The sun is shining but I’m in a blah kind of mood

Don’t you hate when that happens.  There’s absolutely no legitimate reason to feel blah and yet you do.  If it was cloudy and raining, I could understand it but it’s a beautiful day and I still feel blah.  Maybe it’s hormones, maybe it’s life, maybe it’s nothing but I don’t like it anyway!!!

Well life seems to hit you sometimes when you least expect it and I guess that’s what’s going on.  Life, ya know.  The economy is awful.  So many people are losing their homes and their jobs and the stock market finally is starting to show a little promise again but when is it going to drop again?  Such is life these days.

There is something very special for this little Angel to do!

Did you hear about this beautiful little girl that had all of her major organs removed to be able to remove a tumor and then they put her organs back in her?  This is a very special little girl that’s for sure.  There is something very special for this little Angel to do for God to leave her here.

A 7-year-old Long Island girl was released from a New York hospital Tuesday, more than a month after surgeons removed six of her vital organs to tackle a life-threatening tumor. Heather McNamara was doing “fantastic,” said her father, Joseph McNamara, as the Islip Terrace family prepared to return home. On Feb. 6, a team lead by Dr. Tomoaki Kato at New York Presbyterian-Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital conducted the first surgery of its kind in a child.

During the 23-hour operation, doctors removed Heather’s stomach, pancreas, liver, spleen and small and large intestines to get at a cancerous tumor the size of a baseball, according to news reports. They couldn’t save the child’s stomach, pancreas or spleen, which were riddled with cancer. The girl now has a pouch fashioned from intestinal tissue to hold food, doctors told USA Today. Cancer experts said that while it used to be impossible to live without a pancreas, daily injections of insulin and enzyme pills can substitute.

Appearing bright and happy and clutching a teddy bear from hospital officials, Heather said she was looking forward to returning home to play with her sister and her dog, Angel.

How stars stay skinny

Well  guess if you are a star, you want to stay skinny no matter what the price.  Well here’s how they do it.  They have the money to pay a private chef to make them skinny.  I guess I’ll just have to stay the way I am because they spend more on their chef than I do on food in a year.  Must be nice.

What stars really eat

Stars pay to eat right. And they pay big. A full-time private celebrity chef earns an annual salary of up to $150,000 plus health benefits; the average rate for such chefs in Los Angeles not on salary is about $350 to $500 per day. And the grocery budget?

“There is no budget,” says Suyai Steinhauer, a former contestant on “Top Chef” and now a natural-foods chef with celebrity clients in L.A. “The higher famous people are on the food chain, the more they spend on the ingredients they eat.”

The interview for such a job is anything but typical. Consultations cover the basics: the celeb’s favorite foods and dietary preferences (whether vegetarian, no red meat, no green M&M’s, etc.), the chef’s food philosophies, and beyond.

“One of my clients is a world-famous clothing designer who cares more about the looks of her chef than the taste of the food,” says Christian Paier, CEO of Beverly Hills-headquartered Private Chefs Inc., whose 2,000 chefs have cooked for stars like Cameron Diaz, Tom Cruise, Demi Moore, and Brooke Shields, among others. “The designer has business meetings in her house, so it’s very important to her that everyone in the home has a thin, model look to maintain her company’s image. Before sending chefs over, I sent over head shots.”

Celebrities’ meal requests change as often as the latest diet books do. Right now, the biggest demands are for raw-foods chefs (like Jill Pettijohn, who has worked for stars like Drew Barrymore and Nicole Kidman). And chefs specializing in macrobiotics-the grain-and-vegetable-based diet that severely limits dairy, meat, sugars, preservatives, refined flours, and refined salt-are popular with stars like Gwyneth Paltrow.

“Macrobiotics is hot,” Paier says. “I have a bunch of brothers who are all actors and have their own macrobiotic chef. There’s also a female singer who hires a macrobiotic chef when she tours, because the diet gives her great energy.”

A chef to the stars has to deal not only with the demands of his or her client, but with those of the celeb’s friends and colleagues, too. Paier spent eight years cooking for an A-lister living in Bel-Air, whose dinner parties required some serious reconnaissance.

“Any time you work in a high-profile home, there’s a book containing the allergies and food likes and dislikes of all their friends,” Paier explains. “When I’d cook a dinner party for 15 A-listers, the book would say 12 of them had allergies I had to work the menu around.” But, he adds, “they were rarely real allergies. They were usually just things people didn’t want to eat, like cucumbers and beef.”

In addition, Paier often had to contact the personal chef of each guest to find out if there were other dietary restrictions. “If the guest was on, say, a macrobiotic diet,” Paier says, “his or her personal chef would come and drop off spices or macrobiotic salts I didn’t already have.”

Finishing up the last apartment

Well by next weekend, the last apartment will be finished and they can start moving in there too.  I have thoroughly enjoyed remodeling the upstairs into apartments for my people that work for me.  It really has been quite satisfying to know that they really appreciate what I have done.  There are all new appliances in every apartment and stainless steel sinks in every kitchen. The cabinets are beautiful. The tile on the kitchen and bathroom floors look better than I imagined they would too.  The laminate flooring and even the large area rugs I purchased for the living rooms just made the whole room.

Some people think I’m crazy but I painted every room the colors the people that were moving in picked out and then bought curtains to go with the paint or their furniture, if they had furniture.  I think my contractor and they guys that helped did a wonderful job too.  They put extra insulation between the apartments so the ones with kids wouldn’t bother their neighbor.  Now how thoughtful was that?  I think I’m going to do the same thing with the top floor too.  But they need to be one bedroom apartments so no kids are bouncing off the ceiling of the lower apartments though.

Robin Williams in the hospital

I have been a huge fan of Robin Williams since Mork and Mindy.  I think he is a wonderful actor and one of the best comedians of his time.  I have to admit that my all time favorite is Red Skelton though.  He was the greatest that has ever been followed by Bill Cosby but Robin follows them to me.  He’s what MSN said on their site about him.

ET has learned that Robin Williams will postpone his one-man show, and plans to undergo surgery. According to a statement from his rep, the 57-year-old actor and comedian is planning to have surgery for an aortic valve replacement and is postponing his Weapons of Self-Destruction tour.

The statement reads:
“Robin Williams is postponing the remainder of his critically acclaimed one-man show, Weapons of Self-Destruction, to undergo surgery for an aortic valve replacement. The tour is expected to resume in the fall. Previously purchased tickets will be honored once the new dates are scheduled or ticket holders can contact their place of purchase for refunds.”Williams also sends a message to his fans, thanking them for their unwavering support.

He says:
“I’m so touched by everyone’s support and well wishes,” said Williams. “This tour has been amazing fun and I can’t wait to get back out on the road after a little tune-up.”

The Weapons of Self-Destruction tour is set to resume in the fall.

Silent Sermon

A member of a certain church, who previously had been attending services regularly, stopped going. After a few weeks, the preacher decided to visit him. It was a chilly evening. The preacher found the man at home alone, sitting before a blazing fire. Guessing the reason for his preachers visit, the man welcomed him, led him to a comfortable chair near the fireplace and waited.

The preacher made himself at home but said nothing. In the grave silence, he contemplated the dance of the flames around the burning logs. After some minutes, the preacher took the fire tongs, carefully picked up a brightly burning ember and placed it to one side of the hearth all alone then he sat back in his chair, still silent.

The host watched all this in quiet contemplation. As the one lone ember’s flame flickered and diminished, there was a momentary glow and then its fire was no more. Soon it was cold and dead. Not a word had been spoken since the initial greeting. The preacher glanced at his watch and realized it was time to leave. He slowly stood up, picked up the cold, dead ember and placed it back in the middle of the fire. Immediately it began to glow, once more with the light and warmth of the burning coals around it.

As the preacher reached the door to leave, his host said with a tear running down his cheek, ‘Thank you so much for your visit and especially for the fiery sermon. I shall be back in church next Sunday.’

We live in a world today, which tries to say too much with too little. Consequently, few listen. Sometimes the best sermons are the ones left unspoken.  I thought this was a wonderful example of just that.  I hope you appreciated what it says.  I sure did and learned a great deal from it.

Baby faced father?

I’m sure that by now, everyone has seen the 13 year old in England that believes he’s the father of a baby girl with a 15 year old girl.  This boy looks maybe 7 or 8.  He looks like a baby himself.  Well now a 15 year old boy and a 16 year old boy have come forward saying they could be the babies father too.

I was amazed that they came forward.  Maybe in England they aren’t as responsible for children as they are here in the US, I don’t know but I have to admire them for coming forward anyway.  The sad part is the little 13 year old boy.  He really wants the baby to be his.  That just shows his innocence and a big heart too.

The main thing is the baby.  How well will a 15 year old mother take care of this child.  I only hope that her parents are helping her with the baby because 15 is too young to fully understand what a baby really needs.

Another plane went down

I was watching the news this morning and saw that another plane went down in Buffalo, New York.  This one wasn’t as lucky as the last one.  Everyone on board the plane died as did one person on the ground.  The plane crashed into a house.  What a horrific accident.  It’s a shame to have such a loss of life.  I believe they said there was a total of 53 people on the plane including the crew members..

One of the people on the plane was the widow of a man that was killed in the 9/11 attack.  She was on her way to celebrate what would have been his birthday.  Maybe now she can celebrate it with him.  I just hope there weren’t any children completely orphaned because of the crash.  That would be awful.  God bless their families!!!

I love to read

I have found some great books from Short Stack Publishing which is out of London.  They have one of the best written books on  How to Handle Living with Your Dog that I have read so far.  I told you I had gotten a puppy, right?  Well this is a great book for people interested in living with your dog.

In fact, you should check out their home of the How to Handle Series.  They have some great topics.  They’re just a small publishing company but if they keep publishing great books like these, they won’t be small for long I bet.

About that apartment building

I told you about someone offering me an apartment building at a great price, remember?  Well I had someone go out and inspect everything and he said the land was worth more than the property.  The best I could do was to have it torn down and build anything else there.

Well I guess you know what that means then don’t you?  I told them that I sure appreciated them offering the building to me but right now, I’m in over my head with the apartments I’m having build over my establishment.  I didn’t want to sound rude and tell them they were trying to unload an overload of problems on me but that’s what it was.

So if you haven’t learned anything else from me, learn that you never look a gift horse in the mouth.  Have it checked thoroughly before you jump on anything.