Baby, it’s cold outside! With the snow, rain and wind, venturing outside for activities can feel like way too much of a hassle. If you don’t feel like piling on layer after layer of clothing, staying inside is the only option. To combat cabin fever, here are some tips, tricks and activities to keep you entertained and best of all, warm.
1. Card games from your childhood: Spit, Egyptian Rat Screw, Speed. Rekindle the romance with these fun games you used to play on the rainy days of the past. If you’re up for some extra socializing, invite your floormates to a tournament and school them all with your amazing skills. Prize for the winner of the tournament is semester-long bragging rights. Can’t quite remember the rules?
2. Apples to Apples:
There are plenty of board games out there, but some of them lose their jazziness as almost-adults. Apples to Apples is a fun game that allows you to use your wit and political knowledge to make your friends fall on the floor giggling. You pair an adjective with a noun to make the funniest combination, and whoever draws the adjective for you to match decides if your pair was the best, funniest, or most topical.
3. Rearrange your furniture: Sometimes you get bored with the layout of your room. Make it a little more inviting by playing with the arrangement. “Rearranging furniture is always therapeutic,” Emerson College resident assistant Tau Zaman says. “You’d be surprised at what kinds of arrangements you can make.”
4. Favorite movie marathon: This is a great way to get to know your floormates. Ask everyone to pick their favorite movie among the DVDs that they brought to school with them and have a movie marathon. Getting to know others’ taste in movies and music is a great way to find some common ground between you—and this method just so happens to kill eight hours.
5. Learn how to do the Single Ladies dance:
This task is definitely the most difficult on this list, but also the most rewarding. Grab two friends and check out some YouTube tutorials like this one to shake your booty like Beyonce. Tackling these challenging moves doubles as a cardio workout and a great confidence booster.
6. Turn random stuff into new clothes: “Since it’s super cold outside, you can also use old clothes to make new ones for the winter,” Zaman says. “You can turn sweater sleeves into scarves or leg warmers, sweatshirt hoods into little drawstring bags, or even old t-shirts into pillowcases! I’m terrible at sewing but even I found cool ways to give old clothes new uses online.” Try this site for ideas.
7. Clothing swap: Shopping for brand new clothes is for people with an expendable income, and unfortunately, that may not be you at the moment. Find a friend in your building who has a similar body type and ask if she would like to trade that shirt you bought but never wore for her scarf that you totally envy. It’s a great way to bond and also get some new loot while getting rid of some old stuff. You can also try swapstyle.com and swap clothes with millions of users!
8. Find a new look while playing around with makeup:
9. Make a wall collage: “One of my favorite projects was to get a bunch of tacks and cork-board tiles and tack artsy/antique postcards onto them,” says Zaman. “They make really classy wall decorations and depending on your level of detail you can spend anywhere from minutes to hours.”
11. Start a new show on Netflix: When your favorite shows end, your weeknights feel a whole lot lonelier. A Netflix account, if you don’t have one, is affordable and a great investment if only for the ability to stream shows and movies online instantly. If you’ve been meaning to watch Grey’s Anatomy, The Bachelor, or re-watch your favorite episodes of Family Guy, being stuck inside all day is the perfect opportunity to begin.
12. Online Shopping: Pick. Point. Click “Buy.” And you’re all done. Pick up a swingy sundress or a pair of espadrille wedges to get you in the mood for spring. Sigh: the snow will melt away eventually. Check out this HC article on how to shop the online flash sale sites like a queen.
13. Chocolate cake in a mug: If you’re looking for something tasty and quick, try making cake is a mug. What’s great about this recipe is that it requires simple tools (a mug and a microwave) and some easy to get ingredients. Go ahead, make yourself seconds. We won’t tell. Check out this recipe for a ridiculously easy dessert.
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14. Get dinner delivered: Have your roommates chip in for a few large pizzas and call out for delivery. Once they arrive, sit around and watch something totally trashy like Jersey Shore. Sometimes, it feels really good to veg out and let your mind shut down a bit. Plus, reality shows are great for a few laughs. Don’t forget to give the delivery person a big tip for driving through the slush to get you a piping hot dinner.
15. Do a 300-500 piece puzzle:
Puzzles are a great thing to have when you’re bored and even when you’re stressed out. It forces you to focus on one thing for a couple of hours and once you’ve finished it, it feels like a significant accomplishment. And it is! Post a picture of your completed puzzle to Facebook once you’re done and have your friends “ooh” and “ahh” over your masterpiece.
16. Get crafty and organized: “You can create tiny shelves out of cardboard boxes from snacks and stuff lying around your dorm to organize things, like pens,” Zaman says.
17. Read a book: It’s an old school method to pass the time, so curl up with the classics: Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, or revert to A Shore Thing by Snooki. It’s important to be balanced!
18. Clean: Sweep, wash the dishes, and clean the toilet bowl. While it’s not the most enjoyable activity in the world, cleaning is productive and it gives you time to think and clear your head. If you’re stressed out, it can help get your mind off of things, and if you’re tired of sitting on your butt, you just might find some satisfaction out of being able to see your reflection in your fork.
19. Clean up your social networking pages: Sure, you had a great time at your best friend’s birthday party, but your future employers don’t need to know how good of a time you actually had. Get rid of those slightly salacious photos, and curse filled rants on Twitter just in time to apply for summer internships. Find out more here.
20. Plan your outfits for the week: You’ve heard this tip several times, but it’s not very practical for a busy schedule. Planning layers to wear for the freezing weather is quite a task, so take advantage of the time at hand and take pictures of your planned outfits, so you remember exactly what you wanted to wear each day.
21. Do 100 jumping jacks/20 push-ups/50 crunches:
Getting your body moving will rev up your metabolism and endorphins, especially if you’ve been sitting around all day. This small workout will take less than five minutes and you burn about 100 calories total, and if you’re really dedicated you could do it every hour and burn some major calories. That way, once the weather clears up, you’ll feel active and energetic instead of schlumpy.
22. Make mix CDs for your friends back home: It’s totally normal to get homesick every once in a while. A good way to remedy that is to send your friends a little gift to tell them how much you miss them. Burn a CD for them of all the songs that remind you of the great times you’ve had together, decorate the CDs and send them with a little love.
23. Attempt to make a viral video with your friends: Dress up with your friends and make a silly video to “Party in the U.S.A” or “Bad Romance.” Even if you don’t post it on YouTube, you can still save it on your hard drive as a cherished memory between you and your friends. Bonus points for getting your RA to join in on the fun.
24. Increase your trivial knowledge: “If you’ve got a computer,” Zaman says. “You can always test yourself on trivia on sporcle.com, go on learning tangents with tabbed browsing on Wikipedia, or even try learning a new language over the internet.”
25. Call your mom:
She definitely misses you. And if she doesn’t have something interesting to say, you can always ask her to pass the phone to your cat. Just make sure your roommates aren’t around.