【推荐2】Last winter, I visited my sister and brother-in-law’s house and had to park in a nearby parking lot because they didn’t have accessible parking. The snow was extremely heavy and there was lots of ice on the ground — not many people had ventured out that evening!

When I returned to my car around 11pm, I noticed that only my car was left there. Nervously, I quickly got into the car and let it warm up a bit. When I finally tried to drive away, my wheels began to spin. I was stuck! I spun and spun and wondered what to do.

All of a sudden, in my rear view mirror (后视镜), I saw four teen-aged boys approaching my car. They were walking side by side in a line and dressed a bit like gang members — at least I thought that’s what they looked like. My car was in a very isolated area and I began to panic. I was certain they were coming to my car to harm me. Terrified, I just froze. One of the young men tapped on my window and said “Excuse me, Ma’am, can we help you? You seem stuck.” Still afraid and fearing the worst, I said “I am stuck.” And the young man said “It’s okay, stay in your car and we’ll push you out of the snow.” And they did!

When they finally got me out of the snow, they smiled and waved. I rolled down my window and thanked them, embarrassed to have judged them so poorly.

【推荐3】When I read a post about taking someone to the movies, I was reminded of something that happened a couple of years ago.

I used to drink Cokes and they had a competition where there was a code inside the bottle cap. You went to a website and entered the code and maybe you won something. I won some free Cokes. But then I won the Grand Prize! I was surprised and pleased.

The Grand Prize was free movies for a year. They pointed out that one movie a week was what free movies for a year meant. All of the tickets had a deadline later than a year from the day I received them. So I must use them in the following year. I used quite a few taking friends to movies we all wanted to see.

But the best thing I did with them was that I donated 22 tickets (all I had left by that time) to the local Women’s Transition House, a place where women and their children could go when avoiding domestic violence (家庭暴力) or just a bad situation in general and get help to make a new start.

My workplace team had decided they would be a charity , so we collected donations for that particular New Year’s Day. I knew that the Women’s Transition House provided some childcare for the women so they could go for job interviews and things like that.

I put those tickets in an envelope and wrote a note on the outside, asking the Women’s Transition House staff to give movie tickets to women there over the holidays to have something fun to do, with or without their children. It made me really happy to do this.

【推荐1】After a terrible electrical accident, which caused him to become both blind and deaf, the whole world became completely dark and quiet for Robert Edwards for almost ten years. The loss of sight and hearing threw him into such sorrow that he tried a few times to put an end to his life. His family, especially his wife, did their best to tend and comfort him and finally he regained the will to live.

One hot summer afternoon, he was taking a walk with a stick near his house when a thunderstorm started all at once. He stood under a large tree to avoid getting wet, but he was hit by the lightning. Passers-by thought he was dead but he woke up some 20 minutes later lying face down in muddy water at the base of the tree. He was trembling badly, but when he opened his eyes, he could hardly believe what he saw: a plough and a wall. When Mrs. Edwards came running up to him, shouting to their neighbors to call for help, he could see her and hear her voice for the first time in nearly ten years.

The news of Robert regaining his sight and hearing quickly spread, and many doctors came to examine him. Most of them said that he regained his sight and hearing from the shock he got from the lightning. However, none of them could give a convincing answer as to why this should have happened. The only reasonable explanation given by one doctor was that, since Robert lost his sight and hearing as a result of a sudden shock, perhaps, the only way for him to regain them was by another sudden shock.

【推荐1】A group of graduates, successful in their careers, got together to visit their old university professor. Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life.

Before offering his guests coffee, the professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and a variety of cups — porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal, some plain looking and cheap, some exquisite and expensive — telling them to help themselves to the coffee.

When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the professor said: “If you noticed, all the nice looking expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress. Be assured that the cup itself adds no quality to the coffee. In most cases it is just more expensive and in some cases even hides what we drink. What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the best cups. And then you began eyeing each other’s cups.

Now consider this: Life is the coffee; the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain life, and the type of cup we have does not define, nor change the quality of life we live. Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee God has provided us.”

God brews the coffee, not the cups. Enjoy your coffee!

“The happiest people don’t have the best of everything. They just make the most of everything.”

Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly. Leave the rest to God.

【推荐2】King's Point (Canada) (AFP) — At dusk, tourists are amazed at the breakdown of an iceberg at the end of its long journey from Greenland to Canada's cast coast, which now has a front row scat to the melting (触化）of the Arctic’s ice.

While the rest of the world nervously eyes the effect of global warming, melting icebergs have breathed new life into the far coastal villages of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Once a center of cod (鳕鱼) fishing, the province now plays host to large groups of photographers and tourists hoping to sec the breathtaking ice melt. As winter ends, iceberg finding begins. The increase in tourism around here in the past 10 to 15 years has been unbelievable. Last year, a total of 500,000 tourists visited Newfoundland and Labrador, a number almost as large as the province's total population. Those visitors spent nearly $433 million, government numbers show. The tourism boom has helped solve the decrease in the regions traditional fishing industry, which is in crisis (危机) because of overfishing at the end of the last century.

But under the shiny surface of economic success is the dark truth that the area is in part profiting from global warming. The Arctic is warming three limes faster than the rest of the world. In mid-July, record temperatures were recorded near the North Pole. In recent years, the icebergs have traveled further and further south. For now, tourists are enjoying the view and the experience while they can.

Laurent Lucazcau, a 34-year-old French tourist, said seeing an iceberg was upsetting. “It is a picture of global warming to see icebergs making it to these places where the water is warm,” he told AFP. “There’s something mysterious and impressive about it, but knowing too that they are not supposed to be here makes you wonder, and it’s a little scary.”

【推荐3】If you’re DIY-minded, you can build your own solar power system. In some cases, you can even build your own solar panels(电池板), although the amount that you can effectively DIY home solar depends on how much you want to power. Making your own solar panel is a time-consuming process and requires some electrical skills. However, it can also be very rewarding---learning to build your own panel is a great way to understand how solar-electricity is produced.

Before you can build your own solar panels, you first need to understand how solar cells produce electricity. If you’ve bought individual solar cells(they can be purchased online), the basic process for building your own solar panel goes like this: Prepare the backing(垫板) for your panel. Many DIY solar panel builders prefer to use a wooden board as the base for their solar cell. You’ll need to drill holes in the board so that the wires for each cell can pass through. Wire your solar cells together. This requires some experience with electrical work. Use a soldering iron to attach wire to the solar cells and then link each of the cells together. Attach cells to your backing. If possible, attach each solar cell to the backing individually. This makes it easier to replace a single cell in the event that becomes damaged or is not operating properly.

At this point you have a functional solar panel that can produce electricity when the sun shines. However, a solar panel by itself is not useful. If you are trying to produce electricity to power devices in your home, you need to pair your panel with an inverter(换流器) that will turn direct current(DC) power from the sun into the alternating current(AC) power used in most modern electronic devices.