Labor Day Weekend

I hope everyone has fun that is able to enjoy the holiday weekend in its fullest. I am starting evening shifts tonight, which is alright. At least I'm around to enjoy the day portion of the holiday stuff. There's no festivities to speak of... but at least husband gets to relax for an added day, which he needs since sleeping in has been more of a distant memory for him this summer. It happens.

College football... my husband's favorite time of year. All I can say is "Congrats Appalachian State!"... all Buckeye fans must admit that it's a thing of beauty even if it does send some questionable reflection on the Big 10 as a whole. Congrats to all my alma maters since everyone managed to win yesterday - even my little SDSM&T Hardrockers and Bobcats.

So what does today bring? Nothing too impressive. I didn't get nearly enough sleep to get me through my shift this evening, so a nap will be in order. Outside of that? Hard to say really... whatever motivation strikes us I guess.

There's a golf tournament going on here this morning. The announcer guy told them all to get to their tees (over a loudspeaker) and we just laughed heartily at the onslaught of golfcarts that started moving our way. It would have been hilarious if they drove in formation... but even just watching the chaos of them moving at all was well worth sitting outside. Loving the deck... loving the view... it's a nice morning for sure.

Went to see The Simpsons Movie last night, I thought it was pretty funny. We went to the theater down in Lander, and it was pretty nice though they had some issues getting, and keeping, the movie in focus. So goes life.

Anyhow... I hope everything is going well. Talk later!

Long time, no post

Yeah, I believe I did comment at some point that I might not be very good about keeping this puppy up to date. No reason to doubt me now, eh? Alright... so the last post to this was before the last time I went to Ohio, before Myrtle Beach, and before Yellowstone. So... if you read my husband's blog, you can figure out a reason why I haven't felt much up for posting.

The trips have been great... it's been nice to see familly and relax to the site of Yellowstone National Park. So, let's see... where to begin. My newest niece is already getting big... and the family looks healthy and happy. Yes, a lot of stress, however for the other side of the family with my father-in-law being diagnosed with cancer. Recent news seems promising, apparently all the prayers have made a difference.... so keep at it people. :)

Myrtle Beach was a mixed bag since we learned of a portion of the initial bad bad bad diagnosis during the trip. At least we were at a beach and together, I think it made the difference. Regardless, my favorite picture from that trip is on the right side there... so enjoy.

Yellowstone!!! Wow, what a whirlwind enjoyable 4 days. We saw so many sites... and tons of animals! We saw black bears, grizzlies, coyotes, a weasel, cranes, bison, and elk. Phew! And let me tell you, some of them were darned close... so much so that my pictures turned out somewhat blrry. Hey, it's life man! My mantra for my whole life is applicable now... "I can only get better from here." Because I'm still learning tricks of the trade when it comes to photography. Anyhow... I'll put some links to my photo albums up eventually. We took over 300 pictures during Yellowstone, most of which look almost the same. :) Hard to stop photographing a wild animal when they're like 20 feet away from you!

So... after that. Well, we have some house sagas... but I'm not gonna talk about those on here for now... it doesn't feel right. Ummm... work is work. A new forecaster started recently, he came from a neighboring office (well kinda), and seems like a nice guy. I met him for the first time today.

Am currently watching the season finale of ArmyWives, do you know that show? I'm slightly addicted... well, ok... slightly is an understatement I'm sure. Alright peeps, time for me get rolling... the part in the previews is about to happen, and I don't want to miss it.

Later!

Moving shmoving...

Sagas and dramas. Moving continues. We're still slowly getting things into the house. Moving day was not as easy as it was with the old house. Our sellers' movers left from Denver at 10am to be here in Riverton before noon. Yeah... not gonna work. It's a 6.5 hour drive for a semi to get to our little town from Denver. So, they arrived around 430, and it took them an hour to get the truck into a good loading spot in our little cul-de-sac. So 530 is here, and they're starting to load up the truck (we got possession of the house at 4). They finally got the sellers' possessions out of the house around 1215 that night. Needless to say, we barely got anything of ours into the house that first night. My husband had to go to Casper the following day, so we did as much as we could of our moving truck thanks to the help of two people - our young 19 year old friend, and our realtor. The remainder of the truck was done after Paul got back in town at 5p. At that point, everything was loaded into the garage... and the truck was empty around 730p. We weren't able to do much that first night... and have spent as much time as possible since then working on getting stuff into the house. We've made quite a bit of progress, though we still have a long way to go. I won't go into the selling of our old house... it's aggravating, and I don't feel much like going into it again. I'll get some pictures of the new place up once it looks like a home.

Work is going fine. I did some school talks in Casper a couple of days after moving, and that all went well. I probably spoke to around 150 kids throughout the day. Paul and I both caught colds during the move (likely from the stress and a cold house that first night), but thankfully mine did not hit until after I got back from Casper. Phew. I am still getting over it, though I am in the very end stages of it now. Outside of that, it has been evening shifts galore. Good money, hard to get house stuff done. Tonight is my last evening shift for a week+, which I'm pretty happy about. There's a lot of stuff to get done.

Let's see... what else can I tell you. Outside of the house stuff, very little has been going on. We enjoyed the hot tub for the first time last week, and I have to admit that I loved it! It's not something to do during the heat of the afternoon that's for sure, which is probably the other reason I'm pretty happy to get to day shifts again. Alright folks, guess I should get ready for work here. I hope everyone is doing well.

A bit of catch up...

Yes, I know... it's been over a month since my last post. What can I say? I was busy! :) Let's see... where to start. Most of you likely already know this really... but we'll start with the house saga. We are out of the Skyline house. The HOA vs Realtor & Seller battle wore too thin on our nerves, and we folded. We don't regret the decision... we found another house quickly. It's in the country club area, on the 18th Fairway. A nice two story deal, with 2 car garage, patio, hot tub, etc. Very nice place. Will put some pics up after we move in. When is that, you may ask? We close in a week from Tuesday. Coming up quick, we've been packing like mad to get ready for it. We're pretty sure our buyer is thrilled... she finally has a concrete closing date as well! :) Enough about the house stuff...we'll be talking a lot about that until we're settled in.

Moving on. Work. I've been doing quite a bit of outreach over the last week. Well, I guess I should say that I've been assisting in a lot of outreach this week. I did my first section of the observer training presentation. My boss said I did good. I know I have some work to do on it, but as my mantra goes... I can only get better from here.

What else...what else. We got a Nintendo Wii... it has been an absolute blast to play!!! We're not in a massive hurry to buy games for it since we have that games-by-mail program. No need to go nuts here, afterall.

My middle niece turned 2 a couple of days ago. Get to see her soon when we go home to see the family. Already looking forward to that. We're hoping to have the house completely decorated before we go so I can take some pictures to show the families.

Hmmm.........though a lot of stuff has been going on, it's mainly been circulating around the house, so there's not too much to report here. One of my friends got a promotion and is moving back east. Couldn't be better news for him. Truly... very good, I know he will do great in his new role. But onward. I'm thrilled to be in my current role, and am not sure where or what I want to do next. I've flexed a couple other muscles now and roles relating to that flexing are becoming more appealing. But, alas, any such decision is a couple years away, and I'm fine with that added time. I have a lot to learn as a forecaster... so for now I'll focus on that, some projects, and my home life. I think that's the better way for me to be at this point.

I hope all is going well with everyone. I'll do my best to update things quite a bit sooner next time.

Weird Days and House Sagas

Wow... I feel like it's been forever since I've last posted on here...though it has only been a week give or take. Expect this lack of consistency, especially during certain rotations in my schedule. So, some news... some good, some not so much. We'll start with the good.

Please welcome my newest niece into the world!! She was born yesterday (the 16th) sometime during the late-ish morning as far as I know. My sister and lawyer-in-law (ha!) have yet to decide on a name. I believe they are leaning towards Logan, but possibly could be Brooke. I await the result on pins and needles. Her birth made for an interesting range of feelings yesterday after finding out about the massive tragedy that happened at VT. A friend of mine from Ohio U, I realized, has a little sister that goes to VT. Thankfully all is well... her sister wasn't near the impacted area yesterday morning. It was nice to talk to my friend, of course...just wish I had initiated the call for a better reason... but you take what you can get sometimes. But, I am so looking forward to getting back to O-H land so I can meet my very cute little niece. I'm sure there will be pictures of them around here too sometime.

Alright... bad news. Dealing with the house...potentially. There's some tie-up with the complaint which has caused some delays in resolving it. Our closing date has semi-officially been given the shaft, though we're still very hopeful that everything will end up being fine, and resolved quickly. For now, we're just hoping the buyers of our current house are able to remain in the contract with a very negotiable closing date. We shall see... we're awaiting their response. More details to come... :) Keep your fingers crossed for us... we really do love this house.

What else can I tell you? Weather? Nah... you don't want to hear about that. Work starts again in an hour or so... something to look forward to. HA! Should be good... should be busy with a bigger system supposed to move in over the next few days. Fun, fun. At least we're not in the plains where a massive system would entail turmoil from spawning tornadoes and other assorted interesting weather. We're just hoping for rain... we're still deep deep deep in drought, so if anyone would like to donate their rain showers to us, we'll take 'em.

My other friend who just had her baby seems to be doing well and sent some updated pictures yesterday. Very cute. Lots of new babies running around in my life. Very sweet... can't wait to meet them.

Alright. That's all I got folks. Hope people are doing well. Until later...

Insert Creative Title Here...

Alright... some days off are finally here!! No thinking about weather, right? Wrong. Today was a two hour severe weather seminar at work where I made a couple of contributions. Tomorrow night is a Spotter Talk down in Lander. I'm only going to watch this one. In May I'll split the presentation with one of the office leaders, and then I'm on my own (should another one be scheduled). Just continuing my efforts on outreach, and office research. The great part is that doing all of these talks recently is making it so I'm not anywhere near as nervous as I used to be. I can only get better with time. The leaders at my office (one of them asked me not to call him management any longer... not sure what else to call him (he suggested "co-worker" which doesn't do his job justice)... so I'll just call them leaders) are very willing to let us get involved in virtually anything we want with outreach, leadership, research, etc. It's a benefit to being in a smaller town office I think. No getting lost in the shuffle for me this way. The plans for my outreach event that I thought of, and an planning and leading are still underway.

Elsewhere in life. Recorded the movie version of "Rent" today to watch tomorrow. I've not seen the stage production of it, but thought I would start somewhere... not like shows like that come around Wyoming very often. Heh. Speaking of shows... 5 months, 11 days until the Genesis concert. Am still keeping my eyes peeled for them performing in Denver. That's probably the only other place I'd go to see them... regardless of my ridiculous urge to chase them all over the country. :)

Plans for tomorrow? I have no idea. Likely I'll do some laundry unless I finish it this evening. If it's clear out, I might venture up to the house and take pictures of the view (have I mentioned that yet??), but other than that I have no plans. Will probably workout in the morning again. I did that today as well, but should probably try to do that on all my days off for when I miss days while I'm working. We'll see what happens when I wake up. Wow, not a creative post, I know. Sorry. There will be days like this. The Mets are on, I gotta go watch my boys while I can. Until later...

When Kittens Play

The cats are pretty thrilled in their recent catnip-induced haze. My cat, Noah, has just stolen the remains of a catnip leaf from his 'sister' Leah. No doubt it's a form of 'Nip-rage... he usually doesn't mess with her. She's without a doubt, the leader of all animals in the house... including my husband and I sometimes. :) Alright, most times. We at least have control over the food which gives some small amount of power in the cat hierarchy. Meanwhile... back to the world of the humans.

Still working on that whole working-out concept. It's not that I really mind working out, it's just the motivation involved in getting home, changing clothes, and then the added motivation to actually expel the energy involved to burn only enough calories to get rid of the Easter candy I ate this afternoon. It's something right? Absolutely... that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Work... ahh, the life of a forecaster. Was on the aviation desk today... basically I do a forecast for a 5 mile perimeter of 9 airports across Central and Western Wyoming... and also do a forecast for a 50 mile wide path between airports (plane paths). Anyhow... so I had that responsibility today while visiting with management for the first time in a week or so. Also had a new forecaster start today. He moved here from Virginia I believe, seems like a nice guy. I worked with one of my common lead forecasters today... the one who I contrast vastly on musical tastes with. Thankfully... the Mets home opener was on XM this afternoon... so we were both pretty appeased. While he's not a Mets fan, he loves baseball almost as much as I do. So, both of us were happy enough. Plus, the Mets came from behind in the 8th to beat the Phillies. It was exciting to listen to. Yes, I'm a Mets fan from Ohio. What can I say? They were the first team I played softball on when I was a kid... so I got addicted early. I stuck by them even during the lean years, so last season (and hopefully this season) have been a special treat. But enough about that.

My sister's baby is due soon. I'm bummed as always that I won't be there for the birth, and I'm sure she'll do great... she did for my other two nieces. I can't wait to meet the newest addition whenever we can get home again. Anyhow... enough rambling for today. It's time to find something different on TV before my husband gets his vice grip on the remote. :) Nite.

Saturday / Tuesday

When you work a rotating shift, your schedule gets completely messed up. In a normal person's world... it's Saturday. A wonderful day full of relaxation, family, and Mets baseball. In my world? Well, it's both my Monday and Tuesday since I started a string of 4 shifts today. Which means, I work on Easter. That's alright though... my husband said he will work to take care of our celebration dinner tomorrow. ;) The good news is that I'm off at 4pm. The bad news is that Mets baseball starts at 11:05am for me. Thankfully... the wonderful invention of XM is going to go to work with me tomorrow. I likely won't listen to the game... that's being recorded to enjoy after work. But, my co-worker likes the Cubs, so I thought he might like listening to that since he's more of a country music fan. And I'm not. At all. End of discussion.

So let's see... what else to talk about. Some complications arose with the house yesterday... but we're hoping everything will work out alright. We should hopefully know something in a couple of weeks. Until then, we'll carry on like nothing is going wrong, and hope we won't be looking for another new place again. We're incredibly frustrated by the ordeal, but life carries on, and we have every hope that everything will go the way we want it too.

Onto other things. One of my best friends had her first child (a daughter) yesterday evening!!! :) Both are healthy and doing well, which is always good news. I can't wait to see pictures sometime. I know it'll be a while until that happens... but I'll look forward regardless. Work was work today. I'm trying to improve my outreach skills, so am involved in a couple of events... one of which was my idea, and if it goes well, I will be very proud. As always... we'll see what happens. Well, the Mets winning streak is over for now. It's a shame it was their rival team that ended it, but it was their rival, which always makes for a good game. Alright all, back to our DVD of TV shows.... we're watching a disc of Lost: Season 2 tonight. Will probably only make it through 2 episodes before sleep takes over. So it goes when one works at 7a.

Happy Easter everyone! Enjoy your day with friends and family. :)

Welcome!

It's different...being a forecaster in Wyoming. I'm not going to lie to you... if you don't like winter weather, I wouldn't suggest the climate here. But, the beauty and peace of everything out here makes it hard to imagine leaving. Mountain views... seeable from my office, and soon to be seeable from my house. Yep... we're moving. North of town... to a place with mountain views outside of every window that is much larger, with a good piece of land. We'll have a lot of work to do when we get there since it's new construction with no landscaping. It will be worth it. It's my husband's first time buying a house... my second (I moved here a couple of months ahead of him). He's so excited... he seems to be excited to pack boxes! I, too, am looking forward to the prospect of moving to this place. Have I mentioned the views?? I'm sure that plenty of pictures of the new place will be on here eventually. I would expect some lightning shots too, though that's dependent on how active our summer season is this year. Everything is just so unobstructed here...finding a shot isn't a complex activity. Coming from back east, where the city's population is twice as much as the entire state? Well, it's sparse here. But, cities of appreciable size are relatively close... a day drive at most. The serenity here is outstanding. Being able to start my career as a meteorologist in this area has been an experience to be sure. Tidbits of weather stuff will be on here too... though, I'm anticipating this to be more of a random topic ordeal than anything else.

So, welcome to the post of a forecaster who fancies family (people and furries), photography, television (woohoo Greys!), Mets Baseball, music (going to see Geneis reunion this year... can't wait), and movies. Feel free to check back as often as you wish. I'll sure try to be dedicated to this... we'll see how it pans out. :)