I love the 37 Days blog, and now I love the leather cuff bracelets that Patricia Digh is selling which are inspired by some of her posts. I Just ordered "Always rent the red convertible" to remind me to stop being so cautious and now I want the one engraved with "Redefine normal." Stay tuned for news of her book, Life is a Verb, coming this fall from skirt!books.  

I’ve missed most of the new episodes of The Office and 30 Rock since the writers’ strike ended. I guess I was out having a life for a change, but still, I missed my favorite shows! Enter Hulu.com, which not only lets me catch up on missed episodes but also offers up clips from SNL (I always fall asleep during the best scenes) and Ellen (I’m always at work, making money to pay my monster cable bill). So now I’m taking my laptop to bed and turning in and turning in earlier. Do you Hulu?

I’ve always wanted to enter a 26 Things photographic challenge. This might be the month to get my camera out and start snapping. The mission this time is to take  photos that represent every letter of the alphabet and then upload the entry to the 26 Things website by June 1, 2008. If you decide to try it, instructions are on their site. If nothing else, this is an activity that will jumpstart your creativity .

Of course, you want to look busy in those marathon meetings you’re forced to attend, but if you’ve heard it all before--drone, drone, drone--be sure to tuck this workbook in your bag. Kill Time has 64 pages of activities needing only pen or pencil. For instance, you'll find a page of empty snow globes to fill in with whatever your pencil desires (haven’t you always wanted to design your own?), a page of bald men waiting for you to give them hairstyles, a page of little birds needing wacky wonderful cages drawn around them and lots more.

I have always loved Project  Alabama clothing, and the founder, Natalie Chanin, is one of my creative heroes. Now I visit her blog daily to get a dose of inspiration and a kick in the creative pants. Check out the Alabama Studio Style blog for yourself. I think you’ll be hooked.

My bookclub loves to get together for dinner and wine, but we are often too lax or ambivalent to be able to decide on a book we all want to read. This month it was my turn to host, so I pulled out the Spirit version of Table Topics cards.

Yes, every company out there is trying to sell its “greenness,” but every now and then, I find a green product that is truly . Positively Green greeting cards are not only beautifully designed, but each one has a different environmental tip on the back . My favorite has a quote from Frankenstein’s Monster on the front: “Friend. Goood”  and inside, the message is, “You. Great.”  Check them out here.  

Hey, wake up!  It’s spring and it’s time to get out of bed and bring your creativity out of hibernation. Pick a project for April to get your juices flowing again. Get some inspiration from a book like Journal Revolution (Rise Up and Create) or Idea Index.

If you don’t want to join one of the ubiquitous tourist groups seen everywhere in Europe , but you want to go deeper into the culture, consider signing up for a Context Travel tour. This network of architects, historians, and art historians with 59 Ph.D.’s and 41 M.A.’s organizes walking seminars for intellectually curious travelers in Paris, Rome, Florence, Naples, Venice, New York and London. Small groups, priceless local knowledge and in-depth conversation.

April is the 10th anniversary of V-Day, a grassroots movement that has raised awareness (as well as $50 million), created dozens of college campus programs and built safe houses for women in places where “safe” and “women” were never used in the same sentence. Skirt!

There are lots of sites that let you turn your photos into a book, but Blurb.com is one of the best we’ve found. Unlike some of the photo sites that let you compile your snaps in a book, Blurb has a downloadable bookmaking tutorial and good examples to get you inspired. You can even sell your finished book on their site. I’m using it to turn one of  my blogs into a book, and I’ll keep you posted on how easy or hard it turns out to be. But in the meantime, check it out for yourself.

This dramatic necklace, created by the husband/wife team called BAZZdeGRANT, is from one of my favorite places to browse and buy--the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) online shop. ShopSCAD is a unique gallery store that features the artwork and designs of the school’s students, faculty, staff and alumni. It’s a great place to find unusual and unique gifts and support the arts at the same time.-

If you’re like me, exercising is easier when you have gadgets to keep your mind off the boredom and pain of plodding away on the treadmill. My latest is a heartrate monitor to keep me in the right zone for weight loss. But it seems to take me forever to get it adjusted and tight enough and securely anchored around my rib cage. So I’m going to try the Polar Heart Bra that has a built-in channel for the heart rate strap to end the worries about it slipping around while I work out. No more excuses!

That’s the title of a fascinating op-ed piece in The New York Times on Sunday, March 16, 2008, by Kate Zernike. We know why older women have been furious about the treatment of Hillary by the press. Now younger women, Obama and Hillary supporters alike, may be having their own Come-to-Eve  moment about gender bias and misogyny in the U.S. And it might have as much to do with the Spitzer scandal as the race for President.

Girls who go to school not only marry later, but have half as many children as illiterate women. Furthermore, these children are healthier and better educated. Buying one U.N.

I love Etsy.com for its huge collection of independent artisans and fun and funky stuff you just can’t find in our chain-store universe. A case in point: the set of 7 Deadly Sins saucers  from Vandalized Vintageby TrixieDelicious.  The vintage 6" English bone-china saucers are reworked with text in heat -fused ceramic paint. Non-toxic, food safe and with hangers.

Taking the  Real Age test can be daunting if you aren’t taking great care of yourself, but the good news is that you can sign up for Real Age Tips of the Week to get practical advice on staying healthy and growing younger.  I always find some new piece of good info or advice to incorporate into my life.

We love the idea behind Women Writing for (a) Change. The group was founded in 1991 by Mary Pierce Brosmer, teacher, speaker and published poet. From its first small, rented home in Cincinnati, Ohio, for fifteen writers, Women Writing for (a) Change has grown in scope and in depth, to a movement in which women and girls "practice their voices" and go into the larger world to add women's stories and women's views to the critical conversations of our times.

A recent article in The New York Times about Frida Kahlo reminded me of how her art never grows stale, no matter how many times it’s reproduced on a tray or a pocket mirror.  There’s an exhibit of her work  at The Philadelphia Museum of Art through May 18 if you can make it. And if not, why don’t you have a Frida party like I do when the weather turns warm.

Start your morning with a smile. Log on to www.iambossy.com, a 2007 Weblog Award finalist.  Here’s how Georgia Getz, its creator, describes it: “...i am bossy is not an advice blog. It’s not a mom blog, or a political blog. It is the whimsical, scattershot effort of Georgia Getz. The format is cute but has no teeth.

“Life is. I am. Anything might happen.”

“Wake up and live.”

“Normal is a cycle on a washing machine.” Emmylou Harris [So save it for your clothes, not your character.]

“Look closely. The beautiful may be small.”

"Every morning, we have twenty-four brand-new hours to live.”

T“ickle your mind."

“Don't wait to be discovered.”

“Spend the afternoon. You can’t take it with you.”

“Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe we are gifted for something.”