Look for any safety hazards or things you'll need to climb around, like knots, rotting spots, insect infestations, bark damage, and holes. This technique works best on steep vertical trees that you're able to get your arms around. Remove your sock and shoes. Place your arms around the tree, pushing your palms into the backside and gripping it with your palms and fingers. Lean back a little, and let the weight of your body hang slightly on your arms. While keeping a good grasp on the tree, bend your knees slightly and jump high enough to get your legs up to grip the tree with the soles of your feet. Your feet should be horizontal, gripping the width of the tree, rather than vertical, like in the front-foot technique.  Keep your knees bent and your hands in place. Support your body weight with your legs and arms. When you're in this crouched position with knees and arms bent, you'll look a lot like a frog, which is where the technique gets its name! Using your thighs and hips, extend your legs as if you were standing up. Keep your hips and chest close to the tree, and move your hands up the trunk, one at a time, as you straighten out your body. Always keep your grip on the tree with one hand as you let go with the other one. Supporting yourself with your arms, pull your body up and push off the trunk with your feet. As soon as you extend your legs, bring your knees up while gripping the tree with your hands. You will look sort of like a frog jumping! Grasp the tree again with your feet, squeezing the trunk as you support yourself.  Your hands, arms, and chest should work in tandem with one another, and your feet should stay close to the tree when you pull and hop. At this point, you may want to rest for a moment and catch your breath before your next hop! Once you are back in the crouching position, extend your legs again, bringing you higher up the tree's trunk. Move your hands up the trunk and grip it. Then pull and hop. Climb the tree slowly, taking your time and focusing on each new movement. Lower your hands, one by one, as if you were climbing down a ladder. As you descend, slide your feet carefully down the bark, never losing contact with the trunk. Unless you have really tough soles, the bottoms of your feet are going to get a bit roughed up as you do this! Your descent should be made in slow, sequential movements and done carefully, especially when you are high up in the tree.

Summary: Inspect the tree closely. Place your hands on the sides of the tree. Jump onto the tree, placing the soles of your feet on either side of it. Grip the trunk with your feet and push yourself up with your legs. Pull up with your arms and slide your feet up quickly the trunk. Repeat these movements until you have climbed up the tree. Descend the tree slowly, one hand at a time.


Food and debris that fall in your car can provide favorable conditions for mold and mildew to begin growing. Regularly vacuuming and shaking off car floor mats can be a great way to prevent mildew growth. Moisture nurtures mildew which is the cause of musty odors. It is important to maintain a dry atmosphere in the automobile.  Wipe up any spill immediately. Remove wet floor mats and allow them to air dry before returning to the car. Allow the automobile to replenish stagnant air with fresh air by leaving the windows down. In the case of flooding or major spills where the carpet has been saturated, be sure to address the problem right away to prevent mildew growth. The carpet needs to be cleaned, deodorized and dried completely. Consider a professional cleaning for major saturation. Mildew and mold odors will return if there is poor air quality. It is important to have moisture control, proper ventilation, and make sure contaminated air is removed.  Roll your car windows down occasionally to allow new air to flow in. Keep up with annual A/C maintenance.

Summary: Keep the inside of the automobile clean. Keep the interior dry. Keep rugs and carpets dry. Improve the air quality inside the automobile.


Maybe you want to be a writer, because you imagine being featured by Oprah and traveling the world to promote your book on a big publisher's dime. But these are ideals and have little to do with the reality of writing a book. Writing a book is very hard work, and it doesn't end there. Then comes editing, finding a publisher (probably not a big publishing house if you are unknown), and then tirelessly promoting your book using your own money. This is not to discourage you, but to make it clear that you need to be motivated by more than ideals. You need to be passionate about your dream, passionate enough to grit your teeth and push through the hard times, to keep going even when harsh realities hit. Find your passion and analyze whether or not you think that you can achieve it.  Try writing your goals down. Which one is the most important to you? Which do you feel most excited or passionate about? Be specific. Saying, “I want to teach” is not very specific. You need to have a goal that is detailed, measurable, and allows you to properly plan. A better goal is, “By 2025 I want to be a professor in English and teach at a college.” Think about what skills you might need to accomplish this goal. If you are terrified of public speaking, you will need to work on feeling at-ease speaking in front of large groups of people. Know that this is a skill you will need to work on to achieve your dream. One way to discover your passion and what you really want your life to look like is to visualize your ideal life. Close your eyes and picture your life, or write it on a piece of paper. Try asking yourself questions like:  What are you doing for a career? Where are you living? Who is with you? What do you look like? What are you wearing? How do you feel? (Happy? Fulfilled?) You can even try writing out your ideal day, start to finish, starting with what time you wake up. This can give you even more clues about the life you want. Consider how your goal fits into a long-term vision for your life. This should help you to further refine your ambitions. For example, how do you want to live in the future? What kind of work do you want to do? How do you want to spend your time? Take all of these things into account.  Let your vision shape your long-term goals. There are a lot of different kinds of colleges, for example. What kind is best suited for you? A big university? A community college? A private, liberal arts school? Weigh advantages and disadvantages. Say that you really don't like big environments; you're more of a small-town girl. Teaching at a private school in a college town would make you feel more comfortable and at home. Maybe you discovered that your ideal day starts with you waking up at 10am. What sort of lifestyle would allow you to do that? Does that fit with your plan to become a teacher? Could you potentially hold all your lectures in the afternoon? A long-term goal can seem impossibly far away or hard to reach, especially if it requires years of work. Many people give up simply because it takes too long or seems too difficult. You need a plan. For starters, break up the task into parts. This will let you focus on each part one at a time, giving you more manageable goals to work towards. To become a professor, you know that you'll have to do a bachelor's degree and then go to graduate school. What other stages will there be? How long will the whole process take? Find out. You will need a plan for each and every smaller stage in your long-term goal. Don't worry that you have to formulate these plans now, all at once. Some will come later. The important thing is that you are organized, know what has to be done, and see how your daily or weekly tasks fit into the larger picture. You see a long road ahead of you in becoming a professor. Break it into smaller parts and plan! Your map might look something like this: Get bachelor's degree in English (4 years); Apply to graduate programs (0-1 years); Do a Master's degree in English literature (2 years); Apply for Ph.D. programs (0-1 years); Do a Ph.D. (3-5 years); Apply widely for teaching jobs.
Summary: Discover your passion. Imagine your ideal life. Create a long-term vision. Break the vision into stages. Create plans for each stage.