Our Body: The Universe Within
The
Witte Museum is a wonderful museum here in town that has many permanent exhibits and many that change over the course of several months. Last summer I took the kids to see the dinosaur exhibit they had. We spent several pleasant hours at the Museum.
Right now the museum is touting their newest exhibit - The Human Body. It is, by all accounts, quite amazing! The exhibit features 12 bodies and more than 75 anatomical displays preserved using a method known as polymer impregnation. According to the website,"the process leaves even the finest, most delicate tissue structures virtually intact, down to the microscopic level, making the process invaluable for medical study. The organs are actually IDENTICAL to their pre-preservation state. The plastic is initially pliable, enabling the bodies to be placed in many different life-like positions, and then hardens after infusion. The specimens are completely dry and odorless."
Tuesday is free day at the museum, unfortunately this exhibit won't be free, but I definitely plan on taking the kids to see it in the next month or so. I wonder whether it will be creepy knowing you're looking at a real human, rather than a model of one?
Labels: human body, Witte
Smelker News
It's been a while since I posted; mostly because since the beginning of the year (I know, I know, only 3 weeks!) I have been slammed with work. It's a good thing, really! It is either that or get an office job. As much as I enjoyed working for DNP Photo last December, I much prefer the flexible schedule working from home allows me to have. I can volunteer at the school as needed, in fact tomorrow I have to stand in the copy room for a couple of hours copying the newsletter I created for the nine week period ending on Friday.
Warrick has moved back home. Last June he moved to a friend's house, a kind of half way point between leaving home, striking out on his own in an apartment. Even though he makes good money (for an 18 year old) he realised he just couldn't make it financially, not without incurring debt and he KNOWS how we feel about debt! We invited him to move back and I am happy he is here. We seldom see him, he leaves for work in the morning, comes home for dinner some nights and then works on his college material.
Terry has been kept very busy by a client named Chris Voss. He was recently featured on local television about his work on a particular home,
Sitterle Homes. The neat thing is Terry actually designed several of the pieces mentioned in the article, and then Chris created them. Right now Chris is working with a VP of Dell in Austin, and Terry designed several of the pieces that Chris will now create from iron.
As the weather warms I am sure we will spend more time outside! We took advantage of the warm weather at the end of December and spent the day at the zoo, but it has been too cold for even these Michigan transplants to return!
Labels: Chris Voss, Warrick, Zoo
Search Words - Piece of Fiction
Nicola sighed as she scanned her post while dispiritedly walking up the path to her house. Junk, junk, junk, oh here was an envelope from her attorney. Bet it’s a summons from The Schmuck. The Schmuck was her soon-to-be ex-husband. Probably wants the car, the house and everything else he can get his grubby hands on.
As she jiggled her key in the lock she heard Lulu yapping inside. “Why do you insist on such a yappy little dog?” Robert (the Schmuck) had growled soon after the wedding. Nicola had no real answer, except she liked Lulu – wasn’t that enough? He’d bought Lulu as a gift while they were dating, as a ‘token of his love’, but like so many ‘tokens’ it was a means to hide his manipulative ways. She recalled all the jewelry he had given her, it meant nothing now; in fact she planned to return it all to him.
The only problem with divorcing a high-powered attorney who had personal wealth and business clout behind him was all the debt she was incurring. Every time she turned around there was another summons, and each time she had to defend herself and it all cost money. Her credit was wrecked, and trying to keep up with the mortgage payments meant she was working insane hours. Acquaintances at work, those not in the know, wanted to know what her weight loss secret was, thinking she was on some fabulous diet. She even had to squelch the rumour she was battling cancer!
Perusing the bills caused her to shudder. Home insurance and car insurance were both due. “I might have to loan money from mom and dad again,” she said as an aside to Lulu. The Yorkshire Terrier pranced about her feet, she didn’t care what mood Nicola was in, she gave her love freely. Nicola smiled vaguely and leant over to ruffle the silky fur that felt more like human hair than dog fur. “Well, you’re a cheap roommate at least,” she chuckled. “All you need is food, water and some grooming every once in a while. You’re not a fashion plate wanna-be like The Schmuck.”
Nicola placed the bills on her desk and switched on her i-Book to go online and check email. Her business emails were forwarded to the house in case she needed to take care of something late at night. She realized, again, that she needed to update her Word processing software. The stuff at work was one version higher than what she currently had at home. At least at home though she didn’t have to worry about Spyware, not like at work. OK, well time to get to go work on her true love, writing – her book was almost done!
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Contained in this short essay are the most-searched words for 2007. (Not including Britney Spears!)
Labels: attorney, business, cancer, car; home, credit, diet, dog, fashion, free; book, hair, insurance, jewelry, loan, mortgage, online, software, spyware, weightloss
The results are in
Well on December 17th I had my first official pregnancy blood draw from the doctor's office. I NEVER test beforehand with home pregnancy tests for two reasons. Firstly I don't want to be the first to officially know if I am pregnant, I believe that is for the parents to hear, this is their baby/babies after all. Plus I have had the joy of being the first to know whether I am pregnant five times already. That is not to say that I didn't figure out I was pregnant, I knew I was, but wanted the official word. The other reason is because I belong to a surrogacy site and many of the surrogates on there take home pregnancy tests and get positives. They call the parents who are thrilled to hear the news, only to have a negative blood draw because things didn't transpire like they should have; it's a chemical pregnancy where the embryo initially 'took' but then didn't develop. It results in false positives that only a blood test can determine.
Anyway a good level at 14 days post transfer is 60 to 100. Mine was really high at 318. I returned 48 hours later and the doctor wants to see it double, so a good level would have been around 630. Mine was 810. But only the ultrasound reveals what is truly going on.
On January 3rd we had the ultrasound and although I have to admit I was disappointed to see only one little heartbeat on the screen (I was firmly expecting two!) the parents are thrilled. They have never seen a heartbeat before. The biological mom has always received a negative from the initial blood test. It has yet to sink in for them and as the mom said, "I will breathe more easily when you get to 12 weeks."
So the countdown begins for another baby to arrive into the world and help complete a family. Makes baby #9 for me!
Labels: baby, blood test, chemical pregnancy, infertility, Surrogate
