Work Advancements

*Getting my annual review done and getting all Very Good and Excellent!  Apparently I'm doing a lot better than average, and picking things up a lot faster than they expected, which leads to:

 

*Being considered for a lead position on the next large review.  I can't say what review, or when, but they need a lot of teams, so I will possibly be a one person team.  They would have someone help me for the first couple weeks and are assuming I would pick it up very quickly.  They mentioned that they have no doubts I could do it even without really being trained to...Such power.

 

*Getting 5 crazy voicemails all at once.  I realize it isn't related to the above 2, but it was quite humorous and made me laugh as I tried to figure out what was going on in them.  That's what friends are for :)

Thanksgiving!

*Smooth and safe drive to Pittsburgh to see my Grandpa and Parents and Bro. The drive was fast, traffic was flowing faster than I wanted to go at times, and there really weren't many people on the roads when I was, so I was fortunate.

*Amazing turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, etc, and I didn't have to cook most of it! Thanksgiving was everything I wanted it to be :) yum yum

*Seeing my cousins and Aunt & Uncle for a couple hours. They came over yesterday evening and I got to see them for the first time since going to TX for school. They were quite peppy as always, and really fun.

*Many other things which I thought of at the time but have since forgotten!

From Fall To Winter In <24 Hrs

*Great fall foliage in Virginia during my drive up & back from Pittsburgh!
*Seeing an extremely bright red tree at my grandpa's house in his front yard. I loved how bright it was and was going to take a picture of it the next morning, but like the title of this entry says, it went from Fall to Winter in <24 Hrs. It was nice and warm the day I arrived. Overnight the wind knocked all but 5% of the leaves off and the next night:

*Snow! Waking up to see some snow falling and a thin layer on the fallen leaves and on my car and on the roof. It snowed off and on (large flakes, but not sticking to the actual ground) for most of the day :) I found it amusing that the transition day was Thanksgiving of all days.

Tuesday

*Done with work for the week and it is only Tuesday

 

*Being able to start driving whenever I feel like it in the morning

 

*Still having enough people around this evening to play Frisbee.  Not everyone has disappeared yet...

Thanksgiving

Tis the time to be thankful, and this holiday seems to align itself perfectly with this blog style...

 

*Family

 

*Friends

 

*Fun

 

*Being able to take time off work (without actually even getting into vacation time) to go to visit family in Pittsburgh.  I haven't seen some of these relatives since I went to TX.

 

*Not having much to worry about at all

 

*Fall colors

 

*Stable job with as many hours as I want

 

*Frisbee

 

*Food:

    *Turkey

    *Mashed Potatoes

    *Cranberry Sauce

 

*Too many more items to list

Pumpkin

*Pumpkin bread!  I made pumpkin bread just simply because I saw the mix in the store when I was grabbing butter for the next positive.  The bread was easy and tastes amazing.  I'm going to take half of the bunt cake/bread to Pittsburgh with me :)

 

*Pumpkin Cheesecake!   I just made the cheesecake and won't find out how it tastes until at least Wednesday evening.  I really hope it turned out well since I couldn't find my recipe that I made last year which did turn out amazing.  It was fun to make regardless

 

*Milkshakes...They looked pumpkin colored, but they were peanut butter, so that's close enough for this pumpkin theme.  I had forgotten how much I liked to make them and made a couple a few days in a row.  yum..  I am also noticing how much my positives are food related....hmmmm :-P

Accomplishments

*Making bread from scratch...And correctly this time too. I retried the bread recipe I had tried about a week ago and got it to work perfectly this time! Now I will have sandwiches this week on nice homemade bread :)
*"We are pleased to confirm successful completion of your introductory period at AMA. We expect your work, combined with the efforts of other committed employees, will help us continue to achieve excellence in our work and making AMA an outstanding place to work." :) (not that I was worried about keeping my job, but confirmations are nice)

*Relaxing on a day off of work for Veterans Day! It was nice to get a 3 day weekend even if I did little more than lounge around, cook, bake, and eat, eat, eat.

*Going to my car Sunday morning to leave for church and seeing a tiny, 1 in^2 bit of frost on the top of my car! There had probably been more before the sun came up, but this means winter is really on its way. It was cool to see the ice now, even though I know I'll dread having to start the car a few min before I want to leave in the real winter, so I'll enjoy it for now.

College Station Trip Official!

*Playing Frisbee in the dark.  Now that the sun goes down at 5, we play Frisbee in the dark.  I have a light up LED Frisbee which flies remarkably well and so we can see it at night.  The cold hasn't even stopped us yet (40 deg today)

 

*Purchasing a plane ticket for College Station!!!  It is now official that I am going to College Station for MLK weekend!  It is going to be a blast and I'm very excited that I got to get the ticket and finalize things

 

*Winter.  Winter is nearly here, freeze warnings and all.  The air has been quite chilly in the mornings and cool at night (low 40s) and now it should be hitting mid 30s.

The weekend

*Finding another nice church.  Even though the average age was probably 50 and the median closer to 60 or 65, the church was nice and the people were quite friendly even if they couldn't hear me half the time.

 

*Getting a lot done.  I managed to knock off a lot of my to do list Saturday and Sunday, some of which was weeks old and driving me crazy.  I was very glad to be motivated and productive

 

*Clean apartment!

Aroma Therapy

*Fresh Baked Bread....I made some bread completely from scratch, and even though it turned out a bit more dense than it should have, it was still quite yummy, especially warm right out of the oven!  It also filled the apartment with a nice aroma

 

*Curry.  I hadn't done any curry dishes in a while because my last one didn't turn out so well (Indian recipe).  I took Adam's advice and used the recipe (Thai) that comes with the curry I had and it turned out pretty well.  At a minimum it managed to make the whole apartment smell like curry, which is a good thing :-P

 

*Wet leaves.  Fall and winter both decided to show up in the past few days.  First was the signature fall smell of wet leaves, then a little later came the crisp cool air smell that an oncoming winter brings!  I love both of them!