THE ACTIVITY BOX

so i'm poor right now. after paying a lot of schmoo in taxes, my pocketbook is like unto a barren wasteland. look, there goes another tumbleweed right now!

so i was talking to a dearest of my dear friends last night about how low fundage and adventure seem to be tied too closely together and she suggested that we really should be finding adventure in non-moola ways. there is much fun to be had if one uses the old noodle for more than book work. right? so she began throwing out these random ideas that sound like WAY MUCH FUN... such as...

+ going to the goodwill and taking pics of each other wearing randoms

+ doing a people scavenger hunt in the airport-- looking for mullets and such

as she continued on, a vague memory began to take its form in my head (these days it's so hard to do!!) and i remembered THE ACTIVITY BOX from my childhood.

as a child growing up in the fields of SO JO UTAH, there were two things to do in the summertime. go to the local pool and swim... and i forgot what the other one was.

i didn't grow up like some of the kids out here do... filled to the brim with camps and sports and month-long vacations in maine or florida. sure the old fam occasionally squeezed all 5 kids and a wheelchair into the back of the wood-paneled station wagon and drove to CA or the like for a week... but that still left us with weeks and weeks of hot, long days and downtime.

the idea was surely born of frustration of a mother who's only duty, in our pea-brains, was to entertain us at all times. she must have cringed every time one of us would enter the kitchen or her bedroom with a look of doom written all over our dirt-covered faces. the whine would start low in the diaphragm and work it's way slowly into the very nasally part of the nasal cavity... "i'mmmmm boooooorrrrreeeeddddd. there's nothing to do!!!" followed by the biggest pout known to man.

so one day for FHE, my mom brought out a special box. wrapped in blue wrapping paper with little white flowers (yes i can still remember what it looked like) and big hand drawn and cut bubble letters spelling the two words that would be forever imprinted in my mind- ACTIVITY BOX. it was my mother's only line of defense in those long-drawn out summer days. it shielded her from the pressure and probably shielded us from the wrath of a woman who had been beaten down from the many repeated requests for things to do.

my mother gently explained that the box was filled with all sorts of activities we could do and that whenever a child, guilty of whining of boredom, approached my mother... they would be referred to this little blue box that sat next to the microwave in the kitchen.

it worked like a charm. we were excited to see what our little blue fortune teller had in store for us. oh, the endless possibilities!!! of course, i do have to admit to cheating and trying for another activity, whenever i would pull a slip that suggested that i pull 100 weeds from the garden or clean out the shed. NO THANKS! but then there were those activities that sparked the imagination and gave way to creativity or a burst of adventure.

activities like-
+ go on a nature walk and write a page about three interesting things you saw

+ wash the station wagon (i loved washing the cars)

+ start a lemonade stand

+ make a pretend library

oh the memories... oh how i wish life were still so simple. although with very little money and a little creativity, i guess it still could be.

so there is it my friends... the reinstatement of the activity box. no more whining that i will be bored if i don't have the funds to play. let's play any way.

so if you wanna play too, you have to add a few suggestions to add to the ACTIVITY BOX!