Michelle Nebel: Words to Spare

Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.

Just a few pictures from the new place

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New sprinkler! And hey look, this is our backyard. That patio/deck is HUGE and needs furniture. (But then, so does most of the house. I have a feeling the patio is low on the list, haha!)
Two kids in a sprinkler! And Chris in the background putting yard stuff into his shed. He <3’s his new shed. 🙂

Baking chocolate chip cookies. I have a couple of things to say about this picture. (1) That apron makes me look ENORMOUS! (2) You can see how open the kitchen is to the family room – and look, there’s my fireplace! (3) That stack of boxes? That’s our DVD collection. We have no place designated to put them, so they are staying put for now.
Another baking picture. And in this one, you can see my current “trouble spot” — that section of counter behind the island, to the right of the fridge. My goal is to have the counter hold my laptop, some kind of iPhone dock, and the house phone. On the backsplash, I’d like some kind of pinboard or message board, and on the narrow wall on the right I want to hang a mail sorter or inboxes or something like that. Until I get my organization tools going, it’s just a catch-all for piles of all sorts. Ugh.

And finally, “Look, Mom, your bathroom isn’t babyproofed!” Susannah found my makeup bag and put on mascara and green eyeshadow. On the positive, at least she’ll make a great Epsilon Sigma pledge in about sixteen years.

The Great Kitchen Table Search

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So, I’m dream-shopping again. Well, this time I’m going to call it “research” because we move in 49 days and have decided to leave behind our current kitchen table. That means we need to buy a new set pretty much immediately when we arrive in Owensboro.

I don’t want to buy anything before we get there, though – I’m afraid my memory and photos of the kitchen won’t make for a good match on colors.

The way the new kitchen is laid out, there’s a narrow half-height wall separating the eat-in area from the family room. I’m guessing it’s about four feet long, and chair-rail height. This half-wall makes a corner with the floor-length window and door to the patio. (I don’t know the proper term for that feature: it looks like french doors with a 12-pane window, but it’s actually one stationary window and a door with matching windowpanes. Does that make any sense?)

The previous owners have a round four-top here, but since we’ll be a family of five very shortly after moving in, I know we’ll need a bit more space than that! We’ll have a separate dining room, but furnishing that is further down on the priority list so this will be the main eating space for a while. Even after we have a “real” dining room table, I’m guessing the kitchen table will still be the primary place for
-breakfast for five
-school for three
-crafts and games for any combination of Nebels + friends
-lunch for four

The kitchen also has a built-in island that has bar-height seating for two. We asked for the current owners to leave their barstools, but they changed that in the counter-offer. So I’ll need to get two barstools as well, and if I can find a dining set that has matching (or coordinating) barstools, that will be an extra ‘plus.’

I’m thinking of a rectangular or oval table… I love pedestals and farmhouse style tables. I can’t go too “rustic” or “country,” since that’s not really Chris’ favorite look, but it can’t be too minimalist or European either (which he leans toward but rubs me the wrong way). I’d LOVE to get a table with a bench seat and four chairs. I’m thinking we could have the bench up against the half-height wall, and then we could keep 2 chairs (and eventually, a highchair) out all the time. We could stash 2 additional chairs in the under-stairs closet that’s just a step outside of the kitchen, and pull those out when we have company but keep them out of the way for less visual clutter the rest of the time.

A few contenders:


Antique Honey Verona Trestle Table from Cost Plus World Market


Example of a custom table & chairs from Cottage Home Furniture.

Say Hello to My Little Friend

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Meet Neti.
Neti Pot.

I have no idea what to expect when I go use this in a few minutes, but it seems like everyone in the world has hopped on the neti pot bandwagon and insists that I get one for my sinus pain and congestion (which has lingered, even though my other symptoms are gone – other than the cough).

A Random List Meme Seemed Like a Good Idea

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Books I’m reading:
Living Large: From SUVs to Double Ds – Why Going Bigger Isn’t Going Better, by Sarah Z. Wexler (funny. sad. hard to believe. totally believable in an “aren’t we crazy in this country!?” kind of way. Actually already finished but it’s still on my nightstand.)
American Band: Music, Dreams, and Coming of Age in the Heartland, by Kristen Lane (and…. BAM! I’m in high school again. Only partway through this one but I like it.)
Being Polite to Hitler: a novel, by Robb Forman Dew (Barely started this one and don’t know how I feel about it yet)
Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis (for my young adults’ Sunday School class)
Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, by Rob Bell (for my ladies’ Bible Study group)

Movies on my Netflix queue:
Repo Men
Baptists At Our Barbeque
Where the Wild Things Are
Secretariat
Red
Megamind
Black Swan

Non-reality TV shows I’m totally digging:
Parenthood (oh, the characters on this show are so well-written. I love them all.)
The Middle (underrated, I know, but always makes me laugh)
The Office (and looking forward to the new cast member…)
Perfect Couples (you know these people. we know these people. sometimes, we ARE these people. must-watch)

Reality TV shows I’m totally digging:
19 Kids and Counting (because I want to be a mother just like Michelle Duggar. I think the current season just ended, though.)
Bethenny Ever After (because… I don’t know why, but I can’t stop watching. Also, she reminds me of my friend from Florida, which always makes me smile.)

Stuff I’m doing:
Trying to keep a clean house for Open House on Sunday
Looking forward to Chris’ time off next week – we are doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING and that sounds marvelous to me.
Counting down to July 1 (move to Owensboro).
Counting down to end of September (hello, baby!)

We cannot WAIT until Friday….

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I mean, seriously…. SNOW!? The first weekend in November!? Who wouldn’t love that?
Okay, I’ll admit: Susannah is clueless. She will yell “SNOW!” with us… and she did enjoy the waving “noman” she saw at a store last week… but she has no real memory of snow. And Chris, it must be confessed, does not think the month of November ought to include a forecast of white fluff. He can handle the first few snows of the season (when they come along at the appropriate time – late December, in his thinking) but by the end of January he is “over it.”
Jonas and I, on the other hand, are absolutely thrilled. We keep checking the weather channel to make sure it still says there’s a chance for snowy mix. Jonas has BIG PLANS for hot chocolate and marshmallows. I really don’t care if it’s one flake or a whole blizzard… I just love the prospect of snow!

Road Trip!

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This is a whirlwind day. I’ve got lists upon lists – to-do, to-buy, to-clean, to-pack… It’s tiring just thinking about it. Everything is underway, so I’m hoping to be finished and get to bed early tonight. The alarm goes off super-early tomorrow!

I’m planning to leave around 4:00 a.m., and praying that both kids will sleep for a few of those predawn hours and allow me to cover some decent miles in an uninterrupted stretch. Then I figure that even with stops to eat, stretch, play, and change diapers or go to the potty, I may still complete the “12 hour drive” in fourteen or fifteen hours. (I know that sounds long, but if you consider that 4:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. is a normal work day for Chris, it sounds little better! That, or else you’ll just have newfound sympathy for my hardworking husband.)

This morning I ran around like a crazy woman. Susannah had her 18-month checkup (at which we discovered that she will NEVER get to turn her carseat around, hehehee! She weighs in at a petite 20 lbs, 8 ozs but stretches out an incredible 32″ tall. She’s a little pink stringbean…) and my friend Misty did me a huuuuuuuuuuge favor by babysitting Jonas. So it was up to Ludlow to drop him off – down to Florence for the checkup – swing by bank & CVS in Erlanger for errands – back up to Ludlow to pick Jonas up – and back home for lunch and naps. Whew!

Well, I hear the buzzer on the dryer so I need to get back to all those to-do lists. Please pray for safe travel & that the kids will be good riders tomorrow!

Mad March Randomness

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Over a month between posts. Geez. I’m getting really pathetic around here! So what’s new? Well, Jonas is FOUR. I feel like a big jerk for not blogging and posting pics but what the hey, maybe I’ll get around to it eventually.

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Happy Pi Day! And also, happy tomorrow’s-your-birthday to my Ep Sig big sister, Ginny! Yow yip and blow out the candles! And also, happy almost St. Patty’s Day! I’ve always felt an affinity for St. Patrick’s Day, what with the parades in Savannah and then the Irish lovefest in my sorority @ Shorter. This year, I’m throwing a preschool shindig. We’re going to eat green foods (I’m particularly excited about the prospect of the green quesadillas, I think the 4-year-old crowd is going to really enjoy those) and make a couple of crafts and have a circle time. It’s kind of like the fun of doing holiday activites when I was teaching… but with fewer kids involved… and more of my own adult friends around… and with less cleanup… and no paperwork.

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We’re counting down the days until Spring. Last week we had particularly beautiful weather – but we were trapped inside with a 102* fever for Jonas. It’s raining buckets at the moment, but our nice weather girl at WLWT assures me it will be nice later this week, so I’m really excited to attend playgroup OUTSIDE for the first time this year. Plus, it’s almost GARDEN season!!!! Woo-hoo. Jonas helped me plan the garden this year, and he was adamant about including zucchini so he can make zucchini bread. (Which reminds me of a prayer request: please pray that the darn rabbits will actually be deterred by the fence we are planning to install, because last year the zuke vine was the first victim of bunny hunger and we never got a single one.) We’re also going to try tomatoes, peas, and cucumbers again — big success last year — and we’re going to give lettuce and carrots another go, this time with a little more research under our belts since last year’s “crop” was a minor fail — and this will be our first attempt at okra and peppers.

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Susannah’s vocabulary is exploding all over the place. Since I wrote my birthday post, she has added “hairbow,” “no,” and several animal sounds to her repertoire. She’s also REALLY walking, and trying to run. We’ve gotten outdoors for snippets of the day a few times, just on the deck because our yard is still mush from absorbing all that snow and now new rain – and every time we go out there she tips her face up to the sun, chatters happily for a second, and commences running in circles. Let’s just say… she’s going to be FUN this summer.

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As Chris’ 4th year winds down, job-search season has really begun. Please continue to keep us in your prayers as we consider opportunities and offers. It looks like we will be making at least one “site visit” during his vacation week in May (this will be where we’ll drive or fly to the location, meet the other physicians in the practice, take a tour of the office and hospital facilities, get a tour of the town, scope out the housing options, and try to feel out if it’s a good fit) and he may line up one or two others between now and then. We are praying that we’ll have discernment and wisdom, patience, and that the kids will behave while we’re on our visits! :0)

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That’s all my random stuff for now. Deep post percolating in the back of my brain – might get that written later today!

Shoob-i-dee, doob-i-dee….

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(translation: this is a post of random ramblings in a lame attempt to catch up a little bit!)

I’m on an energy high today. Susannah randomly slept 7 hours straight last night. Gasp! I know. We’d gotten into some bad sleep patterns on our trip (11 days in Georgia) and a couple of days ago I had hit a WALL. Venting to my friend Crystail helped, and then brainstorming with my Mom helped even more (it’s always nice to hear about what worked when I was a baby… I think Susannah is probably a lot like me, personality-wise) with the result that I tried a less-intense approach when Susannah woke up around 10:30 pm. The current working theory is that she gets overstimulated and needs LESS “stuff” (singing/walking/bouncing/rocking/swaddling/etc/etc/adinfinitum) – so I tried to be gentle and unobtrusive, less eye contact, just got in there, changed her diaper, put her on her potty, offered her the breast – which she didn’t want, loosely swaddled her with her arms more free, handed her a stuffed lamb, laid her on her bed, and walked out. Five minutes of cooing to the lamb and she was out like a light – until almost 6:00 a.m. Who knows, it might be a fluke, but I got some AMAZING sleep last night for the first time in a long time. :0) Yay for small victories.

A cute Jonas-ism: {in the kitchen}
Jonas: Hey mom, you ‘member “hop-flops?”
Me: You mean flip-flops, like the shoes?
Jonas: {look of aggravation} NO, “hop-flops.” You know!
Me: Do you mean, hop scotch? When you jump on the numbers?
Jonas: {now looking really peeved} NO! HOP! FLOPS! You know, it’s like toast! With sprinkles!
Me: {slowly dawning} Ooooooh, do you mean, Pop-Tarts? {note: he has never eaten a pop-tart in his life}
Jonas: {relief} Yeah! Pop-Tarts!
Me: {confused as to what this conversation is even about} What about Pop-Tarts?
Jonas: {dreamily, laying head against his hand} I love that commercial.

School is going really well. We’ve taken a couple of weeks off for the holidays (partly for our trip to visit all the relatives in/around Atlanta, and partly because we just haven’t gotten back into our normal routine now that we’re home) but we’ll get back into the swing right after Christmas. Jonas is reading short-vowel words, and he’s starting to figure out a few of the long-vowel words without any direct instruction on that yet. His sight-word vocabulary is skyrocketing; it just amazes me. It’s funny that we really can’t spell anything we don’t want him to overhear, and he can read a few words off of the news scrolls on TV now, not to mention road signs and store signs galore.

I’m starting to think ahead to next school year already; I am considering using the ABeka K5 curriculum – at least their math and language programs, and possibly the Bible curriculum. I’m still comfortable supplementing my own science, art, and social studies at this grade level 🙂 I think the math might be a little bit of a stretch, but they use a “spiraling” approach that goes back to reinforce earlier concepts with LOTS of repetition, so it would be easy enough to adapt it to suit his needs if it is too much at first. And the phonics program would probably be a lot of review of what he already knows right now in the beginning – but I love the way they cover the “special rules” for phonics. I’m going to have to do a little more thinking & researching about the manuscript vs. cursive question. If I go ahead with ABeka, I will probably try to get my hands on some of the materials used since purchasing the whole shebang brand-new is kind of expensive! But a quick look on eBay today turned up a little bit of everything, so at least I feel good that they’re available “pre-loved” if that’s what I decide to do.

Christmas is only a week away! I still have one more item to shop for and one more sewing project to complete. Nothing like waiting until the last minute, huh? I’ve never cut it this close before – clearly having two kids, plus a husband working nights, is taking its toll. I’m also going to try to assemble a digital Christmas card, so wish me luck on getting it all done in time!

Like a hamster in a wheel

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Or maybe a puppy chasing her tail. I don’t know – but I feel like I will never catch up! If it’s not one thing, it’s another. I’ve been WAY behind on my scrapbooking, so the last few days I’ve done everything in my (minimal) power to orchestrate both kids napping at the same time, or at least overlapping a bit. Then I’ve used the quiet time to scrap. Result? I finished my 2007 album* and I’m all excited about my photos again and I’m dying to get started on 2008.

Side effect of that result? My house is a disaster zone. There’s a wall of (clean) laundry on the couch. There’s a minefield of toys scattered down the hall. The bathroom is clean, and the kitchen is serviceable, but the bedroom is messy messy messy.

So today I’m doing housework, with visions of layouts and cropping dancing in my head. If I get “caught up” with the laundry, the dishes, and dinner…. odds are good that I’ll fall behind somewhere else (oh right, I need to work on lesson plans!). And that means it will probably be awhile until I pick up those 2008 pics and my papers again. {sigh} Maybe I’ll finish that one by 2010!

*basically. I need another package of Spargo pages and page protectors, but I have to wait to place a CM order (because I’m trying to behave nicely with the budget). So the layouts are done and when I get around to purchasing the pages, I’ll just add a little adhesive, slip the protectors on, and voila! – OFFICIALLY done.

A case of envy

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Dude.

My friend came over to hang out for a few hours today — it’s so wonderful to have someone who’s close enough that you can call her up and go, “Hey, I’m still in pajama pants and there’s a big pile of unfolded laundry on my couch; wanna come over?” and then if, on top of that, your same-aged children play well together!? HEAVEN-SENT FRIEND, this is what I’m saying — and I helped her decide on the new nursing shirts she’s going to buy. She’s shopping online, so you know how that goes; before you know it you have a “shopping cart” totalling gazillions of dollars and you have to cut it down. It was a lot of fun comparing the different styles and colors and just being a girl (“Oh, that would be so CUTE with jeans, and this is really your color!, and blahblahblah”). But now I’ve got a major case of envy because I want some new nursing shirts too! Well actually – I can live without the shirts – but man, I really miss having dresses to wear to church.

I own a grand total of 3 nursing dresses, all purchased when Jonas was a teeny nursling. I have lost *ahem* a LOT of weight in the meantime, and they just don’t fit all that well anymore. One in particular hangs like a very prettily-patterned sack of potatoes. Not exactly attractive. {Sigh}

Maybe that’s what I’ll ask for for my birthday… it’s only 2 months away!….