Play Experience Learn

Everyone should play at least once week.. Make giant bubbles… color with crayons, make aromatherapy play dough, play with dolls, play with a train set, board games, paint with watercolors.

I actually went to college to learn how to do all of this… seriously, I majored in Early Childhood Ed and ran a daycare and preschool for 11 years.

Here are more ideas….

Bored Nevermore: 1001 Things To Do

Read a book; re-read one you already own, buy a new one online or from a bookstore, check out second-hand stores and garage sales, check one out from the library, read one online (google free ebooks), download ones from Lulu.com for a free or just a few dollars, newspapers, foreign newspapers online.

Write a poem; write a story; write a book; sign up for NaNoWriMo = National Novel Writing Month every November and write a 50,000-page novel in 30 days.

Organized your favorite images, projects, and memories on Pinterest.com

Create fashion, decorating, and art sets on Fashmate.com

Create a blog for an online journal. Create a handwritten journal, a photo journal, a memories journal, a positive thoughts journal (I have one I call my Sunshine Journal), an art journal, altered books.

Remember your childhood: games (jump rope, kick the can, hopscotch), toys (Barbies, Tiny Tears, bikes), foods (macaroni and cheese, apple dumplings, grilled cheese sandwiches, and tomato soup), music, books (Trixie Beldon, Little Women, Baby Island), people, places (Greenlake, Ravenna Park, Dairy Queen, Woolworths). Write them all down, add photos and drawings, recipes, and put them together as a book (Publish on Lulu.com).

Collect dolls (I get most of mine from garage sales and eBay); make dolls (fabric, clay, crochet); repaint dolls (I once got a whole bag of used Barbie’s for a dollar at a garage sale), make new doll clothing by sewing or crocheting, buy or make paper dolls (there are tons of online sites for these).

Doodle, sketch, draw, paint, collage, mosaic.

Knit, crochet, needlepoint, cross-stitch, bead. Make things for yourself, family members, friends, for charity.

Cook and bake, try new recipes, cuisines, techniques.

Take pictures of people, things, places, colors, contrasts.

Trace your family history, learn about the places and times that involved your ancestors, trace your family’s medical history, compile favorite family recipes into a cookbook.

Make scrapbooks about your family, friends, yourself, pets, places, things, times.

Reminisce, write your life story, write your mom’s story.

Learn healing techniques such as reiki, crystal therapy, aromatherapy, meditation, colors, yoga.

Study about something new to you: science, history, religions, art, geography.

Learn a new language.. from your favorite country, sign language, or even a created language such as Vulcan or Tolkien.

Listen to music; rock and roll, classical, ethnic, new age, holiday… I love to explore the ones on YouTube, Pandora, Last.fm, radio-locator.com, google play, Amazon, Spotify, iheartradio, find lyrics to your favorite songs… create playlists.

Plan a party, trip, or holiday, even if you never actually do it. For parties, determine the theme, decorations, menu, music, fantasy guest list. For a vacation, decide where you would want to go, what you would eat there, what you would see, bits of a language you need to learn, what things you would buy to bring home. For a holiday, research something new to you, such as Diwali, Ramadan, or Hina Matsuri. Turn these into scrapbooks, journals, blogs…

Feng shui your house, or a room, or your yard and garden. Rearrange furniture, paint a wall.

Keep a nature journal. Track weather and temperatures, wildlife, trees, flowers…

Design a garden: herb, flowers, vegetables, water…

Have a movie night; stream movies from Netflix, Hulu or Amazon or borrow movies from the library.

Practice some Random Acts of Kindness; make blankets for charity, volunteer, donate blood, pick up trash, make something (cookies, casserole) for a neighbor, write a letter to a long-lost friend, call someone just because, compliment someone, smile at everyone.

Take a nap, veg out watching old movies…

Things to do online;

play games such as Bejeweled, Second Life, Pet City

watch videos (YouTube, Vimeo)

watch TV shows on Hulu.com, Amazon, Starz

visit and chat using Skype, Zoom, or Facebook

read; blogs, forums, newspapers from foreign countries, books on Kindle

research anything and everything

write a poem, a story, a memory, an essay, an article, a blog post

study history, science, literature, all the things you learned at school and have forgotten

learn something new, find tutorials, instructions, how to’s, videos (YouTube, TedTalks, ehow.com, wikihow.com, instructables.com)

listen to podcasts