Oh, my Heart!by Angie
10 Jul 2008
9:07 am3
When I met with Dr. Murphy yesterday, he showed me a sketch of my heart anatomy so he could illustrate where the swollen patches are that they identified in the CT scans. I thought it would be fun to show you guys what a crazy-looking little Frankenstein I have. (Click on the image for a larger version.)
RA=Right Atrium
PA=Pulmonary Artery (what’s left of it)
AO=Aorta
RV=Diminutive Right Ventricle
LV=Left Ventricle (really my only one)
EF=Ejection Fracture (function, basically)
The arcs on the right of the picture are the patches. The two parallel lines to the left represent the artificial conduit they put in to take over for my right atrium (which, you can see by the black scribbles, they blocked off). The little black scribble in the upper left of the conduit was where the clot was which has now disappeard – yea! Any questions?
Independence Day!by Angie
4 Jul 2008
10:07 pm4
Happy Fourth of July, everyone! How wonderful it is to live in a free country! We watched the Livermore city firework display from a park a few blocks away, where we met Jon and Michelle as the sun was going down. We brought blankets and camp chairs, two decks of cards, and a frisbee. It was great! The city arranges for a couple of the local radio stations to play music that accompanies the firework display, so people can just crank up their radios wherever they are to hear all the favorite patriotic songs along with the light show. I think this is going to be a family tradition for us in the coming years.
First Adoption Interviewby Angie
3 Jul 2008
12:07 pm2
I drove up to Concord yesterday to have my personal interview with Jean – our LDS Family Services case worker. She is so spunky and darling. I love her already. Anyway, it was really fun. I was a little nervous going in, because I didn’t really know what she was going to ask or talk about, but we pretty much just chatted about life and families and the adoption process in general. We talked about the many steps ahead of us, and also about what we can start doing already to, as Jean put it, “find our birth mother.”
It was very encouraging and we’re excited to be moving forward! I meet with Dr. Murphy next week and, hopefully, will get his approval on things. After that, our next step is our home study and couple interview in August. We appreciate everyone’s prayers and support, and will keep you all posted!
“It’s a rental…”by Angie
2 Jul 2008
6:07 pm0
Our car was in bad shape, so it had to spend a couple of days in the shop. In the mean-time, we decided to rent a car for Wednesday, since I needed to get to Concord and back. With AAA, renting was a lot cheaper than we thought it would be, and Hertz gives a discount if your car is being repaired. So, I got to drive a fancy-shmancy Mazda3 for the whole day! It was light blue, like in the picture. I felt so cool – like I was on vacation or something, driving a sleek automatic with that “new car” smell. I thought it would make our car seem pathetic in comparison. When I picked up our own little Mazda 626 at the shop, though, with a new water pump and tensioners rumbling along inside, I felt happy to be driving my own car again.
WALL-Eby Angie
26 Jun 2008
10:06 pm2
Congratulations to Jon! He learned today that he is being officially hired by Pixar! Huzzah! Hooray! We’re so thrilled!
We found out the good news when we met Jon at the Pixar campus tonight, where he had invited us to a sneak preview of WALL-E. The new short before the film was bizzare, but cute – and then WALL-E started. I spent the first two minutes laughing: if you know musical theatre, you’ll probably do the same.
It was fantastic. Definitely a favorite of mine already. I think that, deep down, WALL-E is a story about what it really means to be “alive” – whether we’re talking about a robot or a human, a plant or a planet. It’s also, interestingly, about agency. Mostly, though, it’s about love. This is Pixar’s first actual love story, and it was adorable. It’s not as quotable as other Disney movies (for obvious reasons), but there were still some great lines it it. On the other hand, so much is conveyed without any words at all that I was amazed. I even – I’ll admit it – cried. Honest to goodness, tears streaming down my cheeks, right near the end; and I didn’t even realize it until the credits started.
Anyway, it’s wonderful, and I highly recommend that everyone should go see it! Today! Take a date and hold hands. Take your kids – they’ll love it. Go by yourself and just enjoy it. Don’t miss it!
Google’s Complimentby Angie
16 Jun 2008
10:06 am3
So, just for fun, I was playing around on some search engines to see what kind of search terms it would take to find our blog. When I typed “angie & jim” to Google, an RSS feed for our blog posts came up as the third result. When you use Google, it has a link after each of the possibilities to search for “similar pages” so, I decided to click on that and see what Google considered “similar” to our blog.
What was the top result? Check this out:
A Happy Storyby Angie
12 Jun 2008
9:06 am6
Once upon a time, beyond the stormy mountains but this side of tomorrow, there lived a king and queen with five lovely daughters. All five grew up into beautiful ladies; when our story begins, two were already wed to handsome princes. Four of the five princesses lived within a day’s ride of their parents palace, but the second princess and her husband made their home far, far away, on the boarders of the great sea.
A great celebration was soon to take place, to honor the queen’s birthday (who, due to a fairy gift, only looked younger and more beautiful every year), but the youngest and loveliest princess noticed that her queen mother seemed very sad. This was because a dragon had attacked the kingdom of her second daughter several weeks before and, though the prince had defeated the dragon, the queen wished desperately to visit her daughter and help with repairing and restoring the kingdom.
The youngest princess had a magic mirror that could speak to another mirror at her sister princess’s castle. She called and told her sister that she wanted to use her magic to send their queen mother to the kingdom on the shores of the great sea to visit. What a wonderful surprise! The arrangements were soon made: The queen would be traveling in a great coach pulled by magical winged rabbits, who could fly the great distance in an hour. They would land in a forest of oak trees, where all such magical transportation landed: it was called the Oakland Hare-port.
Well, the great day of conveyance arrived and the queen kissed her husband, the king, and began her journey. The second princess and her handsome prince also set out from their castle in a carriage to meet the queen and bring her home from the hare-port. While the magnificent horses jogged along, the carriage passed the hovel of an evil, iron-nosed witch. This witch had been glad when the dragon attacked the kingdom because she hated the prince and princess. When the prince had defeated the dragon, the witch was disappointed, but at midnight she had sneaked to the dragon’s body and magically stolen his power to breathe fire, which spark was still alive, deep inside.
When the iron-nosed witch saw the royal carriage passing by, she grabbed her broomstick and rushed outside, mounted, and began to fly alongside. She made herself invisible to the prince and princess and planned to breathe hot fire on their horses so the steeds would overheat and fall down dead. That way, the royal couple would never reach their queen mother! The prince, however, was very wise and a good horseman. As the invisible witch began to breathe out her fire, the prince saw the horses shiver and begin to sweat. With her next big breath, he notice their wild eyes and tossing manes. As the witch prepared to take her largest and hottest breath of all, the prince suddenly steered the horses off the road and pulled the carriage to a stop, so he could tend to them and find out what was wrong. The witch, meantime, could not stop her broom very quickly and was so angry that she didn’t notice where she was going. She flew right into a sign-post and burst into a million pieces. The fire-breathing magic burst out of her as well, and landed in a little red brick oven in a village in the oak forest.
The wise prince and his princess waited for half an hour to let the horses cool down and rest, and brought them water from a magic well nearby to drink and be refreshed. Then they resumed their journey and arrived just in time to meet the beautiful queen at the hare-port, who hadn’t had to wait very long at all. A great feast was held in the oak forest, where they ate pizza cooked in the red brick oven. Finally, the royal family returned to their castle and there they are all living still, happily ever after.