HTML Tags: Try This at Home!

I found the coolest site for learning HTML tags: W3Schools. (You can look at the HTML source code for any website--including this one--by choosing "Source" or "Page Source" from the View Menu on your browser). The main site has tutorials for all kinds of stuff, like Java and Web Building. The HTML Tutorial is geared to total dummies like me, with introductory pages that explain basic terminology as if you know practically nothing, and a neat online HTML editor that allows you to monkey around with code and see display results almost instantaneously--right beside your code! I've learned how to code simple stuff like headings, paragraphs, line breaks, bold and italics, background color, horizontal lines. Now I'm moving on to hyperlinks, which will be great because they tend to give me the most trouble, and knowing code must surely help to resolve these problems. I learned how to code those nifty spelled-out versions of abbreviations and acronymns, which you can see if you scroll over the "HTML" in the first sentence of this post.

The New Regime: Health Matters

This weekend I turned my attention to addressing our family's various health concerns, such as warding off osteoporosis (a special concern for fine-boned women of Northern European ancestry whose grandmother had the disease), heart disease, and cancer, and helping Rachel deal with the physical demands of her crew season. I'm adding Capsicum and Bioflavinoids to our arsenal of Black Cohosh, Gingko Biloba, Hawthorn, Vitamins A,B,C,&D, Calcium, and Magnesium. Eschewing junk food, we're eating fresh fruit with raw seeds (including ground flax seed)and nuts every morning, and going for whole grains, protein and vegies for lunch and dinner, with a few protein snacks in between for Rachel. Power foods we're focusing on include beans, soy, and dark green vegies. Since caffeine and alcohol interfere with calcium metabolism, I've decided to limit both to weekends--because cutting them out entirely would be a real drag. Of course there's also lots of exercise on the agenda as well, but my outdoor walks have been curtailed by our icy weather. Rachel is teaching me new moves from her "Lean" class at the YMCA. I'm trying to visualize myself as a trim, active old lady with some remanent muscle mass, instead of a brittle old pretzel. Jim has never had a broken bone in his life. Rachel ran into a tree last Friday on a fast-moving sled without breaking any bones. Amazing!

The New Regime

Part of the New Regime: the ultra-healthy Vegetarian Food Pyramid, resting on a solid foundation of whole grains and fresh fruits and vegies. 

Power Housekeeping

After several weeks of intense housecleaning, de-cluttering, and re-organizing (Project House Beautiful, Rachel and I call it), the house looks and works infinitely better. But I still wonder, How do people keep their houses clean? My lifelong approach has been to let things go until they are so gross I can't stand it. Unfortunately, as my standards have become increasingly lower, so has my house become correspondingly dirtier. Because I can't resign myself to living in filth for the rest of my life, I'm developing a Systems Approach to housekeeping.

The problem is not an inability to order my house; the real problem is my inability to maintain that order. So the key is knowing our habits, and creating order around them. For example, why spend your life opening drawers to search for kitchen tools when you can hang them up right in front of your nose? I continue to make refinements on my kitchen, so that I can do various tasks without constantly opening cupboards and drawers or walking all over the room. The rest of the house has been more difficult, but we're making progress. My brother-in-law Dan tells me that Frank Lloyd Wright tried to design houses so that people could live in them. It's a similar approach.

"This degrading thirst after outrageous stimulation"

In his Preface to Lyrical Ballads (1802),a sort of Manifesto for the Romantic period, Wordsworth warned against the numbing effects of the fruits of the Industrial Revolution: "For a multitude of causes, unknown to former times, are now acting with a combined force to blunt the discriminating powers of the mind, and, unfitting it for all voluntary exertion, to reduce it to a state of almost savage torpor." How extraordinary that more than 200 years ago he was able to forecast our disconnect from Nature, and our modern obsession with things. In her inimitable ability to cast 19th century ideas in a contemporary light, Carolyn Hares-Stryker (my wonderful Brit Lit professor) observed that the reason people like cell phones is because the quiet spaces of their lives scare the hell out of them. Thanks to Wordsworth for redirecting us to those profoundly beautiful quiet spaces, without which a moral life, and a desire for a better world, is not possible.

"Let Them Eat Cake!"

This morning on NPR I heard that the Bush inauguration will cost 40 million dollars. The money is from corporations and private donors. Am I the only person who thinks it is obscene that we are spending so much money on Pomp and Circumstance when it could be used to alleviate the large scale human suffering that is going on in Southeast Asia? Bush and his wealthy cronies can sip champagne in the lap of luxury while millions struggle to rebuild their broken lives. Under the circumstances, how can they possibly enjoy themselves? It's shades of Marie Antoinette, being so far removed from the plight of the poor. Whatever happened to noblesse oblige, the concept that the wealthy and powerful have an obligation to be generous and honorable?

Tsunami Disaster Relief

Jim and I wanted to send a donation to help the tsunami victims in Southeast Asia. There are lots of wonderful charitable organizations contributing to the effort, but for the time being we decided on the International Red Cross (Make a donation). The ICRC is always on the front lines of every disaster, often in very dangerous situations. You can earmark your funds for a particular area (I chose Sri Lanka), or send checks to the American Red Cross (American Red Cross - Credit Card Contribution) if you aren't comfortable with online transactions.

The 49+ Club

Lizard Reunion
Originally uploaded by lynnikins.

Carolyn just sent me this photo of our mini-reunion (see my October post, Reunion at the Lizard for more details). We had such a great time. Okay, the photo is a little blurry, but that's just as well given all our wrinkles!