Pc Perk

Good morning,

Sunday morning has always been more of a relaxed morning. A time to take your morning slow. It just has that feeling. When I was growing up, in the 80’s/90’s Sunday morning went like this.

-Get up.

-Bowl of Cereal. (My mom would only buy Grape Nuts. She said if she bought the stuff we like we would eat it in one day.)

-Look at the Sunday Paper. (Comics- Sports and classifieds for puppies for sale, and any Toy’s R Us Ad.)

Then after a while, clean or whatever my mom had us do. Football was on the mind next. Once again, I grew up in Texas, and this is what you do. People really don’t understand across the country; Football is an everyday thing, either watching or playing down there, at least where I grew up. Sundays were never really a play day outside though. It was usually quiet on the block, and kids usually didn’t hang out and play outside. It was more of a family day. So, if we played football, it was usually passing the ball around with family and if you were lucky enough, have enough family together to play a game.

Nowadays, my Sunday mornings are spent drinking coffee and then strolling on Instagram trying to find something to make me laugh or pique my interest on some level. (It’s getting harder and harder to find.)

As I stated in my first Blog, I created this Blog to give folks something to read while having their coffee, then research the material– for this Blog its Hobbies– and if you add a Sunday morning to the equation, then waaahhhlaa– a great experience for all.

Let us get into the meat of what this was meant for. I got carried away with Sunday Morning.

Hobbies for a middle-aged Man/Woman. (My suggestions)

So, hobbies as we get older, they get left in the dust, we get carried away with life. I shouldn’t say carried away with life, I should say, we live life. Our passions, our “time” gets pushed aside for more “Important” things. We lose a bit of ourselves. We don’t take that walk, we don’t play with the dogs, that bike ride gets too hard, we get out of shape. It all piles up; the reasons why not to do something.

I looked at myself one day about 4-5 years ago and felt lost. I didn’t know who I was looking at. I didn’t have that fire, not like a “Friday Night Lights” football fire, but a drive inside me to do what I wanted to do and have fun doing something.

I decided to change-

I started doing things that my co-workers at work would laugh at. They would tell me I’m too old for that, you’re going to break something, yadda- yadda- yadda. If i cared what they thought, I wouldn’t look the way I look, I wouldn’t have bought a Vespa and rode that everywhere, if I cared then, I wouldn’t have done most of the stuff I do… Here are some ideas—-

I started Roller Skating. I thought it would be fun. I would go up to the high school tennis courts, that were fenced in first (So I had something to stop me and to grab on to.) I progressed to the parking lots. I became decent, but nothing special. I learned the basics. I fell once or twice- Okay maybe like 15 times-– I just rubbed some dirt on it and went on. I started with the Quad skates, (4 wheels) then went to inline skates. I feel inline skates are better for beginners. That’s just my opinion. In a future Blog I will discuss more in detail about Skates..

Long Boarding. I started Longboarding and have a blast with that. Longboarding is actually pretty easy and enjoyable. It takes probably a few hours to get comfortable. Watch You tube for good directions. The length of the board helps. Tighten the trucks at the beginning- it helps with how much the board moves from side to side– Longboards are pretty cheap. I have two and I have made one. The first board i bought was about $50-60. I have bought a more expensive board and made one myself. I still ride the cheapest one more. I always say, and I forgot to mention this about skates. Wear Protection. A Helmet, Wrist Guards. Please. I will get more into Longboarding in a future post.

Pickleball. Now Pickleball is one of those things, it gets addicting. It’s so easy to learn. Thats the appeal of it. You can be playing a real game within an hour of learning. Now, you won’t be smoking folks, but you will be playing in a competitive game. I love Pickleball, but there are some nuances I will speak of in a Blog later. Pickleball with the right people is a blast!

Bicycles. Nothing will make you feel like a kid again faster than riding a bike. It’s the easiest way to reward yourself and give yourself time away. Bicycles are amazing for the mind. You get in your own world. My suggestion– start out at a flat park or road, do that for a while, get used to riding. People tend to forget that sometimes riding a bicycle requires effort, and it will be hard sometimes. Start out, take it easy -and go on strolls for a while. One more suggestion. Buying a bike at a Box store, its cheap and they are getting better, but you do have more problems with those bicycles. The bicycles at the box store are cheaper, and of course only get what you can afford. They are heavier, components tend to break faster, my thing is, if you buy a cheaper bike, then love it, you will buy another bike, then you gave two bikes taking up space. My thought is if you spend $300-400 on a bike you should be pretty set. One other thing, always set your seat to as high as your hip, this makes riding easier, A seat too low will ruin your ride and you will be working harder.

These are just some of the things I do weekly. As you see in the picture above, there are a few more hobbies I will bring up later. (Disc Golf, My Dogs, Walking, Push Scooter, ebike, Boxing, Tennis). In the future I will have individual Blogs digging a little bit deeper in each of these. Any Suggestions?? Leave a comment here or on my Instagram page! @pcperkwriting

Well, my friends, I will talk to you later, and please comment on Instagram and we can discuss any of this.

—Paddy