British Star

“One life on this earth is all that we get, whether it is enough or not enough, and the obvious conclusion would seem to be that at the very least we are fools if we do not live it as fully and bravely and beautifully as we can.”

“Your life and my life flow into each other as wave flows into wave, and unless there is peace and joy and freedom for you, there can be no real peace or joy or freedom for me. To see reality – not as we expect it to be but as it is--is to see that unless we live for each other and in and through each other, we do not really live very satisfactorily; that there can really be life only where there really is, in just this sense, love.” – Frederick Buechner

Far Away Places

Advice From 90-year-olds:

Don’t buy stuff you don’t need.

Save for what matters.

Make peace with your past so it won’t screw up the present.

Don’t compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

No one’s in charge of your happiness but you.

Ask yourself, ‘In five years, will this matter?’

What other people think of you is none of your business.

However good or bad a situation is, it will change.

Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does.

Your children get only one childhood.

Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.

If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d grab ours back.

No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.

Life isn’t tied with a bow, but it’s still a gift.

Four Picket Fences

Army Lt. Jonathan David Rozier was 25 when he was killed in Baghdad July 19, 2003. His son Justin was only a few months old. Justin’s mom had to make a lot of tough choices; one of them was to let go of her husband’s black Toyota Celica convertible. She returned the car to Toyota, forfeiting the loan so she could afford Justin’s daycare. Last August she ran across the car registration in her desk, and it sparked an idea. What if the car was still out there somewhere? Wouldn’t that make a wonderful gift for Justin as he’s about to earn his driver’s license? She posted a plea on facebook and quickly found the Celica’s current owner in Springville. That’s when Kyle Fox, founder of Follow the Flag got involved. The non-profit group – with the help of eight generous Utah businesses – bought the car and fixed it up like new before presenting it to Justin for his birthday.

Duck and Ducklings

I can’t remember which stand-up comic used to say, “Of course penguins mate for life. It’s not as if they’re ever going to find a better looking penguin.” A couple of weeks ago we visited the aquarium and were pleasantly surprised to find it uncrowded. It’s the first time in months we’ve been able to get a good look at the penguins. (Why does everyone insist on watching penguins with noses pressed to the glass? If they’d back up a bit, three times as many of us could enjoy the view.) Along the north wall of the viewing area are photos of each penguin with their names and parentage. We were surprised to find two young penguins each had two fathers listed. The aquarium staff had noticed something odd and asked the UVU biology department to confirm their suspicions with DNA tests. They discovered penguins aren’t the paragons of fidelity we’d always assumed. How disappointing.

Picket Fence

“One of Heavenly Father’s most beloved tools in guiding His children is righteous grandparents. My father’s mother was such a woman. On an occasion that took place when I was too young to remember, my father was disciplining me. Observing this correction, my grandmother said, ‘Monte, I believe you are correcting him too harshly.’ My father replied, ‘Mother, I will correct my children as I want.’ And my wise grandmother softly stated, ‘And so will I.’ I’m pretty sure my father heard the wise guidance of his mother that day. Heavenly Father has many resources, but often He uses another person to assist Him. Daily He gives us opportunities to lead, guide, and walk beside one in need. We must follow the example of the Savior. We too must be about Heavenly Father’s work.” - M. Joseph Brough

Daylily

If there is a truly carefree perennial flower, it’s the daylily. Its botanical name is Hemerocallis, which means, “beauty for a day.” That pretty much sums it up. Most daylily blossoms open at dawn and are spent by sundown. Each scape can carry a dozen or more buds, so the daylily plant can keep blooming for several weeks at a time. Once a scape is through blooming the plant cuts it off, which makes deadheading effortless. I was very proud of the daylily hedge along the western wall of our last house. I’d meant to divide them to share with neighbors and to bring some with us when we moved here, but somehow in the chaos of moving it never happened. I’d like to replace the forsythia bushes near our mailbox with half a dozen daylily plants. And I would, if only I could figure out how to evict the forsythias.

Canadian Star

Mohamad Fakih is the CEO of Paramount Fine Foods, the fastest growing Middle Eastern Food chain in Canada. In 2016, when the first wave of Syrian refugees came to Canada, Mohamad committed to putting them to work in all of his 36 locations. So far there are over 80 Syrian refugees working in his restaurants. “When I came here as an immigrant,” he says, “I really was helped by a lot of Canadians. And if you one day — as I did — became successful, this is the time you want to give back.” After a shooting at the Islamic Cultural Centre in Quebec City, Mohamad offered to cover the funeral costs for the victims’ families. Paramount Fine Foods later raised over $100,000 for their families, and to help rebuild the mosque. "We help the Canadian community,” he explains. “We hire all Canadians regardless of where they come from and that is what we’re proud of.”