Five Minutes From Everything

One of my biggest frustrations over the last couple years was the amount of time I was spending in my car driving from one end of town to the other, and from one town to the next. My house wasn't close to anything. We were literally at the end of the line, with a big "Road Ends" sign right where you turned into my neighborhood. You couldn't get any further out in the suburbs and still be in Phoenix. To make matters worse, most of our (my daughter's and mine) activities and friends were at least 30 miles away.
The daily grind would be like so:
Drive my daughter 10 miles to school and then drive the 10 miles home stopping to run errands while I was out. After all,  I wasn't going to go 20 miles and not get some things done while I was out in civilization.
At noon I would drive the same 10 miles to my daughter's school again to pick her up and then drive 20 miles to the ice rink.
After sitting in the rink for hours we would fight traffic and drive 30 miles home and have just enough time for me to run in the door and start dinner and for my daughter to get her hours of homework done.
No time to hang out and spend time with friends because we needed to hurry home.
That's all it was with us...hurry, hurry, hurry.This was basically our life...until we moved to Gilbert AZ.
Gilbert and Phoenix may only be a thirty minute drive apart but the affect it has had on my life is huge.
Looking out of the window in my dining room I can see my daughter's high school. It's about 200 yards away. She could walk if she needed to but, being the awesome mom that I am I drive her. It's about a 4 minute round trip.
At 2:30 I drive for approximately 1 minute to pick her up from school and then we drive another 4 minutes to the rink.
When practice is over it's another 4 minute drive home and then we're done. That's it!
Shopping: 5 minutes away, Skating: 5 minutes away, Friends: 5 minutes away, Restaurants and Movies: 5 minutes away, The Mall: 5 minutes away. Are you getting the picture?
I know there are a lot of people who drive a lot more than I do, but these are just my own feelings on my personal situation. How about this; instead of getting hung up on the amount of time I'm saving these days...how about the money I'm saving on gas! It's a win-win! The only negative to this whole thing is that it took a divorce to bring this all about.