You've MISSED me, haven't you? I know you have!!

Greetings, internet friends!

Contrary to what you all may have guessed and feared, I did NOT die of The Sickness I suffered a few weeks ago. [If I were going to be really dreadfully honest with you all, I would confess that The Sickness lasted only 48 hours or so, meaning it probably wasn't The Influenza, after all. Why, WHY are all my hopes of melodramatic glory always dashed so...? Sigh...] [What, you think I'm weird? Come on, now, admit it- didn't any of you guys daydream about "swooning from consumption" or some such nonsense when you were a kid? cf Anne Shirley...]

ANYway, since that time I started a couple of entries that I never finished- one about Perelandra, and one about the entry about Perelandra- but in some ways I haven't had that much to write about. These are peaceful, happy days, blissful days of baby adoration and domesticity. I do a lot of little things every day that need to get done, but that aren't really blogworthy- like reorganizing the baby's clothes (again! much to Nate's confusion), finding car insurance for our new car, trying to make sense of all the statements from my insurance company about our hospital bills, etc. I'm reading That Hideous Strength, and trying to figure out how to have more in-depth Bible studies.

And having teased you with that morsel of insight into my life, without further ado, here is what you have REALLY missed... the baby pictures!!


Madelaine is increasingly interested in playing with toys (in the still fairly short stretches of time between eating and sleeping), and Nate is great at playing with her and letting her reach for things.


Okay, lots more to post, but baby is crying so must go to bed with her...

Part II tomorrow maybe?

Love, Neb

Sympathy Glutton

Good morning, beloved and most blessed of readers!

Here are the things I want to tell you about today.

1) (Dramatic drumroll, please): I AM SICK! I have The Sickness! Thursday afternoon at 3:29 pm I was all "La la la, life as usual" and at 3:30 I was all "Hmmm, I feel a little funny, I will lie down on the sofa with the baby" and by 3:35 I was all like "I have THE FEVER! I am SICK!" and by the time Adrienne came home, I was shivering hard and went into the bathroom and sat on the floor and announced with great theatrics, "I might pass out!" [I didn't, of course. I really did feel like I might, though.]

So, I just have the fever and the body aches, no snifflies or coughs or tummy trouble. To me, sudden onset + fever + body aches can only mean one thing: FLU! I have FLU! However, this point is not universally acknowledged. The past 36 hours in our home have witnessed many conversations like this:

Neb: [With great drama; fishing for sympathy] I HAVE THE INFLUENZAE.
Nate: No you don't! Also, it's influenza, not "influenzae." Influenzae is plural. You would only have "influenzae" if you had multiple stains.
Neb: Oh. Right. I have influenzA.
Nate: No you don't. Influenza is a RESPIRATORY illness. You don't have any respiratory symptoms.
Neb [triumphantly]: But these are EXACTLY the same symptoms I had that one time at Wheaton, when I went to the Health Center and they said YOU HAVE FLU and gave me the anti-flu medicine and I got BETTER quickly.
Nate: Yeah, well once I went to the Health Center at Wheaton and they said "you have 'flu'" and then they gave me Amoxicillian.
Neb: Oh.
Nate:The "anti-flu" medicine they gave you was really just anti-viral, in general.

(later)

Neb: GOOGLE FLU! SEE WHAT IT SAYS!! (Still convinced that SUDDEN ONSET and BODY ACHES are sure, undeniable signs.)
Nate: Hmmm. Well, here on Wikipeida it says that 98% of people with flu [we realized later it was only type A, but still] have a COUGH.
Neb: Oh.

(later again)

Neb: I am PROBABLY DYING.
Nate: Honey, you don't even have a fever.
Neb: I DO TOO have a fever. [The digital thermometer the hospital gave us when M. was born had just shown 98.4] It is NOT MY FAULT that the thermometer is defective!! Also, my mouth is probably not designed right to take a temperature. Or something.
Nate: [Sigh]

(later I took it again and it was 100.8, nothing too impressive, but still, I was somewhat vindicated.)

(later again)
Neb: I want SYMPATHY! You are showing no SYMPATHY!
Nate: I don't understand the concept of "sympathy." When I'm sick I want something to actually make it BETTER, if possible, but not just words like "I'm sorry" that aren't going to do anything.
Neb: Well, maybe you could LEARN to show sympathy. Google "spouse illness sympathy"
Nate: [Sigh] Okay...

(later again)
Nate: [speaking as if in a foreign language] "I'M SO SOR-RY YOU'RE NOT FEEL-ING WELL, HONEY. CAN I GET YOU AN-Y-THING?"
Neb [beaming]: No. But thanks for asking.

Conclusion: I am the World's Worst Sick Person.

2) My husband! Might get a job after all! A nice government organization (that I will not actually link to) has informed him that he has made The First Cut! That means, probably, a nice scientist friend will call him up in a few weeks and say, "Come, be my Science Friend in my lab! Do the scienc-y things with me! And our generous Uncle Sam will pay you lots of money, for the baby! And your wife!" It would be a Real Grown-up Job! With a salary! And vacation! And benefits! And they would even pay MOVING expenses! And it's near my parents! :-) So this is Very Exciting. Thanks to all of you who have been praying for us.

Okay, maybe that is all I want to tell you right now. Because I want to go sit on the balcony and read Perelandra before it gets dark.

Love, Neb

Neb's Exciting Day

Currently: eating breakfast- blueberry waffles, raspberry syrup, and banana slices (I resisted the urge to add vanilla ice cream. just barely though). And coffee, of course.

On today's agenda:

*Get dressed, put in contacts, try to tame mass of wild exciting hair...
*Bathe(?), Dress baby
*Read my Bible; read Madelaine's Bible story book to her
*Mail the title to our former car, and photocopies of the papers our insurance company lost
*Take out the trash and diaper pail bag (overflowing!! not good!!)
*Wash dishes
*Buy more coffee- we are COMPLETELY OUT (!!!)
*Clean the bathroom? It's been needing it for a long while...
*Finish going through clothes to give to Good Will
*Finish sorting through that box of miscellaneous baby stuff...
*Go to Lehigh with Nate and upload pictures to the internet so they can get printed...?

And of course: nurse the baby. Change the baby. Put the baby in sling. Take the baby out of sling. Etc etc.

So, if I get all of THAT done, I might just get to start Perelandra, having just finished re-reading Out of the Silent Planet. Seriously, how do people have so much time to read?!? One of the bloggers I read said she read 16 books in the month of September- and she works full time and has a four year old (and seems to spend most weekend nights going to clubs.) I guess with all the hundreds of hours I've spent reading blogs in the past year, I could have read more actual books- but then again, blog-reading (and writing!) has its place too. So I'll just do what I can. ;-)

Have a good day, everyone.
Neb!

A request for help (from those of you who are actually literate)

Greetings, gentle readers.

I would like to read "Until We Have Faces," by C.S. Lewis, which is the retelling of the story of (Fill in the blank with name of some ancient writing.) Problem: I hate to confess this, but... somehow, I never read a whole big heap of the literature written before, say, 1800. Specifically, this whole genre called "mythology" is unfortunately and disturbingly foreign to me. I read Aesop's Fables once. Also, a drama entitled "Antigone," and part of a poem called "Beowulf," which I believe was about some kind of... large creature. I know that Dante wrote a work called "Inferno," and Chaucer wrote "Canterbury Tales." Also, I believe there was a beast called Cyclops that had one eye. Helen's face launched a thousand ships, but I don't know where they were sailing, and there was a big wooden horse full of soldiers. Thus ends my knowledge of literature, pre-1800.

(You think I'm kidding? I'm really not kidding! Oh sure, I've left out the smattering of Shakespeare I read and a few other things, but not much...)

Anyway, here is what I would like: I would like one of you Smart Literary People to recommend to me an Easy way to read enough mythology to understand CS Lewis a bit better...? Like, where should I start?

Preferably such a volume would contain some kind of Notes. (Written on a third-grade level would be best.)

Thanks awfully!

Love, Neb

Just like that stupid over-quoted Mastercard commercial...

New Coffeemaker: $29

New Haircut: $11

New Car: $5,920

Watching your baby get cuter every day: Priceless. :-)