starting a game

as a newbie and limited playing time, please forgive if this info somewhere on this site.

should you always open a game with some 'standard' openings, just to get going?

Not really.  Play what you feel is right and let your mistakes be your best teacher.Though on the flipside you can't lock yourself up in a room for 10 years and re-invent openings either.

Good players tend to do the right balance both => Learn a few basic opening moves and then start to customize it and make it their own. The ones who start memorizing theory when they haven't even gotten to where they can hold their own in an endgame are just deluding themselves.

A kid I'm teaching right now likes to play 1.c4 (for the heck of it!!!),  get her pieces out, look for pawn-breaks and strives to open up the board. That is as FAR as she's thought things out. Of course she's following good opening principles but she's certainly not playing "standard" lines as you suggested. Is this wrong? For a newbie, absolutely not!!

Of course, when she gets stronger, she'll need to start reading up on what the big boys are playing these days. 

What worked for me when I was a beginner was to sample openings the way you'd sample new ice-cream flavors.  Find the one that seems to jump out at you as fun ... and go for it. No matter if is insanely aggressive or completely boring , as long as you think you can be "comfy" where the pieces need to be and enjoy the kinds of positions it brings out, it starts to become your reliable friend in chess.

It also serves as a wonderful springboard from where you can jump off to other openings once you get more experience.

It's all up to you, what kind of a game do you want?

Fast and tactical, play a gambit.

Slow and positional, keep the position closed.

I completely agree with Shivsky,

From my own experience I played as child against other kids and also later in pubs, just for fun. Lost much more then I won. Never learned opening names, but the patterns that I recognized in my own games, thinking back, "what went wrong" and "Ah, that why he/she did it".

I think that's the real teacher, your own "wanting to understand" without saying to your opponent, “hey what do you think, would that move be any good?”
And if you get a member of a group I would suggest becoming active in a Vote Chess  game. Follow the games, give your ideas and analyze with the team, this really boosts your knowledge fast.

And then one more advice;

If you found your move, do not move it, but search for a better one!

Make it a fun game

I forgot to say, look at the Site Map to find all possibilities of learning and playing

thank you everyone for your feedback.

I like that quote! Perhaps time in future will let me get more studying done. For now its fun and getting my brain engaged! (I'm a carer to a multi-disabled person, so really busy!)