There's no such thing as living alone. Never mind if you're {#blank#}1{#/blank#} only person in your house and have no dog, no cat, not even fish. You still have got several billion {#blank#}2{#/blank#} (roommate) — and so do we all. Some of them are harmless, some are {#blank#}3{#/blank#} (actual) helpful and some could even kill you. They are, of course, bacteria, fungi(菌类) and viruses, and like it or not, they're on you, around you, and deeply within you. The fact that bacteria life is everywhere is not{#blank#}4{#/blank#} (surprise). It's something you {#blank#}5{#/blank#} (learn) from your childhood when your mother told you not to drink water from someone else's glass. There are lots of bacteria {#blank#}6{#/blank#} are living in your tea kettle. There are bacteria {#blank#}7{#/blank#} (sleep) with you on your bed. Scientists are beginning {#blank#}8{#/blank#} (realize) the richness of the microbiome (微生物群系) — which is as complex as the ones {#blank#}9{#/blank#} (find) in oceans, rainforests, deserts and woodlands. Your house has a microbiome and {#blank#}10{#/blank#} do you.

    When Sandra was a child, her family was very poor, but she wanted {#blank#}1{#/blank#} (bad) to believe that her poverty was just a temporary situation, so she looked toward stories {#blank#}2{#/blank#} (escape). Her favorite book {#blank#}3{#/blank#} (check) out of the library over and over again was called The little house. Throughout Sandra's life, she had to move between cities, never {#blank#}4{#/blank#} (allow) her much time to get settled in one place. Her {#blank#}5{#/blank#} (separate) from family drove her to burying herself in books. Though reading a lot, according to Sandra, she didn't really start writing {#blank#}6{#/blank#} she attended her first creative writing class in college. She then realized that she needed to write what she knew, and {#blank#}7{#/blank#} purpose she adopted a writing style opposite to that of her classmates. Admission to Loyola University {#blank#}8{#/blank#} she earned a BA in English was a turning point for her. Sandra's writing {#blank#}9{#/blank#} (shape) by her experiences since then. She doesn't just make up {#blank#}10{#/blank#} (character), but writes about real people that she has encountered.

This is where my kids grew up

    For years now, I've been wanting to sell our home, the place where my husband and I raised our kids. But to me, this house is more than just a building. In the front room, there's a wall that has hundreds of pencil lines. Every growth stage {#blank#}1{#/blank#}(mark) in pencils, with each child's name and the date.

    Of all the objects and all the memories, it's this one thing in a home that's {#blank#}2{#/blank#}(hard) to leave behind. Our kids grow in so many ways, but the wall is physical evidence of their progress. Friends I know have visited their previous home only {#blank#}3{#/blank#}(discover) their wall of heights has been freshly painted over. Over the years, I've talked about how much I would hate leaving that wall behind when I moved, {#blank#}4{#/blank#} the last marks were made 10 years ago when my kids stopped growing. So one day, while I was at work, my children decided to do {#blank#}5{#/blank#} about it.

    They hired Jacquie Manning, a professional photographer {#blank#}6{#/blank#} work is about capturing the beautiful things in life. She came to our house while I was at work, and over several hours, {#blank#}7{#/blank#}(take) photos of the hundreds of drawings and lines, little grey fingerprints, and old marks. Somehow, she managed to photograph {#blank#}8{#/blank#} we had experienced in all those years. Afterwards, she put all the photos together into one image, {#blank#}9{#/blank#}(transform) them into a beautiful history of my family.

    Three weeks later, my children's wonderful gift made its way to me —{#blank#}10{#/blank#} life-size photo of the pencil lines and fingerprints that represents entire lifetimes of love and growth.