"Before I Die" walls

In November 2013 Candy Chang published a book called, Before I Die. In 2001, Ms. Chang painted the wall of an abandoned New Orleans house with blackboard paint, stenciled the words, “Before I die I want to _____” and left some chalk on the sidewalk for people to write their responses. The book is a collection of responses from around the world. More back story and some of the responses are on her website, beforeidie.cc. You may find some of them interesting and useful.

Too late for Valentine's Day

Sifting through 12 days of newspaper links after coming home from Thailand, I found an interesting article on gift giving in a relationship. When Love Outgrows Gifts explains that gifts, defined as "an offering where you incur a cost but receive no direct or immediate benefit," play an important part in relationships but they do not have to be material gifts. You may find some useful information there if you're teaching about relationships of love languages.

"Ike and Mae Mosher, who have been married for 70 years, never established much of a traditional gift-giving ritual because they stretched their finances early in their relationship to support relatives."

Mary F. Calvert for The New York Times

Happy Old People

Happiness may come with age. If you've got a few grumpy old people around, you may find it hard to believe, but...