Something To Cheer You Up After Doing Your Taxes

Today, April 15, is perhaps the most dismal day of the year for Americans, particularly writers, who are more often self-employed than not. If forking over your cash to Uncle Sam didn't make you grumpy today, it certainly ticked off a lot of other people, as evidenced by the numerous anti-tax tea parties that went on across the country.

While I understand the sentiment there, I really don't think the protests will accomplish much. Then again, I'm not the most politically active person in the world. To be honest, I can't even think the phrase "teabagging" and keep a straight face after reading Mark Terry's post on the subject. All I can say is, it pays to know your vocabulary, folks!

So...moving right along. I figured we could all use a little pick-me-up after being made considerably poorer this month, and I found a fantastic new website today called www.happynews.com that should do the job nicely. After playing around on the site for awhile, I discovered a brilliant little video of over 200 dancers performing to "Do, Re, Mi" from The Sound of Music in the Antwerpen Central Train Station in Belgium. In the 3 weeks since it first posted on YouTube, the original video has already garnered more than 1.3 million hits. And once you see it, you'll figure out why:



This made me smile from ear to ear, and I'm not at all a fan of musicals. The moral of the story? When you're having a crappy day, sometimes it's the littlest things that can turn it all around.

Why I Love Me Some Google

Allow me to introduce you to my brand new favorite technological doohickey: Google Calendar.


Before you say anything, yes, yes, I know--I'm the last kid on the block to take advantage of this small-time wonder. Let me have my fun. It's neat, okay?

For those of you who are like me and have dwelt in ignorance for far too long, let me explain. Google Calendar essentially does what most of us did on our own, but makes it look much cooler. Meaning, it takes the "Monthly" page from those old-fashioned planners you find at Office Max (which are so last millennium, by the way), and allows you to customize it to fit your needs. You can add events that can occur once, twice or even weekly or daily--all at the touch of a button. No more handwriting those monthly office meeting dates over and over again, kiddos! With Google Calendar, you just enter in the information one time, and it's all done for you.

And here's my absolute favoritest favorite part: You can have multiple calendars side-by-side and color-coordinate all of them to tell them apart! Eeeek! Back in my perfectionist high-school days, I used to color-coordinate everything in my planner just like this, except I used highlighters and multicolored pens. Oh, but this is so much better! Sheer awesomeness.

While I still use my regular planner for my day-to-day scheduling, Google Calendar is great for helping me establish and maintain certain routines (i.e., taking daily walks with the hubby or setting aside regular writing time), which is exactly why I find it so ingenious. I'm a tad embarrassed to say it, but I'm actually looking for things to schedule into the calendar now just because it looks so darn cute. We'll see if I still feel this way a month from now. Perhaps it won't help me become more organized at all. For the time being, however, I plan to revel in the novelty of yet another web application.

Time to share now, boys and girls. How do you keep your crazy schedules straight? Any technology involved? Or, are you still searching to find a method to the madness?

Need To Save Money? Use Salt!

Okay, I know this post has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with writing, but I couldn't resist. I love to share fun stuff I come across on the Web, whether it be news briefs, cool videos or the occasional bloggy rant. I think it breaks up the monotony, keeps things fresh. Don't you agree?

Anyway, since everyone's broke right now (I know I am!), we're all on the lookout for interesting, inventive ways to save money, especially if it means using things we already have at home. A great example of that is this article I found on the website Planet Green. It gives some great suggestions for ways to use salt around your house. Check it out.

Table salt?! Can you believe it? Who knew salt could do more than just increase your blood pressure? What I love most about this article is that everyone has it. It's not like energy-efficient appliances, where you have to spend hundreds, if not thousands of dollars upfront in order to save more in the long run. Nope, this is all about my new favorite word: FREE.

And who doesn't like the word free these days?