With all of the wonderful things life brings us, it also brings us stress. It is for this reason that I am an active supporter of mental health days.

    Although it's never good to ignore(忽视) responsibilities, sometimes it is good to unplug(拔除) from the world for a day. We eat healthy and stay active to keep us from getting sick, but sometimes we forget to care for our minds. Our minds and bodies are connected, and when only one is being cared for, the other may be suffering. It is important to try to combine self care with our lives and spend time on activities we enjoy. This helps relieve stress on a daily day.

    So, what do you do on a mental health day? The answer is anything you want. Growing up, my brother and I were allowed a few mental health days a year. We would stay home from school and relax. For him, it was playing games on the computer, while my days were spent reading or watching TV. My mental health days now include picking things up around my apartment, cooking a tasty meal, and then reading for a few hours. I completely shut myself off from work or school. To me, this is relaxing. Organize the clutter(凌乱的东西) that piles up during the week, cook the meals I don't have time to cook, and read the books that I've bought but don't have time to read.

    A mental health day is great, but only if it's supplemented(增补) with self care through the week. From my experience, if self care is not regularly provided in your week, taking a mental health day is just going to stress you out even more. But when it's needed, try hard to recognize that and take care of yourself. It will help keep you happy and healthy. A mental health day is not a day to avoid life, it is a day to recoup(恢复).

    Finally, a cell phone

    That's… a phone

    With rates as low as $3.75 per week ！

    “Well, I finally did it. I finally decided to enter the digital age and get a cell phone. My kids have been annoying me and the last straw was when my car broke down, and I was stuck by the highway for an hour before someone stopped to help. But when I went to the cell phone store, I almost changed my mind. The phones all have cameras, computers and a "global-positioning" something or other that's supposed to spot me from space. Goodness, all I want to do is to be able to talk to my grandkids ！ The people at the store weren't much help. They couldn't understand why someone wouldn't want a phone the size of a postage stamp. And the rate plans! They were confusing, and expensive… and the'contract (合同）lasted for two years! I'd almost given up until a friend told me about her new Jitterbug phone. Now,I have the convenience and safety of being about to stay in touch with a phone I can actually use. ”

    Affordable plans that I can understand一and no contract to sign (签订）！ Unlike other cell phones，Jitterbug has plans that make sense. Why should I pay for minutes I m never going to use? And if I do talk more than I plan，I won 't find myself with no minutes like my friend who has a prepaid phone. Best of all, there is no contract to sign_so I m not locked in for years at a time. The US-based customer service is second to none. And the phone gets service anywhere in the country.

    Call now and receive a FREE gift when you order. Try Jitterbug for 30 days and if you don't love it, just return it! Why wait, the Jitterbug comes ready to -use right out of the box. If you aren't as happy with it as I am, you can return it and get your money back. Call now, the Jitterbug product experts are ready to answer your questions.

    Call 1-888-809-8794 or visit www. jitlerbugdirect. com.

    Drive through any suburb in the U.S. today,and it's hard to miss the bins that have become companions to America's trash cans.Recycling has become commonplace,as people recognize the need to care for the environment. Yet most people's recycling consciousness extends only as far as paper,bottles,and cans.People seldom find themselves facing the growing problem of e-waste.

    E-waste rapidly increases as the techno-fashionable frequently upgrade to the most advanced devices,and the majority of them end up in landfills（垃圾填埋地）.Some people who track such waste say that users throw away nearly 2 million tons of TVs,VCRs,computers,cell phones,and other electronics every year.Unless we can find a safe replacement,this e-waste may get into the ground and poison the water with dangerous toxins（毒素）,such as lead, mercury,and arsenic.Burning the waste also dangerously contaminates the air.

    However,e-waste often contains reusable silver.gold.and other electrical materials.Recycling these materials reduces environmental problems by reducing both landfill waste and the need to look for such metals,which can destroy ecosystems.

    A growing number of states have adopted laws to ban dumping e-waste.Still,less than a quarter of this refuse will reach lawful recycling programs.Some companies advertising safe disposal（处置）in fact merely ship the waste to some developing countries,where it still ends up in landfills.These organizations prevent progress by unsafely disposing of waste in an out-of-sight,out-of-mind location.

    However,the small but growing number of cities and corporations that do handle e-waste responsibly represents progress toward making the world a cleaner,better place for us all.

    China's Singles Day, which falls on Nov. 11 every year, has far surpassed its U. S. counterparts of Black Friday and Cyber Monday—combined Last year, Americans spent a record $ 12.8 billion online between Thanksgiving Day and Cyber Monday. It's impressive until you compare it to the $ 17.6 billion in sales made by Chinese consumers in a single 24-hour period during 2016's Singles Day.

    Singles Day is known as “Bare Sticks Day” or “Bare Branches Day” in Chinese-because the date “11/11” looks like bare branches and “one” is the loneliest number. Singles Day began in the early 1990s in the dorm rooms of Nanjing University when a group of single friends were sorry about the lack of significant others and decided to mark the day by organizing activities as a group of singles and reducing their loneliness by buying themselves a gift.

    Then in 2009, sensing a break between the sales period of China's National Day on Oct. 1 and Chinese New Year in late January or early February, Alibaba's Jack Ma saw an opening: sell to comfort lonely hearts.

    The first year did only $7.5 million in sales, but just 8 years later, shoppers spent $ 25.3 billion, or 168.2 billion yuan, this year—a 40 percent jump from last year's $ 17.6 billion. For comparison, Black Friday and Cyber Monday in the U. S. only netted $ 6.79 billion in 2016. Amazon doesn't release sales figures for July's Prime Day, but it's pretty safe to believe the not-quite-national-holiday doesn't come close to $ 25 billion.

    “More than $ 25 billion in one day is not just a sales figure,” Alibaba Group CEO Daniel Zhang said in a statement. “It represents the desire for quality consumption of the Chinese consumer, and it reflects how merchants and consumers alike have now fully accepted the combination of online and offline sales.”

    Going green seems to be a fad(时尚) for a lot of people these days. Whether that is good or bad, we can't really say, but for the two of us, going green is not a fad but a lifestyle.

    On April 22, 2011, we decided to go green every single day for an entire year. This meant doing 365 different green things, and it also meant challenging ourselves to go green beyond easy things. Rather than recycle and reduce our energy, we had to think of 365 different green things to do and this was no easy task.

    With the idea of going green every single day for a year, Our Green Year started. My wife and I decided to educate people about how they could go green in their lives and hoped we could show people all the green things that could be done to help the environment. We wanted to push the message that every little thing counts.

    Over the course of Our Green Year, we completely changed our lifestyle. We now shop at organic(有机的) stores. We consume less meat, choosing green food. We have greatly reduced our buying we don't need. We have given away half of what we owned through websites. Our home is kept clean by vinegar and lemon juice, with no chemical cleaners. We make our own butter, enjoying the smell of home-made fresh bread. In our home office anyone caught doing something un-green might be punished.

    Our minds have been changed by Our Green Year. We are grateful for the chance to have been able to go green and educate others. We believe that we do have the power to change things and help our planet.

Holidays are the main times to see both sides of my family.

    At Thanksgiving, my mom, dad, brother and I go to my dad's side of the family, my grandpa's. When I was in 2nd grade, my grandma got in a car accident only miles from their house. At the time, I was in school. I was checked out and brought to church. Since then, holidays have never been the same. However, Thanksgiving is still good, although it would be better with grandma. At my grandpa's house, my uncle, aunt, dad and mom all get the dishes prepared for the feast. When the final family members arrive, and the food is downstairs, we dig in, the little ones first.

    Christmas is a little different. We have Christmas with my mom's side at my uncle's house, usually on Christmas Eve. We have dinner with homemade cupcakes for dessert, and relax until it is time to open presents. The kids get the most and we usually take a family photo. After everybody's gifts have been opened, my family say goodbye and go home.

    Easter has been a little different in the past few years. It started 3 years ago, when my family hosted my mom's side of the family. We put our dishes we made for the day on the counter. We kids go downstairs and play ping-pong or football. We are called up when everything is ready and begin eating. The kids go to a table in the living room, and the adults use the kitchen table. That is usually the Easter day for us.

    Each tradition gets better and better each year for some reason. I wonder what new traditions my family might come up with in the coming years.