Ten Ways to Spring Clean Your Life

 With Spring in full swing many of us are busy with Spring cleaning…the house, the basement, the garage…but what about our lives in general. Anybody out there need a little personal spruce up?

I found a list of a dozen things you can do to upgrade your life.  Who says resolutions need to wait until New Year’s Eve!

 1. Take stock
How now, Dow Jones? That is the question. Bank bailouts? Sub-prime mortgages? If you're not confused, you aren't paying attention. But ignorance will cost you, so make a point of reading the financial section of your newspaper every day. Lesson No. 1: If your best friend loses her job, it's a recession. If you lose yours, it's a depression.

2. Switch your Swatch -- to the other wrist
"Any time you make an adjustment, no matter how small, your brain has to work a little harder," New York psychologist Arlene Kagle, Ph.D., says. "It's good mental exercise." Another noggin workout: Figure out a math problem in your head rather than on a calculator.

3. Stop apologizing already!
This is probably silly... If this isn't a good time...With those soggy preambles, you're trivializing your requests -- and yourself.

4. Read one of those books your English teacher talked about
War and Peace, The Brothers Karamazov, Ulysses. This will give you a head start on a resolution for 2013: Finish War and Peace, The Brothers Karamazov, Ulysses...

5. Give something back
Got 30 seconds? Go to greatergood.com to support sites that help people, pets, and the planet -- with one click you provide books to literacy programs, food for malnourished kids, or protection for endangered forests.

6. Learn how to tell a joke
if your jokes fall flatter than Kate Moss's abs, maybe it's the way you're telling them. Eighty percent of a joke's effectiveness lies in the delivery, 20 percent in the content. "Make your tone conversational," says comedy writer Mark Simone. Don't talk too slowly; you want to sound like you're telling a joke, not reciting one. "And smile a lot," he says. "If it doesn't go over, just laugh and say, 'Well, I thought it was funny.'"

7. Renew a childhood passion
Try pottery. Perfect your Pictionary game. Take your piano skills from "Chopsticks" to Chopin.

8. Do something you hate for someone you love
Lunch with his mom, his college reunion (complete with kegger), or a movie that's long on action and short on plot.

 9. Stop with the why-ning
"Why?" is a perfectly lovely question coming from a toddler, but not from you. Why am I stuck in this stupid job? Why don't I have a better boyfriend? A better question: "How?" How do I get a better job, a better guy?

10.Learn to say no
Put your tongue against the back of your top teeth, make an oval shape with your mouth, and let go. Feels good, no?