An Interesting Day

[Now-Day-Before] Yesterday was kind of cool and different. To start with, Madelaine and I and 300 trillion billion million* other people in America bundled up and headed to Denny's for their special FREE Grand Slam Breakfast promotion. Because, you know, Americans are all about getting up early, getting dressed and out the door, spending gas money, waiting outside a restaurant in line for 15-20 minutes in the freezing cold, all so they can spend a $2 tip on a meal they could have cooked at home for $1. Because it's a FREE MEAL. That's how we think. Our local establishment was crowded with the elderly, small groups of college students, and a few assorted Locals- some in full hunting regalia. I'm really curious if Denny's will find their little experiment to be profitable in the long run... anyway, we enjoyed the pancakes and eggs and bacon and took the sausage home to Daddy Nate. A fun little outing.

*You know, what with the gazillions of dollars being "spent" (printed) for this whole Bail-out thing, all of the -illions seem to kind of blur together, you know? [Oops, I think my kid is eating stickers off the craft we did yesterday.] But as we head into The Second Great Depression (yeah, I said it!) I've decided to adopt the federal government's strategy- when we don't have any money, we'll just PRINT MORE! :-) Where are Madelaine's crayons...?

Then I had my two dental appointments- Nate stayed home from work to watch the Chicken while I went in for my 11 a.m. ROOT CANAL. How come the phrase ROOT CANAL sounds so dreadfully intimidating?!? It was really a piece of cake. I have a feeling that if the tooth had been bothering me it would have been worse, or if there were "complications" (like my poor MIL had recently with a tooth...) I think the dentist only worked about 20 minutes, and it was all over. Then at 2 I went in for my cleaning... so one time I went to this dentist that had this special gizmo for cleaing, some kind of blue lighty- thing (yeah that's the technical term) that just king of, you know, BLASTED the plaque off ultrasonically or something. And CAN I TELL YOU how much more comfortable that is than the scrapy-pick-thingie?!?!? I was like, WOW, I must have this treatment again... so when we picked this dentist in State College, I called them up and asked if they had some kind of alternative to the scrapy-pick thing, and tried to describe the blue light thing, and the lady was like, Yes! We have a (Something)!! So I was like, Cool! But it turned out to just be something called a "Cavitron," which is a high-powered stream of water (like pressure washing your teeth!!) Which would have been fine, that was also much more comfortable than the pick, except that apparently IT DOESN'T REALLY GET EVERYTHING because after using it on my teeth she was like, "Okay, let me just finish up with the hand tools now" and then she did the painful scraping thing for a good long time, so it's like, what's the point?!? Oh well. At least she was good at it and it wasn't TOO bad... one time, I went to the dentist (I think in Atlanta) and the cleaning was so painful, my eyes were watering and I was gripping the chair...

On the way home I stopped off at Giant and stocked up on meat, since our local Walmart Supercenter never has any good deals on Cow, Pig, and Chicken... comparing prices on a few other things, though, I was impressed and persuaded we should probably be buying most of our groceries there.

Then it was back home to grab a quick nap with Madelaine... but "quick" turned into over 2 hours. I woke up around 7, confused and disoriented that it was dark outside, and then sad that I was late for my 6:30 Bible study! I hustled out the door and enjoyed some great insights on Hebrews 2. Jorn says that when we struggle with sin, the key to "activating" grace- ie, relying on the power of the Holy Spirit instead of our own- is believing that our sins are forgiven, and really putting our faith in God's strength. That makes a lot of sense to me.

On the way home it was snowing, and my car skidded and ended up perpendicular to the road at one point when I turned left, but thankfully the car behind me could brake before running into me. We need two new tires on the back. I'm almost getting used to the whole driving-on-ice-and-snow-and-sliding-around-like-crazy phenomenon- ALMOST. I still tend to silently grumble that my husband had to be from a state like Pennsylvania and fantasize about Texas spring, but, you know, what can you do? The Groundhog* saw his shadow, which means that winter will last til early-to-mid April. (If The Groundhog HADN'T seen his shadow, in my opinion this would also mean that winter would last til early-to-mid April, because I am a hard, bitter realist who just says THAT'S HOW LONG WINTER LASTS HERE.) On the positive side, we just bought Madelaine's snow boots- they finally went on clearance at Walmart- Disney princess snow boots!! (Will our son enjoy wearing them, too?) But I have to say, they fit her feet fine, but the velcros will barely fasten around our chubby little Princess's cankles. Oh well, what's a girl to do? The few pairs of knee-high boots I have tried on in adult life don't fit my calves, either...

*The Groundhog is taken very seriously around these-here parts, along with hunting season, Joe Paterno, and the Steelers. Did I tell you that the local school-children had a two-hour delay the Monday after the Superbowl even though the weather was FINE?? So very, very wrong...

I'd better go, apparently there is a Nursing Emergency, although her mouth is still full of Cheerios so I told her she has to swallow first...

Love, Neb