Antwerp has had a long reputation as one of the world\’s great diamond markets, but in recent years, this Belgian city, just 45 minutes from the capital of Brussels, has become something of a gem itself. Once home to artists Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony Van Dyck, Antwerp has now become a center of fashion […]

Real love and real romance, the kind that lasts a lifetime, that\’s what most people want. So why does dating have a bad rap? And why do more than half of all marriages end up in divorce? The answer\’s pretty clear when you look at what most people settle for, or worse yet, put up […]

Menopause is a point in a woman\’s life when she stops menstruating for a full year and this can be overwrought with many symptoms, some bearable and some discomforting. Menopause symptoms like mood swings, loss of libido, extreme fatigue, hot flashes and weight gain are a cause of concern for most women. However, less common […]

…by Suzanne Falter Barnes 1. Stack the facts up front. Begin with your most impressive facts. “Mary Louise Green is a nationally known painter whose work has appeared in numerous major gallery exhibits.” (Mary Louise has, in fact, only shown in four galleries, but they were in different parts of the US, so that counts […]

…by Prill Boyle We are born to dream. Think about it. Where would we be, who would we be, without our dreams? Most of the great inventions of the world, much of the forward movement of human civilization, have been fueled by dreams. So it should come as no surprise that for many of us, […]

In the late 17th century, Lord Chesterfield, an English writer and politician, wrote to his son, “Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well.” Three hundred years later, we still heed this advice from the fourth Earl of Chesterfield. Yet doing it well doesn\’t mean doing it perfectly. The 21st century workplace requires […]

Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them. – Psalm 139:16 esv I can finally see my lawn with bright green shoots of new grass sprouting all over the place. We\’ve had so […]

As you know from last month\’s column, talking with an aging loved one about thorny topics can be fraught with snags and pitfalls! So thorny, in fact, that many family members will either never try . . . until there\’s a crisis. Or they will try and fail and drop the subject . . . […]

Since the last two medical columns were about heart disease and the risk factors for it, Janet and I decided that it made sense to talk about those individual risk factors in detail. I\’ll begin with high blood pressure, also known as hypertension. This is another of those health problems which most often has no […]

Since the last two medical columns were about heart disease and the risk factors for it, Janet and I decided that it made sense to talk about those individual risk factors in detail. I\’ll begin with high blood pressure, also known as hypertension. This is another of those health problems which most often has no […]