Xenia’s Garden

Years ago, I had a web site for kids which I called “Beantown.” Since these were the days when the Internet was young and web pages were simple, Beantown was a bit of a success. The site centered around the continuing adventures of two Christian kids named Willy and Grace who, along with Flop the dog, got into Nancy Drew-type scrapes in a fictitious coastal town in California. (This was before the TV program “Will and Grace” came on the scene, to my dismay.) The site had Bible stories and projects kids could do, related to the current story. This was back in the day when web sites had guest books and I was amazed at how many kids read Beantown. People from all over the world signed the guest book and one lady wrote that she used Beantown as Sunday school curriculum! Beantown was simple. It was just stories with simple graphics. I had an “Ask Aunt Betty” feature where I attempted to answer visitors’ Bible questions.

I haven’t worked on Beantown since I became Orthodox. Willy and Grace were not Orthodox. I’ve thought about reworking the site, making them Orthodox, but that seems all wrong somehow. Instead, I am going to launch a new site called “The Adventures of Johnny and Talia.” It will be just a simple as Beantown and may not be the hit Beantown was because the Internet has gotten a whole lot more complicated, but I am optimistic and enthusiastic.

I love organizational web sites.  Here’s some I use almost daily-  I hope you find them as useful as I do!

For garderners,  there’s  Dave’s Garden.  This site offers an elaborate system where you can keep track of every plant you own from the time you first put the seeds in the ground til you eat the mature crop. The system takes a little bit of studying to figure out  but once you’ve crossed that hurdle, it’s easy and fun to use.  All of this is free but you need to sign up for a paid membership to use the discussion forums.

Ravelry is like MySpace for knitters.  Sometimes I think this site is too good to be true!  You can store info about your personal knitting projects,  keep tabs on your supply of yarn and needles,  download knitting patterns, and much more.  But the main charm of Ravelry is the community.  There are hundreds of special interest groups you can join.  I’m a member of a groups for Orthodox knitters, knitters in Monterey, vegetarian knitters and knitters with chihauhuas!  It’s all too cool. Each group has it’s own discussion forum and most of them seem to be pretty lively places.  If you love to knit (or crochet) and are a little geeky,  you’ve just gotta join Ravely.  It’s free to join but there’s a waiting list. 

Fitday is, in my opinion, the most useful site for those of us who, for various reasons,  need to keep track of our food intake.   It’s not a diet program like eDiets but it does just about everything else eDiets does and for free.  It generates graphs, tells you if you consumed enough vitamin A last week, tracks your exercise,  etc.   If you need to gain or lose weight or need to keep track of your calcium or fat intake,  this is the site is just about perfect.

I use Yahoo’s calendar to keep track of appointmensts, events and school assignments.  I find it a little frustrating to use at times but it does the job.  I imagine Google’s calendar is just as good.  If anyone knows of a better calendar for keeping track of homework assignments,  please let me know.

I hope you all are sailing well on the sea of Lent.  And thank you to Pat for the daffodils!