Are You Well?

Wellness refers to the condition of good physical and mental health, especially when maintained by proper diet, exercise, and habits.  Nutrition refers to the nurturing of our body, in our ability to keep it healthy and functioning as it is supposed to do.  Our ability to provide the body with all the necessary food, vitamins, and minerals so that we continue to thrive in our daily life processes.  But do we know if we are really well? 

The first place to start would be with the examination of your eating habits.  Since we are a product of what we eat, if our eating habits are unhealthy, or do not provide for the nutrition we need, we’re not going to be healthy individuals at the end of the process.
Do you take in more calories than your body needs?  Are you supplementing your vitamins and minerals to make sure you are getting your recommended daily allowances?  If you’re not making the most basic of efforts to take care of your nutritional needs, you aren’t a well individual.  You may not look sick, you may not have any noticeable symptoms of ill-health, but you’re not the well individual you could be.

Next, you might want to look at your exercise habits, if there are any.  If there aren’t any exercise routines to examine, no wellness.  Everyone, no matter what their age, benefits from exercise.  It keeps our bodies conditioned, our mental sharpness working at top speed, and thanks to the physical aspect, we get a boost to our cardio health, extra calorie burn, and more oxygen to those cells!
What about the stress levels in your life?  Do work in an environment with high levels of stress?  Is your personal life a source of comfort or does it add to your stress levels?  Do you engage in some form of stress-relieving activity?  Stress is the number on contributor to heart attacks and strokes, since they manage to speed up the affect of the real culprits.  Stress is basically an out of control situation for most adults today.  We manage to schedule every moment of our free time, and leave ourselves with no time for quiet reflection, or time to deal with life’s unexpected emergencies.

Stress brings us to the next two topics of health abuse.  Smoking and drinking are often used to offset the effect that stress has on our nervous system.  These solutions however do not provide any real help.  If you smoke, drink, or lose sleep to excess, you’re not the well individual you could be.  Smoking, drinking, and loss of sleep work to our detriment, and it takes extreme discipline to stop.  Smoking fills our body with carcinogens, and works to keep us tired and lethargic. 


There are so many occasions to stop and question our efforts at maintaining optimal health, that we usually don’t even take the time to begin the examination. But it is beneficial to our overall health, the quality and quantity of our life, to make every effort to be well, healthy, individuals.  

The Cave Paintings of Trois Freres

In the depth of winter my thoughts focus on travel and the adventure of finding unique areas to explore. Helpless romantics dream of traveling to France for a number of reasons. The country is quite well-known for its romantic places and atmosphere. But did you know that there's more to see in France aside from the lovely romantic places? Yes, that's true and one is the cave paintings of Trois Freres. Les Trois Freres is located in the Commune of Montesquieu-Avantes, Ariege department, in the Midi-Pyrenees region of southwestern France.

Not all individuals appreciate paintings. Oftentimes, it depends on the person's taste and interests. If you're interested in cave paintings, you can also find some of them in France. Trois Freres shows fascinating images about the people of prehistoric times. Visiting the cave is like exploring the world many years ago. You can learn a lot from the paintings, but only if you appreciate them.

Though people lived primitively thousands of years ago, they seem to know quite a lot. They knew about the different patterns and seasons of life. The seasonal variations and their food supplies are the determining factors between living or dying. The cave paintings in France show this great knowledge about the ancestors of the French people.

Translated in English, Trois Freres means Three Brothers. The paintings on the cave show indistinct images of animals and certain figures which experts believe to be a shaman. Trois Freres attracted international attention because of the depictions in the cave. The paintings are found in the far corners of the cave and so you have to go deeper to be able to get a good glimpse of such a work of art.

The paintings have a graphical nature and was skillfully drawn. You can easily make out the figures to be beasts and cattle surrounding a high figure that reaches the cave roof. This central figure is about 70 cm or 2 1/2 ft tall and appears to be half human and half animal. The figure has deer antlers and wears a mask with an eye of an owl. Below the mask is a beard and the hands are hidden within bear paws or lion paws. The back of the figure can be compared to that of a certain animal and somehow it appears that the figure is wearing an animal skin of some sort.  The figure has an erect penis covered by a fox tail.

Experts called the figure 'Animal Master' and if you want to see the picture of the cave painting, you can go to France or you can search the net and simply type the words 'Trois Freres'. Find a link that will show you the painting itself. You can use any of the popular search engines in order to get a glimpse of the cave painting.

If you try to conduct a research on the net, you can read many speculations and comments about the cave painting. The painting is like the sketchpad of the prehistoric people. Animals or beasts were drawn on top of one another. Experts believed that the paintings are more than 14,000 years old or even longer.

Today, painters and other artists treat art as a process. It is the expression, recording, and reflection of the divine or inner nature of the artist. But did the primitive artists view art in the same way? Perhaps there's more to their drawings that what modern experts and artists can understand.

You can find other cave paintings in Asia and in Europe. To better understand the paintings, just allow your imagination to take over.

Travelling this spring?

Thinking of travelling this spring, consider England as a trip destination. When you are in England why not take a guided tour. Most guided tours of England focus on London and yet miss the beautiful and historic places you can go in the rest of England.  It’s a lovely country with lots of history and places in which you can truly have an adventure.

A favorite place for many guided tours of England is Stratford upon Avon.  Located on the Avon River, it was the birthplace of both William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway.  You may be able to stay in hotels that date back to the time of William Shakespeare, see his place of death and surrounding gardens and the Anne Hathaway House.

Guided tours of Stratford upon Avon will take you to Trinity Church where both William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway were buried and you can see the lovely Hathaway Cottage—a must-see on most guided tours.  In addition, Shakespeare’s birthplace has been turned into a showplace of period furniture that takes you back to the time of his birth in a delightful little museum.

You may also wish to travel to Warwick Castle—another must-see destination on many guided tours.  It is perhaps one of the best preserved old castles in all of England.  Located along the Avon River, your tour guide will tell you that the original castle was built around the year 900 AD. Gradually, parts of the castle were added onto and fortified until it became the huge and sprawling castle you can see today.

Guided tours of Warwick Castle are available to groups and include the dungeons, the high buttresses, and rooms from various eras, including the Victorian Era.  One of the special features of this castle is that it has been outfitted with wax figuresmade from Madame Tussaud’s galleries.  There is an entire section of ornately decorated Victorian period rooms, complete with wax figures.

Often, guided tours will allow you beyond the castle walls and out into the massive gardens and conservatory, where visitors can have lunch and enjoy the beauty of the gardens.  If the weather is right, you will be able to walk among real peacocks strutting through the gardens.  All in all, it is a day worth remembering.

Guided tours that partake of the southern part of England will take you to the famous Stonehenge, built more than two millennia ago and a favorite tourist attraction.  Those who come during the summer or winter solstice should expect that there will be a crowd there at the crack of first daylight.

Fun guided tours of England will take you to Oxford, home of the famous Oxford University and to Christ Church, where some aspects of the Harry Potter movies were filmed, including the scenes in the great hall.  In fact, you can take an entire Harry Potter guided tour that will guide you to as many places as possible that were included in the filming of the movie.

After rolling past the many castle ruins, fabulous gardens and quaint British homes on one of the guided tours of England, you may forget all about London itself.  If not, extend your tour into the big city of London—a city that often offers  guided tours involving just those wondrous things you’ll find right there.  Take your time and enjoy all that England has to offer.  .

Facts About Credit Scores

If you are considering managing your debt, then one of the first things you will want to do is to know your credit score. To people who are not familiar with the term credit score, they often assume that this is the score that we get in our credit cards for the number of purchases that we have made every year. But nothing is further from the truth. Credit scores are actually the grade that you get depending on how reliable a person is in paying their debts and credits.

Credit scores are determined by a lot of factors, how much your outstanding debts is, how regular do you pay for it, how much you spend and how much you earn. It will also be determined by your past credits and how were you as a borrower. These are all being gathered and recorded by credit bureaus and credit reference agencies like Equifax, TransUnion and Experian.

So, if you think, you are the only one who knows that you owe a credit card company a big amount, think again because they do keep records and what is more, all the credit transactions that we get are being filed for future reference of every credit and financial institution in the country.

Credit scores is important because it can mean being accepted or rejected for a loan. With a really bad credit score, you may not be able to get a house loan, a car loan, a school loan and even a credit card. In short, with a bad credit history, your days of borrowing money is history. As an added salt to the injury, it is not only credit card companies, lending companies and banks that do get information from the credit scores.

Even private companies and government agencies use this to background check a current employee or a potential employee. You see, a credit score will determine a person’s financial savvy and sense of responsibility. This will also show just how much a person is willing to face up to a problem instead of running away from it.

This is especially true with employees that are being hired or were hired to assume posts that deal with really sensitive financial issues or those who are directly in contact with money. A credit history and a credit score are important in determining if they will be able to handle the finances well.

Mobile phone companies and credit card companies also use credit scores to determine the clients that they should target. People who have good credit scores are often those who have the spending power. Thus, they are good people to offer mobile phone packages and credit card services.  

In securing a loan, credit scores are also used in determining the kind of loan that will fit your credit profile. People who have high credit score are given higher amounts in loan, lower interest and longer time frame in which to pay the loan.

In contrast, people who do not have a good credit score may be refused a loan or at the very least be given a small amount in loan, much higher interest and shorter time frame to pay the loan. This is because credit card companies and lender also want to protect their interest. Low credit scores are more riskier and therefore warrant higher interest rates.