hobbies have the power to make us happier and healthier.  Such pursuits help us grow in creative, physical and intellectual ways, and can boost self-esteem.  Hobbies can lead to better physical health and metal health.  Hobbies can also help to lower stress, provide for more sleep, greater life satisfaction, a larger social network and improved work performance.  Hobbies more than likely won't give you a better job or a larger paycheck, but so what!  Hobbies are more like dessert at the end of a meal.  Hobbies live in the pleasure world, not necessarily the mastery world.  You don't have a hobby to try and impress your boss or get a bigger paycheck; or at least most people don't have a hobby for that purpose!  My hobby, as you can see, is writing and telling stories through my blog site.  How good I might be at my hobby is up to those who read the stories.  Perhaps you enjoy them...or perhaps you think they stink!  That's up to you!  As for me, my hobby of writing stories helps me "get out of my head" and "calm down."  It is my connection between leisure and well-being.  I enjoy being mentally engaged, relaxed and socially connected...and that is why I type stories for my blog.  My blog is my hobby!  It can help get me "out of my head and calm down."  It is my connection between leisure and well-being.  I feel mentally engaged, relaxed and socially connected when I sit with my laptop or desktop computer and place my fingers on the keyboard.  And...I have gotten pretty good at typing at a good pace since I began this blog years and years ago.  I know that it is a hobby for me, but it has been a beneficial hobby to say the least.  When I first began my blog, I was hitting more wrong keys than I was the correct ones.  I could type maybe 30 words a minute.  That has probably doubled and luckily my computer has helped me with incorrect spellings.  What did we do before we had computers that could do miracles??  Over the lifetime of writing this blog I have learned so much.  At first my stories were very short.....perhaps one every other day.  Today, this is my second story I have typed so far, and I may type another one if I can rack my brain a bit more.  My blog began as a hobby and it still is today.  When it becomes a chore, you won't be reading it anymore.  Promise!  When I was a kid, writing was one of my worst memories.  I hated to write.  My cursive was poor and I wan't allowed to print in my school classes.  To this day I don't write in cursive except to write my name.  Most everything else I print.  And, If you read one of my latest stories, you will remember that cursive is no longer taught in most schools.  Hey...I could go on and on, but I must begin another search for a new favorite hobby according to a story I just read...but I know that's not going to happen!!  At times I will type half-a-dozen stories in case I have to help around the house and can't find time to sit in front of my computer to type another story.  But once again...that's another story for another time!!  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.