An inter-family struggle earlier this year to wrest control of a grocery store chain from longtime boss, Arthur T. Demoulas, caused an uprising among workers who led a six-week employee walkout and customer boycott.
Market Basket loyalists won the fight and Demoulas, with his team, were back at the helm following an agreement in August to sell him the company.
But, after the fight, most employees gave up hope of receiving any Christmas bonus this year, especially because during the unrest the company appeared to be on the brink of insolvency.
Yet, Holiday bonuses for workers has been a tradition started decades ago by Arthur’s father, Mike Demoulas. And “Artie T.” wanted to thank his “associates” for their loyalty and for being one of the key reasons people shopped in the New England stores.
On Tuesday, store managers handed out checks in more than 70 stores, equal to or more than the bonuses last year, sharing approximately $44 million of profit with workers.
It’s that time of year where the cookies and candies are infiltrating our everyday lives. In our homes we are stocking up on holiday delights – peppermint bark, gingerbread cookies, and everything else seasonably imaginable. Holiday parties serve delicious eats, but not many are nutritious.
So how do we get through New Years without gaining an excess 10 pounds? It’s possible and not as difficult as you may think. Here are 5 of the simplest ways that you can enjoy your holidays without gaining extra poundage…
1. Set clear parameters and portion sizes. Portion control is the key to maintaining a healthy weight. My parameters and portions? Limit myself to my regular 6 small meals per day, even if it means saving the leftovers for tomorrow, and 1 treat per day (this counts as one of my 6 meals).
2. Create reasonable rules that you can follow. Being too strict will result in unhappiness and feeling like you’re missing out. Being too loose will result in mayhem. My rules? For each cookie over 1 per day I must do an additional 20 bicycle crunches, 10 pushups OR 15 air squats.
3. Focus on getting 3 servings of fruits and 3 servings of veggies every single day. Fill up on the nutritious so that you can enjoy a little bit of the delicious. Make the veggies on your plate the largest portion.
4. Be that obnoxious person that brings the healthy dish to potlucks. If there are no other healthy options, at least you know you can eat yours. My go to dish? Easy and simple: Fruit plate or veggie tray with hummus.
5. Sweat every single day. Especially at the holidays it can be best to workout right away in the morning because the rest of the day can fill up fast.
Follow these and you will happily enjoy your holidays without the added weight.
Remember that we are so blessed to have luxurious lives where we have cookies, candies, roasts, mashed potatoes, and everything else. Enjoy it all knowing that it will be there again if you want to make it again. Say thank you everyday for everything.
An 87-year-old Nevada woman rushing to see her son, who was in critical condition in a Salt Lake City hospital 350 miles away, got pulled over for a traffic violation by a Utah State Trooper — and then she backed her vehicle into his patrol car.
It turned out to be a blessing for the white-haired mother, and one that set off a chain reaction of professional courtesy.
Jeff Jones determined she was in no state to drive and made a call.
”Four good-lookin’ patrol boys” ended up driving Helen “Skeeter” Smith across the state on Friday, each shuttling her through a different county to reach the hospital.
The relay anchor, State Trooper Andrew Pollard, told KUTV-2, “To have (hospital staff) there waiting, to hold her hand as we walked into the hospital… it was very, very rewarding.”
A 4-year-old Colorado Springs boy who is crazy about trucks, for some reason became enthralled with one in particular — the big brown delivery truck that dropped off special milk to his family twice a week.
Those frequent visits inspired a strong bond of friendship between Carson and the UPS driver, Ernie Lagasca. It got to the point where he’d hear the truck coming and be waiting on the curb. “Mr. Ernie,” as Carson calls him, also anticipated their time together. Each time the truck arrived, the boy expressed the same wild excitement.
Photos courtesy of Carson’s family
“[In] my job, I meet a lot of wonderful people, but Carson really stood out,” Lagasca said. “Just to see him growing up so far in his young life, how I’ve made an impact on him. He adds a bright light into my life. It makes me feel my job is more worthwhile.”
Over the years the boy acquired UPS stickers and other items that fueled his love of “playing UPS” in the family’s basement — and he even has his own brown uniform and UPS hat.
“He’s always looking really sharp in his hat, and his boots — the whole outfit,” said Ernie. But the best part was the boy’s enthusiasm and big hugs.
Recently, as part of UPS’s Wishes Delivered campaign, Carson received a special delivery, the gift of a lifetime, his own child sized UPS truck, unloaded by Mr. Ernie himself.
Now, Carson has a hand-drawn map of the neighborhood and delivers cookies and other items to the community. He loads up the truck with brown boxes taped up and labeled by hand and always asks them to “pretend to sign” his ledger acknowledging receipt of the item, just like his hero, Ernie.
(WATCH the delightful video showing the surprise delivery)
For each wish shared on wishesdelivered.ups.com or on social media using #WishesDelivered, UPS will donate $1 to charity, up to $100,000. What do you wish for?
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Officer John Holder and 73-year-old widow Dorothy Shepard have formed an unlikely friendship, after multiple surgeries left her recovering on her own.
Six months ago, Holder was sent to visit her on a well-visit and left her his cell phone number to call if case she “ever needed anything.” Since then, he has taken her to doctors appointments and to run errands, mostly while he was off-duty. No one in the DeSoto Police Department knew about the kind acts of their Texas colleague until a random shopper took a photo of the pair side-by-side with Holder pushing a cart full of groceries. And, now the world knows about it because the photo was posted on Facebook and thousands of people responded, sharing the touching image.
Jessica Huerta, who snapped the picture, said on the Desoto PD Facebook page, “I’m so glad I caught the awesome moment to share with everyone! It was just a day before thanksgiving and it just made my day!”
Even though Officer Holder didn’t want any attention for his actions, their bond of friendship has been featured on news stations around the world.
Todd Janca’s father ran the Discovery Bay Marine Laboratory in Mona, Jamaica, and Todd learned that at great depths submarine have to fight strong ocean currents.
“Along the way, it just dawned on me that no one is using all the energy that is down there,” he says. “You can collect the energy from [an ocean current] and you aren’t using anything up.”
According to the CS Monitor:
So this year, Janca started Crowd Energy, a company that is looking to build large underwater turbines to harness ocean currents. Crowd Energy, based in Zephyrhills, Fla., plans on making turbines with 100-foot-tall propellers located 300 feet below the ocean’s surface and miles from shore.
In addition to ensuring that no animals will be harmed by the physical turbine, Janca is trying to make the turbine as quiet as possible to minimize harmonics, which can affect animal life.
“Two days after her home of 40 years burned down outside Salt Lake City, the police officer who helped Gloria Peterson escape the flames returned with an unexpected gift,” reports KSL News.
Orem police officer Greer Haymond visited the daughter-in-law’s home where Gloria was staying and told the family, ‘We wanted to do something that would help make your holidays a little brighter.’
Her hero policeman delivered a Christmas tree, ornaments and lights.
Gloria loves this time of year and had already decorated her now-destroyed home with holiday cheer.
“It’s become an annual holiday tradition for American football player Andre Johnson. Each year since 2007, the Houston Texans receiver hosts a shopping spree for local kids.”
“This year, 11 children in the care of Child Protective Services got 80 seconds (and the help of Texans cheerleaders) to stuff a shopping cart full of whatever they wanted from Toys “R” Us.”
Not content to see him living in a terrarium, a German pet owner took her tortoise to a veterinarian when he was having mobility issues.
The doctor used Legos belonging to his son to fashion a temporary device with wheels to help the animal propel himself forward until he regains full function of his limbs.
An article in DesignBoom.com has more photos of Dr. Carsten Plischke’s clever invention.
(WATCH him walk in this German TV segment [Rewind to beginning if you speak German])
The Lowell, Michigan Police Department used a hidden microphone to summon Christmas presents out of thin air during traffic stops with unsuspecting motorists. And the video is so beautiful, you’ll want to hug your screen.
Officer Scot VanSolkema, with blue lights flashing, pulled over drivers in Michigan for minor infractions, like having snow-covered license plates, or “illegal tinted windows”. Asking for identification, he made conversation about whether they had their Christmas shopping done. Most heart-tugging were the parents who said their kids wanted expensive gifts like an X-Box One, an electric scooter, or Lego sets.
”I told them they are not going to get it,” said Salvador Galeno, a father of two who couldn’t afford an X-Box.
While the officer was speaking, his voice transmitted the wish list back to helpers waiting in a department store, who ran around grabbing the items. Within ten or fifteen minutes, the gifts were handed to Scot behind the vehicle.
The shocked looks on people’s faces when they realize they are not getting a ticket, and instead see gifts appear, is priceless.
“I’ve been pulled over by policemen before and they’ve always been good to me,” said one of the shocked drivers, “But never this good!”
“We got this idea,” said Police Chief Steve Bukala. “What if we could change a person’s day in real time.”
With the idea, the cops went to a Lowell native who has his own viral video marketing agency, Rob Bliss Creative. Bliss figured out how to make it happen, and then filmed it over a two day period. He got funding from UPtv, a Christian based media company.
Bliss credits Officer VanSolkema with so “charismatic” that he could make drivers share their family’s holiday hopes and dreams.
“It’s important for police departments to take the time to show their citizens just how much they care,” he says in the end of the video.
(WATCH the video below)
Bliss told NBC that about 1 out of 3 drivers left before they had the chance to get a present, with one responding to ‘What do you want for Christmas” by saying, ‘Go to hell,’ which led the officer to simply allow them to continue their day.
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Her car was barely drivable after multiple run-ins with deer on roadways. She covered two windows with plastic and cardboard and held together the front end with a strap.
Cindi Grady was depressed because this might be the second Christmas without a tree and few presents for her disabled son. As a server at the Cracker Barrel restaurant in Branson, Missouri, she didn’t know how she would pay for it all.
Then, while at work, she got a $20 tip — twice the normal size — and thought things were looking up. The couple at the table had been semi-regulars in the restaurant over the summer.
Suddenly Cindy’s boss told her to put down the tray and follow her. She was wracking her brain to figure out what she had done to warrant a conference with management, but instead of the office, she was led outside to the parking lot where the couple was standing next to a silver car with a red bow on it.
“They told me they had seen me come to work all summer in my shabby car and wanted to bless me with a 2008 Ford Fusion,” wrote Cindi on Facebook.
Gary and Roxann Tackett from Quitman, Arkansas handed over the keys and paperwork to the car they had just purchased especially for Cindy. “It’s not new, but it’s new for you,” the Gary said as he held open the door for her.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” she said through tears. “No way.”
“I’m still shell shocked,” she wrote later. “Now I can concentrate on catching up with my bills so my son can enjoy the upcoming holiday as well…This year is so much different thanks to the Tacketts.”
She even put deer whistles on her new car to alert the animals to stay away.
“While the acceleration in US hiring last month was surprisingly sharp and broad-based, a sector that has had a particularly rough 21st century — manufacturing — offered one of the brightest signals. US factories added 28,000 jobs in November, the most in a year, according to government data released on Friday. “
“Employers added 321,000 workers to their payrolls last month, with strong gains in most sectors, from construction and retail to finance.”
Talk therapy (Cognitive behavioral therapy) is considered the number one most effective treatment for PTSD right now. Some veterans have also found art therapy or creating structure through a daily routine helpful. Anti-anxiety medication can be effective, but it can also become addictive so it’s not a good option for a long-term solution.
When I experienced PTSD after a house fire that left me homeless, I tried a holistic approach — and it worked. Here’s what I did.
1. Avoid stimulants like sugar and caffeine. Sugar and caffeine are anxiety-provoking. They get the mind racing, stress the adrenal glands, put the nervous system on edge, add to paranoia and make the heart beat faster. I was already experiencing these symptoms with PTSD, I didn’t need something within my control to make it worse. I traded caffeinated drinks for herbal teas, and once symptoms subsided, I opted for the lesser caffeinated decaf black, Chai and green teas. If you’re a soda drinker, try flavored seltzer instead. Water with lemon or lime is another good substitute. For a sweet fix, grab a piece of whole fruit instead of fruit juices and junk food. These choices will spare adding to the stress of PTSD symptoms, and support your overall health by boosting your diet with antioxidants, vitamins and better hydration. You’ll also balance your blood sugar, which affects your emotional state.
2. Listen to soothing healing meditations daily, especially before sleep. Night time for me was hardest. When the world was still and quiet, images and thoughts became invasive and overwhelming. I was also tormented with nightmares. To help create a peaceful bedtime ritual that promoted feelings of safety, I took a hot shower or bath before bed, read or watched something upbeat, positive, funny or inspiring and left a nightlight on. I popped in my headphones and listened to a relaxing meditation that drifted me into sleep. Even if my mind continued to take me to dark places while I slept, at least I could control how I felt right before sleep. I avoided all negative news and media, and anything that could trigger the slightest hint of fear or uneasiness.
3. Consider energy therapy like Reiki or acupuncture. Energy healing stopped the persistent nightmares and alleviated heavy emotions that burdened me. It took months of sessions to feel on-going results. My sessions with a seasoned healer included talking about how I felt and what I was experiencing. Energy therapy was the calm in the storm, the healing that addressed my body, mind and spirit. Veterans have told me that energy balancing exercises like Tai Chi and QiGong are also extremely helpful. I also found regular massages a great asset to help my body and mind relax.
4. Re-program your mind with positive, grounding statements. PTSD programmed my mind to believe the world was frightening and I wasn’t safe. I was convinced something really bad was going to happen again. I walked around on edge, prepared for that next life-threatening danger, protecting myself from the next unexpected attack. I was dissociated, floating somewhere outside of my body. When I broke away from the automatic pilot of survival mode and became mindful about my thoughts I was able to question their validity. I was able to consciously choose new beliefs like I am safe, and good things can happen. When a PTSD thought stressed my mind, I interrupted it with a positive thought that affirmed my safety. I constantly reminded me that the traumatic experience was in the past, and I was in a different place now, I was okay. I had to give myself permission to move on and trust it was safe to be present. To help heal dissociation, I practiced being present whenever I felt myself drifting. When I was in the car and felt myself spacing out, I said aloud, “My hands are on the steering wheel. I’m driving to work. I’m passing the sports store. I’m approaching a light.” This present awareness self-talk helped snap me out of the numbness and gently bring myself back into my body.
5. Practice yoga therapy. PTSD disrupts neurotransmitters that regulate stress and fear responses. It stresses adrenal glands that produce survival hormones that put you on edge, cortisol and adrenaline. The nervous system gets locked into a hyper state, making you feel on edge, heightening anxiety with the slightest change in environment. You may find yourself flinch at sudden movements and jump at loud noises. My number one therapy healing PTSD was gentle and restorative yoga. At first, I practiced fast moving Vinyasas, sun salutes, to work out anxiety and anger. But cardio isn’t good for intensely stressed states, it only wears down the adrenals glands more and stimulates an overstimulated nervous system. I turned to gentle yoga instead, focusing on slowing down my movements and being present. I gently and mindfully stretched emotional tension out of my body. I asked myself, where am I holding this emotional stress today? I’d locate it in my back, or knees and sometimes my neck, jaw and shoulders. I’d pay extra attention to stretching these parts. I’d try to spend at least 5 minutes in a restorative yoga position, and worked my way up to 10, 15 and 20 as I became more comfortable with lying still and simply being.
When I taught active duty soldiers fresh off deployments, we only did gentle and restorative yoga. They didn’t want any more physical challenges. They wanted rest. They wanted a refuge from the constant moving and change. They wanted the challenge of becoming more mindful, making a conscious mind/body connection and healing from within. At first, lying still may be extremely difficult. This is a sign that your nervous system is jacked up! Have patience. Consistent practice will calm your nervous system, help you breathe deeper and help you feel safe in your body again.
A certified yoga therapist, Lauralyn Kearney founded Yoga for Heroes to teach and counsel veterans, first responders and those serving the greater good. She established the first therapeutic yoga program for the U.S. Army at Fort Bragg helping active duty soldiers heal stress and injuries. Also a reiki master and spiritual counselor, Kearney specializes in holistic healing and promoting inner peace, and has been featured on national television. To learn more, visit: www.LauralynKearney.com, or visit Yoga for Heroes on Facebook.
A team of four U.S. veterans who are now in business school in Massachusetts have teamed up with farmers they met while serving in Afghanistan to bring to market the most coveted and expensive spice in the world – Afghan saffron.
The Rumi Spice company was birthed in March 2013, when Army veterans were discussing an Afgan saffron farmer who had a warehouse full of the valuable spice, with no buyers lined up overseas. They decided they could provide the farmers with a direct link to sell their saffron globally.
The idea was to transform saffron into a cash crop that could triple farmers’ incomes by using fair-trade tactics of cutting out the middle men. In the process it could spur farmers to move away from the poppy crops used to make opium, which funds the Taliban.
Equally important is its potential to help build the fabric of Afgan life, because 80% of the saffron harvesters are women. One of Rumi Spice’s priorities is to empower and promote job opportunities for these women.
The super spice comes from the saffron crocus flower and is so expensive because it requires hand-picking of the individual stigmas. With hot, dry winds over semi-arid mountainous lands, Afghanistan’s growing region is similar to that of Kashmir, recognized as the world’s premier saffron region.
Rumi Spice has begun selling their saffron on their website, giving consumers worldwide access to the 2014 harvests.
(WATCH the Rumi Spice video below or READmore from NPR)
A new brewery in Columbus, Ohio turned an act of vandalism into something positive for their community.
The Land Grant Brewery, which just opened 45 days ago, features a rustic storefront facade made of wood from a 19th Century barn on which they hand-painted their white logo. When the owner arrived Sunday morning, he found splotches of red, yellow, green and black paint splattered across the rough-hewn wall.
The co-owners have already helped the community by choosing to renovate and move into an old brick warehouse located in a run-down area that the city hopes to revitalize.
Adam, Walt and Jamie decided to turn the ‘bad news’ graffiti into a positive. They used the image of their defaced building and designed a t-shirt to sell, with 100% of the proceeds going to two nonprofits community groups.
“For every lazy vandal in town there’s countless more folks working to benefit our awesome neighborhood of Franklinton, and Columbus as a whole, and we wanted to take this careless act and use it to shine a light on some of the folks working towards a positive end,” said the owners on their website.
Orders for the Vandalism Splatter Shirts will benefit The Gladden Community House and the Harmony Project.
No word on whether their storefront will be repainted.
During a power outage in Detroit last week, Kristi Marie Earley was all smiles when a police officer offered to carry her down the stairs.
Earley, who has multiple sclerosis, had just walked down 11 flights of steps with much difficulty. When she reached the lobby area, she found many deputies who offered to keep watch out front for her car, while she rested inside. Once outside and facing the front staircase of the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice, Deputy Sheriff Mark Bennetts of the Wayne County Sheriff’s Department offered to give her a lift, which she accepted.
In a video posted by the local Fox news team, he scoops her up and carries her down to the car that was waiting for her. At the end of the video you can see an elderly man in a walker with another sheriff’s deputy looking to assist.
Ms. Earley said on Facebook, “Not only did this officer help me (they had someone by my side the whole time), they did a great job with helping others as well.”
Of course, these were simply kind gestures that are not uncommon, but with the police brutality stories lately, many people are yearning for these actions to be publicized, as well.
Officer Bennetts told TODAY, “I don’t feel deserving of the attention because me doing that pales in comparison to what my partners do every day on the street.”
If Santa were in the technology business, these 100 high school students would be his favorite elves.
On Saturday morning, they put the finishing touches on 500 computers they’d fixed up themselves to give away to Cumberland County youth who were in need.
For the second year in a row, technology students from two schools near Raleigh, North Carolina — Gray’s Creek and Pine Forest — have given up their Saturdays over many months to refurbish the PCs, which were slated for recycling.
Stacked in rows, the teens loaded the computers into the cars of chosen families who only had to drive up to receive their gift.
When 59-year-old Jeff Taylor saw a nativity scene for sale in a thrift shop that reminded him of the one he loved as a boy, he never dreamed that this cardboard set, missing the lamp and the straw, would turn out to be the exact one that had disappeared from his mother’s home three decades earlier.
He bought it for ten dollars, despite ribbing from his wife, Ann, who didn’t like the shabby model much.
“No,” he insisted. “We gotta have it.”
He later attached an electric light and, every December afterward, gently unwrapped and placed the old cardboard nativity under the tree. “I was like the ‘happy little me.'”
It was seven years before his wife uncovered the amazing truth.
A Boy’s Plea to His Mom
He remembers the moment vividly. It was always a big deal when his mom drove her three kids to Pine Lawn to visit the enormous Katz Drug Store. He was about six years old.
”I saw this nativity scene and I really wanted it bad, so my mom bought it,” recalled Jeff, who spoke to Good News Network by telephone. “It had sheep, a roof of straw and I just loved it.”
His mother, Millie, would catch Jeff playing with the figures, including Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus, and scold, “Now Jeffrey, quit playing with those!”
After a divorce Millie moved into an apartment, where, later, it was discovered that she had cancer.
Jeff was 27 when she passed. Within a week of the funeral her boyfriend of ten years moved away suddenly. The nativity scene and so many family keepsakes simply vanished.
“It was kind of hard; a lot of stuff I had as a kid was all gone,” he said. “But that was it and life moved on.”
Jeff became a policeman like his father, married Ann and left the St. Louis area to become the chief of police in Troy, Missouri, about 45 miles away.
The Discovery
“There used to be a resale shop full of clutter,” Ann said. “We went in and Jeff spotted this little nativity scene. It’s not at all something I would pick. It was like the one he had from his childhood except the figures were glued in. He had to have it.”
Every year Jeff would pack it up and put it away, except last year when Ann ended up doing it.
Photos courtesy of Ann Taylor
“As I was wrapping the cord end over end, I hollered out, ‘Jeff Taylor you dork. Why would you write your name on the bottom of this?'”
“I thought she was messing with me,” Jeff said. “But then she told me the address written there, ‘6524 Leschen’… That was my old address in Hillsdale!”
In lead pencil he had written his name, street address and the year, 1963. He was 8 years old.
Somehow the nativity scene, which still had a faded sticker with the price of .98 that his mother had paid, made its way to Troy and to the one person who knew it’s true value.
“I immediately started crying a little,” he said. “This is the only thing I have, besides photos, that my mom and I had together.”
Jeff called his brother and his sister — and she remembered it. Every time he tells the story it chokes him up a little.
“From that Christmas on, we don’t pack it away in the attic anymore. It gets a special place in the hall closet. And we will pass it on to our son (who is now 14) so it stays in the family.”
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Charles Ray lost contact with his family in Fayetteville about 10 years ago. Later, he suffered a stroke that affected his memory and made it impossible for him to recall their exact whereabouts, reports ABC-11 News. Eventually he ended up homeless in Raleigh.
Lucky for him, the people at Oak City Outreach Center, which serves people living on downtown streets, encourage their volunteers to really sit down and talk to those they are feeding.
Shameeka, a social worker intern, did just that. She learned his story and used what little information he recalled to track down his relatives, who were overjoyed to hear of Charles’ whereabouts.
Further service from the Center helped him get his disability checks straightened out and he is now off the streets and planning to spend the holidays with his brother, his wife and nephews.
