Susan notes: Jessica Cox was born without arms.
She hasn't let that stop her from becoming an amazing woman, a recreational pilot and a motivational speaker.
See her speak to Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association in Tampa, Florida, in a video and by clicking to continue. There'se also a link to her website at the end of this article.
Susan notes: thanks to the Christmas Traditions website, from which I have borrowed this piece on Mrs. Claus (wife of Santa Claus who rides around the world each year on December 24 in his sleigh drawn by reindeer to distribute gifts and goodies to well-behaved girls and boys).
First introduced to the world in the poem Goody Santa Claus On A Sleigh Ride by poet Katherine Lee Bates (1859-1929), Mrs. Claus has moved out of the kitchen and into the workshop over the past century.
In Bates’ 1889 poem, Mrs. Claus begs to be taken along in the annual Christmas Eve toy delivery sleigh ride with Santa. She has raised perfect candy trees all year long and feels deserving of a chance to participate in the fun.
As they make their deliveries, Santa pops up and down chimneys, and Mrs. Claus stays on the roof and holds the reindeer...
Marina Julia Neary grew up in Belarus (a republic of the former USSR) in a family of professional musicians who raised her in the spirit of Western individualism. Her mother taught piano at a music academy, and her father, a national laureate, was a prominent vocal coach whose students went on to becoming world-class opera singers.
In a society where individualism was ersecuted, Marina was frequently at odds with her peers and school teachers.
She found consolation in Catholicism her Polish-born father introduced her to this religion - which was frowned upon by the predominantly atheistic government. At the age of 10 she began writing her first historical novellas. She did not dare to show those pieces to her teachers, because the ideas expressed in them went against the Communist grain.
In 1992 her family came to the United States. Even though her parents got divorced shortly after, Neary was thrilled to be in a country where individual freedom was valued. Her literary voice, much like her spoken accent, is a mixture of European, British and North American.
For someone who has symbolised courage and dignity in the face of
personal tragedy, Mariane Pearl, the widow of slain American journalist
Daniel Pearl, is currently busy producing a documentary on the lives of
similar inspirational women.
Titled Resilient, it profiles women from around the globe who have battled war, abject poverty, sexual discrimination and tremendous odds not only to alter their own lives but also to transform the society in which they live.
"My work is an antidote to spread hope in a world haunted by fear," says Pearl in a telephonic interview from Paris.
The documentary traces the lives of women featured in Pearl's book In Search of Hope: The Global Diaries of Mariane Pearl.
One of Pearl's favourite story is of Fatima Elayoubi, a cleaning lady and a Moroccan immigrant in Paris, who found time after scrubbing floors to pen a memoir titled Prière à la Lune (Prayer to the Moon).
The book not only became a best-seller but also opened everyone's eyes to the harsh realities of the lives of immigrant workers in big cities such as Paris.
An article about Charm, Grace, Elegance and Calm in the face of adversity.
Maria Assumpta Hodgson, (nee Rickard) died on the 12th of August 2009, following a rapid decline in her well being due to a failing Liver. It was the culmination of 3 years and 10 months as a beautiful woman dealing with the daunting challenges of living with and fighting Breast Cancer.
I am Maria’s husband Jeremy, and am writing this article from my apartment in Abu Dhabi, in the Breast Cancer Awareness Month of October 2009, which aims to highlight the need for women of the UAE to be ever more vigilant in the early detection and treatment of Breast Cancer. Maria shared her birthday with the National Day of the UAE, 2nd December.
To women of any location reading this, the view is from a close observer of Maria’s struggle, and from a person concerned for all patients receiving treatment for Cancer of any kind but especially for those women and their special ones aiming to survive Breast Cancer.