The Challenge: Add something childlike (not necessarily childish) to your workspace or home.

Kim:
A few months ago I read the book, Fish, which inspired me to make my space more playful. I spent a Sunday afternoon while Jason was watching football adding fun pictures, quotes, and toys to my workspace. Because I feel pretty good about the childlike feel of my office, I wanted to add something more intangible. Having Adultitis often leaves me with frustrating side effects. Maybe you experience them as well – worry, doubt, pessimism, fatigue. Even though I want to have that childlike joy and hope which shines from every childhood picture of myself, it doesn’t always come naturally. It would be hard to put childlike joy and hope on my shelf but I can try to consciously do things that help me to live with passion and to have a better perspective on things. So, I made a ‘joyful hope’ container, in which I will put little notes of things that give me hope and bring me joy, as a grown-up. On those days in which I need to be reminded of these childlike Adultitis-free qualities, I will take out one of the small folded up pieces of paper and hopefully be inspired to change my attitude and actions. The first thing that I wrote down was the hope I felt seeing the sun shine today, after two weeks of clouds.

Jason:
Creatively, this may have been the trickiest one yet. My office space — and most of our home, for that matter — looks like it was decorated by Geoffrey the Giraffe of Toys R Us fame. My office is always a highlight for kids, a veritable smorgasboard that includes Spiderman action figures, a cardboard cutout of Boba Fett (wearing a jester hat and lobster beads), Play-Doh containers, a few beanie babies, a Slinky, an alligator head from Florida, a lava lamp, and an abundance of other toys too numerous to count.

Needless to say, adding another item of childhood whimsy to this hodgepodge would be like tossing a fistful of sand into the Mojave Desert. So I was forced to think outside the box, which led me inside a box. The ice box, as my grandma would say; the refrigerator, in 21st century terms.

So I took my Larry the Cucumber squeeze toy and squeezed him between the lemon juice and French dressing. He seems to like it there. Who knew opening the refrigerator could be so much fun?

Dark Room Confessionals:
Bonus Video: Kim | Jason

The Challenge: Do something that is typically seen as inappropriate for someone of your age.

Kim:
One thing that I loved about childhood that I wish would be appropriate in adulthood is the act of building blanket forts. Having older sisters I was introduced to this activity pretty early on. Then, all of a sudden you get a little too big to be under there. I remember when I would baby-sit in junior high and high school I often suggested the ‘blanket fort’ as an option for something to pass the time. The kids loved it, as all kids do.

Having a workspace at home gave me a huge advantage with this one. No cube neighbors would give me strange looks. I grabbed some tacks, rubber bands, and an old sheet (a blanket would’ve been too heavy to rig up as tall as I needed it to be). My actual workspace is pretty small and it pretty much fit under my propped-up sheet, a.k.a. ‘cool fort.’ It did invoke a childlike excitement sitting under there, typing away and making calls. If only the person on the other end could see me — oh my, this WAS inappropriate for someone my age. 

Jason:
I spent a lot of time thinking about this one. I was feeling a bit overmatched by Kim’s Hump Day extravaganza yesterday — camel pancakes?! As soon as I began thinking about this challenge, I knew what I wanted to do, but it didn’t seem big enough. I tried to come up with something larger than life, showy, a big production. Try as I might to come up with something really daring, I kept coming back to these two words:

Happy meal.

When I was a kid, we hardly ever got McDonald’s Happy Meals. With three boys, it was always cheaper for my parents to buy us each a cheeseburger and have us split a large fry. But oh, how I pined for those Happy Meals. The colorful little boxes, printed with messages of untold joy, hinting at the wonderful toy hidden inside. (Sadly, the boxes have been replaced by less than exhilarating paper bags — kids of today don’t even know what they’re missing!) I can probably count on one hand how many Happy Meals I have had in my lifetime, and I’m guessing it has been over 20 years since my last one.

I thought about the irony: when I was a kid, I wanted Happy Meals but couldn’t do anything about it; now that I’m a “grown-up,” I could get a Happy Meal anytime I want but might be considered a freak job ordering one without the cover of a small child nearby.

Well that fear of being labeled a social outcast ended today, my friends, as I proudly stepped to the counter to order my cheeseburger Happy Meal.

And what a Happy Meal it was.

Dark Room Confessionals:
Bonus Video: Kim | Jason

The Challenge: Find a reason to celebrate and do something to celebrate it.

Kim:
Happy 1st Hump Day (for 2006, that is)! In my opinion kids are experts at celebrating.  They don’t need any official notice from Hallmark for permission to celebrate. They know what it takes to make for a fulfilling celebration. Typically the components are as follows: special ‘eats’, decorations or hats, and oftentimes games. So, I did the best I could with the resources I had, which I think is key to this challenge.

Please don’t go out and buy a bunch of stuff. I found some fun camel clip art online and printed off a few copies. I also dug out the camel from our Christmas nativity set. I hung up a few pictures of camels and prominently displayed the camel figurine on a shelf with some white Christmas lights. Bringing in the celebratory eating, I made camel shaped pancakes for breakfast and a carrot cake, drawing a camel on the top, for dessert. Oh yes, and my camel hat, which I made from the clip art pictures.

I proudly wore my hat to the zoo to make a special visit to today’s mascot. Not only am I lucky enough to have a free zoo two miles from my house, but both of the camels were out and happy to have a visitor on this cold dark day.

My game of choice for this special occasion: pin the hump on the camel. Jason spun me way more than I spun him, leaving me quite ‘off.’ Being a retired kindergarten teacher gave me a slight advantage. We celebrated everything in Kindergarten, from the 100th day of school to Dr. Seuss’ birthday. You name it. The camel pancakes were fun but nothing beats green eggs for breakfast.

Jason:
I was a little under the weather today. But not so much so that I couldn’t celebrate Earth at Perihelion Day. That’s right folks, today is the one day that the Earth is as close to the sun as it will be all year. The holiday is surprisingly absent from my calendar and a glaring omission in the online catalog of Hallmark eCards (perhaps a Kim & Jason greeting card is in order…).

I must admit that Earth at Perihelion Day is not a festival I’m accustomed to celebrating (I got a little help from Brownielocks and the 3 Bears) so I wasn’t quite sure how to correctly mark the occasion. I assumed that we were headed for a hot spell* so I got decked out in my swimming trunks, Cruisin’ for Wishes t-shirt, and sandals (this little detail really had Kim smiling, as I NEVER wear sandals). My accessories included an authentic plastic Hawaiian lei, some beads I got once at Red Lobster, and a jester hat. I’m not sure where the jester hat fits in, but it IS festive, and Earth at Perihelion Day is nothing if not festive.

All in all, it has been a great day. A simple, fun, holiday free from the trappings and commercialization of corporate giants like Hallmark.

For now.

*As this article indicates, this was an ill-conceived assumption. 

Dark Room Confessionals:
Bonus Video: Kim | Jason

The Challenge: Spend at least 15 minutes immersing yourself in a field you know nothing about.

Kim:
It was made obvious to me a few weeks ago on a trip to Milwaukee after a near death experience that I would like to learn more about cars. As we were on the side of the road in the snow with car problems, I faced the humbling fact that I wasn’t quite sure how to even open the hood of our Pontiac. “Our hood is tricky,” I rationalized. This is embarrassing for me to admit but a harsh reality.

So, I sat down with a “Fix It Yourself” book from Reader’s Digest and some very helpful websites (about.com and howstuffworks.com) and spent my 15 minutes learning Car Parts 101. I have to admit that 15 minutes was not nearly enough. I am still curious about the other parts under there that I didn’t get to. I really only got through the basics of how the car uses the gasoline to accelerate and the chain of command that happens with the parts in this procedure. Combustion, cooling, pistons, exhaust…lots of familiar words that are now clearer with some handy dandy animations. This challenge shined the light on my "perfectionist" side that gets too overwhelmed and often fearful to learn something new. It forced me to become curious and take the risk of looking foolish. Kids just naturally ask hundreds of ‘why’ questions and they are learning new things everyday. It is good to be reminded of that feeling. It was fun! I bookmarked those websites and I’ll be back. 

Jason:
Today I immersed myself in an alien world right out of a Star Wars movie (at least to me.)

An oriental grocery store.

I know from watching those behind the scenes Star Wars documentaries that the artists take great efforts to create each planet from scratch, with its own native language, look, and culture. After only a few moments in Lee’s Oriental, surrounded by produce I’ve never seen and labels with words I couldn’t read, I half-expected to hear George Lucas step out from behind the aisle saying, “And cut."

I started checking out the jars and jars of sauces; peanuts, soy, and whatnot. Then I came across an interesting package that seemed out of place. The product inside was almost black, and it looked like a small folded Hobbit blanket. It said “dried laver” on the label. Before I could finish asking myself the question, “What’s dried laver?” I noticed another similarly stuffed package with the subhead “seaweed.” Cool.

The three shelving units in the crowded store were a feast for the senses: packages of dried anchovies, broiled ferns, and lots of cans of lychees (not sure what those were but they looked like skinned eyeballs.) I almost laughed out loud when I saw, amidst the exotic jars of pickled this and dried that, a few cans of Spam (perhaps the most inedible thing in stock, in my estimation.)

I scanned a spinner of packaged snacks, delighted to find an assortment of dried squid, right above bags of party mix. The squid reminded me of beef jerky — chicken jerky I suppose — and the back of the bag touted it as a great on-the-go snack and perfect for parties. Indeed!

On my way out of the store, I came across a row of giant bags stacked near the wall. “They sell potting soil in oriental grocery stores?” I asked myself. “Must be for rare, hard-to-maintain Asian flowers,” I answered confidently.

Upon further inspection, I learned that they were actually bags of rice. It made perfect sense, of course, but I couldn’t help but fancy the idea of my mom trying to jam a 10 pound bag of rice in the pantry next to the pancake mix and egg noodles. All in all, a pretty neat 15 minutes. Now, if you don’t mind, I need to go find out what lychees are.

Dark Room Confessionals:
Bonus Video: Kim | Jason