In a rut? Feeling blah and bored?  Go to a museum.

Feeling disconnected, stale, or just out of sorts?  Go to a museum.

Looking for some inspiration?  Need to shake out some mental cobwebs? 

Turn off the TV, get your butt out of that chair and YES, go to a museum!

Going to a museum is a real mood elevator.  It feels amazing  to learn something so totally new. A few hours in a museum will unblock your mind, adds perspective, put petty things in their place and give you new ways to think about things. Really.

You will feel like a better, smarter and more vibrant you.

And if all this wasn’t enough,  admission, even membership are really quite the bargain. Here’s a sampling of current local exhibits:

Through 9/9,  Hudson River Museum  in Yonkers is featuring Westchester Women and War: Portraits and The Gilded Age of Magic. Friday nights are free through the summer, and there are magic shows the next few Sundays. Year-round they have great kids’ programs, and there is always the opportunity to have a sweetly romantic romantic date night at one of their Planetarium shows (Really, it’s a lot of fun).

In additions to their ongoing sculpture exhibits on the grounds, in this Year of the Dragon, The Katohan Museum of Art is immersing its visitors in Asian culture: Contemporary Photography, colorful Grace Lin picture books, and familiar text (Robert Frost, Bob Dylan)  in Xu Bing’s Square Calligraphy-a created hybrid written art that looks like traditional  Chines characters, but are readable as English. Hard to explain, you have to see it…and when you do, look to say hello to eldest nephew Robert who is interning there this summer!

The Aldrich Contemporary Art Musuem of Ridgefield CT is doing a lot of re-tooling, and opening July 15th is an ambitious exhibit called United States-a dozen artists’ views on social, cultural and political divides.

This is one of my favorite museums…it is not big, and not as kid-friendly as others, but their exhibits are pointed, thought-provoking, and IMO very well done, can’t wait to see this one.

So-if  local, kid-friendly, free parking, cool gift shops and rejuvenating your creative, thoughtful self wasn’t enough, there’s FWMA…the Fairfield Westchester Museum Alliance.  Be a member of one of eight local museums (Barnum, Bruce, Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, Neuberger,  and Wave Hill round out the alliance) you get deals including free admissions and discounts at the others. Really unbeatable, click here  for details. You’ll like it a lot!