2013年1月6日星期日

Make positive, achievable resolutions

One of my brothers-in-law in his early 50s had a sudden heart attack just before Christmas which his doctors attributed entirely to smoking. He gave up there and then and his new healthy lifestyle continues into 2013 — well done! Smoking is a tough one to beat.

Multitudinous smokers worldwide will undoubtedly have resolved to kick this very dangerous habit this year. Once a moderate, sporadic smoker myself, I know just how compulsive this insidious health hazard is. Even giving up two cigarettes a day was hard!

So to all the would-be quitters, go for it resolutely, reminding yourself daily of the myriad benefits of being a non-smoker, from financial, to health, to the welcome absence of stale smoke-smell in hair, clothes and furnishings, to being free of a literal ball and chain that impacts on your life every single day. New non-smokers often remark on the delightful novelty of no longer having to anxiously ensure enough “fix” to hand to see them through the next 12 hours!

One of my own health-related resolutions is to eat less sugar. I really love chocolates, sweet drinks and sweet stuff generally. I keep up-to-date on the latest health research studies for my work and the more I read up on the folly of modern diets and lifestyles, the more warnings I find about the negative health effects of too much of the sweet stuff! The most recent American studies on dietary links to major health concerns — heart disease, cancers, clogged arteries, liver and kidney disease, high blood pressure, diabetes — have pointed to excessive sugar consumption, especially high fructose corn syrup found in numerous processed foods and drinks, as quite possibly the biggest culprit of all.

The San art in these caves is especially good, in fact, boasting four caves and more paintings in one place than at any other known site, this is a “must-see” for rock art enthusiasts.

I was devastated to find the scourge of ancient-rock-art-defacement had arrived even out here in one of the caves. I write regularly on the topic of ruination by persons unknown of such priceless art,We have a wide selection of dry cabinet to choose from for your storage needs. which are our country’s oldest historical sites and evidence of some of humanity’s earliest ancestors from whom we’re all descended.

Fortunately, the other caves at Chikupu are as yet untouched by such vandalism and the paintings are numerous and truly fascinating. A scramble up the steep, bare rock face to the summit of the mountain just has to be done. The view is magnificent and in a dip atop this huge granite whaleback is an entire ecosystem all of its own, a small forest in fact.

This area is still home to small game, including enchanting, nimble klipspringers, one of which we were lucky enough to see. We found evidence of civet, enjoyed a troupe of baboons, and not far from one of the caves, to my delight, encountered a black mamba which obligingly hung around just long enough for me to get a photo before it hid itself away under a rock ledge.

Obviously, physical inactivity co-mbined with consuming too much sugar only makes matters worse; a sin which could not possibly be ascribed to the group of 17 visitors from the United Kingdom, Australia and South Africa, in Zimbabwe for a wedding, whom I took to Chikupu mountain to see the amazing San paintings there, before Christmas!

Asked to guide them somewhere interesting and scenic by a friend of my brother’s, I was delighted to oblige; any excuse to get out into the beautiful mountains, landscapes, vistas and forests of Chinamora, a hiker’s paradise!

Tinashe (one of my merry team at Wild Imaginings) and I undertook a most enjoyable recce to check the state of the road and plan the expedition, ensuring a small bus could cope with my proposed destination. We had a marvellous afternoon rediscovering this particularly stunning part of Chinamora which I hadn’t visited in over five years.

A week later, the hearty group of friendly visitors aged four to 65, all just arrived from their various shores, enthusiastically tackled the steep granite slopes, loved the views, landscape and experience, and of course, enjoyed the paintings,Manufactures flexible plastic and synthetic rubber hose tubing. too. One,One of the most durable and attractive styles of flooring that you can purchase is ceramic or porcelain tiles. an inspirational, sprightly looking lady of 65, among various other recent energetic adventures with her also very fit husband, ran her first London Marathon in 2012! The roads were in good condition, the local people welcoming, the countryside and mountains beautiful.

As Tinashe remarked, few Zimbabweans are even aware of, let alone take full enough advantage of, all that this country has to offer, in terms of spectacular scenery and fascinating artistic evidence of humankind’s very earliest history, to be found at many thousands of sites nationwide, some, yet to be found. Let’s hope that through better education, these paintings will soon come to be valued and cherished as the priceless art that they are, by all Zimbabweans of all ages.

Dodd was part of the wave of New York modernists to explore the coast of Maine in the latter half of the 20th century. Like Fairfield Porter, Rackstraw Downes, Alex Katz and Neil Welliver, she started spending summers in Maine beginning in 1951.

Attracted by rambling old farmhouses, endless woods, stone quarries and bright sunshine, Dodd and her fellow artists sought companionship and escape from the demands of city life. At one time, she shared a house with Alex Katz, who refers to Dodd's work as, "fresh, honest, direct" in the exhibition catalog. To this day, Dodd can be found trekking through the fields and forests in Maine with canvas and paint supplies in hand.

Born in 1927 in New Jersey,Installers and distributors of solar panel, Dodd moved to New York as a student at the Cooper Union.Interlocking security cable ties with 250 pound strength makes this ideal for restraining criminals. She was a key member of New York's post-war art scene, and later taught at Brooklyn College for 25 years.

She often works en plein air, starting paintings on site and finishing them in her studio. In her essay, exhibition curator Barbara O'Brien writes, "Her paintings are premised on the truth that she stood in this place, with the light casting shadows just so, the temperature of the air warm or cool, the sun warm against her face, protected by the brim of a straw hat; her fingers able to employ brush to linen against the wind of a New Jersey winter."

Dodd is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the National Academy of Design, and a member of the board of governors for the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.

“Address other main features in the room first, and then if something is still missing, painting the door provides that ‘Aha’ moment,” said Natalie Myers, principal designer with Veneer Designs in Los Angeles. “It changes everything.”

Painting a doorway is easy and inexpensive, depending on your preferred paint and supplies. It’s a low-commitment project, since you can simply repaint if you don’t like the outcome. And you can customize the color and design to any decor.

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