I think I will stay up late drinking coffee and then set the alarm clock for 7:45 to go "running"...

Yeah, right.

Here in the Nebiverse, we are trying to work on our Healthy Habits (yes, I sound like a government propaganda poster, bear with me), like Exercising. You know. Physical Activity. So I realized our apartment complex is at the end of this lovely tree-lined avenue, that it provides a perfect 1.3 mile stretch of up and downhill for me to push the stroller with the child and go "running."* (That's a 2.6 mile roundtrip, you know. And it takes me about 50 minutes. Which is around 20 minutes per mile or 3 miles an hour [never say I don't help you folks out with your arithmetic!!] Which I would say is kind of slow, except that I'm pushing 40 lbs of child and stroller and a good part of it's UPHILL.**) (Am I the only person who does mental math while exercising to fight off the mind-numbing boringness of it all?)

*It is only fair to disclose to you that the Nebiverse definition of "running" is not, you know, actually RUNNING, it's more like "I will attempt to walk briskly and if all the planets line up right and my heart soars with the wonder of being alive and I've struck the perfect balance of coffee and rehydrating fluids (but don't need to pee) and food (but not overly full) and sleep then I might, MIGHT spontaneously break into a slow jog, experiencing the joy of feeling parts of me jiggle that aren't supposed to jiggle (high on endorphins, I will tell myself, "YEAH! If I keep this up, they will JIGGLE RIGHT OFF!!, but low on endorphins I will pity the people in the cars passing by...), which will last for a minute or two, until I start to feel winded or the sidewalk starts going uphill or the number of passing cars overwhelms me. Then I realize that when I walk uphill on the Big Hill coming home, I get way more out of breath then when I jog. Which possibly means that my "running" does not actually accomplish that much.

**I mean, part of it is downhill, too. The parts that are uphill on the reverse journey are downhill going the other way. Funny how that works. But I asked Nate, who Knows Everything, and he said that a path with uphill and downhill burns more calories than a flat path even if the ups and downs cancel each other out so that your starting elevation is equal to your ending elevation [wait a second- that's inevitable if you want to go home, isn't it?] ***) In other words, maybe downhill is less of a workout than flat ground, but uphill is so much MORE of a workout than flat ground that it more than balances out.

***This so reminds me of countour integrals, the Mystique of Complex Analysis. Just about all I got out of it at Wheaton was, if you go around in a circle and there's nothing Interesting happening on the inside (Interesting = a Singularity, a point where the derivative fails to exist) then the answer will always be zero. Of course, the rules are more complicated when there IS a singularity inside, and now I'm remembering Professor King saying how absolutely amazing it was that the value of a contour integral could be determined by what was happening INSIDE the countour, and I realized he was right. I had never thought of it that way before. He said something about, "Lay out the New York Times in a circle around a stadium..." I can't remember the rest of it, quite.

So what does it say about my personality that most of my writing is in parentheses or fine print? If you can analyse character through handwriting, surely you can do it through blogging, too, right?

I hope you realize that I have made the normal print on this post larger instead of making the footnotes smaller, in deference to the large percentage of my reading public**** who have middle-aged eyes.

****Love you mom, dad, and Judy. ;-)

My chicken is fussing, so I must go!

Love, Neb/dp

Pictures of Madelaine's New Room!

I always wanted to make a nursery for my baby... :-)




This rocker we got free from Paul and Sara- it had sort of a beige fabric with an abstract print (from the early 90's...?) I bought this blue checked fabric at Walmart a long time ago just because it was cheap and cute, so now it's been put to good use (I pinned instead of sewing... cause I'm lazy that way...) The flower panel draped over the back is actually the valence for her window, once Nate gets around to installing the curtain rod, but for now, I kind of like it draped over the chair- it sort of ties everything together.


I found this quilt set at Walmart and really liked it- feminine, cute, and with lots of colors to make it easy to accessorize. Yes, I have quilt blocks in my closet that I could make into a quilt (and curtains and pillows and so forth...) but I actually wanted my kid to have a nice bedroom before she turns 18, and all my sewing projects are highly backlogged. The quilt blocks in the closet will make a great wall hanging at some point. (See what a realist I've become???)

This table was a gift from my parents- a little red table that my dad had loved as a kid. I asked his permission to paint it white, and he graciously agreed. The wooden decorative pieces are from the Walmart craft department (just taped on for now, until I figure out the best way to glue them on so that later they could still be removed without damaging the talbe.)


This dresser was FREE from the people who moved out of another apartment in our building!! It came with a matching nightstand, which just so happens to match OUR furniture set (how cool is that...??) so we put it in our room. I was seriously planning to buy a nice wooden dresser for her room, and this was PERFECT. (Some minor cosmetic problems- scratches, a missing knob, no big deal.) What a blessing!!








I bought this for her at PA Festival of the Arts. Someday she'll understand what it means.

Love, Neb

Things I love about State College

I love our new apartment. It has so much more space, and we are so much better organized! Pictures soon...

I love the campus of Penn State. Lovely architecture, beautiful tree-lined neighborhoods. A bike/walking/bus friendly community. Fantastic public library downtown. Pretty good climate (some cool summer days, although still rather humid.) Artsy stuff (like PA Festival of the Arts, which should get its own post...) Mountains.

I miss my friends in the Lehigh Valley.

11:38 pm, time for bed...

Love, Neb

The Nebiverse still tracks its starry path through the sky...

...illuminating the beloved, both far and near.

Hello peoples!

I have not posted in over a month.

We have moved!

I really MUST express my sincerest thanks to all of you who did so much to help our move go so smoothly. Thanks to everyone who packed boxes, cleaned, sweated, carried heavy things, and generally did anything and everything to help us out. You are all the best!!

[And now my child is melting down, so it is time for bed. So I will close this little bitty entry with a picture of my adorable offspring.]

Love, Neb