To all who have wished me a speedy recovery: Thank You! I am feeling steadily better (1 month out), and expect to be back to full strength shortly. @Alisande, If you think you may have babeseosis at the moment, then insist on being tested. Same with anaplasmosis, both are less-difficult than Lyme to diagnose from blood smears, I believe. (The issue with the blood supply, aside from the traditional head-in-the-sand attitude of the blood industry, and of course the cost, is that there is no rapid-enough test for babeseosis -or possibly the other tick-borne diseases -to work with the need for fresh blood.) But as I mentioned, anaplasmosis has distinct, characteristic, changes in routine blood work that are almost diagnostic. I can check next time I am in the medical library if there are specific changes in the case of babeseosis. I may have that info for erlichiosis, if you'd like to know it. Anaplasmosis has distinctive mullberry shaped artifacts (morullae) in the disease-specific blood smears (as does erlichiosis, I believe). Babeseosis is different but unless you, like I, have had malaria it's pretty distinctive in the blood test for it. The tests aren't inexpensive (the unadjusted street price for them is $500-$1,000 -each- but my insurance company whacked both of them down considerably. Since you're on Medicare, you'd only pay a percentage of the CMS-negotiated cost which is likely to be as aggressively moderated as that of my own insurance company's contractual rate. Since all three are bacterial, not spirochete, -caused it doesn't require the complex analysis of PCR bands that Lyme does. But frankly if I was on my second continuous month of Lyme I would have pretty awful constitutional symptoms from that lengthy treatment alone. I can barely make it out the 30 days of a single course before I have disturbed sleep, night sweats, muscle aches and pains, etc. Part of my fierceness about discovering ticks early is to avoid the need for the lengthy course of anti-Lyme doxy. Since doxy won't really do anything for babeseosis - and other drugs will - why keep taking what may be the wrong cure? I don't think you would experience symptoms from babeseosis or anaplasmosis (or even Lyme) infection before locating the tick. The incubation time needed to get sick from a still-attached tick would have resulted in a deer tick as big as a green pea, a nasty pearly-grey tight blob. It's hard to imagine you wouldn't have noticed it well before getting sick if it was still attached. Don't you itch like mad when you have a tick attached for more than a few hours, not to mention days? I'd be wild! BTW, the tick-hours-of-bite measurement has a built in problem: the aging relies on analysis of stomach digestive contents. But that assumes, and it is not always true, that the bite the tick was discovered making is the only bite, not a second one. Also you mentioned you squashed the critter in removing it. You might want to consider beginning more intensive searches for ticks on your body twice a day in order to not miss one. I have hair so long I can sit on it so I do realize it can be hard to check your scalp and hair. I have also found attached ticks under my breasts, in my belly button, on various unmentionable parts of my bottom, and even larval ones between my toes and fingers. I usually keep my long hair tied up in pigtail outdoors. I tuck the pigtail down the back of my shirt to minimize the likelihood of ticks getting caught in my hair. Of course I always have a hat on outside for sun protection, so my head and scalp are less-common tick areas. I do tick-checks at least twice every day of the year, unless I am away from home overnight in the city. It's just like brushing your teeth. I'm not convinced that Lyme "lurks in your body" but given that it is caused by spirochete I suppose it's possible. (Another spirochete-caused illness, syphillis, has a proven habit of lingering on and re-occurring, often despite treatment.) I know, for certain, that I have had Lyme (from clearly positive blood tests), been treated successfuly and subsequently had lengthy periods of profound physiological, and mental stress, without Lyme popping back up and adding to the problems. And I still have one band for Lyme on the latest PCR, which indicates an old, resolved infection, so there's no question it's still visible in my blood, but not thankfully making a pest of itself. I also still have serological evidence of malaria in my blood and I haven't had any illness from it in more than fifty years! But the bacterial diseases (anaplasmosis, babeseosis and erlichiosis) seem extremely unlikely lurkers and later-pouncers, especially if treated. What I definitely think they can do, however, is damage other organs and systems resulting in consequential, long-term problems (like the poor fellow described above who lost his spleen as a result of a babeseosis infection.) Your description of high fevers, muscle aches and pains, etc., sound much more like anaplasmosis than Lyme. Did you have any "regular" blood tests done at the time? The average time from bite to onset of symptoms with anaplasmosis is 8 days. I could look that time up for erlichiosis and babseosis, if needed. I don't know enough about Fibro, but aren't night sweats and aches and pains part of that, too? You may not need to go to any doctor more specialized than your primary care doc to check for the bacterial tick-borne illnesses. And then you'll be able to know, and treat, any that are there. I didn't get any hint that the tests for them lead to confusing, or contradictory results, as I know the Lyme test can, because it is a different, and more complicated test.. If you test negative for them, including having normal routine blood results, you can cross them off your list of worries and look elsewhere. (And get off the wretched doxy!) HTH, L.

Your field tile choice looks alot like one I considered by Crossville. I like the glass tile on the step fronts and as an accent. I think it gives a little "bling" and breaks it up in a good way. I wonder about the pebbles for the shower floor. That's another thing I was going to do but decided not too for a few reasons. First, my master bath seems about 1/3 the size of yours and I don't think too many different materials would work in a tiny bathroom. Also, I was concerned about the amount of grout that's visible with pebble/stone tiles. The spaces between them are bigger and I hate cleaning grout in a shower. Anyway... I like the glass!

Really guys - thanks to everyone for their nice words. Things look so much better to me tonight than they did 24 hours ago. Time has a way of doing that, right? Here's where I think we stand. The builder says he will do whatever I want with the hutch doors. He will get (and pay for) solid wood. He will put it some type of glass or other insert. That issue will be resolved pretty easily. He spoke with my husband and they took out, measured and examined my sink. He showed my husband how he can install it. It involves very very little "notching" in the back corners of the sink base. I'm still a little wary of it, but it's how my husband thinks we should go. The guy did offer to eat the full cost of the original sink so we could get another that would fit in the 31" base, so I think he's being sincere in wanting to work this out. He seems confident he can make it work and that I'll be happy with it. If I'm NOT happy with it, he says he'll make it right. A few people here have said my wine racks are normal, and since I wasn't more specific, I guess I have no one to blame but myself. Right now they're still not looking exactly "right" to me, but I'm sure in time they will seem just fine. The glaze is fine...my family said I am being too picky. The issue with the peninsula - in the end, it will actually work to my advantage. I think I like the peninsula being a little longer. It probably helps me make my decision about what else to put in the room. I'm still trying to find out what the cabinet maker has in mind for my open shelves. I'm still leaning toward 3 shelves, but I can make that decision when I know a little more about them. I'd really like to get those shelves here and up because to me they're a big part of my kitchen. At this point, we're going ahead with all installation and taking it from there. We are NOT, however, paying the full 50% remaining balance on the cabinets right now. My husband said he'll decide tomorrow when he speaks with the builder how much we will pay right now. He and I both feel that holding at least part of the money back until we have seen and are happy with everything is the way to go. Thanks to GW for all the support. SQ

I got a 0 too! I drove DH nuts a few years ago trying to find the perfect shade of off white paint with the right undertones. They all looked the same to him. I imagine his score will be pretty high if I can get him to take the test. Online ColorIQ Challenge Results You have perfect color vision! Your score: 0 Gender: Female Age range: 30-39 Best score for your gender and age range: 0 Highest score for your gender and age range: 1520