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I am a big fan of word games. I spend hours online playing Scrabulous, or offline playing Scrabble. I download demo versions of every word game going and have bought a few. I play Babble every morning (http://www.playbabble.com) which is an online version of Boggle.

I've recently gotten interested in doing crosswords again. In the past, I was a crossword puzzle fanatic. I went through books and books of crossword puzzles. There used to be a puzzle book of just difficult or "expert" crosswords, but I can't find that any more. Now I have a better way to do crosswords. Online. I signed up for the New York Times Crossword. It costs $40 a year to get the daily crossword. The New York Times crossword is a difficult one to solve. It starts off easy on Monday but by Friday it's hard for me to finish a puzzle. Your can print them out or download them to play in the program AcrossLite (http://www.litsoft.com/across /alite/download.htm). At this site you can compete against other people if you wish. I prefer to just work my way through the puzzles without a time limit. You can check it out at http://www.nytimes.com/pages/c rosswords. There is also a forum where you can show off.

There are lots of other crossword sites that are free:

Web Crosswords (http://www.webcrosswords.com) offers a free puzzle every day that you can complete online.

Thinks.com (http://thinks.com/daily_cross word.htm) has a daily crossword that you can complete online or print out.

Best Crosswords (http://www.bestcrosswords.com /bestcrosswords/Home.page) can be printed out or played from your browser.

In addition, many online newspapers offer a crossword. USA Today, Newsday and The Washington Post all offer crosswords that you can complete in your browser.

I find crosswords to be a great way to relax and to improve my mind in the process. The stresses of the day just melt away when I start working on a particularly difficult puzzle. And when I'm finished I feel a great sense of accomplishment and pride. Organizations such as the Alzheimer's Association suggest that crosswords are a great way to stay mentally active.

Learn more about this author, Susan Keeping.
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