mikalee.byerman_243's blog

My mom has created the world’s most magical backyard. 

I honestly have no idea how she does it. Even during quarantine, she manages to have fairy lights twinkling, hanging baskets overflowing with cascading flowers and an emerald green lawn. My 7-year-old daughter is 100 percent convinced fairies make their home there, and her 46-year-old mom (yes, I’m talking about myself in the third person) just about believes it, too. 

Many Northern Nevadans are developing newfound skills in the art of sewing face masks as a result of the current pandemic. And while healthcare workers, grocery store employees and neighbors are often the recipients, one population is particularly vulnerable when it comes to falling through the cracks for receiving these potentially live-saving tools: families in need. 

To address this important population, iCelerate - High Sierra Industries (HSI) went to work.

Did you know: The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granted American women the right to vote, a right known as suffrage, on Aug. 18, 1920. 

This means 2020 is the 100^th anniversary of this milestone; in part dedicated to a celebration of suffrage, the 4^th annual Reno Women’s March happened Saturday, Jan. 18. 

Want to know something totally sexy and awesome you can do every single night in order to be your most amazing self? 

SLEEP. 

Sure, it doesn’t sound sexy and awesome — but it is. In fact, it’s so sexy and awesome, there’s even a set of hygiene rules around it. Yes, hygiene. 

Yes, this is an article on a website called “Just the Positive”; so why are we talking about organ/tissue donation, which is presumably something that happens once a person has died? 

Because donation has everything to do with life. 

In fact, every person who registers as a donor has the ability to save or heal eight lives through organ donation and 75 lives through tissue donation. We think those are extraordinarily positive, even heroic numbers. 

A few years ago, I was t-boned by a car running a red light at an intersection. I was later told by police that the man who ran the light was named Darwin — which I only mention because he walked away from the accident he caused without a single scratch (survival of the fittest much?). 

The idea that implementing a morning routine may steer your brain toward happiness and productivity is not new. 

In October of 2017, Kirk Allaire had a crazy-big idea. 

The roots of this idea: As the successful owner of a company called Gratis Payment Processing, he wanted to give back to a non-profit that held great meaning to him personally. In the early days of his company, he contacted this specific charity to try to initiate the process. But he found the simple idea of trying to donate to a national organization to be overwhelming for the company’s bandwidth at the time. 

Did you ever notice how something as simple as reading someone’s positive post on social media, or just passing by a happy person on the street, can make you immediately joyful? That’s the reasoning behind this crowdsourced story, in which we’ve summarized ways that locals create their own happiness. 

Here’s Part 2 of our 2-part series — because we got too many responses to make it just one story (and we LOVE that!).