When I was eight, I saw a movie about an island that had an erupting volcano and jungles filled with wild animals. The island was ruled by a beautiful woman called Tondalaya, the Fire Goddess of the Volcano. It was a low-budget(小成本) movie, but to me, it represented the perfect life. But through the years, Tondalaya was forgotten.

    The week I turned 50, my marriage came to a sudden end. My house, furniture and everything I'd owned was sold to pay debts that I didn't even know existed. In a week I had lost my husband, my home and my parents who had refused to accept a divorce (离婚) in the family. I'd lost everything except my four teenage children. I used every penny I had to buy five plane tickets from Missouri to Hawaii. Everyone said I was crazy to think I could just run off to an island and survive. I was afraid they were right.

    I worked 18 hours a day and lost 30 pounds because I lived on one meal a day. One night as I walked alone on the beach, I saw the red orange lava (火山岩) pouring out of Kilauea Volcano in the distance. It was time to live my imagination!

    The next day, I quit my job, bought some art supplies and began doing what I loved. I hadn't painted a picture in 15 years. I wondered if I could still paint. My hands trembled the first time I picked up a brush. But before an hour had passed, I was lost in the colors spreading across the canvas (画布) in front of me. And as soon as I started believing in myself, other people started believing in me, too. The first painting sold for $1,500.

    The past six years have been filled with adventures. My children and I have gone swimming with dolphins, watched whales and hiked around the crater rim (火山口边缘) of the volcano. We wake up every morning with the ocean in front of us and the volcano behind us. The dream I had more than 40 years is now reality. I'm living freely and happily ever after.

    Are you a social media addict? Are you always checking your smart phone to see how many "likes" you've received for your latest post? Maybe you feel comforted by the sound that someone has sent you a message?

    Don't worry, you're not alone. We check our phones an average of 150 times a day, and around 30% of the total time spent online is devoted to social media. Some experts now fear this habit could be damaging our mental health.

    This is something particularly bothering young adults, according to a study from the University of Pittsburgh. It found the more they used social media, the more likely they were to be depressed. In tests, those people who checked social media frequently were 2.7 times more likely to be depressed compared to those who spent most of their time generally surfing the Internet, who had just 1.7 times the risk.

    Some of us certainly feel sad when we're ignored on social media sites, or when we see someone else having a better time than us. But depression is a more serious condition and clinical psychologist, Abigael San, recently told the BBC that ,"It's a real issue, and it's been getting significantly worse over the last 5﹣6 years. You can get so hooked that it takes you away from your real relationships. "However, Abigael does admit that social media is more likely to worsen pre﹣existing issues than directly cause them.

    Other research by the University of Glasgow found that teenagers are affected by the 24﹣hour demands of their social media accounts. It found that those with higher levels of emotional investment in social media, and who use it at night, were more likely to feel depressed and anxious.

    Despite these warning signs, why do some of us continue to keep clicking? Well, I suppose we all want to be liked and we don't want to miss out on a conversation that's taking place online. But we need to know when to switch off our virtual online world and connect with the real world instead.

    Polish President Andrzej Duda has signed a bill into law that largely limits trade on Sundays, saying it will benefit family life.

    The legislation（立法）, worked out by the government and the Polish trade union, is expected to draw protests from large western supermarket chains that are the main target of the law. A large part of their profit is earned on weekends.

    As of March 1, shops and markets are closed on two Sundays per month; in 2019 only one Sunday a month will be open for shopping; and starting in 2020, there will be no Sunday shopping with a few exceptions.

    Duda praised the law as giving children a chance to be with parents and giving shop workers some needed time off. He also said big traders will need to adjust their practices to the new system and asked them for "understanding". But critics say some of them make employees work long hours for modest pay.

    "A family should be together on Sundays," Olszewska said after buying some food at a local Biedronka, a large discount supermarket chain. She said that before she retired she served cold cuts in a grocery store, and was grateful she never had to work on Sundays.

    There are some exceptions to the ban. For instance, gas stations, cafes, pharmacies and some other businesses are allowed to keep operating on Sundays.

    Anyone breaking the new rules faces a fine of up to 100,000 zlotys （$ 29,500）, while repeat offenders may face a prison sentence. Polish trade union appealed to people to report any violators to the National Labor Inspectorate, a state body.

    Welcome to SummerCamps.com; find and book the very best summer camps. Your children are precious so we offer the highest quality of camps that will meet each child's needs and interests.

    Catalina Sea Camp

    Sea Camp offers three one-week sessions to boys and girls aged 8-13 and two three-week sessions to teens aged 12-17. Our hand-picked instructors create an atmosphere of fun and excitement while leading campers to a host of ocean adventures, marine(海洋的) biology, and social summer camp activities.

    Address: Toyon Way, San Bruno, California 94066

    Phone: 800-645-1423

    Camp Cayuga

    Camp Cayuga is a private summer camp for children aged 6 to 16. The camp is on a 350-acre land in the Pocono Mountains of Northeast Pennsylvania, just outside the village of Honesdale. It's a 3-hour drive from New York City and Philadelphia.

    Address: 321 Niles Pond Road-Suite ISC, Honesdale, Pennsylvania 18431

    Phone: 908-470-1224

    Camp Rockmont

    Camp Rockmont is a Christian summer camp for boys, aged 6-16, in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Rockmont's duty of developing boys into healthy young men is accomplished through age-appropriate skills, activities, and challenges that help campers to know themselves better.

    Address: 375 Lake Eden Road, Black Mountain, North Carolina 28711

    Phone: 828-686-3885

    Primitive Pursuits Overnight Camps

    Primitive Pursuits Overnight Camps offer week-long Summer Adventure Overnight Camps in New York's Finger Lakes to your children aged 11-15. Campers experience a week of nature-based skills training, inspiring challenges, and fun activities under the guidance of skilled instructors.

    Address: 611 County Rd 13, Van Etten, New York 14889

    Phone: 607-272-2292

    Finding a suitable name for a baby is a big deal in China. When picking out a Chinese name, parents usually select two or three characters that have a carefully thought out meaning, but when deciding on an English name, many of them struggle. That's where Jessup and her company, Special Name, come in. In the last few years, Jessup has helped name 677,900 Chinese babies, and earned over $400,000 in the process, more than enough to pay her college fees.

    Jessup came up with the idea for Special Name in 2015, after accompanying her father on a business trip to China. One of her dad's business partners, a Mrs. Wang, asked her to help choose an English name for her daughter. Jessup felt honored and quickly realized the importance of choosing a proper name in Chinese culture. The woman wanted people to be surprised by the things her daughter could achieve, so Jessup suggested the name "Eliza" after the character Eliza Doolittle from the play Pygmalion. Mrs. Wang seemed delighted with Jessup's choice. "If Mrs. Wang needed this service, maybe other parents would as well," Jessup thought.

    After returning to UK, Jessup borrowed ￡1,500 from her parents and paid a web designer to build a website, She then spent her free time filling up a database(数据库)with around 4,000 English names, associating them with five major personality characteristics, like honesty and optimism.

    In the beginning, Jessup offered the service for free to promote the website, but later, she started charging fees. The business is almost completely self-sufficient, requiring only a small team in China that manages technical operations. She updates the database each month, allowing her to focus full-time on studies.

My 13-year-old daughter sent a postcard to us while we were still away on our most recent trip to California. It 1 our house about a week later. The touching 2 nearly brought me to tears.

"Even though we 3 have two days of adventures ahead of us, I am just so 4 for everything we have experienced together on this trip," she writes.

Our youngest daughter is just about to 5 11 years old. In those years, we have never taken a true 6 as a family of four to a place we've never been. Like most 7 , I have no idea where the time has gone. But I also think these are some of the best ages to 8 with kids.

This vacation to California was our very first 9 , long-distance trip together. The kids helped 10 the trip with input on things they might like to see and do. They reached for our hands in crowds. I can't remember the last time they held our hands 11 .

One of our family bonding moments came when we took a family surfing lesson. It was the first time any of us had tried surfing, although it was something the girls had been 12 . The smiles on the girls' faces were everything. They were so 13 when they stood up on the board and rode the waves one by one.

Those are memories I'm going to 14 . And yes, I will remind them of these times the next time I reach for their 15 .