Almost a month...WOW!

Hello dear blog readers,

I am alive and decently well (sinus infection) right now and feel utterly HORRIBLE for how I've been slacking on blogging.  I was gone for a week on my Eastern Mediterranean cruise with Mitchell...then he came to Kirovograd for a week...then we went to Kiev for a day and a half...then I took him to the airport and I headed to Rivne (northwest Ukraine) to celebrate Thanksgiving #2 with other PCVs.  I have been home now for a few days and in full swing with all 10 of my English clubs...and now am battling this sinus infection to top things off :)  BUT, every activity in the past month was so, so, SO fun and I can't believe how absolutely lucky and blessed I am to have gotten to see 6 countries in the last month-ish.  Pretty amazing, right?  And how lucky I am to have had my FIRST (and hopefully not last!) visitor!  

The past two days I have been helping my landlady and her husband do things around my apartment.  More on that later...but I am now the proud new of owner of some hooks and other exciting things (things that will allow me to have a SHOWER as opposed to just a tub!) that will make me MUCH happier at my apartment than I already am :)  

I can't believe it's already December...it snowed a little bit on December 1st!! Beautiful, big, wet snowflakes that didn't stick...but still! I was excited to say the least :) I'm still a southern girl at heart who loves the snow.  I'll let you know how I feel about it after I live with it for a few months for the first time in my life.  The inner {Alabama and Oklahoma} child is still in me that screams, "We need to go make a snowman and go sledding," at the slightest sight of snowfall!  After all, it usually only lasted a day or two max.  You had to use it before all of the other neighborhood kids did!

In other news, I got a sweet surprise package from my sister-in-law!  Featuring: a funny Thanksgiving card, AWESOME design/holiday magazines, some scrapbooking stuff, holiday tic-tacs, a cute little bear that says, "Someone in Derry, NH, loves you!", and an Advent/Countdown-to-Christmas chocolate calendar.  Pretty amazing, eh? :)  

I have the pleasure of hosting some PCV friends in one week here in K-grad which I'm super stoked about.  But, it means I want my apartment to be in tip-top shape...or at least as best shape as it can be!  This means that I'm in the works of doing some projects I've been putting off/never started yet...we'll see how many I get done!  I'm excited to get to show these friends my city and work...and hopefully can convince them to come back for Christmas/my birthday if they feel so inclined! :)

The next group of volunteers is about to be sworn-in as official Peace Corps Volunteers in two weeks!  They've been in training since September and are probably at their maximum level of knowledge retention right about now.  Their nerves are on edge about where they'll be living for the next two years (remember, it's a BIG secret).  They are nervous about the LPI (language proficiency exam).  They are sad to be leaving their training groups and possibly moving to a village where the nearest American is 2 hours away.  All of those feelings were mine only six short months ago.  I'm excited though because we are getting at least three new volunteers in my city!  Maybe four!  The more the merrier.  

Hope December is starting off on the right foot for you :)  I'm excited for the holiday season and all that it entails (Christmas, my birthday, new years--one of Ukraine's biggest holidays, Ukrainian Christmas, and about 128,235 other holidays that Ukraine celebrates in December and January!).  My first Thanksgiving away from home was definitely a fun-filled time, and I'm excited to see what Christmas will be like here as well.  As much as I would love to go home and celebrate Christmas and my 25th (wow) birthday at home, I know this is where I'm supposed to be right now.  Happy weekend!