I pulled the car into the garage and got out, just like every night for the past 16 years. The difference was that I wouldn’t have a job to take in the morning. I used to be a VP in technology for a national bank until it was closed.

I’d put my heart and soul into my job. Not only did I work long hours, but I was on call 24 hours a day, including weekends and holidays. My kids joked that, though they were the teenagers, I was the one who was glued to the cellphone and had to be told not to text at the dinner table.

My wife, Michelle, went back to work full­time once my job was threatened. But our kids would be going to college—our son, TJ, was a high school senior, and the girls, Sarah and Tara, were in ninth grade—and I wanted to give them the education and opportunities they deserved. God, if I can’t provide for my family, I asked, what good am I?

A ray of light streamed through the window, as if beckoning(召唤) me. I opened the door and stepped out into our yard. The lawn, the maple tree planted when I was young and the flower beds were overrun with weeds.They needed pruning(修剪)．

Treasure this time. The thought came out of nowhere. But clear, clear as it could be, I shook my head. I couldn’t get distracted by random thoughts. The clock was ticking. I needed to get busy finding a new job.

I went up to the house. “I’m sorry, Dad,” TJ said. “I know how much your job meant to you.” His concern was mirrored in the girls’ faces. Then Michelle added, “It’s going to be okay. We’ll get through this together. Maybe you should consider this time as a break.You deserve one.”

A break? Was she kidding? There was no time to rest. If anything, I needed to work even harder.

The next morning I got up before everyone else and opened my laptop.

Just a few hours here and there, the new lawn began to take shape and so did I．

My Idol

Last week I     1    (take) on a difficult task of showing kindness. The idea came from a few posts on a website. I decided     2     (reach) out to a few people I hadn’t talked to for the past few years.

One was a cousin,     3     I had lost touch with for 25 years. She was very happy when we got     4     touch. The other two were friends I hadn’t talked to in nearly 10 years. It was really good to talk to     5     (they) both.

With one of them, I reached out at a great time for him. He had forgotten my name     6    (entire) but remembered I disliked     7    (run) when young because I had asthma（哮喘）. He was grateful that I called him and said some very kind     8     (thing) to me about our past. I am glad our friendship mattered to him.

I think     9     is good to be the one to take the initiative（主动性）to be kind and reach out. Even if it seems difficult at the time, in the end it offers     10     (wonder) rewards!

Jenny was a bright-eyed,pretty five-year-old girl .   One day when she and her mother were checking out at the grocery store, Jenny saw a plastic pearl necklace priced at $2.50. How she wanted that necklace, and when she asked her mother if she would buy it for her, her mother said, "Well, it is a pretty necklace, but it costs an awful lot of money. I'll tell you what. I'll buy you the necklace, and when we get home we can make up a list of chores that you can do to pay for the necklace.     And don't forget that for your birthday Grandma just might give you a whole dollar bill, too. Okay?" Jenny agreed, and her mother bought the pearl necklace for her.

Jenny worked on her chores very hard every day, and sure enough, her grandma gave her a brand-new dollar bill for her birthday. Soon Jenny had paid off the pearls How Jenny loved those pearls. She wore them everywhere to kindergarten, bed and when she went out with her mother to run errands .     The only time she didn't wear them was in the shower. Her mother had told her that they would turn her neck green!

Jenny had a very loving daddy. When Jenny went to bed, he would get up from his favorite chair every night and read Jenny her favorite story.

One night when he finished the story, he said, "Jenny, do you love me?"

"Oh yes, Daddy, you know I love you," the little girl said.

"Well, then, give me your pearls."

"Oh! Daddy, not my pearls!" Jenny refused. "But you can have Rosy, my favorite doll. Remember     her? You gave her to me last year for my birthday. And you can have her tea party outfit too. Okay?"

"Oh no, darling, that's okay."Her father brushed her cheek with a kiss. "Good night, little one."

A week later, her father once again asked Jenny after her story.

Several days later, when Jenny’s father came in to read her a story as usual,she was surprised to find

6 . Jessica Burks’ home is full of opportunities. Packaged slime(黏土) in a variety of colors and pleasant smells lines one wall of living room, and, in the designated “slime room” workspace in the back, bottles of fragrance oil are arranged in rows, next to glue and an industrial-size kitchen mixer.

But it’s not the amount of slime in Burks’ house that shocks people, she said. It’s that her 15-year-old daughter, Samantha Zumwalt, is in charge of their enterprise. The mother-daughter team run Samantha’s Slime Shop at home and the demand for their products helps them earn six figures a year. Samantha’s slime, offered in a rainbow of colors and a range of textures(质地), is in high demand. Since she started her business, she’s made more than 24,000 sales on Etsy. The customers are generally young — between 9 and 12 years old, Burks said, though some adults and teens buy slime, too. Some customers buy Samantha’s slime because they say playing with it is calming. Others want it because it gives them something to do with their hands.

Last year, Nichole Jacklyne, a social media blogger, who reviews slime and provides DIY lessons for hundreds of thousands of followers, reviewed Samantha’s product in a video. After Jacklyne’s video, orders poured into Samantha’s shop, Burks said.

However, Samantha’s mom was initially resistant to the girl’s slime ambitions. It took months for Samantha to convince her mom to buy the key materials to make slime. “I told her no for months,” Burks said. Finally, Burks gave in. She had been laid off from her job as an accountant, and the two dove into the slime business. Now, Burks is proud of Samantha for running the business so well, “I hope she can meet all of her business goals — whether that’s still running the slime enterprise, or buying another business out, or starting a new business,” she said. “Whatever her dreams are… is where I want her to be.”

7 . A weak old man went to live with his son, daughter-in-law, and a four-year old grandson. The old man’s hands _______and his eyesight was poor. The family ate together at table, but the elderly grandfather’s shaky hands made eating rather_______ Peas rolled off his spoon onto the floor. When he grasped the glass, often _______ spilled (泼洒) on the tablecloth.

The son and daughter-in-law became _______ at the mess (脏乱). “We must do_______about grandfather,” said the son. I’ve had enough of his spilled milk and food on the floor. So the husband and wife set a small table in the corner. There, grandfather ate alone while the rest of the family had their dinner at the dinner table _______. Since grandfather had broken a dish or two, his food was served in a _______ bowl. Sometimes when the family glanced in grandfather’s _______, he had a tear in his eye. Still, the couple always blamed him when he_______a spoon or spilled food. The four-year-old watched it all in________

One evening before supper, the father ________his son playing with small wood pieces. He asked the child sweetly, “What are you making?” The boy ________, “Oh, I am making a little bowl for you and mama to eat your food from when I grow up.” The words so ________ the couple that they were speechless. Then tears started to ________ down their cheeks. Though no word was ________, both knew what must be done. That evening the husband took grandfather’s hand and led him back to the family dinner table gently. From then on, the grandfather ate every meal with the family.

8 . Today's world is not an easy adjustment for young adults. Key skill set for success is persistence (毅力), a characteristic that researchers say is heavily influenced by fathers. Researchers from Brigham Young University discovered that fathers are in a unique position to help their adolescent children learn persistence.

BYU professors Laura Padilla-Walker and Randal Day arrived at these findings after following 325 American families over several years. And over time，the persistence gained through fathers led to higher achievement in school.

"There are relatively few studies that stress the unique role of fathers，"Padilla-Walker said. "This research also helps to prove that characteristics such as persistence-which can be taught-are key to a child's life success.”

Researchers determined that dads need to practice an "authoritative" parenting style. Authoritative parenting is not authoritarian:rigid，demanding or controlling. Rather，an authoritative parenting style includes some of the following characteristics:children feel warmth and love from their father；responsibility and the reasons behind rules are stressed children are given an appropriate level of autonomy(自主权).

In the study，about 52 percent of the dads exhibited above-average levels of authoritative parenting. A key finding is that over time，children raised by an authoritative father were significantly more likely to develop persistence，which leads to better outcomes in school.

This particular study examined 11 to 14-year-olds living in two-parent homes. Yet the researchers suggest that single parents still may play a role in teaching the benefits of persistence，which is an avenue of future research.

9 . When I was 14 years old, I was angry and rebellious, with ____ regard for anything my parents had to say, ___if it had nothing to do with me .Like so many______,I struggled to escape from anything that didn't ____ my picture of the world. A brilliant without need of guidance kid ,I refused to accept any obvious __ of love. In fact I got ___ at the proposal of the word ”love”。

One ______       , after an extremely difficult day, I _____ into my room, shut the door loudly and fell down onto my bed heavily. As I lay down in the privacy of my ___,my hands placed under my pillow. There was an envelope and I pulled what was inside out, which read, To ___ when you're alone."

____ I was alone, no one would know whether I read it or not. So I opened it. It said, "Mike ,1 know life is ____ right now, I know you are upset and I know we don't do everything right .I also know that I love you _____ and nothing you do or say will ever change that I am here for you if you ever need to talk. If you don't, that's also ____ . Just know that no matter where you go or whatever you do in your life, I will always love you and be ____ that you are my son.I'm here for you and love you that will never_____ love you ,Mom."

Every night as I went to bed, I would put my hands under my   __ and   remember the ___ I felt every time I got a letter. During my teen years, the letters were the calm assurance that I still could be loved __ my anger and rudeness. Just before I fell __ I became grateful that my mom knew what I, an angry teenager, needed.

10 . The family of a 6-year-old adopted Chinese girl who badly needs a bone marrow transplant (骨髓移植) believes they have found a match in China.

Kailee Wells suffers from a serious aplastic anemia (再生障碍性贫血), which prevents bone marrow from producing new blood cells. She has taken courses of treatment but has shown little sign of recovery.

The best help for such patients is a transplant of healthy marrow or blood cells from a suitable donor. Certain tissue of the patient and the donor must match.

Kailee’s mother, Linda Wells, made her second trip to China earlier this month to find a donor. Her husband, Owen Wells, said that his wife believed doctors there had found a match.

“For these last 22 months, we’ve been living in fear that Kailee would take a turn for the worse and there would be nothing we could do about it,” he said. “Now we have something we can use and save our little girl. We are just about ready to start jumping up and down and rejoicing.”

Wells said a Chinese girl who is about a year old has a blood sample that matches Kailee’s perfectly. The next step, he said, would be to make sure the sample is safely harvested and protected for transplant, the details of which have yet to be worked out.

Linda Wells first traveled to China in February to try to locate the girl’s birth mother, who is likely to be a match. But she found no relatives and decided to try again this month.

“This gives us so much encouragement because now we found what we thought we would never be able to find for Kailee,” Owen Wells said. “We’re going to continue our blood donor drive to try to continue to help as many people as we possibly can. We’re just so happy.”