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.)

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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.