What a week!

This past week has gone by fast!!  I don’t know where to start.

 

The family is fine.  Haylie scared the life out of Cory early one morning by screaming bloody murder and ripping him from his sleep.  At about 3 in the morning she just started to scream.  Cory ran in to check on her and he found out that she had a staple stuck in her foot.  It was actually folded into her skin.  There wasn’t a stapler in her room and the closest one is downstairs from her room.  I highly doubt that she went downstairs, stapled her foot, walked back to her room and then started to scream.  Even then the staple would have gone just straight into her foot without any folds.  Who knows?  We have theories but I won’t get into those.  Kevin is doing fine.  No staples found their way into his body.  School for them is going well, I hear.  They had their state testing this past week.  I’m sure they did well.

 

A female got attacked here on the base I live on.  She was in one of the shower trailers and the guy just barged in and assaulted her.  I don’t know any of the details but there is a $3,500 reward for information leading to this guy.  I’m kinda freaked out to walk to the shower trailer by myself now.  I actually run now and I keep my CHU key in my hand and I lock the door the second it shuts.

 

My long time family cat was laid to rest yesterday.  Sparky was 18 years old….pretty old for a cat.  We got him when he was just a kitten.  I really wish I could have been there when they took him to the vet.  He had been going downhill for a while so this didn’t come as a surprise, but that doesn’t make it any less sad. 

 

We had a Hail and Farewell BBQ on Thursday.  One of my coworkers is leaving us soon and we were welcoming her replacement.  It was a lot of fun.  I got to see a bunch of people from my company that I haven’t seen since we got to Baghdad.  One of my other coworkers, SGT Ahmed, is going on leave next week and I get to be the squad leader in his absence.  I was kind of nervous when I first found out because I wasn’t sure I could do a good job, but then Cory said that if I can put up with him and take care of the kids I won’t have any problems taking care of my soldiers.  He has a point.  I think being a squad leader is a lot like being a mom.  All I’m doing is taking care of them and making sure they are doing what they are supposed to be doing and staying out of trouble.  I’m sure I’ll be fine.  SGT Ahmed and I timed ourselves on our sit-ups a couple days ago.  For the Army PT test we have 2 minutes to do as many sit-ups as we can.  SGT Ahmed is a machine and he did 99.  I only did 82.  To get 100% in the sit-up event in our age bracket we have to do at least 82.  So I maxed that portion of the PT test!  I was so excited.  I’ve never been able to do that many before.  I think before a couple days ago the most I was ever able to do was 64.  Now being able to max the push-ups is an entirely different matter.  For my sex and age bracket I have to do at least 50 push-ups to max.  On my last PT test I only did 27.  That’s passing for a female but it’s nowhere near maxing, which is my goal for the next PT test which should be coming up in August.  To max the run I’d have to run 2 miles in 15:48.  I don’t know where I stand on that.  The last time I tried to run 2 miles for time I ended up going farther than 2 miles so my time was off.  I have 20:30 in which to run it in and I know I can beat that if I’m already running 2.7 miles in 22 minutes.  Well, I think that’s about it for now.  I love and miss everyone!  Only a little over 6 more months to go!!

I think he's a little sleepy.

I hear he's getting pretty good at it.

I hope she's brushing her hair every morning, Cory.

My crazy family

At the BBQ

My fearless platoon leader 1LT Jackson

SSG Miller and SGT Ahmed being silly.

Great name for a street don't you think?

One of the only remaining murals of this scumbag.

Chillin at FlintStone

At FlintStone....I don't know who Moose is.

After seeing the other bases, this sign is actually pretty acurate.

SGT Ahmed, me and 1LT Renoll, our old platoon leader.

My good buddy, Darren Spruill.  Yes, he is actually that tall.  I'm 5'10", he's 6'8".

RIP Sparky

May 1991 - March 27, 2009

Light?......Where?!

It’s been a crazy couple weeks here.  One of my coworkers is going on leave in early April and he’s been training up with me so I can handle everything he does while he’s gone.  I keep telling him that he’s not going to be leaving me.  I’ll duct tape him to his chair and he won’t be able to go anywhere.  On top of that I haven’t been sleeping well.  I toss and turn all night and then I’m exhausted throughout the day.  Today is my half day so I was trying to catch up on sleep and I ended up giving myself a headache instead.  Ugh, I can’t catch a break.  I’ve hit a plateau in my weight loss.  I’m holding steady between 145 and 150.  It depends on the time of day.  Early in the morning after waking up I’m at 145 or so and then after work I’m closer to 150.  I’ve started running outside.  There is a beautiful 2.7 mile long course that goes around the lake.  I’ve been running it in 22 minutes. 

 

We are almost halfway through this deployment!  Yesterday I checked my countdown that I have on my computer and it says we are 46.5% of the way done.  At the beginning of April we will have 6 months left.  I’ve heard that our replacements will be getting here towards the end of September.  Great birthday present if you ask me!  Happy Birthday, you’re going home in a week!!  Works for me! I think I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. 

You know you're from Nebraska when......

Downtown Omaha skyline

You graduated from a high school that had a geographical direction for a name.

You know exactly what and where Counciltuckey is, and you stay away from it.

You call anything past Elkhorn "the rest of Nebraska."

You consider Omaha the one true capital; Lincoln's just your retarded little brother.

You take pride in the fact that the Cheesecake Factory just opened; it makes you cosmopolitan.

You know where to find the underground music scene, and mourned the loss of the Ranch Bowl.

You cried when the Woodhouse car guy died.

You know what Marlon Brando, Henry Fonda, and Malcom X have in common.

You have visited the Amazon rainforest, the Antarctic circle, and the Sahara Desert all in a day.

You worked at the Zoo at some point in your life.

You've been drilled in school about all the useless inventions to come out of Omaha ... such as the ski lift. 

You hated the idea of the overpass while it was being built and immediately loved it when it was finished.

You pass three McDonald's, four Burger Kings, and six Subways on the way to school/work.

You have at least one Ted N' Wally's story.

You go to Homer's for all your record buying needs.

All the plans needed for a successful date are "let's go to the Old Market"

You've ridden the bronze lions (and burnt some part of your body while doing so).

You pride yourself on being from East O, North O, South O, or West O.

You remember when J. Doe's took over the city.

You cut out a snowflake at Von Maur in December, 2007.

Everyone asks you about Bright Eyes and Saddle Creek Records.

You go trick-or-treating in Regency for the "big candy."

Spaghetti Works always sounds like a good idea, but you almost never go there.

You've hung out in a parking lot at least once.

At least 5 of your friends have sold steaks and made decent money doing it.

You call anything past 90th "way out there."

You have felt obligated to eat at least one Runza.

You know what "annexing" means.

You know what The Beef is. And yes, you know their cheer.

You cried the day Peony Park was killed by Hy Vee and Fazoli's.

The abbreviations MPS and OPS stir up deep feelings inside of you.

You or someone you know has spotted one of the mysterious stray mountain lions.

You go to the south and get accused of being a hick.

You know (and cringe at) Mulberry Lane.

You think the only good thing to come out of Lincoln is the Huskers.

You have never been to the panhandle.

You know what really goes on down at the slides.

You know that the Mall is, in fact, not a mall.

You go to Hummel park in search of albinos.

You are sick and tired of being asked if you have electricity every time you step out of the state.

You judge a person's socioeconomic income by the street number in their address.

You open your front lawn up for parking during CWS and charge ten bucks.

You have seen the Christmas Carol with "that one guy" at least four hundred times.

You have bought tickets for the one yearly Broadway show six months in advance.

You have never stepped foot on a farm.

You remember October of 1997 because you didn't have to do jack squat for five days.

Snow Days have slowly become an endangered species.

You have witnessed Jim Flowers's hair change color overnight a number of times.

You remember when Crossroads didn't smell like a landfill.

You know what a Hy Vee is.

You have eaten at Johnny's, Caniglia's, AND Mr. C's.

You know everything about Warren Buffet's love life.

You say you're going to a "cheapee" whenever you watch a movie at Westwood or the Stockyards.

You judge the popularity of a movie by how long it takes it to transfer to the Westwood or the Stockyards.

You wouldn't dream of ever using public transportation and would die rather than walk somewhere.

You know all about the middle lane of Dodge.

You know the seasons as: this is too hot to be fall, there's supposed to be snow on the ground, why is there snow in April and it wasn't this hot last summer!

You've attended a fundraiser where there's a Pancake Man invloved.

You can time the Northwest Radial perfectly in order to avoid all red lights.

One of your parents worked for Mutual of Omaha, Union Pacific, or Con Agra.

You don't find anything weird about it being sunny when you walk into a building and find it monsooning when you walk out.

There are no Republicans and Democrats; it's Republicans and "those damn hippies."

You or someone you knew was an extra in "About Schmidt."

You know what "About Schmidt" is.

A perfectly acceptable speed when driving is 90 miles an hour.

You live on a street named after a dead guy.

You can count every time you saw Omaha on CNN.

You cringe when you hear "River City Roundup," but you still go to it every year.

You live either down a hill, on the slope of a hill, or on top of a hill.

You can tell the difference between Rob McCartney and John Knicely (although you're sure they're clones ...)

You, too, wished Bush had stayed in Louisiana on 9/11.

You love Caffeine Dreams.

You know the difference between Dundee, Benson, Bellevue, and Papillion (and you know how to pronounce them).

You've been to the midnight movie and know the staff by first name.

You take construction into consideration when guessing how long it will take to get somewhere.

You constantly gripe about living in Nebraska, but you'd never want to leave.

And finally ...

You read this entire list and laughed your ass off.

Talking 'bout a bunch of shiiiiiiiiiiiiiftwork!

I had to switch shifts for a few days.  My original shift is from 0700 to 1900 but for the next 4 days or so I’ll be working 1900 to 0700.  One night linguist is on his 4 day R&R and the other night linguist in on his 15 days R&R.  It’s not too bad, I suppose.  I hadn’t gotten quite back into the rhythm after getting back from my 15 days of leave, so the first day of night shift I was really tired.  I went to bed maybe an hour after I got back to my CHU but then I’m up now because my schedule is so jacked up.  I’m going to try to get a couple more hours of sleep once I’m done with this.

 

I rearranged my room the other day.  Instead of having the two wall lockers in the middle of the room dividing it, each bed set is on its own side of the room.  There is much more space in the middle now for doing my Yoga and Pilates!  I didn’t go to the gym yesterday/this morning because I was so exhausted from switching shifts.  That’s another thing that I haven’t been able to get back to normal: getting to the gym.  I used to go every single day.  Now I’ll be lucky if I can get there a week straight before something happens that throws me all out of whack. 

 

I have to send my grandmother’s mothers ring back home.  The August birthstone has come loose in its setting.  I don’t want to lose it out here so I’m going to send it home to Cory and I’ll have him take it to a jeweler to have it fixed.

 

While I was home on leave I saw one of the gifts that I had given Haylie.  It was a shawl of sorts that was made in India.  When she received it in the mail I made sure she knew that it was to been taken very good care of and that she was NOT to wear it as a skirt.  She has (had) a purple lacy one that she always wore as a skirt over her jeans.  I didn’t want her doing that with this one as it had a zipper that could get ripped and torn.  Well, she didn’t listen to me and that’s exactly what happened.  Right along the seam is all ripped and stretched apart.  I got so mad when I saw that!  I asked her how it happened and she would say anything.  She just looked away and started mumbling.  Cory was right there and he said that it was from wearing it like a skirt.  He had even told her to take it off when he had seen that she was wearing it like that but surprise surprise, she didn’t listen!  Nothing new there!  I told her that she wasn’t getting anything else from me while I was over here.  She didn’t like that at all and started to whine.  I think she only thinks in the now and doesn’t think that there will be consequences to her actions.  I took away her purple lacy shawl thing earlier in the week because I had found it on the floor in between nasty wet pajamas and bed sheets.  I told her that since she can’t take care of her nice things that maybe someone else would, so I took it and put it with the rest of her clothes that were going to be given to the good will.  Even with all of that I don’t think she has learned her lesson. 

 

Well, I think that’s about it for now.  I’m going to try to get a few more hours of sleep before I have to head into work.

Miley eyeballing the yummy tulip

Kitty being Kitty