Mission Accomplished!

Blurry me and Thomas O'Brien

I wasn't planning on another post today, but it was such a good one, I couldn't help myself. I breezed into Tom O'Brien's lecture this morning, which was a great walk through of his new book.


All those empty seats were "reserved" and went unfilled, grr...

I figured I should buy one and get it signed since I was there. It's just a gorgeous book. My favorite part, since I haven't read it yet, is the design on the liner pages. Beautiful!



Last weekend, when we drove down Irving Park in the city to get to our event, I saw sunburst mirrors in the window of Lincoln Antiques, but we were already late. And since both of my nights of JD went so late, I stopped by today to check them out. I bought this and LOVE IT! It looks like it was made to go in this spot in our dining room, opposite the picture window.

Taking the day off

I'm taking the day off to go to the city and play. I am not pg, but AF has not shown up yet. S was supposed to be off today too, but he is busy with a new proposal, so I'm flying solo.

We head up to WI tomorrow for my nephew's baptism on Sunday. I can't wait to see the kids and my fam, but honestly I'm not really dying to see all of my extended family. My immediate family knows exactly what's happening with us, but I have no idea what any of the rest of them know.

We are looking forward to our meeting with the RE on Tuesday to figure out what we are doing next. Have a great weekend!

Stalking Thomas O'Brien

Of course I'm not really stalking him, but he is coming to the Merchandise Mart tomorrow to do the keynote address at the International Antiques Fair. And guess who waited too long to RSVP? It is now full, but I'm going to go and see if I can get in anyway. He is promoting his new book, American Modern.


Some of my favorite Tom O'Brien pieces:
Marielle (my phantom daughter's name)- Indigo dinnerware by Reed&Barton
Marco Rug for Safavieh

And of course there are all of his yummies @ Target...

Handpainted dinnerware

Boring, I know, but his towels are the best. We have them in multiple shades blue, sage, chocolate and white because I couldn't pick fewer colors than that...

TOB throw

Justice is served

I didn't think that jury duty would be so traumatic that I would look forward to coming back to work. But here I am. I don't really want to talk about it yet. We had to deliberate late into the evening and ended up finding him guilty on both charges. I'm just enjoying being connected back to the world. I missed my phone and my computer and my sheltered life.


Love this pillow on OKL today. I'm a bicentennial baby...

Jury Duty!

So I got picked today (lucky me, right?). I can't talk about it until it is over, but I'm learning a ton. It's boring and sad and fascinating all at the same time. More to come...

The Trust Hormone and A Life without Fear

There was an interesting story on NPR this weekend on Williams Syndrome called, When the 'Trust Hormone' is Out of Balance. My eldest sister Sara, who is now 40, was born with Williams Syndrome and since it is quite rare, it is always interesting when it gets picked up in the media.

As a gene deletion/chromosomal condition from conception, there is no "cure", but this is the first time I've heard it characterized as having the same affects (though not stated as being influenced by) having too much oxytocin. Today's installation is called A Life without Fear. Last week the series talked about those w/WS lacking racial bias.

Also,
NPR story on WS and language from 7/06

NPR story on WS and music from 10/06

Nice to see that over the last four years they've dropped their description of those w/WS as "elf-like"... Hope there is increasing depth to the series.

Three strikes and you're out

I'm finding this is my rule for evaluating RE's. Here's the history...

RE #1:
strike 1: didn't want to do anything about septum which she found on initial HSG a year ago (RE #2 ordered MRI and we learned it took up most of my ute, and as it was fibrous its presence basically guaranteed I'd never get pg, as no blood flow @ implantation site = not viable)

strike 2: insisted on giving me Clomid even though we both knew I O'd on my own (and I had lowish E2)

strike 3: botched IUI #2 by "waiting for more follies" when I had a 19.
After the IUI fiasco, she had the balls to suggest we go right to IVF. No thanks...

RE #2: (her nurse is actually a big part of the problem here)
strike 1: Dr/nurse wouldn't address my reaction to post-surgery prog (stop taking cranberry pills was their reaction to my multi-day excruciating stomach bleed)

strike 2: RE's SB vacation (or rather her insistence on doing test herself) pushed back my HSG a month (as I refused to go on BCP/lose a mo. to accommodate her schedule)

strike 3: this is shared w/RE #1 (but she was useless and #2 is actually decent), but no thought of and actually resistant to checking my post-O prog levels when I present what everyone agrees is a "fertile" profile, but am not.getting.pg.

I can't wait until the mtg. on the 4th. Needless to say, it's no longer an IVF consult (which she didn't think I "needed", but I had resigned myself to doing...)

It's probably a good thing that I decided at the last minute not to go to law school, as the main word on the tip of my tongue right now is MALPRACTICE. I need to cool down. Maybe I would have gotten further faster if I'd followed my initial plan and gone to med school. This is truly unbelievable.