The thermometer may be nudging 70 degrees, and more snow may be but a distant, longed-for dream. But January is still high season for cabin fever, when any number of dreary weather calamities -- from the flu to a balky car -- conspire to keep people home more than at almost any other time of year.

A forced day or week off from work, stuck indoors, may be welcome, but do you really want to spend your precious free time watching "Law & Order" reruns?

You could always reorganize the front hall closet. You could potty train your 2-year-old. You could start watching season one of "The Wire" on HBO in a desperate effort to catch up to the final season, which began Sunday. You could troll YouTube.com for different video versions of the great final-act trio from Richard Strauss' opera "Der Rosenkavalier."

Or you could do something just a little bit different for once. Maybe, even, learn something new at the same time. Check out this list of things to do while you're waiting out the weather or the flu:

For years, everyone's been moaning about "the lost art of letter writing," pining for the days of George Bernard Shaw and Mrs. Campbell, blah, blah, blah. Quit whining and do something about it. Write a thank-you note. Write a love letter. Write to a soldier in Iraq. Write letters to your children and stow them away as a present for their 21st birthday. Be meandering, be heartfelt, be yourself. If you'd like to do it up right, there are many online stationery sites, while closer to home, a handful of stationery stores cater to letter writers. More Than Words in Mt. Lebanon has an unusually varied selection of papers, cards and handmade journals designed to get the ink flowing.

Barbara Johnson, who opened her store four years ago, is a true believer on the subject of letter writing. She doesn't even have a Web site yet -- "it's not tactile, and we're about being tactile."

When customers "wander in and say, 'I need something with a nice long verse and rhyming,' we have to tell them we don't carry those kinds of cards, but rather ones that aren't wordy, but clever, if they say anything," she said. "We want to encourage them to put their thoughts down on paper."

Ninety percent of the time people are intrigued enough to try it, she says. If not, she added, "we direct them to the nearest Hallmark."

More Than Words, 660 Washington Road, 412-343-9673.

A red-hot game of Scrabble is the oldest antidote to cabin fever there is, although the digital age has ushered in newer iterations of old favorites. Lisa Blaha, who grew up playing Monopoly, Euchre and The Barbie Game, makes it her business to keep her eye on the newest electronic games for her own two daughters, Emma, 16, and Abby, 12 -- and her husband, "who had never even played Monopoly before he met me."

While Ms. Blaha, 45, of Ben Avon and her family loves the wildly popular Apples to Apples board game, Guitar Hero, a karaoke-style video game, was a big hit under the Blaha's Christmas tree, and on New Year's Eve, the family played Sing Star, where "the words come up on the screen and you sing them, but you have to hit the right notes, otherwise you lose points against each other."

Another new favorite is Scene-It, a DVD game where clips of movies play on television "in a sort of scrambled mixed up picture where everyone has to answer questions like what was sitting on the table or what color was the carpet, or what movie was that from?"

But her younger daughter was most thrilled with the vintage edition of The Barbie Game that Ms. Blaha found on eBay, similar to the one she and her sister played in the 1970s. You can't sing to it or watch it on a screen, but "Christmas is long gone, and Abby's still playing it," she said.

Scene-It: screenlifegames.com

Sing Star: singstargame.com

Guitar Hero: guitarherogame.com

It's soothing, relaxing, even a little bit trendy, although maybe not as edgy as knitting and crocheting, which have been adopted by a new generation of young people and artists (at New York's Museum of Arts and Design last year, one exhibit was titled "Radical Lace and Subversive Knitting"). But needlepoint has its own loyal following, especially in Pittsburgh, which boasts three stores dedicated to the craft, in Sewickley, Mt. Lebanon and Point Breeze.

Natalie Kelley, owner of Needle Point Breeze in the East End neighborhood of the same name, says people come in all the way from Buffalo -- apparently lacking in needlepoint resources -- to visit her store. She gives lessons for $25 an hour and will outfit customers with painted canvases and yarn -- from silk to soy -- and arrange to have the finished product made into anything from tiny key chains to shoes to belts to handbags to Christmas ornaments. One of Ms. Kelley's customers, Robin Berstein, says she's been on a needlepoint "binge" for the past five years, while watching videos or television, and, especially, waiting in airports.

"I've made everything from small pieces to a rug that still isn't finished," said Ms. Berstein, a retired political consultant from Squirrel Hill. "People tease me that I'm going to become like the dreaded great-aunt who used to make the antimacassars."

Nothing wrong with that.

Needle Point Breeze, 6734 Reynolds St., 412-361-6380. Hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesdays-Thursdays; 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturdays

If you misplace your car keys a lot, you may not be losing your mind -- you may simply have too much going on inside of it, says Anne Hoyt, a professional organizer.

"We make lists not to remember, but to forget, so that we can take all of those things out of our minds and put them on a piece of paper so we don't have to keep it in our heads anymore," said Ms. Hoyt, an Aspinwall-based consultant who helps victims de-clutter both their brains and their closets. "Looking for physical things takes up space in our heads, so when you help clear someone's physical space, if you streamline and simplify that, there's a residual effect inside, a kind of release within yourself."

And since January is Get Organized Month, according to the National Association of Professional Organizers, it may be a good time, if you have some spare cash, to hire a professional organizer: It can be expensive -- Pittsburgh's rates generally range from $50 to $65 an hour -- but for some, it's cheaper than a therapist, says Ms. Hoyt, who says her clients usually call upon her after a major life-changing event, "retirement, divorce or illness. Something will tip the scales enough so they're no longer able to manage the clutter and disruption in their lives, and when you help someone organize their space, their environment and help alleviate some of the stress, that can really be a huge relief."

Then again, if you're the New Age-y type, you could hire a "space clearing expert." Christan Hummel, author of "The Do It Yourself Space Clearing Kit," specializes in "clearing clutter that drains energy by blocking the invisible life energy flowing through a living space known in China as 'Ch'i' which is the foundation of the science of feng shui."

Got that?

Resources:

Pittsburgh chapter of the National Association of Professional Organizers: napopittsburgh.org

Anne Hoyt can be reached at Hoyta@comcast.net

"The Do-It Yourself Space Clearing Kit" by Christan Hummel is available at bookstores nationwide and online at www.earthtransitions.com.

As long as you're stuck at home, you could -- um -- clean it. But why not just give it a good spiritual cleaning instead? Marla Johnson, an associate minister at Rodman Street Missionary Baptist Church, will bless houses and apartments, "just like a child would be blessed," she says. "I come into the house and say a prayer in each room and then we end up in the living room or dining room, hold hands and say a prayer together."

The new year is an especially auspicious time for "some spiritual refreshing," Dr. Johnson says. Then there are the times she's called upon to rid a house of bad karma -- "Actually, I don't really call it that," she said. "Usually when I'm blessing a house, I ask God to not allow danger or the devil to have any place in that house. And people tell me it really helps. I get a lot of hugs and cookies," she added.

OK, so it's not yoga. It's not falconry or caving, either. But juggling and other circus arts are taking off in popularity across the country, and for those stuck at home -- especially children -- it's a great way to develop motor skills and hand-eye coordination. Mom or Dad will find it soothes the nerves, plus it'll make them popular at parties.

There are any number of Web sites to learn how, but right here in our own back yard, Ben Sota, the 27-year-old founder of Zany Umbrella Circus on the South Side, is a master practitioner of the circus arts and when he's not traveling the world with his eight-person troupe -- from Kabul, Afghanistan, to post-Katrina New Orleans -- he's available to give juggling lessons. (If you're able to get out of the house before Jan. 21, you could also visit Mr. Sota's exhibit at the Children's Museum on "The Circus for Social Change," which documents his travels and even allows visitors to walk a tightrope.)

Juggling is good for you, he says. "You learn about timing and looking at things differently. It's one of these things, like riding a bicycle, driving or reading music, where, once you learn it, you'll never forget it."

Indeed, he added, "my peripheral vision is incredible," he said. "I feel like one of those birds who can see out of the side of their head."

Beats "Law & Order" reruns any day.