Take Care of a Plant!

Thanks to http://www.walterandersen.com/ for this lovely picture of one of the world's easiest-to-grow plants: the spider plant.

Remember when you were a kid and you had to take care of something in your garden? Were you ever told that you had to keep a certain plant or shrub alive before you could get your shot at a puppy? Well, now's your chance to re-test your green thumb!

Step 1: Get a spider plant. Spider plants are easy to grow, undemanding, and are known to clear up your indoor air really well. So get a spider plant, or better yet, find someone who has one and ask for some outgrowths. Spider plants are easy to plant, too, so you don't need to buy one.

Step 2: Give your plant a name. No kidding.

Step 3: Keep your plant alive. Talk to it. Water it. Tell it stories. Teach it statistics and give it quizzes. Again, no kidding.

Step 4: When you have plantlets and outgrowths, plant them again and name your team of spider plants! They could be the kids from The Sound of Music, the members of your favorite football squad, or just your dream names for your kids.

Step 5: Give away plantlets when you can to anyone who needs some sanity.

Microwave that Cheesecake!

http://www.cooks.com/rec/doc/0,1929,154168-242207,00.html

Yes, yes, it sounds strange. Raw eggs, sour cream, all blended together and put smack into the microwave. But it tastes like pretty good pudding, it isn't too fattening if you use light sour cream and light cream cheese, and it can make for a relaxing culinary getaway, too!

An additional tip: if you want extra exercise, make the graham cracker crust yourself! Grind up graham crackers, add sugar, and add melted butter - then mold it away in your favorite microwavable pie dish. The effort of grinding up crackers will allow you to let go of your tension - and if you're angry or frustrated with someone or something...well, you know what to do.

And one more tip: Whip it! Beat it! You'll have to beat your eggs together with your sugar, and into your cream cheese. Again, if you want to take your anger out on something, better eggs than anything else!

Oh, and one last thing: use brown sugar for your cheesecake!

Sketch a Constellation

It's time to draw in your journal. All you need are dots!

Remember how the ancients saw figures in the heavens and named the constellations? It's time for you to draw your own starry sky. If you want to make big, small, medium-sized, and pinprick stars, go ahead. If you want to stick to dots, that's good, too. All you need to do is to make a starry night of your life - and you need to label the constellations.

If your life were a sky, what would its constellations be? Use a page to show the constellations (you an connect the dots, too, if you like) and another page to describe them. You can go super duper technical and even name individual stars, or you can stay simple and tell the world about your constellations and why they're important to you.

There is only one rule: you can have EIGHT constellations, NO MORE, NO LESS. You need only 8 things that are important to squish (or spread) into your starry sky. This means you need to pick 8 things, whether they are people, events, words, names, or objects. What are the 8 things that are most important to you, the 8 things that you hold most dear in life - the 8 things that just pop up wherever you look simply because you keep on thinking of them?

If you don't want to use your notebook, put your journal entry on a sheet of paper, or use a graphics design program and print it out.

Keep this journal entry handy. It will remind you of what's important to you. These important things might be shallow, and you may want to keep on reminding yourself to look at the less shallow things in life - or they may be extremely important and deep, and you'll need them to remind you of what you are working for.

Recommended for Ages 3 and Up...

The "Up" in that recommendation means that anyone from 3 years to 103 years can put that Spongebob Squarepants Puzzle together, even if it's just 12 pieces of wooden blocks that lock together and make babies go, "Ooh!"

It's your turn to go "Ooh!" and it's your turn to put your own puzzles together.


Get yourself a box of puzzles. Buy one. Dust off the box of a thousand pieces in your attic or on the top shelf of your closet. Borrow. Don't steal.

Now, get your friends together on a Saturday night and have a puzzle party. Have some beer, wine, pop, soda, water, or whatever you'd like to drink. The bigger and more intricate the puzzle, the better.

Better yet, have a puzzle day at your office! Clean out a room (broom closet, unused conference room, someone's work cubicle) and leave the puzzle pieces there. Assign co-workers to come in every half an hour or quarter of an hour and add ONE PIECE to the puzzle. Now, isn't that a great team building exercise?

Do puzzles on your own and keep your brain running. Do puzzles with your kids for some bonding time. Jigsaw puzzles can help keep you sane, no matter where you are on the "3 and up" continuum.

* thanks to http://www.mainepuzzles.com for the photo

Your Own Dip!

Take some cilantro. Now, take some white onion. Get a big tomato or two.

Throw everything into a blender. Blend to your heart's content.

You have fresh dip for your chips! It's green, spiced up, and filled with lycopene, too! No need to run to the grocery store. This dip is great for tortilla chips, and for those long nights you need to spend studying writing your papers, finishing your reports, studying, or simply staring off into space.

Journal Keeping Time: Try a Tag!

All right. All you need is your notebook and a tag from this site: http://tagtillyoudrop.blogspot.com. It's the easiest way for you to get ideas on what to write about for your journal - all you need is to get a tag and start writing away.

Now, be truthful, and don't scrimp on the details. The key is to get a lot of tension out of your system by writing about things that you would normally blog about - but things that you might not want to talk about online.

Have fun!

So How Different is Pepsi from Coke?

You and your friends need to get together and do something that would make marketing execs proud. Well, you don't even need to contact marketing execs. All you need are a few cans of soda of different brands, some plastic cups, and maybe a blindfold, if you want things to be a little more accurate.

Now, you need to do some taste tests. If you're doing this on the weekend - which you probably should, as the office is not the best place for you to blindfold your co-worker and hand a plastic cup over for some drinking-and-scrutinizing-your-drink games - then you may need to have a to-do list, just so you don't get lost. Yes, office work can mess with your brain.

1. Set out a table with some chairs on your lawn, or somewhere in your house where you won't be disturbed or suspected of illegal dealings.

2. Set out some cups on the table, and divide the table into the appropriate number of sections. Say, if you are testing Coke vs. Pepsi, divide the table into 2; Coke vs. Pepsi and Dr. Pepper vs. Cherry Coke, divide the table into 4; and so on.

3. Do not pour out the soda into the cups until all your friends arrive and you are ready for some soda expertise work.

4. When your friends do arrive, choose one person to blindfold. Blindfold said victim. Ehem. Person.

5. Pour a glass of each sample drink for the blindfolded person, but never reveal the identity of said drink. Ask your blindfolded person to talk on:

* How the drink tastes (what does it remind you of? can you guess what the drink is? is it sweet, salty, bitter, sour, or tangy? what taste stands out?)

* What the drink smells like

* What food would go best with it

* Which of all the drinks tastes the best

* Which drink you'd rather feed your dog

6. Assign a secretary to write your findings down.

7. Keep those findings for future use (e.g. parties, parties, parties, etc.)

8. FINALLY: Answer the question - how different is Pepsi from Coke?

Feel Like a Kid - and a Designer - with...

Yes, with Barbie and Ken! (Thanks to www.teen-beauty-tips.com for this photo!)

All right, this may sound lame - and stupid and silly - but why not design your own clothes for Barbie and Ken? There may be dolls still lying around the house, waiting to be dressed and used for artistic inspiration.

You can even have your own fashion show and have a gown design contest amongst your friends! Think of it as friendly, kiddie competition.

You can even have someone exercise their wits with the fashion show voice over. Barbie is wearing a skirt made from the pieces of fabric that were cut out of last year's curtains, while Ken is wearing a pair of khaki shorts that were, in all likelihood, designed for Barbie.

You can be as creative as you please - or you can play with dolls on your own, too. Think of it: a quiet afternoon spent dressing up Barbie and pretending that she's off to a meeting of top scientists who want to discuss the latest in cold fusion. Now, how would she dress up for that?

Or, think about Ken the Progressive Farmer, who has his own farm and his own cooperative, and works closely with scientists in producing better crops.

Ken the Barista? Barbie the CEO? There are many ways for you to dress up Ken and Barbie - and maybe, just maybe, they could actually help you stay sane (even if, you know, physically, they couldn't actually be human).

Here's how to Have some Bannoffee!

Check out this blog! - The guys here have some really great ideas on how you can have a great foodie time!

Times are going to get really rough during your study and work and exam periods, and you need some picker-upper, something nice and delectable and delicious.

Presenting, the Bannoffee pie! Topped with bananas, served with cream, and a whole bag of potassium plus sugar rolled into one!

It's a dorm room pie, too, so all you need is a microwave and some free time to watch the condensed milk.

And then, it's eating time!


Darn, I just love this picture to bits...

Start Weaving Your Dreams in Your Journal

You'll need to put your writing mind aside for today. You need to awaken the artist in you and ask for a few minutes of drawing and sketching time.

In today's journal entry, you will have to draw your greatest dream. We're not talking something intangible or nebulous, like "I want to get a lot of money," or "I want to have my first million before I'm 30." We're talking something you can do, something concrete, something you want to do with the money that you have.

Draw this dream. Sketch it. Attach stuff to your journal if you have to. The key is to be concrete and creative - and to remember what your dream is.

If you can give life to it, then YOU CAN MAKE IT COME TRUE.

When you're done, look at your work and give yourself a pat on the back. This is your first step to making your dream happen.

Does this sound crazy?

Well, yes, maybe it does. But hey, it takes a few crazy people to make the world a better place - and it may take your crazy, childlike mind to get your dream going once again.

1...2...3...

Remember those days as a kid when you played hide-and-seek all afternoon?

Here's a challenge: play hide-and-seek again.

No, don't use your office. And no, don't ask your boss to play along. Reserve one weekend afternoon at your house or a friend's house, and if you like, play with the kids! It's a great way to relive your childhood memories, not to mention get some exercise while spending time with your children. Well - what do you know! THREE birds with one stone!

Now get out there and start playing! Just be sure you nail down the rules, unless you want to end up beating each other up over who's saved and who's "it."

And have fun! Think of this as an exercise in keeping your summer - and childhood - alive in you.

Be a Kid: Play on the Playground!

How many times have you gone past your local playground and stared longingly at the swings? How many times have you imagined yourself sliding down the slide and playing on the jungle gym? And how many times have you told yourself: that playground is for kids - I can't use it or I'll wreck it!

Guess what: although most playgrounds today are made of easily wreck-able hard plastic, you can find local playgrounds that still use iron for their bars and tires for their swings. And guess what? YOU CAN USE THE PLAYGROUND!

Forget about the sneers and laughter, or about the kids playing on the playground. Get on that swing. Try that slide. Go on the jungle gym.

If a kid comes up to you and asks why you're still playing, say, "We never stop playing."

If an adult looks at you suspiciously, do your best to reassure them that you're not the local neighborhood psychopath/sociopath/pedophile/rapist/idiot, and show them this blog entry. You may need to print it out or take your laptop with you as evidence.

As soon as you've convinced everyone that you're living a life of healthy craziness, you can start going back to the swing and playing. Who knows? You might be able to bond with the neighborhood kids, and teach the next generation to keep the wisdom of childhood.

It's Not Really a Snack...

...and it might not sound insane. But it's worth a try instead of you vegging out on chocolates and chips.



A glass of red wine a day. Antioxidants. Great taste. A touch of class.

Now, study how to taste wine. Go for the basics: see the wine's legs, smell the bouquet, taste it on your palate, and savor its many flavors. Now, do this alone.

1) Sit in a corner. Pretend to face a camera or a live TV audience.

2) Hold a glass of wine in one hand and use your free hand to gesture, but calmly.

3) Now, talk about your dreams. What kind of house do you want to have? What kind of car do you want to drive? What are your goals in life? What are your ambitions?

If you have a fireplace, have a warm fire going and pretend to have a fireside talk of sorts with your imaginary audience. Take a sip of wine every now and then, but don't refill your glass. You're on a snack mission with some imagination thrown in.

More Journal Keeping Tips: Give Yourself Questions!

Have you ever played Jeopardy? For those of you living under a rock, the main idea of the game is to provide the appropriate question for a given answer. "The capital of Brazil." What is Brasilia?; "A mineral made up purely of carbon, and perhaps the strongest mineral on the planet." What is diamond?

You can also play Jeopardy with your journal. All you need are a few answers. This works especially well for the times when you can't give a straight answer to certain questions, which may also occur due to the fact that you don't want to give an answer. A secret? A little skeleton hidden in a closet? Let's let it out.

Question these answers in your journal.

1. The most embarrassing moment in my life, when I really wanted the earth to swallow me up.

2. The person that I most regret hurting.

3. The person whom I would give all my riches, money, and investments to see again and say "I love you" to

4. The person whom I would give all my riches, money, and investments to see again so that I can punch his/her face in.

5. The one place on the planet that I would never want to be in.

6. The happiest day of my life, the one that I would want to relive again and again.

7. The person that I regret knowing.

8. The sentence that I most regret having said.

9. The song that truly describes my love life right now.

10. The question that I always ask myself.

If Ye Like Hiking...

Then you may want to try this out on your friends. The next time you all decide to go hiking, give up any chance of seeing any deer. Why? Because you'll be singing.

Now before the wildlife experts out there start crying foul, you'll have to wait a heigh-ho minute. There are a few rules that you have to follow. First, you need to sing low: not a whisper, not an all-out-at-the-top-of-your-lungs voice. But sing as though you were talking.

Second, no scaring away of wildlife.

Third, don't be too engrossed in your singing that you'll miss the warning signs that you're: 1) being eaten alive by mosquitoes, 2) crawling with chiggers, and 3) serving as the flesh fest for a family of ticks.

Fourth, you all need to learn some songs so you can sing them together. Now the choice of song will depend on your chosen theme. Would you all like to sing heartbreaking love songs? Or would you all like to sing Disney songs? Pick a theme. Each person has to select a song for that theme, and then send everyone the lyrics. No need for rehearsals: let's all be honorable and show up prepared.

The next time you hike, make sure you sing together. It's a good bonding experience, and it can take the boredom out of an unremarkable hike, especially if you're on a trail that you already know and you're just there for exercise. The singing, moreover, will train you to breathe properly.

Now, breathe deeply, and start practicing...

Heigh ho...heigh ho...we're nuts but we're not slow...

Open Up to Yourself: Another Journal Entry Suggestion

A journal should be your way of expressing yourself, of speaking out even when no one listens - and sometimes, you do precisely that. You speak out because you know no one will hear you.

Today's journal entry is a free form essay. This means that all you have to do is write down your answer to the question without thinking of grammar, syntax, usage, spelling - in other words, go nuts with your writing!

Today's Question is:

"There's something that I've been aching to tell . This is what I've been wanting to tell him/her for the longest time...."

Be as happy, as angry, as mushy, as gushy, and as nonsensical as you like. After all, you're the only one seeing this entry. For all you know, the writing process could give you the courage to speak up and say it all out loud!

Connecting Them Dots Makes You a Good Kid!

All right, maybe not.

But still, you can keep your insanity down by being a little insane yourself, kids style. All you need is an activity book with connect-the-dots - the more complicated, the better. Now, take up that pencil or pen, and start working.

Remember, keep your lines straight

. . . . .

Have fun! Remember, you need something to make you think that you're within bounds and in a sheltered, cocooned, controlled place where things aren't going haywire. Let them dots make you a good patient in this Mental Hospital we call Life.

Staying Awake During the Day - Survival in the Real World

(thanks to www.poetryfoundation.org)

Did you know that an apple can substitute for coffee in the morning?

Instead of drinking one big cup of coffee in the morning, drink smaller cups throughout the day. This way, you're alert, and you're not getting the jitters.

Avoid coffee at least six (6) hours before you sleep. Even if you do fall asleep, you might wake up because of the coffee hitting you.

(thanks to www.coffeelab.com)

For every cup of coffee you drink, drink two cups of water. Coffee is a diuretic: it pushes water out of your body, and you could end up damaging your cells if you don't have enough water to keep your body healthy. And yes, coffee does have antioxidants, but don't overdo your drinking.

Now add some craziness: amuse yourself at work by pretending to be a coffee expert. Gather your friends round, and together, critique the office coffee. Talk about texture, taste (or lack thereof), and what the flavor reminds you of. And be crazy about it. We aren't talking rough or smooth, bold or robust, or woody or chocolate-y.

We are talking about comparing your coffee to weird things, like mud, grass, or asphalt. Be as nice or as wicked as you want.

But drink water and keep the coffee to a minimum, too. Be crazy about this, and you're all set.

Board Games Keep the "Bored" Out of Parties

Monopoly, Rigamarole, Mastermind, Clue...a board game can keep you and your friends occupied for hours. So why not have a game night?

Instead of pulling out the PlayStation or the Wii, or polishing those chips for poker, why don't you organize a game night and get some Pictionary or Trivial Pursuit going? A board game really can bring you and your friends closer, and it can encourage team play, not to mention participation by every single person. So instead of taking turns with the electronic games, and instead of betting real money, why not have a board game for a night?

Here's a recommendation: try not to cringe at the prices, but Killer Bunnies and the Quest for the Magic Carrot is a great game to try out. The more, the merrier.

The key to enjoying this is to be insane. Board games can be as insane as you make them: feel free to take risks with Clue, and to gamble your play money in Monopoly. Killer Bunnies is great for letting out the lunatic in you. As long as everyone's enjoying and joining in, boredom won't be a problem.

Let's Be Ridiculous - A Journal Adventure

This is part 1 of a possible journal adventure for you, and here's your first entry involving it. All you need to do is to copy the following questions onto your journal and then answer them. You don't need to explain anything, or even feel guilty about your answers. You just need to answer the questions and laugh your journaling session away.

Today's Questions Involve PEOPLE

1) Who would you most want to be stuck in handcuffs with?

2) Who would you NOT want to be stuck on a desert island with?

3) Someone gives you a surprise kiss on the cheek. You turn around to see who did it. Who would you like to see?

4) Who would you like to sit next to in an Advanced Calculus class?

5) Who would you want to hand over to be sacrificed to the gods?

6) Who deserves the honor of Best Person, Like, Ever?

7) Who should NEVER get a hold of your journal?

8) Who do you want to dance the Macarena with?

9) Who do you want to watch a cheesy B-movie with?

10) Who do you never want to say goodbye to?