It's December....Christmas anyone?

November has come and gone, and I'm not quite sure where it went, but regardless it's December. Well for the first time in ages, I'm just about done with purchasing gifts for friends and family! I LOVE giving gifts for Christmas. I get so excited when I have some, what I think are good ideas for people. A year ago I hadn't even started shopping by the 15th of December, so being practically done by the 1st is pretty good.

Today we put up the Christmas Tree. It has been a few years that I've been home to help put up the christmas tree. I enjoy the family event the Christmas tree is. Now all that is waiting is some wrapped presents. I am a little sad though, because I'm going to get into my new apartment without any of my christmas decorations and get settled after Christmas, so I won't be able to use any of my new decorations anyway. Sad I tell you...sad.

Today's traveling photo:



This is me getting my groove on in Russia. I was picked from the audience at lunch to help play this little instrument up on the stage. It was quite fun! They made other people dance, so I was thankful! They also sang for us. Lunch in Russia consisted of some very weird red soup...caviar...vodka...beer....water(which is what I wanted after walked so much)...and other things...but that's what I remember. I loved our authentic meals while we were traveling. The next Russian song you hear...listen carefully, it just might be me playing the crazy instrument! HA!

Love

Ice Storm 07? Again

If I remember right it was just 11 months ago that Kearney was hit by the second ice storm in 2 weeks over New Years, and it was called Ice Storm 07...but I could be wrong. As I sit here delaying bed (for who knows what reason) I can hear sleet/freezing rain hitting the window. *This is a pretty amazing feat since the window into my room is about the size of a microwave, and half in the ground* I checked before heading downstairs and yes there is ice on the ground and it is beginning to get slick. Could be quite an interesting day tomorrow. The sleet/freezing rain is coming down harder now...and pumpkin is really interested in it, however he can't get to the window.

I find it amazing that last year when the ice storm hit it was hovering around freezing and it was a big issue of where the ice line would be...however tonight it's in the low 20's and we are still getting freezing rain. Thank you, warm air from the south.

Soon I will be apart of the organization that actually makes the warnings like we are currently in....amazing really, and some adjusting it will take. I'm just use to being a sideline person, or a watcher from home. Oh how I can't wait to see what the future entails for me.

With that I'm off to bed. I've been thinking my blog is quite drab...so I thought I'd post a picture from my trip a few months ago. Maybe I'll post a few more, and maybe even write about some of the countries I promised I'd write about.



*Catherine's Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia. This Palace was HUGE! It also had some of the elaborate and gaudiest rooms I've ever seen...and I've been to some elaborate and gaudy places. It was awesome though! I love visiting palaces. Check out Catherine's Palace if you are in St. Petersburg.

The other side of the AM

Since it's 5am and I'm still awake, I figured I'd send a little love your way. I've been up later and later each night for the past week! I'm getting full into swing...Jerilyn hours! I love sleeping till noon or later and staying up late! So here I am..up the latest I've been in quite a while. A few short months ago, I was on the other side of the AM...where I would set my alarm to get up at 5am. Now of course, I rarely was up at 5am...just hitting the snoze for 30-45 minutes, but you know what I mean.

Just a little over a week until I head for Wichita. I still can't believe it at times, but it's slowly sinking in. Sorry if I keep talking about it, but it's pretty much what is going on in my life right now. I've got plenty to do in the next week...to keep me busy. I'm hoping to get it all done, the list includes...Christmas Shopping, completing it. Wrapping all presents to leave here. Christmas Decorating...cause it's fun! Christmas Baking....oh how I love me some Baking! Oh there's more, but they aren't important.

That's all for now...I hurt and am getting sleepy.

Much Love

Seven Weird Things

I've been tagged for a meme! Thanks, Susan!

I will now do my best to complete this, even though it is 3am and I'm still awake, but should be going to sleep! As Susan says I'm am weird, so be it I guess.

So here are the rules of this meme:

1. Link to the person’s blog who tagged you.
2. Post these rules on your blog.
3. List seven random and/or weird facts about yourself.
4. Tag seven random people at the end of your post.
5. Let each person know they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

And here are seven weird facts about me:


1. Until the age of...I'm not sure, 12-13, I wanted to be a babysitter when I grew up. I always wanted to be a babysitter so when I was old enough to not be taken care of by my sitter, I helped her out, being an extra set of eyes to watch the kiddies. When I got even older, I had decided this was not going to be my career, but I still would go watch the kids (sometimes up to 8-10) while she was at an appointment, etc.

2. I'm not the cleanest person when it comes to household tidiness, but even when my house is a pit (Which it often was while I was crazy busy with my Thesis) my kitchen would still usually be quite clean.


3. I absolutely love to cook, bake you name it! I love it. I cook things I don't even like, just because others do and I enjoy cooking for others. I also want a meal when I eat dinner, so I will cook one, no matter the time of the day or night. I might be working until midnight, but I will still go home and cook a meal and eat it. That is, of course, if I haven't already eaten dinner.

4. I do not have a middle ear in one of my ears. I had 2 major surgeries 10 years ago where I had a tumor taken out of my ear. The tumor destroyed the bones in my middle ear, however, the great doctor made some type of reconstruction so that my hearing is better than it was before the surgeries. So if you ever see me turning my head one way or the other, it's to hear you better with my "good" ear.

5. I broke my arm when I was four. I hold on to the story that one of my brothers pushed me out of a truck we were playing in. After it was in a cast, that was up to just over the elbow, I wanted to run, so I got my arm turned around in the cast and straightened out my elbow to run. My parents found out, and I had to get another cast that went up much higher so that my arm was immobilized.

6. I HATE it when things are not cut or done in an orderly fashion. Mostly pertaining to food. For example take a cube of butter, it HAS to be cut at in a straight line, none of this crazy angled junk. A bowl full of a dessert or something, must be gotten into in an orderly and neat fashion. Turns out I'm a bit OCD about somethings...which I didn't realize till recently.

7. When I was really little..probably 4 or 5. I had a dream about a tornado, now you might think...oh this is how she got into meteorology.... NO, this tornado was a tiny little midget man who came out of the kitchen light in my house. He threatened to kill me and my family and I from then on until I was about 10 was terrified of the dark. Think about being that little and having your family threatened, scary! I've grown out of my scared of the dark phase, but I will always remember that dream.



Now I am to list 7 people to continue this blog, but I'm afraid I don't think I know 7 people that blog. I also know that some that do, have already been asked. So I will just list them.

Kristen
Haley
Elin--already been sent this
Laura--already been sent this
Nicole
Sarah
Emily

Much love all!

A new place to call home

Well it's been now almost 2 weeks for my job to be the center of my thoughts. It's all still pretty hard to believe. We went down to Wichita early last week, I went to about 6 apt. complexes, some extremely dumpy others really really nice! I mean one was crazy nice, and only about 1000 for a one bedroom! HA! I'm happy to be back in the plains where the cost of living is decreased! I did, however, find a nice 2 bed/2 bath apartment on the west side of town (where work is), that I LOVE! It has basically everything I wanted! 2bedrooms, walk-in closets, lots of kitchen space, washer/dryer hookups, and a storage place out on the deck. I'm excited to move in!

Because I'm somewhat picky and wanted an apt. toward the back of the complex, away from all of the road noise that accompanied the busy road it sat on. My apartment will be available the 14th of December. Now this could be a problem when I start work on the 10th. Hmmm....well one of the forecaster's has been in contact with me and early on offered to let me stay with her while I was looking. She is very sweet to extend such and offer and I think it will be fun to stay with her for a little bit before my apt. is free.

The rest of this week has remained busy with visits and shopping and cleaning and all of that fun stuff! I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving this week, getting to see all of my family that I haven't seen since last Christmas! Will be very exciting! It's hard to believe it's been so long! Then after Thanksgiving I'm hoping to have some time to just chill with the family before I head off for the real world!

Much love

What a process

I've had a couple days to let it sit that I have gotten my dream job...and my attention span is getting shorter! It's weird, I'm so excited...yet it's hard to believe that my life is going to change big time. I'm going to be a working girl! Which is what I've wanted, nothing after work to do that will make me feel guilty for having fun. Earning real money! It will be so fantastic.

In the past few days I've needed to do somethings for a background check. It's been crazy! The funniest part is that I needed to go and be fingerprinted. I got the cards on wednesday around noon. I went down the the sheriff's office to the county jail around 3:45. I waited forever to be talked to. Then I finally got to talk to someone. They had to go ask, but yes, they charged 5 dollars to have fingerprints done. Well I didn't have any cash, so i went out to the car where my mom was, she had a 20 so i took that back in. Guess what? The jail won't break anything, so I had to go find change for a 20. I mean come on...it's a 20 for someone who hasn't broken the law! So I went to my aunt's place of business and she changed the money for me and I got to tell her my good news. So I head on back to the jail...it's 4:45 by this time. I get there and the lady says "we just started meals, so you'll have to wait till they are over". I'm like this is crazy, the only thing I could do by that point was laugh. So eventually I went back that night and got it done. The jail has a nifty fingerprinting machine...it's all computerized...last time I had my finger prints taken which was in kindergarten, it was all ink and paper! Overall the process isn't bad, just crazy experiences like that one!

What I have accomplished: looking for apartments, looking at uhaul rentals, booked a flight for graduation, and other stuff...Much still to do. I'm looking at apartments this upcoming week, I'm pretty excited about that! Yippee. I hope I can find something good...I hate searching online, you can make a dump look good online. Plus once you find one that you think looks like it's actually a winner, you go to apartment ratings and see all this bad stuff about it. I decided in raleigh that apartment ratings isn't always right...so I'll check it out in person. Good times! More about this process as it continues....!

Much love!

Kansas here I come!

Welll....I think I've called just about everyone that I can think of to call, so I can now post to my blog. I was offered a job on Monday! I'm way excited! It's with the National Weather Service in Wichita, Kansas!

I couldn't have asked for a better office to start in. I'm so excited to get a job with the NWS, and it being in Wichita, KS is just icing on the cake! I fully expected this process to take about 6 months and then be in the middle of tin-buck-two. But NO! This is a dream location for me!
-It's only 4 hours from home, which is the closest I've
lived to home since 2001.
-It's only 2.5 hours from my awesome friends in Norman.
-It's in a bigger city, so I don't have to loose my city things
-It's in the Plains!!! I've missed it so dearly when I was in the east coast
-The office is amazing, filled with amazing people! I'm excited to work with
I'm sure that's not it, but it's all I could come up with right now.

So far my start date is early December, so I'll be there for the Christmas Holiday, but because I'm so close to home I won't have any problem getting home to see the family when I do have off!

So basically I will be a new resident of Kansas. I can say that I never thought I'd be a resident of Kansas, but I'm happy to be. The next few months will be great fun and also some what nerve racking and scary I'm sure. I'm excited to go find another new place to live, as well as joining the "real" working world. It will be weird to not be in school, but I haven't been in school all semester and it hasn't been to bad....however, it just seems like summer break or something to me. I'm going to enjoy leaving work at work and not having any extra things to do when I get home.

So if you ever find yourself driving through Wichita, KS, be sure to give me a shout.

Much love!