【推荐1】The day i became a mom was not the day my daughter was born, but seven years later. Up until that day, I had been too busy trying to ____ my abusive marriage. I had spent all my ____ trying to run a “perfect” home, and I didn’t see that my baby girl had become a ____ . I’d tried ____ to please someone who could never be pleased and suddenly realized that the years had ____ and could never be regained. Finally I did the ____ thing I could do for my daughter and myself: I ____ us from the home that wasn’t really a home at all.

That day we were sitting in our new home having a ____, quiet dinner. We were talking about what she had done in school and suddenly her little hand ____ the full glass of chocolate milk by her plate. As I watched the white tablecloth and freshly ___ white wall become dark brown, I looked at her small face. It was filled with ____ , knowing clearly what the outcome of the event would have ____ only a week before in her father’s ____. Seeing that look on her face, I simply started ____. I am sure she thought I was ____, but then she must have realized that I was thinking, “It’s a ____ your father isn’t here!” She started laughing with me, and we laughed until we ____. They were tears of joy and ____ and were the first of many tears that we cried together.

That was the day we knew that we were going to be okay. That was the day I really became a ____ . For me, it started when I could laugh over ____ milk.

【推荐2】“I had a lovely dream last night,” my mum said, a wide smile filling her face. “All you grown-up kids were there. We were _________ together, all of us under one roof.”

“Oh,” I replied. “ You _________ you had a nightmare(梦魇）.”

Perhaps it's an Asian thing, but if it was up to my mum I would _________ live at home. I see her most weeks and we speak almost daily, but it's never _________ . Whenever I look for a new flat to rent, she sends me _________ : all a two-hour ride from work, yet just a five-minute walk from her house. Once, she even saved her address as “ _________ ” in my satnav(导航).

“Think of the money you spend on rents,” she said. “You could _________ it and live with me.”

However, like many young people, I need space to _________ and to make mistakes. At Mum's, there was never enough space. I _________ at 18 and have only had three flat requirements since: cheap rent; __________ enough to Mum's for regular visits; far enough that they are not too regular.

But something has __________ my life recently. I fell ill and was home alone. Mum came as soon as she could, and only at that time I felt her __________ . I wished then, strongly, that she lived a little nearer, a “stone's throw away” __________ .

I __________ have no plans to move back in with Mum, but I've come to learn there might be some method to her madness: my next flat will be the closest to her. We all need __________ but ideally we stay near enough to someone who will help pick up the pieces.

【推荐1】Last night my husband and I were walking when we saw a man bending (弯腰) over on the ground, crushing (碾碎) something with a rock. He was so focused on his ________ that he didn’t look up at anyone passing by. We kept noticing him and ________ what he could be doing. I thought he was crushing stones to make sand, but why would he do that?

________, we decided to go up and ask him. He was crushing pieces of left-over bread that he had ________ to prepare food for the birds that come there early morning. The large pieces of bread would be ________ for the birds to eat so he crushed them into powder. Every ________, after coming home from his job as a tailor, he goes ________ the villa (乡间别墅), collecting left-over bread from all his neighbors. He then eats a quick meal and comes here, and spends the next 1-2 hours carefully crushing each piece and makes a neat pile for the birds. He has been doing this for the last 3-4 years, which ________ us a lot. When we told him that we took an interest in this, he felt ________, since for him it wasn’t a big ________.

When we asked him what encouraged him to do this act of ________, he said, “It’s just something ________ I do, so that the left-over bread doesn’t go into the rubbish and the birds get food.” We ________ his story with the hope that it would ________ us to be aware of leftovers too and that it might ________ someone to start something similar in their own area.

【推荐3】When I was driving on the highway, a big storm came. The rain began to beat_______     against my car windows. I had to stop and_______my car along the roadside. Sitting in the car with boxes of_________in the back seat, I was_______of Hurricane Katrina.

Hurricane Katrina hit Houston when I was fourteen years old. I was_________that it would destroy my neighborhood._________it missed ours, while leaving many parts of the city in _______. From the TV, I saw a reporter_______the homeless people inside the Houston Astrodome(体育馆). Many of them were in dirty and_________clothes, and some had no shoes on their feet. I noticed a little boy behind the reporter__________an old teddy bear. Suddenly, I knew I had to do__________.

The next day, my friends__________me at our volunteer club and we came up with a plan to________some used toys and give them to the kids at the Astrodome. I hoped they would bring some________to those homeless kids. We________the word to our schools and other organizations. Three days later, our club was flooded with new toys! When we__________the Astrodome with our gifts, children__________toward us from all directions.

My cell phone brought me back to the present. To my joy, the storm had________“Hector, we have had more__________because of the tornado.” “Well, I’ve brought a lot of clothes for them. The__________kept me late, but I'll be there soon!" I turned my car into the suddenly heavy traffic. I knew that any small act of kindness would make a big difference.