On the eve of our daughters' weddings, I gave both of them what Iconsidered to be excellent marital advice: never leave your husband unsupervised(无人监督的) with pruning shears (修枝剪).

If only I had taken my own advice. I recently let my guard down. Thirty-some years of marriage can do that toa woman. Give a man pruning shears and electric trimmers (电动修剪器) and he will givenew meaning to “armed and dangerous.”

One day earlier this year, my husband saidthat the crab apple tree was dead.

“Why do you think it is dead?” I asked.

“Look at it. There's not a leaf on it.”

“There's not a leaf on anything. It'sMarch,” I said.

“It looked sick last fall and with thisbitter winter we had, I'm convinced it's dead.”

The truth is he's never liked thecrabapple. Sure, it has beautiful blooms in the spring, but then it gets adisease, the leaves curl, and it drops those little apples that sit on thedriveway.

Each passing week he pronounced the treedead. Eventually I began to believe him. Though he agreed it would be aregrettable loss, there was a twinkle in his eye. He armed himself a couple ofweeks ago and began trimming. A branch here, a branch there, a small limb, thena large limb. I watched and then decided to check the wood on some of thebranches closer to the trunk. I broke one off and saw green.

The crabapple was not dead. It just hadn'thad time to leaf out. The tree was now falling to one side, but it was notdead. I would have told him so, but he had moved on to a maple. Once the manstarts, he can't stop. One trim leads to another.

“Please, stop!” I called.

He smiled and nodded, but he couldn't hearbecause he had started the hedge (树篱) trimmers and was getting ready to fix a line of hedges.

Zip (飕飕声), zip, zip.

“What do you think?” he shouted.

“It's supposed to be a privacy hedge; nowall that will be private are our ankles.”

He started the trimmers again.

“Stop!” I called, “Come back!”

“Why?” he shouted.

“You're in the neighbor's yard.”

    Night of the Living Zoo

    When: October 30th, 2016, 18:30-22:00

    Where: Lower Zoo

    Cost:

    Tickets now are on sale to FONZ (Friends of the National Zoo) members only! Not a member? Join now to get tickets at the member rate. FONZ members may purchase up to six tickets at the member price. Non-member tickets go on sale September 25th.

    General Admission: Includes live music, performance artists -including fortune tellers, fire breathers, as well as access to animal exhibits after hours, and interesting outdoor games. Also, all guests will receive free bottled water.

$ 20 FONZ members; $ 30 non-members.

    VIP Tickets: Include access to the VIP area, animal performances and private games, etc.

    $ 55 FONZ members; $ 80 non-members

    Details:

    It's back. Prepare to witness dangerous acts and amazing sights at the Zoo's annual Halloween event, Night of the Living Zoo. With live music, performance artists, and games, it's a special night of fun that you won't want to miss.

    FONZ encourages you to take public transportation and drink responsibly.

    Metro (地铁): The Zoo's Connecticut Avenue entrance is between the Red Line's Cleveland Park and Woodley Park Metro stops.

    Uber is Night of the Living Zoo's transportation partner this year! New to Uber? Sign up for $ 20 off your first ride (new users only).

    Parking: Parking at the event will be $ 22.

    I remember the day when I first learned to ride a bike. It was a frightening, yet fun experience. My granddad was the one who taught me, and he helped me when I got hurt. The first time I got on a bike, I had no idea what I was doing, and just about everything went wrong. My granddad told me to just put my feet on the pedals and start, pedaling(骑自行车). He also told me he would hold onto the back of the bike the whole time, yet he didn't.

    As soon as I started trying to balance myself, he let go. I happened to look back just then.  I was scared to death that I was going to fall and hurt myself. When I was scared, my mind went blank from pedaling, and I just wanted off. I forgot how to use the brakes(车闸) and fell right off the bike. My granddad kept encouraging me to get up and try again, and after about 15 minutes, I finally stopped crying, got up and tried again.

    As soon as I started pedaling again, my pants got caught in the chain, and I fell flat on my face and hit my nose. Since that happened, my granddad decided to call it a day and try again the next morning. The next morning I woke up bright and early, and was very eager to try to ride my bike. My nose felt better, so I wasn't that afraid of falling anymore.

    Though I knew there were a lot of difficulties on the way to mastering the skills in riding a bike, l believed I could do well with my granddad's help. After all, riding a bike was what I wanted to do eagerly.

    In the past five years, Instagram has taken off faster than anyone would have ever expected. It has become more than just a social media platform; it has become a community. With this community of over 800 million people, there are two distinct sides when it comes to diet culture and weight-loss programs. These two sides are body positivity and body manipulation(操纵）

    I have run a food and lifestyle blog/Instagram for over two years, and I have experienced both of these sides shown through Instagram. I have followed accounts (账户) that have been about strictly counting their calories, and have looked at other people carefully for their food habits

    On the other side of this, the only accounts that I'll follow now are people who support intuitive eating, never calorie counting, and make sure to remind people that their weight is the least interesting thing. They try to remind people that food is fuel, rather than something that will make them lose or gain weight. This side of

    Instagram is what helps people suffering from eating disorders, rather than fueling them.

    The rise of Instagram also led to the rise of what we called" Instagram models. These people have a lot of fans and a very pleasant page on Instagram. Basically, this isn't a bad thing. Humans are attracted to attractive people. Where this does go wrong is when weight-loss programs, weight-loss products, and other people supporting different types of diets get in touch with these people and offer them pay to get their message across.

    We also run into issues with how the public thinks of and admires these people for only their bodies. Not only is it bad for the self-respect of the people viewing the account, but also for the mental health of the person running the Instagram account.

    The people that promote these products are usually attractive, with what we would consider "the perfect body and the products are almost always diet related in some way, which makes consumers believe that in order to reach this ideal body they must use this product.

    Mobile technology has created new ways for all types of learning styles to help discover new information. If you want to teach yourself things, here are some apps that will help you.

    Coursera

    Perhaps one of the biggest advancements in the history of e﹣learning, Coursera has teamed up with top school like Duke, Stanford, and John Hopkins to bring you direct access to real college courses in psychology, computer science, business, and technology. Each course features pre﹣recorded videos, projects, and quizzes, just like you'd receive inside the classroom.

    Lumosity

    This app features three﹣day sessions that target many different areas of brain activity：memory, speed, problem solving, and thinking flexibility. Each day you can participate in a timed session to sharpen mental intelligence and keep track of your progress over time.

    Duolingo

    If you've ever wanted to learn a new language but didn't know where to start or couldn't afford expensive apps, you need to check out Duolingo. This app teaches more than a dozen languages by breaking up exercises into mini games. The developer of Duolingo claims that 34 hours of learning in this app equals a full term's worth of school.

    EarthViewer

    Ever wonder what Earth looked like a million years ago？There's no better way to know than to look for yourself. Earth Viewer takes you on a digital journey to see how the landscape（地貌） and face of the planet has developed over the past 4.5 billion years, and view climate changes, sea level adjustments, or the evolution of famous cities.

    Free Online Drawing Classes

    Drawing is a skill you can learn at any age. When you are ready, you can learn the basics of drawing by taking one or more of the free online drawing classes offered here. The websites all offer helpful instruction for beginning artists, and many of them offer classes at intermediate (中级的) or high levels. When you use the websites as your art instructors, you can log on to learn whenever you please.

    Artyfactory

    The Artyfactory Art Lessons Gallery offers free online art lessons that include basic drawing classes for pencil, ink and colored pencil. For visitors who want to expand their knowledge of art, the site also offers an Art Appreciation Gallery and a Design Lessons Gallery.

    Academy of Art University

    This free video class from the Academy of Art University called "How to Draw a Head" teaches you how to draw a head from a photo or from memory. The instruction is mainly on facial proportion (比例), expression and drawing basics.

    How to Draw It

    The How to Draw It website offers a simple approach to drawing animals and people. The animal tutorials (教程) are super easy to do, while the people lessons are a bit more difficult. All are free to visitors and making fast progress in your drawing skills is possible.

    Free Online Art Classes

    This site covers a range of art classes, but there are several free drawing tutorials for online learners, including: Learn Basic Drawing, Draw with Pen and Ink, and Learn Colored Pencils. Some of the classes are downloadable and some are in video form.