the weekend of weather and adoration.

Oh, I love you, Autumn!

-A picture from my walk today-

What a fantastic weekend! My weekend started Thursday morning.

I had my severe weather symposium. It was great!

So many big names in meteorology were there.

Josh Wurman was there which I was quite excited about.

He on the show Stormchasers on Discovery Channel.

Let it be noted he is the scientific brains of that show & an MIT genius.

I feel like I learned a lot.

Meteorology is such a difficult and conceptual science.

It's so mathematical and scientific and it has so many different aspects to grasp.

I should more so say that I was exposed to a lot.

Only taking one meteorology course doesn't get you far. AT ALL.

Which is all I've done in a classroom with it.

I shall love it from a distance.

Although, there IS that little spark that makes me want to go for it & push myself.

Yes--through the dreaded math & science. If only it were a more job dependent field.

What's up broadcast?!

I want to teach myself what I can though books & really dig into it all when I'm done with school.

for now I have decided that I cannot be graded on my passions.

I take it too personally.

Josh Wurman presenting on tornado structure and tornadogenesis.

Besides the weather symposium, I spent time with Eric Thursday-Sunday. I love our long weekends. I love any time we spend together in fact. I could never get sick of him. We crashed at Hotels this weekend. Embassy Suites on Thursday and Friday (my symposium was being held about a mile away from there). We headed down to Wheeling, IL to stay at the new Westin on Saturday afternoon after my symposium had ended. We wanted to see a movie that had very limited release. We had to travel to Highland Park for the small scale showing.

We made it happen and it was REALLY good. An Education was the name of the movie.

I loved so many things about it. After the movie we decided to go out for a bite.

We ended up going to Abigail's located in Highland Park as well.

It was phenomenal! Really unique dishes with great flavours and ingredients. Everything was pretty much locally brought in and it all had great quality.

It was more quaint and romantic like with a trendy feel. We both really enjoyed it and I highly recommend it!

*I have learned that if I really like something--I become a natural promoter for whatever it may be.

While staying at these hotels, Eric and I talked about our trip to Hilton Head Island coming up for Thanksgiving where we will be staying in a slew of hotels once again. I'm excited because I've never been there, but also because Eric is so revved for it. It's adorable. I love seeing him happy and him get excited about something. It will be my first Thanksgiving away and I'm looking forward to it! Especially when I'm escaping to a more beautiful location! (: We are road trippin' down there because flight fares are ridiculous. I'd prefer to drive though. It will be a great time!

So aside from our excitement banter, we went to Lake Forest and spent the day outside because it was absolutely gorgeous out (southerly flow and ridges!) We strolled around downtown and went to the lake front. Ah. I love large bodies of water. Even though it was just lake Michigan, I'm telling you, you feel like you are looking out to sea. After spending time around the beautiful scape, we headed back home and had dinner with my parents. I hate coming back to reality after such wonderful weekend getaways!

Picture from Sunday!

I hope everyone got off to a good start to the week! Tomorrow starts back skating again! I have been off for a few weeks (what seems like forever) because I punctured the top of my foot a few weekends ago. It was dreadful. But it's healing and I cannot withstand figure skating any longer. I must go tomorrow. I need to release emotions on the ice! Normally I am my best when I have a long break because I think about it more. My body is able to fully rest and I can apply what I've thought about over the break. We shall see!

-Tessabee

Purple is the color of the season--EVERY SEASON.

Wow!

It has been too long since I have last blogged.

There are many reasons for this, I suppose

first off, I'm totally playing up the excuse that I've been pretty busy.

With me not being home on weekends, taking five classes, and working 25+ hours a week, it gets tough to sit and blog when all I want to do it study or simply just relax instead of re-hashing various events that occurred over the weeks.

Hm...

What to talk about?

I could talk about my feelings about going into the winter months

I could talk about the adoration I have for a few new apps.

I could talk about my choice to stop eating meat.

I guess I can roll these all up into one--I mean, it's not like anyone reads this thing! heh

First I will start off by saying I am enthusiastic about the winter months. At the same time I am dreading them. I love the way the snow rests on the limbs after a heavy system moves through. I love waking up and seeing things sparkle. I look forward to bundled winter walks and the refreshment of the cold air. Things that make me want to get out of here faster than a bullet are things such as remembering how long it takes my car to heat up and how my hands, even when placed in gloves, will be freezing while gripping the ice cold steering wheel. I will not look forward to shivering violently after walking from here to there in 10 degree weather. I also do not anticipate the constant thinking of "WHY THE HELL DO I LIVE HERE?!" I will never know. I hate the cold weather, but I adore a change in season and everything that goes along with it. Hopefully, just hopefully, my excitement for the winter spirit will ward off my feelings of disdain for the frigid. Unfortunately, I just do not see this happening.

Apps. Apps. Apps. Can you ever REALLY have too many? Well, yes, which is why I carry out my strict rule of deleting before adding. Its been working, but when you have so many applicable apps, deleting becomes a little emotional. iTouch/iPhone users...you get me on this. I only wanted an iPhone in the beginning for its conversational texting layouts and the use of radar on the damn thing. After being surprised with receiving it, I have fallen in love with the device. So after going through that "app crazy" phase, you learn to dwindle it down to what is worth it. A few really neat ones I have come across have been

1) HELLO VINO: This one is so neat! It's so good if you're looking for new wines or into pairings. It has lists of reasons of why you will be purchasing wines, for dinner, occasions for gifts, for anything. You can punch in what kind of dinner you're going to have (pizza, pasta, salad, meat, whatever) and it will get a little more specific until it gives you a list of wines that would pair with your meal. It will give you three recommendations where when you click on them it will show you the label of the wine, the price, the year, and what flavours it has. It's remarkable and convenient for those Saturday nights staying in where all you need is some company , good cooking, and vino.

2) GRATITUDE: This app is adorable and it's such a great idea. It basically is just a little list page where you list five things throughout the day you are grateful for or good things that have happened to you. It allows you to rate the day and it saves them so you can go back and instead of reflecting on the bad, you can reflect on the good. It also is equipped with cute/spiritual little quotes to get you back up on your feet :)

3) GOOD GUIDE/VEGEBLOGS: Perfect for the activist, vegetarian, or vegan. Good guide categorizes various things (food, personal care, household cleaners, etc.) and it will tell you which products haven't been tested on animals, natural products, and environmentally safe. This is just useful and promotes a better choice, I suppose. Vegeblogs is neat because it is just a blog app that allows you to read blogs of vegetarians, vegans, and news regarding the issues. Very interesting and very.. Applicable if I do say so myself :)

Also check out; Urban Daddy, Awesome Facts, & Shazam if you have not already :)

Ah. Now on to the big one. A simple change driven by random force. I've cut meat out of my diet once again. Once again was really about two years ago when I went vegan for a very short period of time (2 months), but cut meat out of my diet for about 5. Now, back then I went vegan for the main purpose of cleaning out my body and it being healthier. Now the picture is a little different. I have never really thought meat was "healthy" for us. In fact I believe it really slows our system down and is just dirty. I mean, have you SEEN the way those animals look before they get slaughtered? It is just repulsive. Of course, notice how I'm not linking PETA videos like a nutcase here. I don't think that is what I'm trying to push. I am choosing not to eat meat for two reasons; because I don't believe its very healthy and also because of the mistreatment the animals undergo. But more specifically how run down, sore ridden, and sickly these animals are at time of kill. I'm not against animals being killed for meat, PER SAY. If you are a farmer and have fifteen cows grazing on open land, and he kills the cow, breeds two more, and then preps meat for his family, that is one thing. But mass breeding lil moo cows and piggies so we can torture them like crazy and then kill em to fill our stomachs doesn't scream appeal to me.

It's kind of topsy turvy with me. I'm a big food person, I love to try all different kinds of foods. Luckily, I feel like I have tried so much in my young age (my parents always were taking me to different restaurants growing up). Although there are things that contain meat that I absolutely love, I just cannot bring myself to eat it right now. One thing for sure is that I go in phases. I talk something up, I devote myself 100% to it, then it gets old and I change. I cannot say that I will never eat meat again, but for the time being I'm definitely content with not doing so. Plus, I just FEEL better. I am not into pushing anyone in vegetarianism. I believe it is your body, your choice. I just feel bad for the animals and I just wish people cared more.

Ah--this weekend brings some exciting things! Thursday kicks of the College of DuPage SEVERE WEATHER SYMPOSIUM! I am pretty revved about it! I cannot wait until my school ends where I can really crack open my weather text and notes and delve into it. I also want to get some good books on winter meteorology and mountain meteorology. The symposium is three days, T, F, Sat. Eric and I also plan on seeing An Education this weekend! I really want to see it and it has such limited showing and it's quite a trip to the theater, but we are going to make it happen because he is the best :)

Work tonight for the last time this week. I am so tired today, but it will be a good shift..it always is. I love trying my hardest to progress on each cookie and fill in. I put a lot into it--most of the time. Heh.

Enjoy your day and your weekend!