"Criteria for a satisfying leisure pursuit."

Here's a picture from earlier this morning...

One of the books I read before I retired was "How To Retire Wild, Healthy, and Free" by E Zelinski. I liked it so much I gave it to a friend who is considering retiring and his wife got one for her boss. Then the boss liked it so much that he got one for a friend. Anyway, there's a part of the book that describes "Criteria for a satisfying leisure pursuit." I figured that would be good to know, since I'm pursuing more leisure these days.

Here's what it says the "criteria" are:

1 Genuine interest in it

2. Challenging

3 Accomplishment even if just a part of it is completed

4. Many aspects and thus not boring

5. Helps develop some skill

6. Lose a sense of time in it

7 sense of self-development

8. Doesn't cost much

As I begin pursuing various avenues of leisure I think I'll use this criteria as a standard of measurement for the activity.

Today was a great day! I again shoveled the morning 3" of snow from the driveway and sidewalk. I visited the local Rotary Club today. (I used to belong to Rotary before I moved to NJ.) There were about 60 people there. They had a program about a group that took a mission trip to Hondorus to provide medical supplies and services to the people in a village there. They also taught the people about the importance of clean water and provided means for them to filter their water for safety. They're getting ready to send a group to Long Beach, MS in April as well.

I worked on a couple of new songs on the Qchord. Learned the chord progression for "Soon and Very Soon," and "Jesus, Name Above All Names." I especially like the chord progression in the latter one from C-Bb-Am-C7. Just listening to it gives me chills.

This evening Dee and I took our 4th ballroom dancing lesson at the Butler County Community College with our friend Kathy Geibel. (Her husband went skiing in Colorado for the week.) We began working on the one step (aka jitterbug) tonight. There are about 30 in the class. It went well.

As I think about some of these "leisure pursuits", I realize they do meet the criteria set out above. GREAT!