For years now, I've been wanting to sell our house, the place where my husband and I raised our children. But to me, this house is much more than just a building.

    In the front room, there's a wall that has hundreds of pencil lines, marking the progress of my children's growth. Every growth stage is marked in grey, with each child's name and the date when they were measured. Most people I know have been featured on a wall like this, or at least had a wall like it in their home.

    Of all the objects and memories, it is this thing in a home that is the hardest to leave behind. Friends I know have returned home after work only to discover their wall of heights has been freshly painted over. A new paint job wouldn't normally be greeted by tears, but erasing that evidence of motherhood hurts more than it should. Our children grow in so many ways, but the wall is the physical evidence of their progress, right there for everyone to see.

    Over the years, I've talked about how much I would hate leaving that wall behind when I moved, even though the last marks were made 10 years ago when my children stopped growing.

    So one day, while I was at work, my children decided to do something about it. They hired Jacquie Manning, a professional photographer. She came to our house, and over several hours, took photos of the hundreds of drawings and lines, little grey fingerprints and old marks. Somehow, she managed to photograph all those years of memories perfectly. Afterwards, she put all the photos together into one image, changing them into a beautiful history of my family.

    Three weeks later, my children's wonderful gift made its way to me — a life-size photo of the pencil lines and fingerprints that represents an entire lifetime of love and growth.

    Every day, Americans throw away 500 million plastic straws, enough to circle the Earth twice. They are almost never recycled, and simply contribute to the great problem of plastic pollution; eight million tons of plastic is dumped into the oceans every year.

    Plastic straws are now the target of a growing movement to reduce their use. Possibly the first of such campaigns, Be Straw Free was started in 2011 by Milo Cress, who was only nine years old at the lime.

"I noticed that whenever I ordered a drink at a restaurant, it would usually come with a straw in it, and I don' I usually need a straw," he said. "This seemed like a huge waste. Straws are made of oil, a precious and finite resource. Is making single - use plastic straws, which will be used for a matter of minutes before being tossed away, really what we want to do with this resource?"

    Cress started asking restaurants in Burlington, Vermont, where he lived at the time, to stop providing straws automatically to customer and make them optional instead. Many agreed and his request made ripples (涟漪) nationwide. The restaurants that make the switch report a reduction in the number of straws they use between 50 and 80%.

    The anti - straw sentiment has crossed borders into the UK, where straws have been included in a government plan to ban ail plastic waste by 2042.

Last year large pub chain Wetherspoons announced that it would replace plastic straws with paper alternatives across 900 outlets. After the announcement, many smaller chains and pubs across the country followed suit. According to Wetherspoons CEO John Hutson, the move will save 70 million plastic straws a year and the reaction from patrons has been "very positive".

Offering alternatives or making plastic straws optional, rather than banning them completely, is a common trait among these campaigns. "There are many other viable alternatives to single - use plastic drinking straws that are less harmful to the environment, wildlife and humans," said Jackie Nunez, founder of The Last Plastic Straw.

    Choosing a vacation place your kids would love is quite a headache. Here are some highly preferred fun vacation places for you, which would make sure your entire family has fun together.

Hersheypark

    Hersheypark, the “Chocolate Town” of USA, in Hershey, Pennsylvania, is now a main theme park with sixty rides. The amazing water rides, family rides, live concerts and shows make Hersheypark a perfect place for the young children. It also has a water park known as the “The Boardwalk at Hersheypark” and a zoo.

Old Orchard Beach in Saco, Maine

    The Old Orchard beach, where there is the amazing sand, water, rides, some fried food, and great fun games, can keep your kids busy and happy. Besides, there are downtown shops with great beach food.

Snowbird Resort in Snowbird, Utah

    As a great place for those who enjoy the snow, Snowbird Resort allows families to enjoy many activities in the winter months, such as snowboarding and ice skating. The live music concerts are held year round.

Hilton Waikoloa Village in Waikoloa, Hawaii

    This is actually a fun vacation place when you are looking out for a getaway with your kids. Hilton Waikoloa Village is the place to go if you would like to have your children enter for Camp Menehune. Looking for the chance to feed birds is an exciting experience. However, an activity that your kids would enjoy most is the communication with dolphins.

    （I）It was a surprising announcement: SpaceX, a private company（私人公司）, said it would fly two people to the moon next year (2019). This has not been attempted since NASA's Apollo moon landings about 45 years ago. In the news conference, Elon Musk. SpaceX founder said two people have already paid SpaceX a “wonderful” amount of money to send them on a weeklong flight just beyond the moon.

    （II）Exercise reduces the risks of dying from all causes, including cancer and heart disease. But many people who work all week have little time for exercise. They try to take exercise or do chores to increase their heart rates over the weekend. A new study suggests that it is healthy to do that, which can reduce their risk of cancer and cardiovascular（心血管疾病）disease.

    （III）Scientists in London have found a possible way to solve the problem of plastic bottle waste. They have made a water bottle you can eat. The product is called Ooho, made of seaweed, a plant that grows in the ocean. Oohos are tasteless and look like bubbles or balls. They can hold water or any other liquid（液体）inside. When people drink Oohos, the outside bursts in the mouth and can be eaten. Even if you throw it away, it will degrade in about four weeks. It is good for the environment.

    Proudly reading my words, I glanced around the room, only to find my classmates bearing big smiles on their faces and tears in their eyes. Confused, I glanced toward my stone-faced teacher. Having no choice, I slowly raised the report I had slaved over, hoping to hide myself. "What could be causing everyone to act this way?"

    Quickly, I flashed back to the day Miss Lancelot gave me the task. This was the first real task I received in my new school. It seemed simple: go on the Internet and find information about a man named George Washington. Since my idea of history came from an ancient teacher in my home country, I had never heard of that name before. As I searched the name of this fellow, it became evident that there were two people bearing the same name who looked completely different! One invented hundreds of uses for peanuts, while the other led some sort of army across America. I stared at the screen, wondering which one my teacher meant. I called my grandfather for a golden piece of advice: flip (掷) a coin. Heads—the commander, and tails—the peanuts guy. Ah! Tails, my report would be about the great man who invented peanut butter, George Washington Carver.

    Weeks later, standing before this unfriendly mass, I was totally lost. Oh well, I lowered the paper and sat down at my desk, burning to find out what I had done wrong. As a classmate began his report, it all became clear, "My report is on George Washington, the man who started the American Revolution." The whole world became quiet! How could I know that she meant that George Washington?

    Obviously, my grade was awful. Heartbroken but fearless, I decided to turn this around. I talked to Miss Lancelot, but she insisted: No re-dos; no new grade. I felt that the punishment was not justified, and I believed I deserved a second chance. Consequently, I threw myself heartily into my work for the rest of the school year. Ten months later, that chance unfolded as I found myself sitting in the headmaster's office with my grandfather, now having an entirely different conversation. I smiled and flashed back to the embarrassing moment at the beginning of the year as the headmaster informed me of my option to skip the sixth grade. Justice is sweet!

Not only is second-hand shopping good for the planet and your wallet, but new research finds that the more conscious(关注的) of style you are, the more likely you are to shop for second-hand clothes.

It is often assumed that those who shop for second-hand clothes do so to save money or reduce their impact on the environment. In fact, according to the research. style-consciousness is a bigger predictor of second-hand shopping than frugality or eco-consciousness.

Style-consciousness is very different from fashion-consciousness. Fashion is all about the "new" , and is constantly evolving. Style, on the other hand, is about expressing long-term individual identity.

Fashion shoppers are used to a continuous supply of new trends and fast fashion products. Fast fashion works quickly to replicate ( 复制) an ever-moving stream of fashion trends, generating large volumes of low-quality clothes. The impact of fast fashion on the environment is significant and well-documented. Globally ,the fast fashion industry creates 92 million tons of waste per year. Less than 15 percent of clothes are recycled or reused.

A style-conscious person expresses themselves through their clothes. These shoppers want second-hand clothes that show their personal style and values. They look for authentic and original pieces and avoid mainstream trends and fast fashion. They buy clothes that are timeless, well-made and all ow them to express their individual identity.

Going against the fast fashion trend, growing numbers of people are shopping for second-hand clothing. And the number of second-hand stores is also increasing. The research suggests much of this growth is due to shoppers considering themselves to be style-conscious.

We hope with increasing numbers of second-hand stores, markets and online platforms selling a range of quality, pre-loved clothes at different price points for different budgets—coupled with the growing acceptance of second-hand shopping—shoppers will consider buying second-hand more often. Not only are you helping the planet, you are also likely to be doing it with style.