the metafictional blues

As I mentioned before, sometimes when faced with a lot of free time, I have a hard time focusing and getting motivated to take advantage of it to get a lot done (which I really want to do). So then I sort of end up just sitting here. This happens a lot more than I’d care to admit. Fortunately I have a good way to trick myself into getting myself into gear … and as you might have guessed, it involves Jamelah. As do many things that are totally fun and useful. It’s been a while, but we’ve decided to resurrect the “get stuff done or else!” challenge. Basically it involves public shame, a healthy spirit of competition and probably a lot of wackiness. We post our to-do lists, get busy and then update on our progress. First one to finish (or who gets the most things done from their list) gets a dollar. Seriously … a whole dollar. And if you’re lucky you’ll get a stick … but more on that later.

My weekend to-do list, in no particular order:

– Install Wordpress upgrades Well that was fairly painless …
– Rearrange closets to accomodate boxes of Christmas stuff still sitting out What a pain this was — but finally done. More than a month after Christmas. Ahem.
– Clean & Vacuum living room — I’m glad I did this one … although I really hate to vacuum. I feel like I should have people over now.
– Create new blog banner Ok, this is done, not sure I’m 100% happy with it yet. Decided to also switch themes.
– Work on stained glass
– Purge apartment of empty boxes (seriously, they seem to be reproducing). This was so insane but I feel less cramped now. Or something.
– Pack and ship out packages that are embarrassingly late (surprisingly, unrelated to above).
– Catch up on my filing (this is going to be not pleasant).
– Figure out the chayote squash. This was a pleasantly delicious task.
– Give myself a pedicure (hey, look, it doesn’t have to all be hard stuff).

That’s it … I actually have more stuff I want to do (like record the Dukes of Hazzard theme song or make a trivet) but this is my official list. Feel free to join in the challenge and post some blog motivation for yourself … I can’t give you all a dollar, but maybe you could throw down the gauntlet to someone you know is totally not going to get their laundry done. (PS: Here’s Jamelah’s list … do you think she’ll get her laundry done? Will I be crushed under a pile of unfiled paperwork? Stay tuned to find out!)

If you’re a parent, you likely hear “I’m bored” a lot. I was reminded of this as my daughter first had a snow day on Monday and then had a half-day of school due to parent-teacher conferences. Truthfully, she’s always been really excellent at entertaining herself, but I definitely remember the feeling of excitement over a day out of school — then panicking because I had all this time and no clear idea of what to do. Actually, I’m still like that — easily bored — a personality flaw, I’m sure. In most cases I find that boredom can either stem from having too many options (therefore you are frozen in your boredom from overwhelming pressure to choose) or you just haven’t run across the perfect thing that matches your mood at the moment. With that in mind, I’ve collected some ideas for things to shake loose the boredom:

– Get saucy — make your own chocolate sauce (see above). I used this recipe as a starting point, but I highly recommend you play around with it a bit to add your own signature taste. I added a little cinnnamon and a pinch of chili powder to the mix … and started with some dark chocolate squares instead of regular baker’s chocolate. This makes enough for you to keep in a jar in the fridge and pull out in case of emergency. A chocolate emergency.

– Find out more about Cool Whip.

– Here’s one that I really like, and may just help you to get past any creative blocks you may be running into: Draw a word from the dictionary.

– I was amused to find “BROCKMAN’S 10 THINGS TO DO WHEN YOU’RE TRAPPED INSIDE FOR THE WINTER” in the latest Powell’s Book News. My favorites include:

5. Go on a quest for MySpace friends. (Set yourself a goal you can achieve — say, 1,500 friends — and don’t stop asking random strangers to add you as a friend until you’ve reached the desired goal. For an advanced challenge: don’t eat, use the bathroom, or pay bills until you’ve reached your goal. And no cheating.)

…

8. Unsnark Hunt. (Page through reviews in a newspaper or magazine and cross out all the negative adjectives, replace them with positive ones, and mail that page to the author whose book was torn to pieces.)

– If that’s not enough and you’re looking for something else to do, you can always get to work on extracting your own DNA. (See also: DIY Blood Typing Test Kit … remember, kids, Valentine’s Day is fast approaching! What’s more romantic than finally asking your crush … “Hey baby, what’s your type?”)

– Maybe you could put on your own version of any one of these fine plays. If you’re up for something a little more avant garde, perhaps you’d like to stage a play about ROBOTS!!!

– Can you be bored if you’re an Evil Mad Scientist? Probably not, because I imagine being evil AND mad would keep you pretty busy. However if you’ve run out of ideas, Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories has a slew of great (and clever) evilly mad ideas to get you out of your rut. I especially like this how-to on Edible Origami and for the really sinister, a way to make your next party a real, uh, killer.

– If you’re still not sure what to do with yourself, well, you could always just go here.

1913, originally uploaded by caryn74.

I never actually got around to writing up a recap of my trip back to Indiana over Christmas, but it was nice to be back home and with my family, although the visits are over all too soon. The day before I left, we took a “behind the scenes” tour of some of the covered bridges that dot the county where I grew up. Of course there’s a special side story to each one, so I highly recommend you head on over to Flickr to flip through the whole set, which has the added bonus of miscellaneous factoids — so it’s educational as well. (PS: One of the featured bridges is one I have posted before… so you have to check out my pictures to find out the Scooby-Doo ending!)

What a game … I’m strangely excited about seeing my two favorite football teams meet in the Super Bowl.

Yay!