One morning, my husband Jerry went back to the kitchen as he just finished loading his car. “I guess filling my thermos(保温瓶) is all that I have left to do, and then I'm off.” Down the drain went the hot water that had been warming his thermos.

    With a nostalgic(怀旧的) look on his face, he softly said: “Anytime I fill my thermos I think of your mom.” The tone in his voice was so tender as he spoke of my mother, who is sadly no longer with us.

    “Oh honey, I know she's watching and listening right now with a big smile on her face,” I responded, tears in my eyes.

    One morning years ago when we were leaving, mother watched as Jerry was to fill his thermos. Mom then casually said, ‘Jerry, if you filled your thermos with hot water and let it sit a while, your coffee would stay hot for longer then.” With her simple suggestion, his face showed that he was shocked by his own lack of common sense. Well, of course it would!

    He poured out the small amount of coffee already in the thermos and refilled it with boiling hot water. Then he poured the water and refilled it with hot coffee. Mom smiled as Jerry did so.

    Words of wisdom from a loving mother-in-law made an impact that will never be forgotten. She never dreamed her words would be a treasured and everlasting memory in the heart of her son-in-law.

    The lasting memories don't necessarily come from major moments in life. Memories are often made during those small, ordinary times. Life is about small moments we share with friends and loved ones.

    Both of my parents worked full-time when I was a little girl, so my grandmother would stay at our house during the day. We would watch game shows in the living room. Our favorite was The Price is Right. We would call out our answers along with the contestants.

    When I got older and started going to school, we couldn't watch our game shows regularly. That was okay with me, though, because the one thing I liked better than watching game shows with my grandmother was helping her bake. Watching her in the kitchen was amazing: she never seemed to need the recipes but everything she made tasted delicious.

    At first I would just sit in the kitchen and watch, even though I didn't understand what she was doing. As I got older, she let me help with the easy parts, such as measuring the sugar. The day she let me separate the eggs，I felt like I had found complete pleasure.

    At last, my parents decided that I could take care of myself，and my grandmother stopped coming over every day. The love of baking, however, stayed with me. I started baking by myself, and even if the cookies ended up burnt sometimes, more often they turned out pretty well. I tried out new recipes, and whenever I got to a thorny part, I would call my grandmother for advice. Sometimes I would call her just to talk, too. I felt like I could talk to her about anything.

    My grandmother passed away ten years ago, but I still think of her every day. Last week, I found a recipe book she made for me. It included her recipes for brownies, cookies, and my favorite, lemon pie. As I looked through the pages, I thought I could hear her voice. She was the one who taught me not just about baking, but about life.

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Life in the Clear

Transparent animals let light pass through their bodies the same way light passes through a window. These animals typically live between the surface of the ocean and a depth of about 3,300 feet—as far as most light can reach. Most of them are extremely delicate and can be damaged by a simple touch. Sonke Johnsen, a scientist in biology, says, "These animals live through their life alone. They never touch anything unless they're eating it, or unless something is eating them."

And they are as clear as glass. How does an animal become see-through? It's trickier than you might think.

    The objects around you are visible because they interact with light. Light typically travels in a straight line. But some materials slow and scatter (散射) light, bouncing it away from its original path. Others absorb light, stopping it dead in its tracks. Both scattering and absorption make an object look different from other objects around it, so you can see it easily.

    But a transparent object doesn't absorb or scatter light, at least not very much. Light can pass through it without bending or stopping. That means a transparent object doesn't look very different from the surrounding air or water. You don't see it you see the things behind it.

    To become transparent, an animal needs to keep its body from absorbing or scattering light. Living materials can stop light because they contain pigments (色素) that absorb specific colors of light. But a transparent animal doesn't have pigments, so its tissues won't absorb light. According to Johnsen, avoiding absorption is actually easy. The real challenge is preventing light from scattering.

Animals are built of many different materials—skin, fat, and more—and light moves through each at a different speed. Every time light moves into a material with a new speed, it bends and scatters. Transparent animals use different tricks to fight scattering. Some animals are simply very small or extremely flat. Without much tissue to scatter light, it is easier to be see-through. Others build a large, clear mass of non-living jelly-like (果冻状的) material and spread themselves over it.

    Larger transparent animals have the biggest challenge, because they have to make all the different tissues in their bodies slow down light exactly as much as water does. They need to look uniform. But how they're doing it is still unknown. One thing is clear: for these larger animals, staying transparent is an active process. When they die, they turn a non-transparent milky white.

    When my sister Mertie told me she had put out tomato plants last summer, I was quite impressed.

    Since she was a garden-beginner, Mertie researched exactly how far apart to space her tomato plants; what kind of fertilizer to use; how to keep away the bugs（害虫）, etc. Once they were planted, she took care of them daily, anxiously awaiting the juicy tomatoes to appear. But, day after day, her plants were tomato-less while all of her neighbors who had also put out tomato plants were already enjoying the fruit of their labor.

    Frustrated (upset), Mertie gave in and went to the market to search fresh tomatoes. While paying, Mertie told the farmer her troubles. The farmer paused to think for a moment and then asked, "Well, what kind of tomatoes did you plant?"

    "I think they were called Big Boy," Mertie remembered.

    "Well there's your problem," the farmer explained. "Big Boy and Better Boy tomatoes have a 95-day growing period whereas regular tomato plants produce fruit in as few as 70 days…you just have to wait a little longer for the Big Boys."

    With that new knowledge, Mertie went home with excitement, knowing they would be worth the wait.

    Thinking about my sister's gardening experience, I had to smile. She just didn't know that Big Boy tomatoes took longer--neither did I--but once she discovered that information, she was no longer discouraged and upset about the lack of tomatoes on her plants. Instead, she was encouraged and excited to see them a few weeks later.

    It makes me wonder how many of us have "Big Boy" dreams in our hearts, yet we just don't realize that they are of the "Big Boy" variety so we are discouraged and worn out with the waiting process. Instead of waiting with excitement, we give up on our dreams and figure we must have done something wrong to stop them from coming to pass. Frustrated, we see other people's dreams coming true, and we wonder why ours haven't yet been achieved.

    Shyness is the cause of much unhappiness for a great many people. Shy people are anxious and self-conscious; that is, they are excessively concerned with their own appearance and actions.

    Worrisome thoughts are constantly occurring in their minds: what kind of impression am I making? Do they like me? Do I sound stupid? Am I wearing unattractive clothes? It is obvious that such uncomfortable feelings must negatively affect people. A person's conception of himself or herself is reflected in the way he or she behaves, and the way a person behaves affects other people's reactions. In general, the way people think about themselves has a profound effect on all areas of their lives.

    Shy people, having low self-esteem, are likely to be passive and easily influenced by others. They need reassurance that they are doing "the right thing." Shy people are very sensitive to criticism; they feel it confirms their feelings of inferiority. They also find it difficult to be pleased by compliment with a statement like this one, "You're just saying that to make me feel good. I know it's not true." It is clear that while self-awareness is a healthy quality, overdoing it is harmful.

    Can shyness be completely eliminated, or at least reduced? Fortunately, people can overcome shyness with determined and patient efforts in building self-confidence. Since shyness goes hand in hand with a lack of self-esteem, it is important for people to accept their weaknesses as well as their strengths. Each one of us is a unique, worthwhile individual, interested in our own personal ways. The better we understand ourselves, the easier it becomes to live up to our full potential. Let's not allow shyness to block our chances for a rich and fulfilling life.

    On a flight from Dallas, Texas, to Cincinnati, Ohio, to visit a friend in 2013, event planner Paige Chenault daydreamed about the grand birthday parties she'd throw for her daughter one day. (Paige was five months pregnant at the time.) Then, flipping through a magazine, she saw a photo of an impoverished Haitian boy, skinny. "I thought, this kid has nothing," Paige says.

    The image stayed with her, and she resolved to do something to help. "I decided I would use my talents to throw birthday parties for homeless kids," Paige says. For the next four years, Paige and her husband, Colin, took time out from parenthood to visit shelters to determine how best to pull off the parties.

    Finally, in January 2017, Paige launched the Birthday Party Project, a nonprofit organization, and recruited friends and family to help decorate Dallas's 75- occupant Family Gateway Shelter with balloons and streamers, celebrating the birthdays of 11 boys and girls, with 60 more homeless kids in attendance. "That first party was better than I could have ever imagined," says Paige.

    Now Paige and her staff of three paid employees work with regional volunteers to plan monthly themed parties at 15 shelters across the country, some of which house abused or abandoned kids. Each child celebrating a birthday that month gets a $30 gift, a decorative place mat, and an individual cake or cupcake.

    One of Paige's favorite parts of each party is when the kids make a wish and blow out the candles. "They rarely get a chance to dream big," says Paige.

    Her daughter, Lizzie, now seven, often helps out at the parties. Paige says, "The one thing I've always wanted is for my kid to be generous."