Loving the Extra Time Spent NOT on the Bus

As I sit here typing I reminisce about where I was a year ago today.   Last year I was looking forward to getting married with not even an inkling of purchasing a house.  Also, last year I was suffering through a consistent commute time of over an hour fifteen minutes even through the imaginative scheduling by YRT/VIVA on their trip planner says it should take 50 minutes.  That is presuming the buses actually showed up closed to their real times on a consistent basis (that is because YRT scheduled times are completely laughable in some cases...just ask some of the drivers) and weren't experiencing delays. 

Now, a year later, I get home (to a house I actually own!) usually in forty five minutes at most.  But I will admit to walking 20 minutes in order to avoid one bus, TTC 107B (operating in York Region under contract by YRT), as it rarely seems to come on time over half the time. Although if everything goes right and somehow I catch an earlier 107B (i.e. the earlier scheduled one running late) than I can be home in thirty minutes.

Yup, I save about an hour round trip on my commute.  With a few other additions and subtractions to my work-life balance I go to bed much later and get up when I want.  In fact my mornings are wonderful.  I can lounge around or head straight to work if I feel so inclined.  Really it is up to me. 

What do I do with my extra time?  Oh let me count the ways:

1. My wife and I go to the library a little more often.

2. Go grocery shopping.

3. Cut the grass on a weeknight evening instead of during the day on a weekend. 

4. Unpacking...memo....I've almost been in my home for a month and I'm still not fully unpacked..I really should get on that...but I digress.

5. Blogging apparently, I've increased my postings a little bit after moving.

But most of all, I love not watching the VIVA bus inch up Yonge Street stuck in traffic and the bus' GPS unit showing a minus sign with a number getting larger and larger that only means the bus is falling further and further behind schedule.

In the future after I strike number four off the list I look forward to doing other things with my time.  What might that be?  At this stage I'm not really worried, but, like a passenger waiting for a YRT/VIVA bus, I will worry about it when the time comes. 

What a difference a year makes.