Look at all those nice, patient people out there...

What I have been doing instead of blogging:

1) Thorougly cleaning all parts of this apartment except the bedroom. The bedroom right now is a hopeless purgatory of dirty laundry, dust bunnies, and "undecidable" objects removed from the other (clean!!) areas of our home. What is an "undecidable" object, you may ask? An "undecidable" object is one which we have trouble finding a home for. Examples: one piece of gold posterboard, left over from Nate's poster session last semester. It is in perfectly good condition, so our Thrifty sides cannot condone throwing it away. Yet, it is awkward to store- i.e., doesn't fit neatly in a desk drawer with the other "office supplies" like pens and glue sticks- so right now it is cohabiting on our bedroom floor with one Tired Worn-Out Sheepskin Steering Wheel Cover. (don't ask)

2) Filing all our financial records for the past 7 months or so.
3) Undertaking a little project: Is Driving Our Car Significantly Cheaper than Driving a New Car? Answer: Why, yes! Yes it is!! Sylvia has had some Issues the past few months ($1450 in Dec. for transmission, $130 in April for oil pressure sender, $641 last week for radiator/thermostat) so I was sort of wondering, is this REALLY cheaper then driving a new (or newer used) car? I went through all our records and added up depreciation, registration, insurance, gasoline (which I estimated using a cool spreadsheet I found giving average weekly gas prices in the US broken down by region and grade), and maintenance (around $6000!! wow!!) and concluded that in the 45 months/ 62775 miles we have driven our car, she has cost about $386/month or about $0.28/mile.

According to AAA's brochure Your Driving Costs 2006, the average cost of owning and operating a new small sedan is about $521/month or $.42/mile. AAA isn't completely clear about how their model works; the website says the model is based on driving a new car 75,000 miles in 5 years, but it's not totally clear if we buy this car in 2006 or in 2001. (They use $2.405 as the price per gallon of gas- that was the average price at the end of 2005. I think this would be a gross underestimate of gas prices from 2006-2010. But it would certainly overestimate the price from 2001-2005. Maybe we should assume the AAA car is driven from 2003-2007, to average things out? If so, the figures would be a fairly good basis for comparison to Sylvia, who was purchased in Aug. 2002.) I even tweaked the AAA figures down a bit, realizing some of their numbers would be higher than ours (insurance, registration, etc.) and Sylvia was still a good bit cheaper. And, small sedans were by far the cheapest category listed- if we drove a medium or large sedan or an SUV, we'd be paying a LOT more.

So, would we be better off now (financially) if we'd bought a new car in Aug. 2002? Almost certainly not. Was there a USED car out there somewhere in America that would have required fewer repairs and been a better value? Sure there was. But 1) we're not clairvoyant and we're not car experts, so we could hardly foresee the future of those used cars we looked at back then, and 2) there's no surefire (surefire! I like that word!!) way to calculate the optimal point on the purchase price/maintenance curve for used cars. We spent about $3100 on Sylvia (including a small warranty) and close to $6000 in maintenance (including everything routine, like oil changes, tires, inspection, brakes, etc.) We could have spent $9100 on a car in 2002 whose value today would be about $4250 (assuming 15%-20% depreciation per year). While we probably wouldn't have spent all of $4250 maintaining such a vehicle, we didn't HAVE $9100 in 2002 so we would have had to take out a car loan which would have meant several hundred (over a thousand?) dollars in interest. Or we could have bought a $6000 used car which would have cost less in depreciation but more in repair bills...? And on and on, you see how it goes. I can't see any options that are likely to be significantly cheaper, and most options seem to be more expensive.

THAT'S for all you people out there who ask us why we drive such a clunker. ;-)

4) Reading: The Art of Mathematics, Boundaries in Marriage, and Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner. Well, okay, I read about the first 6 pages of that last one before Giving Up. Shout-out to any of you literary major types out there: any help with reading Faulkner? See, I feel like I ought to be able to read Faulker and enjoy it because he is writing about the South, and he is early-twentieth-century American, which are supposed to be things I can relate to (unlike, for example, the Ancient Greeks? I never did get along with the ancient Greeks.) I like the style and I am Happy that it's about the South, but somehow the reading does not seem to be a project I can continue for a full 300 pages. I tire easily. Perhaps I'm just out of practice...?

I also read blogs- um, A Lot.

5) Socializing with people we haven't had time to socialize with all year. (Hi!)

6) Enjoying our fifth anniversary here and here. :-) We had car trouble on the way down (radiator- see above) that scared me into thinking we wouldn't make it (and the hotel charge was non-refundable!! eee!!) but I Prayed a lot and tried to have a good attitude of "however this goes, I will still have a Greatful spirit." I think almost losing our chance to go made me even more thankful for the nice trip we had. :-) Dinner was awesome and our hotel room was awesome, and walking around New Hope and Lambertsville was really fun. (Happy 5 years, honey. :-))

7) Helping out with Girls' Bible Study at church and other things (like a video scavenger hunt last night.)

8) Visiting my old work buddies at NCC.

Okay that's enough (boredom for you) for now! Bye!

"Day" One (so much for that idea)

Hey y'all, happy summer. Welcome to The Nebiverse, a tropical paradise of twirly skirts and sandals and reclining beach chairs (um, you know, the ones where you lay down...? What are those called...? I am such a dork) and little non-alchoholic non-carbonated fruity beverages in little glasses with umbrella straws.

(Technichally if you want the truth, I'm wearing the comfy grey shirt and flannel pajama pants because we're having a cooler-than-average May, a fact which makes my husband exceedingly happy, and there's hot coffee and a bagel being consumed. No pool or lounge chairs are in sight. The Nebiverse is all about truth in advertising, friends.)

So now (it's later) it's 11:33 pm and I have a headache. So why don't I go to bed and I'll "write more tomorrow" "maybe," m'kay?

The Day of Jubilee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This was me, enjoying a piece of cake afterwards. :-)

1 DAY LEFT (THAT'S LESS THAN 24 HOURS, COMRADES!!!)

SO, HERE I AM BREAKING THE CYCLE OF POSTING THESE DAILY UPDATES A DAY OR TWO LATE AND COMPENSATING BY USING WEIRD VERB TENSES. (i.e., TODAY IS "ONE DAY LEFT," WHICH IS MONDAY, AND I'M ACTUALLY TYPING THIS ON MONDAY!)

Okay sorry with the all caps, I'll give your eyes a rest.

Good news: I just got great news about my Random Processes Final via email from Prof. RP- hurrah!! :-D

Bad news: THERE IS SO MUCH TO LEARN BY 10 AM tomorrow morning, it's not even funny!

Good news: By noon tomorrow this marathon will FINALLY be over.

See you all tomorrow, on Freedom Day.

:-) Love, Neb

2 Days Left (I'm studying now!)

I went to church and went out to Red Robin afterwards with Jerry and Judy and Hannah and had Chicken Milano, mmm! Then came home and napped and then... actually... eventually... started... STUDYING.

WE ARE NOW SO CLOSE TO THE END......

3 Days left (Anyone want to buy some "jewelry"...?)

Saturday:

I read blogs and drank coffee and ate a bagel.
Then I decided, wow, I haven't exercised all semester, I should exercise! So I took an ~1 hr walk in which my pasty white flesh jiggled a lot and my body started to say (after about 20 minutes), "Exercise?!? What is this ex-er-cise of which you speak...?"

Then I came home and took a shower. Then I realized, hey, I just washed my hair! A perfect time to go get a haircut! (I get my hair cut for $11 at The Hair Butchery* 'cause I'm all Thrifty that way. It comes out shorter, and if they miss a few tufts of hair- well, I have scissors at home. Obviously at those prices they have to have you in and out the door in about 10 minutes flat, so if you want a shampoo you'd better take care of that at home first.) Then after the haircut (by the way, my hairstylist and I had a lovely little chat- I was much more talkative than usual. I opened by giving my standard "I don't really care what you do with my hair, I'm clueless, I just want it short, so do whatever you want" which always gets at least one raised eyebrow 'cause girls my age are supposed to KNOW how they want their hair, but what can I say, I'm a hippy, I don't really do that whole makeup/hair"style"/shoe shopping thing. Anyway, after that we had a lovely chat about hair etc., and she mentioned being in school, and I asked her where she was in school, and she said she was going to school for massage therapy because she hoped that giving people massages meant less talking interaction than haircutting because she really doesn't like talking to people. Then I was all like, "Oh.") I went to the grocery store and got Nice Things like chicken salad from the deli (but they don't put anything IN their chicken salad in this heathen state except CHICKEN and MAYONAISE and little bits of CHOPPED CELERY!!) Chicken salad is supposed to have EXCITING THINGS like little bits of APPLE and GRAPES and maybe PINEAPPLE and RAISINS and WALNUTS and things that you just totally aren't EXPECTING like, um... squid. Yeah, anyway, so I brought the groceries home then Nate and I worked on cleaning up our disaster of a kitchen- it was good to get it Clean. Then Nate cooked chicken enchiladas (or something like that), which were Excellent. Then I was kind of like, "Okay, um, maybe I should study for my Combinatorics Final..." so, I sat with my book open on the sofa with me, but then, you see... the TV! Something was on it! Oh yeah, it was Britcoms!! And then it was a movie called All the Kings Men (about Watergate), which was TOTALLY irresistably fascinating, I mean, come on guys, you know my obsession with early 70's politics... So then it was like 1 am and I went to bed.

But you guys saw it, right? I SAT NEXT TO my open combinatorics book on the sofa for a good three hours, watching TV. Knowledge TOTALLY can seep through the atmosphere. I am a believer. Word!

Oh yeah, the other two exciting things that happened Saturday night:

Around 9:30, there was a knock on our door. Usually Nate and I don't answer if we don't know who it is, but for some really odd reason I opened (upon looking through the peephole and seeing it was a woman who did not Appear to be a Big Thug Trying To Break In. I figured she just had the wrong apartment.) So she looks surprised to see me and says, "Hi hon, I'm selling jewelry, I have lots of stuff available, are you interested?" And I'm all like, "Um, no, sorry, we can't by anything today." And she's like, "Well, do you know where the Spanish people live near here...?" And I'm like, "I think they live next door" and she's like, "Okay, thanks."

Now, about a minute after I closed the door I realized something: she did not have any jewelry with her.

All she had was a small purse, you know, clearly a purse holding her own personal items, not the type of bag you would carry something in that you're selling. Now, if YOU were selling jewelry door to door or something, wouldn't YOU have, you know, some actual JEWELRy with you to sell people...?

And why was she looking for "the Spanish people"? (I assume she meant the Spanish-speaking people, as we do not have any esteemed residents from Spain in our building, to the best of my knowledge.)

Here are some facts for you to dwell on:
1) Our next door neighbors make very loud, very weird noises all the time. Not necessarily happy or angry noises- just weird noises.
2) They frequently spray A LOT of air freshner outside their front door (not IN their own apartment- they open the front door and spray the hallway right outside their door).
3) Now, mysterious "jewelry"-selling lady is looking for them at 9:30 on a Saturday night.

I think she was selling something- but it wasn't jewelry.

Finally, the Big Event of Saturday was that I finally saw the Special Visitor that has been inhabiting our kitchen-- The Mouse!! :-) For several weeks now we've known of her existence, and at night while sitting in the living room we've heard her enjoying the crumbs left on dishes in the sink, but every time we get up and tiptoe into the kitchen to try to get a sneak peek, she vanishes into the stove faster than we can see her. Well, last night I came around the corner to the kitchen and turned on the light very abruptly, and there she was, scurrying along the counter to get under cover! It was most thrilling.

If we could just housebreak her- we'd be all set.


*Not its real name.

And another

"5 days left" had a Blogger Weirdie- I tried to use the less than symbol on the keyboard (when I said z is less than infinity) and apparently that screwed up all the HTML for the rest of that paragraph. I didn't notice it when it first published, but I've fixed it now, and now it actually looks like I have a complete thought there, so go re-read it, please. (as much as I ever have a complete thought, that is...)