Fun things grown-ass women should always enjoy in life.

Everywhere I turn, someone’s written a new article on things you should stop doing by the time you turn 25, 30, or 40—and still others that basically say “if you haven’t done these things/worn these things/experienced these things by 25, 30, or 40… well, you’re a loser.”

I don’t read these articles for three reasons: One, they’re depressing; two, my family would be out of a job; and three, after you stop doing the things they tell you to stop doing, then what? Watch wrinkles form? I’m not about to carry around some random checklist to make sure I’m doing my 30s right.

It’s because of these so-called “rules” that so many of us have forgotten the little things that make being a woman great—the things we were shitting-our-pants-excited about as girls, but then when we finally became women, we let our responsibilities ruin everything like a red sock in a load of whites.

Here are 9 fun things that should totally make a comeback on your calendar:

1. Do jump in puddles

Contrary to popular belief, jumping in puddles never stopped being fun. We did that all on our own. Besides, I’ve got two words for you: Designer rubber boots… wait, that’s three.

2. Do have sleepovers

Didn’t Jenna Rink teach us anything?

3. Do doodle his name on your homework

You might not necessarily have any scented glitter gel pens on hand, but the fact is this is one of the key reasons guys exist.

4. Do eat what you want

Back in the day, you didn’t know what a calorie was—your only mission in life was to annihilate the entire box of Dunkaroos like a mini-girl boss.

5. Do play dress-up

We’re way better at picking out our clothes and putting on our makeup, yet many of us have lost our appreciation for it. It’s supposed to be fun, not a necessity. Go for that bold red lip or lime green shoes. You know you want to.

6. Do get excited

Remember how crazy-exciting it was to have a new outfit to wear to school or go on a road trip, so much so that sleep the night before just wasn’t in the cards? Now, we buy new outfits and it’s weeks before we take the tags off and the only road trips we go on are to the grocery store. Get your spark back by making sure something awesome is going to happen tomorrow. Like, right now.

7. Do get dirty

Okay, so the context of getting dirty changes when you’re a grown-up, but still. Grrr, baby.

8. Do say what’s on your mind

You turning down a guy at age 10: “Ew, gross!” You turning down a guy at age 30: “Um, well, you see, I’m just so busy… and a lesbian.” In some areas, we don’t get smarter with age.

9. Do put yourself first

I’m not saying become a selfie stick-wielding narcissist, but start prioritizing yourself as much as you do the people you care about. Become the “you” your 10-year-old self always wanted you to be.

What fun things would you add to this list?

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Girl having fun image via Shutterstock

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ColumnLooking for fun things to do this summer that involve food? Look no further.

This week marks the summer solstice, which means your summer planning should be in full swing. Don’t know what to do with your summer months? That’s what Foodie Underground is here for. Every year we come up with a list of fun things to do with your summer vacation, all food related. Let the summer season commence!

1. Of all the things to do this summer, you should probably be making a kombucha cocktail at some point.

2. Write a short story about a vegetable.

3. Use olive oil instead of butter in a recipe.

4.Write a cookbook. Or at least a chapter of one.

5. Pick out your favorite summer food and paint a picture of it.

6. Make a rhubarb shrub. Your friends will love you.

7. Grind your own flour and make a loaf of bread.

8. Throw a dinner party in a field.

9. Make a set of greeting cards with your favorite food quotes.

10. Screw a mason jar onto your blender and make a smoothie. Yup, this actually works.

11. Get a burr grinder. Seriously, you’re still using a blade??

12. Make your own sriracha.

13. Find some friends and go clam digging.

14. Forage berries and make your own ice cream.

15. Sew your own reusable produce bags.

16. Make ice cubes with fruit in them.

17. Since last summer you mastered homemade marshmallows, this summer start infusing them with different ingredients. Lavender and honey anyone?

18. Get a beehive.

19. Take a camp stove to the park and make breakfast outside.

20. Make a set of chalkboard mugs for a friend.

21. Plan an outdoor food documentary festival.

22. Volunteer with a local food organization.

23. Make labneh.

24. Think of a country whose cuisine you know nothing about. Host a dinner party with food only from that place.

25. Stop buying nut butters and make your own.

26. Build a new kitchen storage system using old crates.

27. Two words: frozen watermelon.

28. Build a picnic table with built-in beer/wine cooler.

29. Herbal waters.

30. Host a disco soup party.

31. Open a lemonade stand for a weekend.

32. Make a dip using cashews. They’re surprisingly creamy.

33. Skip the Mexican restaurant and brew up a batch of your own horchata.

34. Pickle cherries.

35. Cook with lavender.

36. Make your own bitters.

37. Build a wine crate carrier on the back of your bike so you can put your vegetables in it when you shop at farmers market.

38. Ask your grandmother for her five favorite recipes. Write them down.

39. Bake a chocolate chip cookie serving bowl.

40. Have a rosé and socca night and dream about being in the south of France.

41. Dry herbs.

42. Use dried herbs in your own tea blend.

43. Put your homemade tea blend into homemade tea bags.

44. Cure and store garlic.

45. Oh, hello cold brew cocktails.

46. Grill fruit.

47. Grill greens.

48. Grill avocado.

49. Preserve lemons.

50. See if there are five things in your kitchen that you can live without. Minimize.

51. Print with fruits and vegetables.

52. Use a soda can to make a cookie cutter.

53. Put fruit in your second kombucha fermentation.

54. Stop buying vanilla extract and make your own.

55. Make seed bombs and throw them somewhere that needs some brightening up.

56. Do your own flavored salts.

57. See if you can make a baguette.

58. Drink local.

59. Find a farm you can go and work on.

60. Start an herb garden.

61. If you have a backyard, dig a fire pit.

62. Roast corn in your new fire pit.

63. Make ice cubes out of coffee to use in your cold brew.

64. Forage seaweed.

65. Design a chicken coop.

66. Start using hemp seeds in recipes.

67. Makes popped amaranth instead of popcorn.

68. Read a book on food policy.

69. Pretend like you’re a kid with a lunchbox again and make fruit leather.

70. Paint a set of plates.

71. Get to know your edible flowers.

72. Make tahini.

73. Visit a local cheesemaker.

74. Save your glass jars and use them to serve dessert.

75. Write fortunes for fortune cookies.

76. Make a meal using zero processed ingredients.

77. Infuse something with pine needles.

78. Churn your own butter.

79. Bake your own tortilla chips.

80. Micheladas.

81. Shandys.

82. Shock yourself by making one-ingredient ice cream.

83. Grow herbs in mini planters on your bicycle.

84. Instead of goji berries, buy blueberries.

85. Experiment with kefir.

86. Make a picnic kit (utensils, plate, durable glass) that’s ready to go at the drop of a hat.

87. Go to an estate sale, buy old tea towels, and sew them into napkins.

88. Build your own grill.

89. Forget kale chips and move on to CHARD CHIPS.

90. Soak peaches in bourbon.

91. Go to a U-pick.

92. Do a wine tasting 101 class.

93. Buy spices so you can make your own za’atar.

94. Build a worm composting system.

95. Make your own peanut butter cups.

96. Use avocado to make chocolate mousse.

97. Make zucchini noodles.

98. Brew sun tea.

99. Get your a sourdough starter going.

100. Think of 100 more things to do because you went through this list in less than a month.

Related on EcoSalon

Foodie Underground: 101 Summer Bucket List Items for Foodies

Foodie Underground: 100 Things to Do With Your Summer Vacation

20 (More) Fun Things to Do Without Spending a Dime

This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food more accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

Image: Anna Brones

The post 100 Fun Things to Do this Summer if You Love Food: Foodie Underground appeared first on EcoSalon.

Money isn’t the key to a good time. Here are 20 free things to do when you’re bored.

You’ve got the day off, but your spending money is low and there’s only so much time you can spend sitting in front of the television. Well, get up and do something different. There are literally dozens of fun things you can do without spending any money at all. Drink some wine and look at some art. Bake some bread. Invite some friends over to watch a goofy movie. Here are 20 (more) ideas for totally free activities that will expand your mind, make you feel better about yourself and give you a break from stress-inducing responsibilities.

Attend a Gallery Opening

Two words: free wine. Art gallery openings for new exhibits will not only give you a close look at some of your community’s top artistic talents, but also access to free snacks and beverages. Plus, there are bound to be some pretty interesting people milling about, so it’s a great chance to make a few new acquaintances. But if you’re going to show up and drink the wine, be sure to display interest in the work and say a few kind words to the artist. Just saying…

Check Out Your Community Calendar

How many fun, practical and occasionally strange events are you missing because you don’t check your community calendar? Often published in free weeklies or in the local newspaper, these calendars can be a treasure trove of free activities. You could be learning how to assemble bouquets, taking walking tours of local historical sites, attending outdoor festivals or watching beefy young men wrestle in church basements. It’s a source of virtually endless entertainment.

Get Organized

At first, this doesn’t sound like fun. It sounds like cleaning, which is work. But that’s before you get addicted to the post-organization high of “Oh wow, my house looks amazing and I actually know where things are located.” Pinterest is a great source of inspiration and ideas for organization that often use items you already have on hand rather than requiring an expensive trip to the store.

Play a Challenging Word Game

Break out the Scrabble board, some tough crossword puzzles, or even Words with Friends. Games don’t have to be time-wasters; many of them can help you increase your vocabulary so you can sound smarter when you’re angling for a promotion or chatting up that Ph.D. down the hall. Being highly literate is sexy.

Bake a Loaf of Bread

If you’ve got flour and some yeast, you can bake a loaf of bread – even if you’ve never baked anything in your life. It may seem like some kind of magical alchemy to people who aren’t accustomed to baking, and it sort of is. But it’s magic that is totally manageable. Baking a loaf of bread will force you to slow down for an afternoon, giving you opportunities to fit in other activities as the dough rises.

Learn About a New Topic

Maybe you’re interested in the cannibalistic rituals of ancient cultures, or just want to learn how to apply 1960s-style eyeliner. You can find information on just about anything on the internet, so there are no excuses for not learning more about topics that interest you. Read up on something you’ve always wanted to know, or watch a few YouTube videos that will teach you how to do some kind of new hair braid.

Host a Movie Marathon

Ask your friends to bring their favorite movies, or choose a series from your own collection. There’s always the library, too, which usually offers free or very cheap DVD rentals. Whether it’s a guilty pleasure like Twilight or Mystery Science Theater, movie marathons are one of the most fun ways to forget about your worries for a few hours.

Learn a New Skill

Break out that musical instrument that’s been hanging on your wall like an art piece rather than serving its true purpose. Open the Beginner’s Knitting Pack that you got for your birthday that one year and haven’t looked at since. Or just identify something that you’ve always wanted to learn how to do, and commit to giving it at least a few hours of your time. Maybe it’s learning a new language, or maybe it’s just changing the oil in your car. Again, YouTube is full of videos that will guide you through all manner of tasks, making new skills more easily acquired than ever.

Call an Old Friend

We all have friendships that have fallen by the wayside because we just can’t seem to find the time to make a phone call. Now’s the time. You’re bored, you’re low on cash and cell phones have made long distance calls cheaper than ever. Take an hour or two to catch up. If you can’t seem to work out a time when you’re both available, write a letter, record a video greeting or start an email correspondence. If you both live in the same city, take the time to meet up! Friendships make our lives so much richer. They’re worth taking the time out of your schedule, however busy you may be.

Scan Your Old Photos

Most of us have boxes full of old film photos that we haven’t looked at in ages. Scanning them definitely takes a bit of work and a good chunk of time, but it’ll ensure that these memories are preserved in case of fire or flood. Plus, taking the time to organize and digitize them is a fun way to reminisce about the past.

Clean Up Your Neighborhood

You don’t have to join a local group or organize some kind of official outing. Just go out into your neighborhood with a pair of gloves and a trash bag and start picking up. Even an hour of effort can make a big difference, and it’ll make you feel better about where you live.

Take a Mental Vacation

Download a guided meditation app for your smartphone, or simply head out to a place where you won’t be disturbed and give yourself permission to let go of all your stress and worries. Wish. Imagine. Daydream. Let your mind go wherever it wants to go, as long as it’s not a negative place. Fall into the kind of relaxed mental state that can spark creativity and a sense of peaceful healing. Even if you only have five minutes, it’ll make you feel mentally refreshed so you can get back to your tasks with sharpened acuity.

Tackle a DIY Project

You know all those cutesy DIY projects that you’ve been collecting on Pinterest or bookmarking at Design Sponge, imagining that you’ll get to ‘someday?’ Someday is today. Many such projects make use of what you already have or reclaim free or discarded items, so it doesn’t have to cost any money. Spray paint some old mason jars into pretty vases, turn a men’s button-down shirt into a skirt or make a new coffee table out of wood pallets.

Push Yourself Harder

There’s some task or skill that you’ve taken up, but haven’t quite mastered just yet. Take the time to get that much better at it. Push yourself to the next level, whether it’s eking out an extra 10 sit-ups, playing a more complex song on the piano or trying your hand at some French pastries.

Revisit an Old Favorite

Maybe the movie you were obsessed with when you were a senior in high school, or the album you listened to over and over again to comfort yourself when you moved to a new city isn’t to your taste anymore. But it can be fun to revisit those old favorites, and recall what made us love them so much at the time.

Make a Pinhole Camera

The only special equipment you need to capture ghostly, eerie images is some photo paper. A pinhole camera can be made out of virtually anything – from a cardboard box to an entire room. You’re simply creating a light-proof box with a small hole in one side. When light from a scene passes through the hole, it projects an inverted image onto the opposite side of the box, where photo paper is taped. If you don’t have any photo paper, ask a local photography shop if they have any expired paper that they’re about to throw away; it may not be sensitive enough to capture the sharp images required by professionals, but its imperfections will contribute to the dreamy feel of a pinhole image.

Build a Fort

Who says adults can’t build forts, too? For many of us, building makeshift forts out of blankets is among our favorite childhood memories. There’s something so cozy about curling up with a book in a heap of pillows in what feels like a private little space of your own. It can be as simple as tying a string between a doorknob and a piece of furniture and throwing a sheet over it.

Make a List of Your Goals

It’s easy to get so swept up in the rhythms of daily life that you lose your sense of where you want to go. Maybe you’ve lost sight of what’s truly important in your life, or fallen off track in your business goals. Write out what you want, and steps that you can reasonably take to get there – even if they’re really small steps.

Get Frugal

If you’re looking for free things to do, chances are, you’re trying to cut costs and be careful with your money. Write out a budget if you haven’t already, and identify additional ways to save. There are literally hundreds of money-saving tips available online; start with The Budget Diet’s list of ways to cut up to $400 from your budget every month.

Take a Nap

Perhaps making a pinhole camera, thinking about finances or playing the piano is just way too much for you right now, considering you can barely focus on the computer screen. It’s okay. Don’t feel guilty. Set your alarm, lay your head down and take a nap. You deserve it.

Photos: sleepyjeanie, nayukim, surlygirl, katerha, glitter weddings

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