How Are You Spending Your 'Extra' Hour?

POSSIBLE WAYS TO USE YOUR ‘EXTRA’ HOUR:

Sleep off your Halloween hangover
Cram in a year’s worth of flossing and impress your dentist at your next check-up
Beat your personal best at Sudoku
Get a head start on your Thanksgiving menu
Do like Oprah and make a vision board
See how many tequila shots you can do
Throw a “bonus hour” party and then kick everyone out when 60 minutes are up
Hit the post-Halloween candy sale at Rite-Aid
Sharpen all your kitchen knives
Make a playlist of all your favorite Prince songs
Back-up your software
Get in touch with your inner self
Make a collage of Sarah Palin/Barack Obama quotes
Push back your cuticles
Give your dog a bath
Make a batch of oatmeal cookies
Take a yoga class
Learn to count to ten in Japanese
Take an online Mensa quiz
Holla atcha boys

Fall Back Moms: What To Do With Your Extra Hour
by Jen Singer
Before I had kids, I knew what to do with the extra hour that Fall Back provides each October. I slept in. I read the newspaper over a mochachino at the corner Starbucks. I took a long, hot bath. I napped. But now that I spend upwards of 14 hours a day taking care of two little boys, an extra hour is the last thing I need. I usually spend it doing more of the same thing anyway: wiping glitter glue off the refrigerator handle, extracting graham crackers from the VCR and breaking up fights over a Batman doll that has just one leg and half a cape. Yet, after several years of Fall Backs, I have come up with some clever things moms can do with their extra hour. Here are a few of the activities that have kept me busy year after year:
1. Explain to your two-year-old why 4:30 a.m. is an ungodly hour to wake up for the day.
2. Memorize the dialogue in "Finding Nemo." Then stage a reenactment of the movie for your husband when your toddler wakes everyone up again at 4:30 the next day.
3. Write your resume with the plastic alphabet-shaped magnets on the refrigerator door while you let the kids play the drums on your Tupperware because, darn-it, it's only 3 p.m.
4. Make a big pile of leaves. Hide in it.
5. Play the Wiggles' "Nicky Nacky Nocky Noo" over and over backwards, searching for hidden meaning.
6. Send out a distress signal using the pans from your kid's Easy-Bake oven and the sun, since it's up earlier now. Just like you.
7. Let the air out of your husband's car tires, so he can find out on Monday what it's like to "Fall Back" into an extra hour with the kids.
8. Send your brood into the garage -- where hubby is putting air in his tires -- with the toy kazoos your mother-in-law gave them, and call it "quality time."
9. Count the hours until Spring Ahead mercifully makes you lose an hour. Just 3,864 hours to go!

How I spent my extra hour

My View

Marc Kozak
Issue date: 10/30/06

While many students used Saturday night to celebrate Halloween, I was busy getting ready for a more important holiday: Daylight Savings Time. I like DST better than Christmas, particularly the fall version where we gain a seemingly magical extra hour. As great as it is, I kind of wish that we'd mix it up every once in a while; how fun would it be if the next time we're supposed to turn back the clocks, we turn it back like nine hours? This way, when you get done with class or work, the sun is just coming up. And you wouldn't have to worry about creepy people following you when you're walking home from a party because it'd be light out.If you ended up forgetting about the time change on Sunday and woke up early for work or something, you totally could've slept in an extra hour. You blew it. However, you can live vicariously through me and how I spent my bonus hour of life.Sat., Oct. 28, 11:58 p.m.: Woke up from my nine-hour nap that was taken to prepare for the extra hour. Hey, when I went to bed on April 2, I lost an hour while I was unconscious. You better believe I'm going to be awake in order to get it back.

Sun., Oct. 29, 12:03 a.m.: Subtly mentioned to my roommate that I had just seen a news story predicting worldwide computer and electrical failure when savings time struck at 2 a.m. He seemed mildly concerned but went off to bed. I wished aloud that I could have his extra hour too, since he didn't seem to care about it.

12:37 a.m.: Reviewed my itinerary of things to do in the extra hour. Made a last minute change by replacing "prank call Dominos" with "throw vegetables into traffic."

1:25 a.m.: Watched some Star Trek episode about going back in time in order to get in the proper state of mind. I'm not sure that things I do in this extra hour will alter the space-time continuum, but if they do I hope the parts of high school where I was shoved into lockers are erased.

1:57 a.m.: Used the lavatory. Even though I hadn't eaten or drank anything since Friday, I had to be absolutely positive that not a single second of my extra hour would be wasted in the bathroom.

Zero hour - 2:00 a.m. / 1:00 a.m. again: Did a brief dance, followed immediately by listening to Cher's "If I Could Turn Back Time." Nodded thoughtfully during the instrumental breakdown.1:06 a.m.: Called friend overseas in Japan to tell her I was calling from the past. She said that they didn't use daylight savings time and that because of the time zone difference they were already 15 hours ahead of my time anyway. I hung up and asked myself why I was still friends with her in the first place.

1:17 a.m.: Giggled to myself as I shut off the main power breaker to the house in order to scare my roommate about the power failure I mentioned earlier. Quickly realized that he was asleep in a dark room and wouldn't even notice. Found some solace in the fact that at least now he would have to reset all of his clocks, but then remembered he would've had to anyway because of the time change. Kicked a trash can out of disappointment.

1:22 a.m.: Mailed my aunt a thank you card for the ugly sweater she got me for Christmas last year. My parents had been bugging me about doing it for months, but I told them I didn't have the time. Unfortunately now I did.

1:34 a.m.: Used the bathroom. I knew I should not have had that Gatorade last Thursday.

1:41 a.m.: Watched a little of an episode of Nip/Tuck to see what the fuss was all about since I never have time to watch it when it regularly airs. Quickly became angry and lit my DVD player on fire.

1:50 a.m.: Read four pages from the DaVinci Code because I never have time to read books for leisure. Quickly became bored and decided to rent the movie later instead.

1:55 a.m.: Finally ended hunger strike by eating an enormous burrito.

2:00 a.m. (again): Went back to bed after realizing that I had to go to work in a few hours. Suddenly wished that the day had a few more extra hours in it.So while most people were enjoying the extra hour of sleep, I was up getting things accomplished. There aren't many times where you can have a free hour of time to use as you please, and I totally took advantage of it. Of course, now my sleeping pattern is all messed up, and I'll have to spend the next few days catching up, but that's beside the point.