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The two actresses from Three’s Company finally made peace and were reunited here after nearly thirty years when Summers left the show during a contract dispute. Dewitt severed ties with Summers refusing to speak to her until recently when arrangements were made to reunited them on Summer’s web show. This shows that no matter what, two grown women can forgive and forget.
1 week ago
vietbao.vn
Hayley Okines (and other children who suffer from progeria)
Hayley Okines suffers from an extremely rare genetic condition called Hutchinson Gilford Progeria Syndrome, also known as HGPS or Progeria. At present there are around 74 known cases of Progeria around the world and only 4 in the UK, which is where Hayley lives.
Progeria is a progressive terminal condition which mimics many of the characteristics of the normal aging process, but about 8 times faster. A 10 year old progeria child will have the appearance of an octogenerian with symptoms including baldness, arthritis and heart problems, but with the mind of a 10 year old.
The average lifespan of children with Progeria is about 13 and at present there is no cure. Hayley is now 14.
I have been watching a television documentary on Hayley this evening, and have been struck by how articulate, positive, and funny she is. She is an amazing girl who has the courage to share openly her thoughts and feelings and challenges about living with this devastating disease. How many of us could be as strong as this little girl is in a similar situation?
The link from Hayley’s name brings you to a BBC article about her, and the information about Hayley is from her family’s webpage. Check both of them out and you will be impressed by her, too…
Here’s an interview with Hayley’s friend, Harry. I couldn’t find a very recent one with Hayley on YouTube.1 week ago
I was so impressed with her passion I had to share her story. I love that 55 of her 143 paintings are self portraits. I believe that is bold and self loving in a non-narcissistic way.
Not only is she a beautiful woman to look at, I love looking at her art work. She has several self portraits where she paints what’s on her mind right in the middle of her forehead. I enjoy her artwork because every piece has message worth receiving.
I find Frida bold, complicated, loving, someone I would love have a few cups of Starbucks with.
I was prompted to add Frida to my list after reading about her husband Diego Rivera on his birthday. Google honored him with a doodle on his 125th birthday December 8, 2011.
Links to Frida:
Diana, Princess of Wales
My mom was always fascinated by Princess Diana and loved everything about her. So the day Diana died, I remember it like it was yesterday. The way things happened were horrible and we lost an angel on earth far too soon.
Diana Spencer came from one of the oldest and most important families in Great Britain. Diana’s parents separated when she was 7 years old after her mother had had an affair. Eventually her father had won custody of the 4 children.
Diana did not do very well in school, though she was an accomplished pianist. She also longed to be a professional ballerina after studying ballet, but grew to be too tall at 5’10”. She studied cooking, though never became a cook. Diana taught dance lessons until a skiing accident and then she did various things such as a preschool assistant, cleaning work, a hostess at parties and worked as a nanny.
Diana became the Princess of Wales when she married Prince Charles at age 20. Diana had 2 children, William and Harry. However, the marriage between Charles and Diana eventually ended…they both blamed each other for the demise of their marriage.
Princess Diana worked with many charities over the years and always showed a loving interest in the lives of others. She worked with charities that dealt with AIDS, leprosy, youth, elderly, homeless and drug addicts, etc. I always remember seeing her visiting children and cradling them as if they were her own. I know that Diana could have spread a lot more joy and compassion throughout the world. I hope that her sons and her new daughter-in-law, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge can somehow fill the footsteps Diana left behind. 3 months ago
Halle Berry
I just saw something online that sparked my interest. It mentioned that Halle Berry was homeless at one point in her life…I never had heard that. I’ve always liked Halle Berry; she is a beautiful woman and I have always enjoyed any movies I saw her in, she is a very talented actress.
So I started researching her past a little bit. Halle was raised only by her mother after she was 4 years old when her parents divorced. She sadly never had a relationship with her father. Halle was so depressed after her first marriage ended in divorce that she possibly considered taking her own life. Thankfully, she was stronger than that and went on to marry again (even though that marriage ended as well) and eventually adopted a baby and furthermore eventually had a biological child of her own.
Before Halle struck it big though when she first started out and left home at a young age she eventually ran out of money. Halle asked her mom for help financially. But her mom said “no, figure it out or come home”. So this led to Halle Berry living for a short time in a shelter. Though, they didn’t speak for some time Halle said she was actually grateful her mother didn’t bail her out. This helped Halle realize she could take care of herself and get through anything.
Halle Berry is now one of Hollywood’s highest paid actresses. She is also still to this day the only African American woman to have earned an Academy Award for Best Actress (for Monster’s Ball).
“I think it’s always best to be who you are.”
—Halle Berry 3 months ago
Marilyn Monroe
As I sit here listening to Elton sing it best…
“And it seems to me you lived your life
Like a candle in the wind
Never knowing who to cling to
When the rain set in”
I cannot agree more. Marilyn Monroe, born Norma Jeane Baker was always a girl with a seemingly lost soul. From the day she was born she never really had a place to “belong”. Norma Jeane was born to a mentally unstable and financially unable mother only to then be placed with foster parents. When Norma Jeane was 7 her biological mother returned and tried to kidnap her right in front of her foster mother. A few months later, Norman Jeane’s foster mother began having mental episodes and she was then declared a ward of the state and placed into the care of a guardian.
Norma Jeane lived with this guardian until she married a man who wanted to have her sent to an orphanage when she was 9. Several families wanted to adopt Norma Jeane but her original foster mother would not sign the paperwork to allow it. Eventually, Norma Jeane moved back with the guardian and her husband. However this ended when he frequently attempted to sexually assault her.
Normal Jeane was then sent to live with her great-aunt when she was of middle-school age. However, while there her great-aunt’s son also assaulted her, allegedly sexually. Norma Jeane went to live with her guardian and her husband once again when she was 16 years old, but only for a few months because they eventually moved across country but would not take her.
A family once again wanted to adopt her but Norma Jeane’s foster mother would not sign the papers. Norma Jeane’s boyfriend at the time was influenced by her guardian to marry the young girl so she would not have to return to the orphanage. So she was married for the first time at age 16.
It is no wonder why Norma Jeane never knew “who to cling to” and had inappropriate behaviors later in life that probably stemmed from such an unstable and emotionally damaging childhood.
She eventually started her modeling career and landed her first film contract at the age of 20. In 1999 she was ranked as the 6th greatest film star of all time by the American Film Institute. Marilyn Monroe died at the young age of only 36 and it truly is a shame that her candle burned out far too soon…but I’m glad her legend never did.
A favorite quote of mine:
“I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they’re right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.”
— Marilyn Monroe 3 months ago
J.K. Rowling
She is truly one of the most amazingly talented people out there. She is such an inspiration to never give up on your dreams. Talk about rags to riches… She went from living on welfare to being a multi-millionaire.
The idea for the Harry Potter stories just came to her one day during a commute and she immediately began writing the story down. Sadly, Rowling’s mother passed away while she was writing the first story and a lot of the loss she wrote about that Harry went through was sort of a mirror image to what she was going through. So unfortunately her mother never got to see her daughter become a successful writer, though this did greatly influence her writing.
A lot of the things going on in Rowling’s life transpired into her writing. After going through a marriage and divorce and left with a baby to take care of all on her own, she was clinically depressed and had even contemplated suicide. She felt like a failure…
So Rowling just kept writing here and there wherever and when she could while raising her daughter. Amazingly enough, Rowling did not give up finding a publisher even after TWELVE publishing houses rejected her manuscript. Eventually she found a publisher but was told to “keep your day job” because they said she had little chance to make money in children’s books. Rowling was also told to use initials instead of her first name because they feared the target audience of young boys would not want to read a story written by a “girl”. So the J is for her first name, Joanne and the K is for her grandmother’s name, Kathleen since she doesn’t actually have a middle name.
Rowling had the determination and drive to get her story heard, and she definitely did! The books have been translated into 65 languages around the world. Harry Potter is now a global brand worth $15 billion. What a complete change of scenery for a single mother on welfare just trying to catch a break to a world-wide phenomenon. The last 4 Harry Potter books were the fastest-selling books in history.
As an avid fan of the Harry Potter series, I am thankful JK Rowling never gave up on her dream.
“I just write what I wanted to write. I write what amuses me. It’s totally for myself. I never in my wildest dreams expected this popularity.”
—J.K. Rowling 3 months ago
Oprah Winfrey
Everybody loves Oprah! What’s not to love? I wish I could have Oprah as a BFF =) Gayle is so lucky! She is an amazing woman. She came from pretty much nothing and became one very successful and respected woman around the world.
Oprah didn’t have an easy life growing up though. She was born in Mississippi and used to have to use an outhouse! Oprah was born to an unmarried teenage mother and was raised for the first 6 years of her life by her grandmother living in poverty. Oprah had a half sister who died due to causes of cocaine addiction and a half brother who died from AIDS related causes. Oprah also had another half sister whom she did not know about as her mother gave her up for adoption and never told anyone, but she was just recently contacted by her sister and reconnected on the show!
Sadly, Oprah was molested by members of her family though no one believed her which eventually led to her running away from home at age 13. She then got pregnant at 14 and gave birth to a baby boy that died shortly after birth. Oprah says later that she chose not to ever be a mother because she was not mothered well. However, I’m sure Oprah would have made a terrific mother to her own or even adopted children. But she is kind of like a distant motherly figure to a lot of people I guess…
From these struggles, and sometimes living with her father off an on, she eventually was encouraged to do well in school because he was strict with her education. This led to her working for a radio station during the rest of her high school and early college years. And eventually she became a news anchor in Nashville only to later transfer to Chicago in 1983 to do a show that was later renamed The Oprah Winfrey Show after her ratings skyrocketed.
I grew up watching Oprah with my mom and was sad when she had her final show this year. But she really is an inspiration that you can do anything with your life. Growing up a poor girl in Mississippi to becoming an international sensation and accomplishing such wonderful things in her life is truly amazing.
“Everyone wants to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.”
—Oprah Winfrey 3 months ago
Queen Victoria
I watched the movie “The Young Victoria” and subsequently started to read the book “We Two: Victoria and Albert: Rulers, Partners, Rivals” that chronicles Victoria and her husband Albert’s lives before they met and after they married. I became fascinated with the story of Victoria, as she was forced into a life already mapped out for her before she was born. When Victoria was born she was 5th in line to take the throne. However, at the young age of 18, Victoria became the Queen of the United Kingdom.
Thinking back to when I was 18 and just graduating from high school and embarking on college, I cannot imagine being in such a high position that would require you to rule a kingdom. All the while, Victoria was sheltered and “protected” all her life up until this point. She was not allowed to have friends or attend school. She had to have someone hold her hand when walking down the stairs. She was not allowed to sleep alone. And she had a journal to write in that was censored and re-written by someone else. These were all enforced by her mother to keep her “safe”. All her life, everyone tried to control Victoria. Her mother and her mother’s friend wanted their hand in the throne. This would have happened if Queen Victoria was to be queen before her 18th birthday. Upon her coronation though, she sent everyone away and did things her way for the first time in her entire life.
Victoria found companionship in her husband to be Albert, who was actually her cousin. Many suitors were paraded up and down for Victoria and she wanted nothing to do with them. Albert treated her as an equal and wanted to rule “with her” not “for her” and they had 9 children together.
At the age of only 42, Victoria lost both her mother and her dear Albert only 5 months apart. She then went on to wear black for the remainder of her life and had her husband’s clothes laid out every morning for the rest of her life. Victoria shied away from the public after this devastation and was nicknamed the “widow of Windsor”.
Queen Victoria went on to reign for the remainder of her life and died at the age of 81, making her the longest-reigning British monarch and the longest-reigning Queen regnant in world history. She reigned for 63 years, 7 months and 2 days.
“The important thing is not what they think of me, but what I think of them.”
—Queen Victoria 3 months ago
Heroine of the Harry Potter book series. I know she’s a fictional character but she’s no less admirable. I think she’s the definition of a strong female character.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermione_Granger 6 months ago
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