Sometimes, we create wonderful events in our lives. And sometimes amazing events happen to us. This story exemplifies people’s innate connection to wildlife and their occasional need for our aid. How can you help out an animal today (and yes - as little extra love and attention count!)

4 Deer Saved from Certain Death in Alaska Sea Passage Way

A foursome of young button bucks fell upon some good luck Sunday as they were pulled from the icy waters of Stephens Passage by a group of locals out to enjoy the last few days of recent sunshine.

These good Samaritans describe their experience as “one of those defining moments in life.” A group of four juvenile Sitka black-tailed deer. They swam right toward the boat, then, they started to circle the boat. They were looking up and looked like they needed help.

Four deer swim toward the Satre’s boat Sunday. Once they reached the vessel, Satre said they began to circle the boat and looked obviously distressed. The typically skittish and absolutely wild animals came willingly and once on the boat, collapsed with exhaustion. They were shivering.

Four Sitka black-tailed bucks pulled from the waters of Stephens Passage Sunday recover on the back of Tom Satre’s 62-foot charter vessel, the Alaska Quest. All deer were transported to Taku Harbor and witnesses reported they all recovered from what appeared to be exhaustion and a bit of hypothermia. Once the group reached the dock, the first to be pulled from the water hopped onto the dock, looked back, then leapt into the waters of the harbor and swam to shore. He quickly disappeared into the forest. Two others followed suit, after a bit of prodding and assistance from the group.

One of the four Sitka black-tailed bucks pulled from the waters of Stephens Passage Sunday is seen being transported via wheelbarrow by Tom Satre after reaching Taku Harbor . Witnesses reported all the deer recovered fully from what appeared to be exhaustion and a bit of  hypothermia.

From left: Tom, Anna and Tim Satre help one of the “button” bucks to its feetafter they rescued it from Stephens Passage. Four bucks in all were rescued.

Source: Northern Sports Network

Thinking outside of the box as far as trash and recycling is critical in this day and age. Repurposing is a term often used for pre-cycling - both suggest a way to re-use something that was considered junk prior to it reaching recycling stations. I repurposed an old scarf with a hole in it and used it a way to keep my curtain tied during the day…just one small example.

Read what this company is doing to deal with trashable items:

What can you do with a bag of garbage? While you might think it’s not good for much more than landfill material, Al Braun, co-founder of Better World Materials in Kearns, Utah, has other ideas: His company is converting waste products into building materials.

The company takes items that recycling centers often reject—milk jugs and cereal boxes, for instance—and uses machinery to grind them down into a woodlike substance that can be used for building materials such as railroad ties, foundations, and boards.

Braun began developing the process 20 years ago, after seeing how much garbage ended up scattering across his native Hawaiian island as debris after a hurricane. He’s spent hundreds of thousands on his mission, but he’s now developed a process that can convert most forms of rejected recyclables into building materials.

Currently, the company is focusing on railroad ties, but that will change soon: Better World recently signed a contract with TuffShed to produce planks that can be used for shed foundations. Better World is also aiming to build plants to convert trash into construction materials in 15 states. If that happens, the company will need a lot of raw materials to process—but the company’s CEO, Dalyn Judd doesn’t believe that should be a problem.

“Are we going to run out of garbage?” he asked the Salt Lake Tribune. “I don’t think so.”

Source: Gimundo

Look at me! I'm a railroad tie!

It’s easy in today’s world to think in terms of the “haves” and “have nots.” But one self-proclaimed little guy who knew a bit about gems won big at an online auction. Remember, we can all be hot shots sometimes!

CORTLAND, Ohio - He calls himself “just a country boy,” but a retired home builder from Trumbull County just out-bid the world for one of the most notable diamonds on the planet.

Jerre and Donah Hentosh of Cortland are proud owners of The Golden Eye Diamond. It’s a 43.51 carat diamond, one caret less than the famed Hope Diamond. It’s a yellow or canary diamond. The cut is a one inch long rectangle and its clarity is rated internally flawless.

It was confiscated during an FBI investigation and was sold this week by the U.S. Marshall’s Office in an on-line auction.

“We read about the auction and the stone and I know diamonds pretty well, precious metals, so we decided to bid because we thought it might be exciting and an opportunity,” Jerre Hentosh said.

Jerre says they made several bids and couldn’t believe they ended up with the winning bid. “Shocked, I didn’t have a clue. I thought some big wheels would be there instead of a little country boy like myself,” Jerre said.

“I just thought there was no way that the two of us living in Cortland, Ohio had a chance against people probably all over the world,” said Donah Hentosh.

The diamond was seized by the FBI in 2006 from Paul Monea of Alliance. He was arrested after he attempted to sell the diamond and the former Southington estate of boxer Mike Tyson to an undercover FBI agent.

Monea was convicted of money laundering and is serving a 13 year sentence in federal prison.

Jerre and Donah just learned that the Golden Eye is listed as number four on the list of the ten most notable diamonds in the world.

Donah says Jerre was a successful businessman and they saved their money. “We live pretty frugally and I mean that’s the way were able to save the money we do,” Donah said.

When and if they sell the diamond, they plan to give the money to charities that help the poor.

Source: WFMJ.com

Fostering children can be a complicated and multi-layered process for both the child and the parents. Certain people make great foster parents and can instill in their child love, guidance and wisdom. But Thomas and Ann Rose have taken it a step further:

Thomas and Ann Rose had a huge reason to celebrate Father’s Day on Sunday. Thomas, who is in his 70s, and Ann, who is in her 80s, raised not only their own children years ago, but also were foster parents to over 71 children over the past 15 years, reported CNN. The couple is hoping to welcome their 72nd foster child soon.

Thomas and Ann Rose live in Allentown, Pennsylvania and are enjoying their senior years by helping raise not only young children, but babies as well. They reported to CNN reporter Fredricka Whitfield that the job is very “satisfying”.

The Rose’s told CNN that they only take up to 2 children at a time and that they “try to provide children with a loving environment and teach them to have fun and get a sense of humor and, if they’re old enough … some manners”.

Like the Rose’s, many families take in foster children for temporary periods of time and attempt to give these children, who for one reason or another have been taken from their homes and their biological families, love, care and understanding.

Source: Examiner.com

Repurposing is one of my favorite words. I love the idea that something can be used in a new and different way, saving the world of another “new” thing and maximizing our resourcefulness and creativity. Here’s a great example. Today, ask yourself what you can repurpose? What “old thing” could have a new and improved use?

Source: Environmental Graffiti [Great site - check it out!]

This is a great piece I read this morning about recognizing your “tell.” What’s a tell? It’s a gambler term that directly relates to your life. Read on!

I’m always on the look-out for indirect ways to gain self-knowledge. For instance, I ask, Whom do I envy? What do I lie about? My envy and lies reveal a lot — including things I’d otherwise try to keep hidden, even from myself.

I also push myself to Imitate a spiritual master. To do so, I first had to identify my spiritual master, and recognizing that St. Therese of Lisieux is my spiritual master revealed a great deal to me about myself.

And I’ve also learned to look for my “tells.” In gambling, a tell is a change in behavior that reveals your inner state. Gamblers look for tells as clues about whether other players are holding good or bad hands.

I have a tell. It took me a long time to recognize it, but finally I did, just a few years ago. But funnily enough, even though this tell has been telling away for several days, I only noticed it this morning.

This is my tell: when I’m feeling anxious or worried, I re-read books aimed at a younger and younger audience. The more worried I am, the simpler the book. Under all circumstances, I love children’s and young-adult literature, and read it often, but when I’m reading these books as an anxiety tell, I inevitably re-read. I want the coziness, the familiarity, the high quality of a book that I know I love.

Over the few weeks, I’ve re-read Peter Cameron’s Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You, Julie Andrews’s Mandy, and Jennie Lindquist’s The Golden Name Day (I re-read these books very quickly). But I didn’t pick up on this clue to self-knowledge until I saw myself, as if in a dream, reaching for J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring. As I believe any lover of Tolkien would agree: that’s a long road, with no turning back. Once you begin, you’re going there and back again.

Sheesh, I have work to do! I can’t re-read the entire Lord of the Rings! And then I’ll want to watch the movies, too, like as not.

And that’s when I saw the mirror to myself: without quite perceiving it, I’ve been feeling unsettled, with a low-level of anxiety, for the last few weeks. Now that I know, I can deliberately do the things that calm me: re-read those Tolkien books; go out of my way to cultivate good smells, get enough sleep, exercise, and all the rest. It’s odd – for some of that time, I’ve been on vacation, but for me, vacation isn’t as comforting as The Lord of the Rings.

My friends have mentioned their “tells” — one watches reality TV, one eats ice cream (there’s a reason that it’s called “comfort food”), one starts sleeping much more than usual.

How about you? Do you have any tells that signal that you’re anxious, sad, happy, overworked?

Source: The Happiness Project

The Elders is a wonderful organanization, stocked with previous world leaders and forward global thinkers. Take a moment to stop by their website, read about what they do and follow them on FB and Twitter. You’ll thank me for it. They do good stuff. And they have the power to make serious change happen.

The Elders are an independent group of eminent global leaders, brought together by Nelson Mandela, who offer their collective influence and experience to support peace building, help address major causes of human suffering and promote the shared interests of humanity.

The Elders

I don’t know about you, but when I think of Prince Charles, I think of stodgy royalty. More of a figurehead than anything else. But Prince Charles is actually deeply entrenched in charitable work. And not just to look good; he really is walking the walk and talking the talk (or riding the bike, in this case).

Having personally founded 18 charities, The Prince of Wales’ new focus for positive change is you. START is his new initiative to help us all begin to take simple steps for sustainable living

The Prince of Wales is a man on a mission. Having personally founded 18 charities, he presides over the largest multi-cause charitable group in the UK, which raises over £100m annually and includes The Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment, The Prince’s Countryside Fund and The Prince’s Trust, which has just announced £2.5m of investment in the places hardest hit by the riots across English cities in August 2011.

Prince Charles’ new focus for positive change is you. Start is his new initiative designed to help all of us begin to take simple steps for sustainable living, and to show what a more energy efficient, cleaner and healthier future could look like.

The concept has been developed and is now lead by Joey Tabone, a stalwart of the Prince’s Charities team. “Start is fun, enjoyable and a little quirky,” he says. “We want to involve the public in positive activities which make a difference while conveying an easy sustainable-living message.”

“Let’s inspire people with positive messages about what they can start doing, not what they have to stop doing.” HRH The Prince of Wales

Joey’s team wants to help people engage in their everyday actions in a new way, with both their hearts and minds. They believe that through our everyday choices and how we approach what we do, we all can make a difference. So far so good, but how is Start actually going to change the behaviour of the public?

At its hub is an interactive website which, while still in its infancy, is becoming a useful and dynamic resource for green living advice and actions. But several such sites already exist, so what’s different? Start’s power may lie in its ability to go where other sustainability initiatives cannot: to appeal beyond environmentalists, to a sometimes sceptical and cynical general public.

Start believes it can do this because it has: a world famous patron; an innovative and accessible events schedule; a motivated and switched on team; and a committed group of corporate partners who are prepared to put their extensive marketing capabilities to work for the cause.

Celebrities are also being brought on board, with actress Barbara Windsor for example, endorsing the benefits of holidaying in the UK (thereby avoiding air travel). “Britain is such a beautiful place to holiday in, I’m going to promise to start encouraging people to ‘carry on camping,’” she says.

In its first year, Start held a 12-day festival for 30,000 people along the Mall in London and took Prince Charles on a national rail tour (the train ran on chip-fat) with a swathe of accompanying regional events.

Read more about Prince Charles and his latest initiative START.

One group maximizes something any of us can do at any time: clip coupons. Remember, saving money means saving the community. Maximize savings in every purchase you make.

Heather Bonner is the founder of “Clipping for a Cause,” a nonprofit organization centered around finding and using coupons to buy items.

One night each week, a group of women meet in the basement of a church in Lawrenceville, Georgia to clip and organize coupons.

The church funds the group and the key to the group’s success is that they only buy things that are almost completely free.

Since beginning in March 2010, Clipping for a Cause has donated more than 19,500 items costing the church about $1,800. The net savings is $15,500 though.

Source: Lofty Matters

I’m one of the writers for Only Positive News, and just a few hours ago, we experienced an earthquake. Relatively minor. 3.2 by the time it reached us. (The epicenter was in Virginia, I live at the Jersey shore.) Everything was fine here, but what a reality check! You generally expect the ground to stay put! But nothing is certain.

That may frighten us, but that uncertainty might be a reminder to let go, to stop trying control the “earthquakes” that happen every day, in one form or the answer. We don’t have control of everything. And instead of it frightening us, what if we embraced it?

How do we embrace our natural disasters, whether internal or external?

1. Get used to danger. When was the last time you did something a little physically risky? Or even mentally challenging? Or socially risky, such as public speaking? The more we stretch our ability to tolerate danger, the more we can handle the small stuff. Or the big stuff.

2. Ride the unpredictable like a wave. Just as every one of us may have an inner child, perhaps we each possess a rebellious, wild teenager waiting to leap and jump off a bridge. Instead of the fear and anxiety you normally feel, try to change your mindset and think of our daily ups and downs as a thrill, a ride, a natural high.

3. Remember nature as a metaphor. All natural occurrences have some sort of personal, relatable metaphor. What was the last earthquake you experienced? Lightning storm? Can you make yourself feel like a tornado on command? Try it. Take a deep breath and bring your energy upward, spiraling through your center. Feel your strength, your power, grow.

And always, always remember, we are interconnected - these natural disasters, the planets, the moon, the air, the water. Be grateful of this amazing connection we have to Mother Nature. She is, after all, BOSS.