Struggling single mom sells Obama letter

Destiny Mathis, a young woman in Indiana, reached out to President Obama for a sign of hope in tough economic times, and was initially thrilled to receive a handwritten reply from the president. Now, however, the same economic hardships that prompted her to write to Obama last November have prompted her to put up the letter for sale on an auction website--marking the ninth such sale of an Obama letter that the online auction service has handled.

Mathis, a single mother of three from Indiana, wrote to the president that even though she graduated at the top of her college class and worked for years as a surgical technologist, she had lost her job in January after complications with her pregnancy. "I am so afraid this dreaded economy is going to have my family homeless," she wrote, according to NBC5, the Chicago network affiliate. Mathis is now weeks away from being evicted from her home.

The president wrote back a handwritten note on White House stationery. "Please know that things will get better for you and your family," he said. You can watch the NBC5 report on the letter's sale above.

The 26-year-old is now selling the note to Gary Zimet, who has sold eight other letters from the president so far for up to $20,000 on his site, Moments in Time. He's asking for $11,000.

A Michigan woman sold a letter from Obama in October for $7,000 to help pay for her cancer treatment and for a downpayment on a house. "Thanks for the very kind and inspiring letter," Obama wrote to Jennifer Cline, after she told him in a letter that she was struggling to make ends meet and had lost her health insurance. "I know times are tough, but knowing there are folks out there like you and your husband gives me confidence that things will keep getting better!"

Pippa Middleton's modeling past revealed

Kate isn’t the only Middleton sister who can work a catwalk. Pippa Middleton, the royal bride’s reportedlynewly single and widely worshiped little sister, followed in her sibling’s footsteps down the runway back in 2004. Recently unearthed photos of Pippa modeling with her fellow University of Edinburgh classmates for a charity runway show have surfaced this week. And once again, Kate’s claim to fame is taking a backseat to her sister.

Taken two years after Kate’s famous college catwalk (in the sheer dress that reportedly had William at 'hello'), Pippa strutted her stuff for a university fundraiser to benefit cancer research. At age 20, the popular student wore five different designs donated by industry vets like Ted Baker and Stella McCartney. One of the looks, a blue halter dress with a butterfly embellishment, came courtesy of a fellow Edinburgh student-turned-freelance-designer, named Rowan McIntosh.

"It was quite a shock to see the dress again seven years after I last saw it,” says McIntosh, who now boasts her own dress label, Rowan Joy. “The dress was from the first collection after graduating from art college in 2003. It was made from a teal silk and a vintage sari fabric and the crystal butterfly was made from Swarovski crystals I had leftover from my [graduation project].”

Pippa, whose tanned and toned arms make a halter dress look easy, was McIntosh’s first choice as a model.  “I remember choosing Pippa to wear the dress as the color and style suited her,” she says. "She was very friendly, easy to work with and quite happy to wear what we asked her to."

Unfortunately, memories are all McIntosh has of the dress' debut. "I don't have any shots of Pippa in the dress because I deleted them from my laptop a couple of months ago without realizing their significance," says the 29-year-old.
 

Pippa Middleton wearing a blue halter dress designed by a fellow University of Edinburgh student, Rowan McIntosh, at a fundraiser in 2004. (Alan Peebles/Scope Features)

The blue dress was later sold at the Godiva store, McIntosh’s employer at the time, most likely for a lot less than the $125,000 Kate’s sheer dress went for earlier this year.

And while she hasn’t seen any profits from her early design, the catwalk photos of Pippa have been a boon to her label. “I wouldn't say there has been a spike in sales but there has definitely been increased interest in my label.”

Now she's planning on doing a remake of the original in the next couple of weeks. That means Pippa could be following in her sister's footsteps again, as a retail juggernaut.

McIntosh isn't the only fashion professional who sees potential in Middleton's runway stint. Michele Pryor director of Supreme Management, a New York modeling agency, thinks Pippa has what it takes to make it in the business.  “As natural as 'walking is for most of us, it takes a great deal of confidence, attitude and skill to pull off presenting designs down a runway," says Pryor, "and I think both Kate and Pippa did a good job despite their lack of training.  At this point, I think any agency would be happy to represent the entire Middleton family. “

It never hurts to have a plan B, even if you're a Middleton.

What happens to your body after you drink a soda every day, for a long time

Sugar rushes and caffeine highs followed by a depressing energy crash are what happens to your body if you drink a soda right now, but plenty of Blisstree readers actually seem to be okay with that. Some of you think it’s alarmist to compare a caffeine and sugar rush to doing drugs, and some just don’t really care about the slump they’ll find themselves in after drinking 39 grams of sugar, but what makes us really worried about a soda-slurping habit is what happens over the long term.

Here’s a quick snapshot of you, in a few years, after drinking soda on a regular basis:

You’ll Be Fatter: According to research in the Nurse’s Health Study, which monitored the health of 90,000 women for eight years, drinking a single soda every day of the week added 10 pounds over a four-year period.

You’ll Probably Have Diabetes: In the Nurses’ Health Study, women who said they drank one or more servings a day of a sugar-sweetened soft drink or fruit punch were twice as likely to have developed type 2 diabetes during the study than those who rarely consumed these beverages.

You’re Much More Likely to Develop Heart Disease: According to a study published in 2007 inCirculation, the journal of the American Heart Association, subjects who drank a soda every day over a four-year period had a 25% chance of developing high blood sugar levels and a 32% greater chance of developing lower “good” cholesterol levels. The Nurses’ Health Study found that women who drank more than two sugary beverages per day had a 40% higher risk of heart attacks or death from heart disease than women who rarely drank sugary beverages.

You’re Probably Also Less Healthy In Other Ways: Several studies, including the 2007 study published inCirculation, suggest that diet sodas have some of the same effects on health as regular sodas, despite having none or very little of the sugar. Why? Drinking soda is typically part of an overall lifestyle that’s not very healthy: We know you don’t like us to compare drinking caffeine and sugar to substance abuse, but when it comes to your lifestyle, some think that soda is just like a gateway drug.