Health Information

I recently saw an article on Rovinia Brock who has a new book on the importance of family health history, Dr. Ro's Ten Secret to Livin' Healthy. She makes some good points about things to look for in the family and how it can help us to stay healthy.

*Talk with immediate family. You can find out lots of past and present health information that may indicate genetic health risks or probabilities.

*Do some investigation. Check death certificates, obituaries, old family lettters to see if any diseases or health problem are mentioned.

*Go to family reunions. If you're lucky enough to have a family reunion go and talk to family members.

*Be specific. If you're doing family health histories have dates of birth and death, causes of death and as much medical information as you can gather.

*Use a genealogical chart. This can make it easy to see if a disease is passed from generation to generation.

Licorice Memories

This is a bit different than a post about getting organized or changing your life because it's about licorice.

I love black licorice which is a disapearing product in the United States. If you do find licorice it's usually strawberry and occasionally cherry and only sometimes black. Even if it is black it's usually just one kind. I remember when there were many kinds of black licorice available. Pipes, scottie dogs, vines, twists, etc. And each one of them tasted slightly different and I certainly liked some better than others. My absolute favorite has always been Pontefract Cakes. It's an English licorice from Pontefract (where they actually have a licorice festival each year) and there were at least a half dozen companies that made it. Now as far as I can tell there are one, maybe two companies that make it. And it's increasingly hard to find (yes even with the internet). If it is available it's often out of stock.

So I entered the http://www.licoriceinternational.com/ contest for a licorice memory and won for January. You can find the entry on their website under the Licorice Memories contest. Just click on the button.

Book Value

Many times when working with clients people have insisted to me that because it's old a book is worth a lot of money. They never believe me when I say that just being old does not determine a book's worth.

When I tell them that many recent books are valuable and much of the value lies in the dust jacket they again tell me that I am wrong.

When I explain that condition is extremely important they again tell me that I am wrong.

Well there's an antiquarian book dealer in the Denver area who has a website
www.go-bookworld.com . Go there. He has a section on what determines a book's value and a section on how preserve your book.