Speaking on a Molecular Level Of Course

Quick story here from a recent meeting I had at a large, successful, global bio-pharma company here in RTP.  We're helping them to evolve their brand imagery.  They were presenting a powerpoint deck to possible investors recently.  Their opening slide had a big, beautiful, colorful, high def photo of a cell at the molecular level.  They fielded questions as to what kind of cell it was - they had no idea - the point of it was to demonstrate their domination of the bio-pharma space.  One of the scientists in the meeting took great delight in pointing out that the image was that of a testicular cell.  Not sure I would have been able to keep a straight face through the rest of that presentation!  Ha ha!  I'll be telling this story for awhile : )

The Destroyer

Caught living up to his name...

Confidence

Tonight during bedtime I used the word confident in a sentence. Blake immediately asked me what it meant. After I was done answering, Devlyn proudly said, "That's the way I feel in the morning on the bus or in carpool. I love school.". Boy does that make me smile. Loved hearing that and it makes me feel so good about the school he goes to - Sycamore Creek Elementary. They're obviously doing something right :)

Office Space

Lately, I'd been noticing that Devlyn needs a little bit of his own space.  Poor guy has schoolwork, shares a room with Blake (God help him) and until this weekend did not have a one square foot of our home, other than his mattress, to call his own.  So with some paint and wood we picked up at Lowes, we transformed one of the closets into his room into a nice sized desk area for him.  Next weekend we'll get around to adding some shelving, lighting and sprucing it up a bit but right now he is one happy camper with his new space.  Mission accomplished.

Photo Album - The Lake 2012

171 pics out of 600 : )  Extended version from the one on Facebook.  Karin all of the shots of you doing yoga on the paddleboard are in here.  Same with Mom on the paddleboard.  Mmmkay, enjoy.

Another Uplifting FQ Rant : )

A friend from a fluoroquinolone "survivors" group I belong to on Facebook posted this today.  Relatively easy to follow scientific info (from 4 years ago) regarding what these drugs actually do to the human body in terms of literally altering your DNA at the cellular level.  Altering cellular DNA in a way that makes it impossible for your cells to then repair themselves even after the drug is out of your system.  That's what these drugs are designed to do TO BACTERIA.  Unfortunately, they also do this to the rest of your cells.  The YouTube video with the Dr. from Johns Hopkins going on and on about how such a minute portion of the population is affected adversely by these drugs, etc. ad nauseum perfectly illustrates the medical community's response to this day on the topic - they view it as a non-issue.  And why does this matter?  Because today another parent of a child found our FQ support group online looking for help and resources for her 11 year old who's been struggling since he was 6 years old after being prescribed Cipro eardrops.  Like so many others, it took them years to put it together b/c the topic is so vehemently eschewed by the medical community.  I cannot imagine watching a helpless, innocent child go through the hell these drugs turn your life into.  It makes my physically ill.  I myself found out through pharmacy records that I put fluoroquinolone eyedrops in Devlyn's eyes when he was 2 weeks old.  I didn't sleep for a month.  It was all I thought about for 6 more.  Is that why he has crazy fucked up allergies?  Is that that's why his elbow popped out of joint for no reason that one time?  Is he going to have some horrible neurological problem when he's older?  Probably not but "probably" has held a whole new meaning for me over the past year and a half.  These drugs are prescribed to children every single day with no doctors ever batting an eyelash.  We have new inconsolable parents join our FQ support group about once every three months looking for answers and horrified at what they find.  Spread the word to your friends with children and don't EVER give your kids anything prescribed by a doctor without thoroughly checking it out.  No one has your back on this - it's up to you.

http://westpalmbeach.legalexaminer.com/defective-and-dangerous-products/fluoroquinolones-like-levaquin-are-just-plain-toxic.aspx?googleid=252964

Grateful

So I'm a little bloggy lately....2 posts in one day.  Usually this happens when I'm not all that busy and have some time for mental breathing - that is not the case here!  I DO want to take time out though to celebrate and be thankful for us (collectively, as a family) emerging from what can best be described as a "dry spell".  I am grateful for the following and not necessarily in this order:

1)  Spending my day working from home with this view - our "new" sunroom is amazing and I'm SO happy and grateful to have it.

2)  Charles just called from the parking lot at Costco where he went to have his hearing aid repaired.  One of them has been "out" for at least 2 months and b/c the 2 year warranty they came with recently expired, we've been reluctant to take it in to get fixed.  Most of you probably have not dealt with hearing aids much but they are expensive and they break ALL THE TIME.  Seriously, we've had these both replaced or rebuilt probably 4-5x since we got them 3 years ago.  ANYWAY, Costco informed Charles today that b/c we bought them on our Costco AMEX card, they come with an additional 1 year warranty - so they were sent off to be repaired AGAIN for free!  Woo hoo!!!!

3)  Charles' "new" job - he'll have to respond for himself but I think he's having a blast and all of his work has been well received.  I think every account at the agency has requested that he be put on it since he started.  I don't know if that bodes well for his stress level but it sure makes him look good!  P.s. - for those of you that don't know - a new city magazine is launching here in Raleigh in September and Charles has been tapped to write 2 columns for it.  His work there has also been very well received and best of all it means he'll be recently published soon which will get him some great visibility here in town for more writing gigs (paid).  Yay!

4)  Recently, we noticed that the Saturn seemed to be dropping really hard into gear sometimes while driving.  We took it to a local GM dealer we've been to before.  Last time we went there for the power steering - they fixed it for free and were really nice - we figured what the heck.  At first they drove it and couldn't detect what we were talking about - they mentioned this was about the time the transmission fluid needed to be changed so they gave us a quote of $200ish and went to work.  Then we got the call that it was actually 2 pistons and some other pretty major sounding stuff.  Well that must have been under warranty too b/c when Charles went to pick it up the bill was.......NOTHING.  He got me pretty good with a call saying, "Um, I went to get the car and the bill was a little different than I thought....(insert pregnant pause and me freaking out here) it wasn't $200, it was FREE!"  Yes ma'am - that really happened!

5)  The owners of the beach house we rented for Labor Day weekend had a scheduling snafu that resulted in us losing the rental for that weekend.  They apologized profusely and offered us a free night next time we stay with them.  Later that day we got a call that Labor Day had opened up again and now it's half price b/c they wanted to continue to extend the free night offer.  Thanks, we'll take it!

6)  The last wonderful thing is that I was able to turn a fairly ugly situation at my office into a glorious sunshine opportunity.  We're talking serious silver lining on a seemingly ominous "rain cloud"!  Yay again!

So thanks to the forces of the universe for shining down on us lately!  We're loving it and I for one am very conscious of paying it forward!