Last year, the Center For Reproductive Medicine MN called and basically said I wasn't allowed to donate my eggs anymore because of my 'grandparents medical history' — something about new laws in place and that I wasn't a 'good candidate' any more. (All my grandparents have passed for various reasons, but it doesn't matter that all my aunts/uncles/cousins and both parents are in perfectly good health!?!)
It was quite upsetting... especially that the coordination nurse just left this information as a voicemail on my cell, and didn't wait until I called back to find out what she wanted. Oh, and mind you, I had JUST donated my eggs ONE month prior!
Anyway, I never called her back because frankly, I was too upset and nothing I say to her would change their minds or make me feel any better about it.
However, two days ago at 8am, I got a call from a familiar number but didn't answer. I listened to the voicemail they left, and turns out, it was the Center! I was quite shocked to hear DaNae's voice again; she said that the previous couple I had donated to would like me to donate to them again, if I was willing. I had already made my decision before the message was done... yes of course!
I called her back around lunchtime and said I was surprised to hear from her, especially after the last phone call from her... she nervously agreed, and reiterated her voicemail. I said "it's probably none of my business, but why do they need more eggs, since I gave them 10 last time?" I expected her to say 'I can't tell you for legal reasons', but she was extremely open in the information she gave me. She said that the couple had a successful pregnancy, which ended up going to 42 weeks (2 weeks past the 'normal' time), but it ended in a 'fetal death'. Horrible to hear!!! She said the couple was devastated because their baby looked "perfect". Apparently they used up all the viable embryos from my last donation, so the couple asked the Center if "they could use the same 'perfect' donor again". :D Such a wonderful thing to hear, especially after the Center basically said my eggs weren't good enough anymore!
She also gave me some more very personal information, which was completely shocking to hear (like she was trying to give me as much info as possible so I would say yes — even though I had already made my choice before calling). Once she was done talking, I said "I would absolutely love to donate to them again! Especially after such a horrible experience...". So after some testing they need to do with the recipient, DaNae said it would most likely be early September when the injections would start, with a mid-September retrieval. Works out perfectly for me because work will be slow again, before the Holiday rush!
I'm SUPER excited to donate again! I wanted to do one more cycle, anyway. It's a sad situation that I'm able to do this, but helping the couple again will be amazing!!!
21 June 2012
03 March 2012
AMBER: Journey's Beyond
This is my most favorite game ever!
I wrote a very detailed walkthrough, with maps included. Can't figure out how to post it on here for downloading... comment below and I'll email the PDF if you'd like to use it! :)
09 November 2011
Ida's Dance
Omg this is one of my top 10 favorite/funniest Malcolm In The Middle scenes.
Hal and Reese have been watching horror movies for days, and Hal isn't taking it so well... from Ida's Dance episode in Season 6!
Hal and Reese have been watching horror movies for days, and Hal isn't taking it so well... from Ida's Dance episode in Season 6!
07 November 2011
Bellatrix Lestrange Costume
The top, necklace, tattoo, wand and velvet skirt are from eBay. (This was my 'back-up' top... I had ordered one from the UK, via an online store. I received it on Halloween day at 4pm, due to a long shipping time; but it turned out that it wasn't as perfect as I thought it would be! So I used the back-up instead... which worked out very well.)
The corset with skirt attached was a wonderful find from Black Rose. So many other things I want to buy from them!
The wig was amazing... stylists at Hair Police were surprised that it was synthetic and not real hair. It was pricey, but for a decent wig in any style or color — totally worth it! Found it at Wigs.com. Who knew!?! ;D
The snake ring was from Eye Of Horus. It's a great Uptown store! I had a Tarot reading while I was there... woot!
And the boots are the prettier ones of the two I had to chose from via Pyramid Collection — another amazing store that I want to buy tons of things from!
Only two weeks and a pile of money to piece together, but totally worth it! Too bad Monday night was dead, as far as Halloween patrons... oh well.
18 October 2011
Halloween Costume - Bellatrix!
So in a snap decision, Ima be Bellatrix for Halloween this year! Normally I like to plan my costumes months in advance, to get the perfect items... but you gotta make do with the time you have. :P (And I seriously spent 3 hours digging online for them. :P)
Anyway, when I googled 'bellatrix costume', the first link that came up was WB's official Harry Potter merchandise page! I knew they had replica wands so I searched for that first. Here's all they had for her:
Umm... okay... so I understand that this is her wand she used AFTER Ron disarmed her at Malfoy Mansion, but really? No one cares about this boring wand... it's her real one that you need! More on this later...
So then I browsed costumes and saw they had 'authentic' ones of other characters... so I searched, and below is what popped up.
Omg are you serious, WB?!? LOL!!! This is your official Bellatrix costume? Christ. The only thing worthy of her is the separated sleeves... those MIGHT be usable, in what I now realized, was going to be a very pieced-together costume.
So putting the dress aside, I searched for her other accessories I knew I would be easy to find.
Her (good) wand is sold via eBay, from wonderful people who make gorgeous replicas! It was very decently priced, too.
Gorgeous detail!
Next was her necklace... a crow skull. eBay had a lot of options, but it was hard to find a local distributor that would ship it in time for Halloween at a decent price. I settled on this:
And the other super easy find, that no Death Eater can go without — Dark Mark tattoo's! :D
So that was it for eBay. I started googling 'goth tops, skirts, and dresses'... tons of sites came up... good and bad. The other bad part was that I found all these super gorgeous goth dresses that I want to buy just for fun! But I resisted. :P
During that search, I found the perfect boots... seriously, these could be replicas!
But then later that night, after ordering the above, I found another style that could also work... we'll see if I like the first ones, though.
Oh, the hair! Okay, so that was also super easy to find... and sadly, the most expensive part, but this wig is just SO perfect! I got it in black, of course.
Okay, so after digging and digging for a dress, and not finding anything, I ended up buying pieces that I think I can put together to make it look semi-authentic in the time that I have before it needs to be done...
So I know that she doesn't have see-through spider-web stuff, but the skirt connected to the corset... super sweet! I can just wear a skirt underneath it... either the WB costume or something else.
And since the WB top did have the stitched sleeves (which are impossible to find online, on a dress or top), I'll either use that (edited maybe) or the top below, which gives the general idea of open shoulders like her real dress...
Phew! So I hope the outfit is feasible... especially with only a week and a half left. I should get most of the items shipped end of this week and that will give me one more week of shipping time in case something doesn't work out... or shopping time, too. Oh, also, most of these online stores were located in Britain. Fingers crossed on the shipping time!!! :/
Everything was around $20-45, too, except the wig... :)
Anyway, when I googled 'bellatrix costume', the first link that came up was WB's official Harry Potter merchandise page! I knew they had replica wands so I searched for that first. Here's all they had for her:
Umm... okay... so I understand that this is her wand she used AFTER Ron disarmed her at Malfoy Mansion, but really? No one cares about this boring wand... it's her real one that you need! More on this later...
So then I browsed costumes and saw they had 'authentic' ones of other characters... so I searched, and below is what popped up.
Omg are you serious, WB?!? LOL!!! This is your official Bellatrix costume? Christ. The only thing worthy of her is the separated sleeves... those MIGHT be usable, in what I now realized, was going to be a very pieced-together costume.
So putting the dress aside, I searched for her other accessories I knew I would be easy to find.
Her (good) wand is sold via eBay, from wonderful people who make gorgeous replicas! It was very decently priced, too.
Gorgeous detail!
Next was her necklace... a crow skull. eBay had a lot of options, but it was hard to find a local distributor that would ship it in time for Halloween at a decent price. I settled on this:
And the other super easy find, that no Death Eater can go without — Dark Mark tattoo's! :D
So that was it for eBay. I started googling 'goth tops, skirts, and dresses'... tons of sites came up... good and bad. The other bad part was that I found all these super gorgeous goth dresses that I want to buy just for fun! But I resisted. :P
During that search, I found the perfect boots... seriously, these could be replicas!
But then later that night, after ordering the above, I found another style that could also work... we'll see if I like the first ones, though.
Oh, the hair! Okay, so that was also super easy to find... and sadly, the most expensive part, but this wig is just SO perfect! I got it in black, of course.
Okay, so after digging and digging for a dress, and not finding anything, I ended up buying pieces that I think I can put together to make it look semi-authentic in the time that I have before it needs to be done...
So I know that she doesn't have see-through spider-web stuff, but the skirt connected to the corset... super sweet! I can just wear a skirt underneath it... either the WB costume or something else.
And since the WB top did have the stitched sleeves (which are impossible to find online, on a dress or top), I'll either use that (edited maybe) or the top below, which gives the general idea of open shoulders like her real dress...
Phew! So I hope the outfit is feasible... especially with only a week and a half left. I should get most of the items shipped end of this week and that will give me one more week of shipping time in case something doesn't work out... or shopping time, too. Oh, also, most of these online stores were located in Britain. Fingers crossed on the shipping time!!! :/
Everything was around $20-45, too, except the wig... :)
24 September 2011
Road Trip — Chicago, IL
Back in August, my friend and I drove down to Chicago for a long weekend! I've never been there, and my main comment about it is that it's a HUGE city! No wonder they film tons of movies there... it's also very pretty and historical.
25th—
After Sonia got home from work at 5, we pretty much left right away! To avoid 94 traffic, I took us a 'back' way... which also had traffic. :P The drive was great, though! I forget how beautiful the Wisconsin landscape is... I imagine it's even more gorgeous in the Fall. Anyway, it got dark around 9, and we only stopped once for gas and to put the convertible top down. All the road construction during the day, even though 90% had no workers at this time of night, still had 'one lane closed', which caused a bit of traffic on the way down and added an extra 45 minutes to our overall drive. Around 10:30-ish, I noticed the car ahead of me, along with the semi, swerve out of the way of something; luckily I was paying attention, cause I had to swerve onto the shoulder because there was this HUGE metal staircase or something in the middle of the road. Scared the shit out of us, especially sneaking up in the dark... thank god we didn't hit it... that would have been a sucky start to our vacation!
The rest of the drive went well, until we hit the tollway. I'm glad it's a good way to upkeep the roads, but it's SUPER annoying to have to slow down and stop, then speed back up again and lose your spot on the road. By the time we got near the airport, there was new pavement going in and they had the tollway down to ONE lane! It's Thursday night at midnight, you figure there wouldn't be many people around, but nope... it was like rush hour. Crazy!
26th—
So finally we check-in to the DoubleTree Hilton hotel (read my full hotel review here) around 12:45am. We're both crazy-loopy tired and Sonia was fighting off a cold, so we checked-in, got our free cookie (which was yum!) and went to bed. The hotel parking was pretty expensive, but I didn't care at that point... I didn't want to deal with the car at all that weekend.
So those who know me well, know I have trouble sleeping... especially in a different bed/location. I figured I'd be fine for three nights, using the hotel pillows and sheets... long-story-short, shoulda brought my pillow at the very least!!! I was up until 4am because I couldn't get comfortable and the a/c fan kept screeching every five minutes ALL night. In my Nyquil haze, I didn't even think to call the desk about it...
I finally shut it off at 8am and slept a couple more hours... so I ended up getting about 6 hours of sleep total, but not delicious REM sleep! :(
We both agreed on the sleeping-in that day since we knew we would arrive late. After I complained about my noisy a/c fan to the front desk, we ventured a block to Yolk for breakfast at noon. This place was AMAZING!!! Super cute interior/space and the most delicious smoked salmon eggs benedict I've ever had. After that, we decided to explore the pier and lake There was a cute little beach nearby and a park with a bunch of art all over. We got to the pier and decided to do the ferris wheel so we could get a look at the cityscape.
Again, HUGE city!!! I couldn't fit it all in one picture... lol. After the ferris wheel I got some Dippin' Dots (noms!) and we arrived just in time for our boat tour via the Anita Dee. It was HOT out, and I knew I was getting sunburned, but the boat provided a nice breeze and some shade. :)
Sonia made nice with the boat tour guide, Zach, and after we asked how the city view is at night from the boat, he promised us a free drink if we came back. After walking the pier a bit more we walked to the John Hancock building to get a nice view from the observation deck. Did I mention... HUGE city!!! And the view from the women's bathroom was epic. :D
[And this is only the south view of the city!]
After sightseeing from 98 floors up, went back to the hotel to shower/change/rest. At 7pm, right before I left my room, I noticed the a/c fan was STILL screechy! I complained to the front desk again and they had no idea if anyone had been up to fix it or not. They offered me to just switch rooms and I said yup. So after throwing my crap into the room right across the hall — and with a much better view! [below] — we walked back to the pier for dinner.
Again, VERY good food! Then we boarded the Anita Dee again, and reminded Zach of our free drinks... he laughed and complied. :) I had to sit in the middle of the boat, though, cause there were SPIDERS all over since the sun had gone down. They were icks! And some dumpy, goober MN family was bugging Zach about the kids needing to wear life-jackets while on the boat, because "it's the law in MN". He explained to them that if we did use life-jackets, the harbor patrol would prevent the boat from moving... yes, lady, you need life-jackets on this HUGE yacht... cripes.
Anyway, Sonia made more nice with Zach and he offered us to stay on the boat until they were all done working, and go out and party with them after! We said hell yes, and met some super nice, interesting people. Apparently all the pier workers go drink at this one bar every night after their shifts. But by now it's midnight and I'm barely standing after a whole day of walking and my shitty sleep. I try to stay lucid as long as possible, and with alcohol in my system, which makes me even more sleepy... so I give up around 1am and taxi back to the hotel.
27th—
I slept slightly better that night, with Nyquil, but not the best 8 hours I could have used. Since we stayed out late, we grabbed breakfast at the bagel place in the hotel and ate/sat/rested by the pool for awhile. I made the observation that only mid-westerners would sit by the pool on the cloudy, 70-degree day... :)
Once we were refreshed, we walked around the city and explored. I can see how Chicago would be a shoppers dream... TONS of stores all over, but also very touristy. We splurged on a horse carriage ride and then visited the Museum of Contemporary Art. Then we walked the Magnificent Mile and checked out the river. During our walk, we found our 'fancy' dinner place to come back to, which was one of the 'must do' on the agenda.
After resting for an hour, we both got dressed-up and taxi'ed to the restaurant. Sonia had her steak with wine and I had the 8 oz. lobster tail, and OH MY GAWD our food was INCREDIBLE!!! We shared calamari, mushrooms and twice-baked potato with cheese... ugh, I can still remember how amazing it all was and how full we were after! So about 9pm, we taxi'ed back to our hotel and went into food-coma's in our rooms. The plan was to go out again, but by 11, I was completely dead. Sonia went out for a chill evening with Zach, which I'm glad cause I felt bad for being so tired and not being able to go out and enjoy the night-life more! :P
So after packing and watching My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding and The Rock, I passed out via Nyquil.
28th—
By now I had gotten used to the bed/sheets/pillows and slept pretty well. We had our brunch place picked out, so I called ahead to make sure we didn't need a reservation. After checking out at noon, we drove about 15 minutes north to this cute little cafe. The timing/food on our entire trip had worked out SO well (minus my hotel experience), except at this last place. Our waitress had forgotten to put our order in so we didn't end up getting back on the freeway until 2pm. Also, my eggs weren't fully cooked and had three huge pieces of shell in them, one of which I ate accidentally, so that made for a blah tummy on the ride home.
Traffic was MUCH better once we got out of the city. We stopped only once and made it home at 7pm. Minneapolis looked so tiny compared to Chicago! But it made me smile cause I love our city and am glad it's not huge, cause there'd be tourists all over. :P
Overall, great trip! We definitely needed more time to explore... we were only in the north part of downtown the whole time. We never saw any L stops, either, even though it felt like we walked forever! :)
25th—
After Sonia got home from work at 5, we pretty much left right away! To avoid 94 traffic, I took us a 'back' way... which also had traffic. :P The drive was great, though! I forget how beautiful the Wisconsin landscape is... I imagine it's even more gorgeous in the Fall. Anyway, it got dark around 9, and we only stopped once for gas and to put the convertible top down. All the road construction during the day, even though 90% had no workers at this time of night, still had 'one lane closed', which caused a bit of traffic on the way down and added an extra 45 minutes to our overall drive. Around 10:30-ish, I noticed the car ahead of me, along with the semi, swerve out of the way of something; luckily I was paying attention, cause I had to swerve onto the shoulder because there was this HUGE metal staircase or something in the middle of the road. Scared the shit out of us, especially sneaking up in the dark... thank god we didn't hit it... that would have been a sucky start to our vacation!
The rest of the drive went well, until we hit the tollway. I'm glad it's a good way to upkeep the roads, but it's SUPER annoying to have to slow down and stop, then speed back up again and lose your spot on the road. By the time we got near the airport, there was new pavement going in and they had the tollway down to ONE lane! It's Thursday night at midnight, you figure there wouldn't be many people around, but nope... it was like rush hour. Crazy!
26th—
So finally we check-in to the DoubleTree Hilton hotel (read my full hotel review here) around 12:45am. We're both crazy-loopy tired and Sonia was fighting off a cold, so we checked-in, got our free cookie (which was yum!) and went to bed. The hotel parking was pretty expensive, but I didn't care at that point... I didn't want to deal with the car at all that weekend.
So those who know me well, know I have trouble sleeping... especially in a different bed/location. I figured I'd be fine for three nights, using the hotel pillows and sheets... long-story-short, shoulda brought my pillow at the very least!!! I was up until 4am because I couldn't get comfortable and the a/c fan kept screeching every five minutes ALL night. In my Nyquil haze, I didn't even think to call the desk about it...
I finally shut it off at 8am and slept a couple more hours... so I ended up getting about 6 hours of sleep total, but not delicious REM sleep! :(
We both agreed on the sleeping-in that day since we knew we would arrive late. After I complained about my noisy a/c fan to the front desk, we ventured a block to Yolk for breakfast at noon. This place was AMAZING!!! Super cute interior/space and the most delicious smoked salmon eggs benedict I've ever had. After that, we decided to explore the pier and lake There was a cute little beach nearby and a park with a bunch of art all over. We got to the pier and decided to do the ferris wheel so we could get a look at the cityscape.
Again, HUGE city!!! I couldn't fit it all in one picture... lol. After the ferris wheel I got some Dippin' Dots (noms!) and we arrived just in time for our boat tour via the Anita Dee. It was HOT out, and I knew I was getting sunburned, but the boat provided a nice breeze and some shade. :)
Sonia made nice with the boat tour guide, Zach, and after we asked how the city view is at night from the boat, he promised us a free drink if we came back. After walking the pier a bit more we walked to the John Hancock building to get a nice view from the observation deck. Did I mention... HUGE city!!! And the view from the women's bathroom was epic. :D
[And this is only the south view of the city!]
After sightseeing from 98 floors up, went back to the hotel to shower/change/rest. At 7pm, right before I left my room, I noticed the a/c fan was STILL screechy! I complained to the front desk again and they had no idea if anyone had been up to fix it or not. They offered me to just switch rooms and I said yup. So after throwing my crap into the room right across the hall — and with a much better view! [below] — we walked back to the pier for dinner.
Again, VERY good food! Then we boarded the Anita Dee again, and reminded Zach of our free drinks... he laughed and complied. :) I had to sit in the middle of the boat, though, cause there were SPIDERS all over since the sun had gone down. They were icks! And some dumpy, goober MN family was bugging Zach about the kids needing to wear life-jackets while on the boat, because "it's the law in MN". He explained to them that if we did use life-jackets, the harbor patrol would prevent the boat from moving... yes, lady, you need life-jackets on this HUGE yacht... cripes.
Anyway, Sonia made more nice with Zach and he offered us to stay on the boat until they were all done working, and go out and party with them after! We said hell yes, and met some super nice, interesting people. Apparently all the pier workers go drink at this one bar every night after their shifts. But by now it's midnight and I'm barely standing after a whole day of walking and my shitty sleep. I try to stay lucid as long as possible, and with alcohol in my system, which makes me even more sleepy... so I give up around 1am and taxi back to the hotel.
27th—
I slept slightly better that night, with Nyquil, but not the best 8 hours I could have used. Since we stayed out late, we grabbed breakfast at the bagel place in the hotel and ate/sat/rested by the pool for awhile. I made the observation that only mid-westerners would sit by the pool on the cloudy, 70-degree day... :)
Once we were refreshed, we walked around the city and explored. I can see how Chicago would be a shoppers dream... TONS of stores all over, but also very touristy. We splurged on a horse carriage ride and then visited the Museum of Contemporary Art. Then we walked the Magnificent Mile and checked out the river. During our walk, we found our 'fancy' dinner place to come back to, which was one of the 'must do' on the agenda.
After resting for an hour, we both got dressed-up and taxi'ed to the restaurant. Sonia had her steak with wine and I had the 8 oz. lobster tail, and OH MY GAWD our food was INCREDIBLE!!! We shared calamari, mushrooms and twice-baked potato with cheese... ugh, I can still remember how amazing it all was and how full we were after! So about 9pm, we taxi'ed back to our hotel and went into food-coma's in our rooms. The plan was to go out again, but by 11, I was completely dead. Sonia went out for a chill evening with Zach, which I'm glad cause I felt bad for being so tired and not being able to go out and enjoy the night-life more! :P
So after packing and watching My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding and The Rock, I passed out via Nyquil.
28th—
By now I had gotten used to the bed/sheets/pillows and slept pretty well. We had our brunch place picked out, so I called ahead to make sure we didn't need a reservation. After checking out at noon, we drove about 15 minutes north to this cute little cafe. The timing/food on our entire trip had worked out SO well (minus my hotel experience), except at this last place. Our waitress had forgotten to put our order in so we didn't end up getting back on the freeway until 2pm. Also, my eggs weren't fully cooked and had three huge pieces of shell in them, one of which I ate accidentally, so that made for a blah tummy on the ride home.
Traffic was MUCH better once we got out of the city. We stopped only once and made it home at 7pm. Minneapolis looked so tiny compared to Chicago! But it made me smile cause I love our city and am glad it's not huge, cause there'd be tourists all over. :P
Overall, great trip! We definitely needed more time to explore... we were only in the north part of downtown the whole time. We never saw any L stops, either, even though it felt like we walked forever! :)
Raspberry Iced Tea
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