My Nephew!!!

Now that Betsy and Mark have posted pictures of him on their blog I feel it's safe to mention the birth of my nephew, Iain Paul, on this blog. He's soooo cute, but if you want to see pictures you'll have to go over to Betsy's blog. He was born this morning and weighted 6lbs 15 oz. It hasn't really sunk in yet that my sister is a mom and that I'm an aunt, but I'll hopefully be able to visit them the weekend after next and that will most likely make it a bit more real. Have I mentioned that he's very cute?

Fort Leavenworth

Thanks to some help from my friendly neighbor and fellow 1BCT'er I now have a working LAN connection in my room. So far I've greatly enjoyed my time here at Fort Leavenworth. Although class the past two days has gone a couple hours into the afternoon, we've been told that's not normally the case and that most of the time we'll be done by noon and then have the afternoon for studying and such. Not only do I feel like I am getting a great workout for my mind and being intellectually stimulated here, I'm also getting by body back in shape. Even with class going into the afternoon, we still get out incredibly early and so I've been able to get in a good run and workout at the gym before heading back to my room to eat dinner and study.

Fort Leavenworth is so much more beautiful than Fort Hood. Yesterday I went for a run around the post and saw signs in many of the front yards of the houses stating the year when the house was built. Most of them were built in the late 1800s or early 1900s. One more great thing is that there is supposedly a ski hill nearby that has days where active duty military can ski or snowboard for only $5. Some of the other people in the course and myself will most likely go check that place out later this week.

To sum it up, the past three days have been almost like a vacation or retreat. Though I'm sure my mind will get a good a workout and as a result I'll be quite mentally exhausted at times, right now I am really enjoying the course and being at Fort Leavenworth for the next couple of weeks.

Infomercial Time

I am going to risk sounding like an infomercial right now because I feel the need to share about how I am very impressed by the Space Bag. The Space Bag is a storage bag that looks similar to a huge ziploc bag, but instead of only having a seal at the top, it also has a one-way valve that fits a vacuum cleaner hose so that you can vacuum out all the air in the bag and thereby significantly compress whatever you put into the bag.

I must admit that I'd seen products similar to Space Bag on TV before and laughed at them, but then saw the product at the store a couple weeks ago and figured that since I am doing a lot of packing where maximizing the usage of all available space is essential I should give them a try. So far I have packed my C Bag, which is the duffel bag that will be packed in the milvan and which I will not see again until I am in Iraq. Normally I struggle to fit everything on the packing list, but with the use of a couple Space Bags I was able to pack, in addition to almost everything else on the packing list for that bag, an extra pair of ACUs, a feather pillow, a down comforter/throw, a set of sheets and extra pillow cases, my JLIST (think big and bulky pants and jacket), and my wet weather boots, as well as some extra t-shirts, socks, and underwear.

I hope to use the Space Bag when packing my other two duffel bags, but will not be able to add as much additional stuff. When we get to Kuwait I will most likely be breaking the vacuum seals on a couple of the bags in order to get to my clothes and things necessary for everyday life. There will not be a vacuum cleaner handy when it comes to repack the bags to head up to Iraq and so my originally nicely compressed stuff will puff out to all manner of sizes.

This evening I also packed my small tough box that will go in the milvan. The violin I bought in Iraq last year and Joe Bear will both be making the trip back over this year.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Change

Change. I do not deal very well with change, especially when I am not able to ease in to it. Last year when it was nearing the end of my tour in Iraq I dreaded coming home. It was not that I enjoyed being in Iraq, but it was what I knew. The thought of the all the changes that lay ahead terrified me. Looking back I can see many instances where I was terrified of the changes that lay ahead. One was the change of command midway through Beast. Though my squad did not particularly like our first squad leader I was not looking forward to the switch to a new squad leader because it would be adjusting to a new person, who could be better or worse then the first. Turns out we liked our second squad leader a lot better.

When I go home I always imagine that it'll be a sort of escape for the hectic life I currently live and all the changes that lay ahead. I get sucked into thinking I'll be returning to the the comfort and familiarity of the life I left behind....but I don't. I come home to change. Lots of change. Life has moved on since I left. The house is nearly always different in some way when I come home, be it a change in a room's décor, or just new dinner plates. The neighborhood's changed with new houses being built in the fields I used to escape to for solitude. People have changed, gotten older, gotten married, lived their lives. At least when I am back where I live in Texas I have gotten used to the familiarity of my surroundings and can slowly adjust to the changes as they happen because I am present to watch them. When I come home to Michigan it is like being hit with a million changes all at once and nothing is familiar.

I noticed over Thanksgiving that I had a somewhat hard time while I was home, but then when was in Minnesota my mood and outlook was vastly improved. Perhaps it was because I had no expectations for the familiar since it was my first time visiting Betsy and Mark. I was not constantly surrounded by reminders of all that I have missed in the time I've been away and all that has changed. I could truly relax because I was not trying to reconcile my memories of the past with the state of the present.

Change is not bad, but it is overwhelming at times.

Fast Forward

10-21DEC07: Out in the "field" flying with my platoon.

24DEC-02JAN07: Home on leave

06JAN-15FEB07: Fort Leavenworth, KS for a 6 week course.

Very Early March: Deploy to Iraq

 

My life is suddenly moving very fast.  Sweet.

 

I am still running, but I'm too lazy to sit down and log it into my computer.  I also haven't been running as much recently and when I do run it is at a much slower pace. 

 

I am most likely going to become Catholic sometime here in the near future. 

 

Congratulations Uncle Dave and Debbie on your three new babies! 

 

Have I mentioned that I'd like to get married, settle down, and raise a family?  In the mean time I'll make the most of my all expense paid trip to the desert.  It's about the same, right?  Family vs.  War...they both have the letter A in the words, and the words are also composed of letters in the english alphabet.  Yes, the similarities between the two are quite stunning. I definetly could mix them up if I'm not careful.   

LOT'S OF SLEEP

Apparently I was more tired than I thought after watching the game yesterday. I went to bed around 2:45 PM because I hadn't done more than doze a tiny bit the night before and thought a nap would do me some good. Although I usually go to a Bible Study at 7 PM on Saturday nights, I figured I'd most likely wake up on my own before then and so I didn't set an alarm. So much for that idea. My radio turned on by itself at 9:30 pm and woke me up for the first time. I figured that since I had just slept for 6.5 hours I wouldn't be able to get back to sleep for awhile. About 30 minutes later I went back to bed and shortly thereafter fell asleep again. I woke up once just long enough to check the clock and saw that it was 6:30 AM, and then next time I woke up was my alarm going off at 7:45 AM. Totaling all of that up I slept for almost 17 hours.

Staff Duty

Last night I had staff duty once again. Though as the officer on duty I am allowed to rest, I can never manage to get any good sleep. I spent almost the whole night sitting at my desk in the office either reading, surfing the internet, watching movies, or dozing in my chair. It tends to get quite cold in there at night and the above picture is of me sitting at my desk around 1:30 AM trying to stay warm. What is not visible is that underneath the fleece jacket I am wearing a t-shirt, wool sweater, and the ACU top, as well as wool gloves on my hands. Though I managed to stay warmer than any other time I've been on Staff Duty, I was still a bit cold at times. The Soldiers on duty laughed at me at first when they saw me wearing all that clothing, but when I went to check on them later on during the night they saying that they were freezing. Trying to adjust the thermostats does nothing.

Currently I am wide awake, but I'll probably crash shortly after the big game is over since I haven't done more than an hour of dozing in the past 30 hours.

Away Message

My friend Jon to requested that my away message on IM would, "bring a small tear to my [his] eye -- but not one that actually makes a tear fall out," and use "big words; colorful ones," so I came up with this away message:

"This Turquoise person is off to her Navajo White church small group where she will have a very Chartreuse, Magenta, Fuschia, and Aquamarine dinner and then a SandyBrown Bible Study.

Remember that time you spilled milk when you were a kid? It's okay to tear up at the memory."

I know it does not make any sense, but that's part of the charm. He liked it, so I guess that's all that really matters.

Venting

This may sound very weird, but sometimes, such as right now, I wish I could call someone on the phone and stay on the phone with them but not have either of us talk. No chit-chat, no catching up on how friends/relatives/whoever are doing, no talking about what's on our mind, nothing. Even better would be to have someone here in person and for them to put their arm around me and neither of us talk, just sit there and do nothing. I don't know why this is so appealing but it's not the first time I've wished it were possible.

An event with one of my Soldier's two days ago threw me for a loop and ever since then I've been an emotional wreck. It's like a huge weight suddenly descended upon me. Now all I can think about is going on leave in a week and hoping that I can hold myself together until then. I failed horribly at that today and it was quite embarrassing. Usually I can control my emotions pretty well, especially when in uniform. However, yesterday and today I wasn't in uniform at work due to a course, Applied Suicide Intervention Training (ASIST), I was attending. There was a portion of the course today where we role-played a scenario in front of the group, and my scenario didn't go too well. I was never able to connect with the person who was suicidal and so it was quite awkward throughout the whole thing. Afterwards I felt I'd failed in my scenario and the instructor saw that and so he came over to talk to me when he put everyone on break. He was telling me that I didn't fail and even did okay and even though I was trying with all my might to hold them back the tears started coming and for the life of me I could not stop them. Even though he said it was okay to cry and even said that he was glad to see me cry because it showed I really did care I felt extremely stupid and unprofessional sitting there crying and wished I could stop.

This weekend is a four day weekend for Veterans Day with Monday and Tuesday off, but tomorrow I am the Staff Duty Officer for both my Brigade and Battalion, so I'll be awake and at work from 8 am Saturday to 9 am Sunday and then mostly likely sleep all day Sunday. The person who has duty on Tuesday called me today and offered me $150 to take his shift, but I said no because I'm hoping that I'll figure out some way to relax on Monday and Tuesday and be able to go back to work a bit more refreshed on Wednesday.

Calvin's been his usual self recently. Yesterday my roommate's friends were over at the house and one of them brought her dog. I was home alone with the dogs and when I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth as I got ready for bed and out of the corner of my eye I saw Calvin run past the door with something in his mouth. From his behavior I could tell he was trying to hide something, so I immediately went to find him. Since I didn't see him in the living room I went straight to looking under Karen's bed, since that's Calvin's favorite hiding spot when he has something he knows he has something he's not supposed to have. He was under there chewing on a toy stuffed monkey that belonged to the other dog. When I tried to grab it from him he would scoot out the other side of the bed. After a couple failed attempts I climbed on top of the bed and a few seconds later I saw his nose and the monkey poke out from under the bed. He let go of the monkey just long enough for me to snatch it from him. It was rather funny to see only his snout poking out from under the bed sniffing around trying to locate the monkey while the rest of him was still hidden. After he realized the monkey was no longer there he slowly crawled out from under the bed with a guilty look on his face. There have been a couple other instances since then with him, but this post is already long enough.

Calvin...

Yesterday Jordan and Zack had Zuleka, George, and myself over to watch the Army vs Airforce football game on TV. I'd told Jordan that I'd bring dessert, since she was ordering the pizza and Zuleka said she'd bring something. Earlier in the week I'd made mini-cheesecakes to take to Bible Study, but had extra cookie dough shells that I hadn't used, so I planned to put them to use and take the mini-cheesecakes to the party, along with Sweet Crunchies (aka, peanut butter chewies). I'd placed the cookies in a plastic container with a lid on the kitchen counter and thought they were far enough back so that they were out of Calvin's reach. To my knowledge, he left them alone all week and so I thought nothing of leaving them out where they were.

Saturday morning I went out for a long fartleck run and during the run kept thinking about how grateful I was that the cookie crust portion of the cheesecakes were already done because I wouldn't have much time after my run to shower, bake, and then drive over the Jordan's before the game started. Unfortunatly, Calvin had other ideas.

When I got back to the house I was walking through the living room to get to the kitchen when glaced over on the floor and saw a plastic container on the ground that looked strikingly similar to the container that the cookie's had been in. Upon picking it up and seeing what appeared to be a couple of cookie crumbs in the bottom of it, I quickly peered into the kitchen and saw that the container on the counter was no longer there. Upon yelling his name, Calvin sauntered into the room with a stupid grin on his face and procceed to come up to me as if to say, "want to play?"

I did have to start from scratch with the mini-cheesecakes, but they are increadibly easy to make and it turned out that I could the sweet crunchies at the same time, so not too much time was lost.

Though he tests my patience more and more each day and I find myself sternly saying his name and telling him 'no' more than any other living creature I've ever come across, he is still lovable. I should probably go take him for a walk now or else he'll keep my roommate and I up all night like he did last night because he was moving around and making a ton of noise in the middle of the night.

Title?

    Where do I start with this entry?  Do I even want to start?  That's another good question.  I'm tired and my roommate's dog, Calvin, is barking again.  I thought I liked dogs, and then I met Calvin.  Granted, I do like Calvin, but he's an excellent reminder for me of why I am glad I do not have a dog, let alone a child.  I don't have the will or energy to give him the attention he needs and wants.  For instance, I came home from work today and the only thing I wanted to do was go for a bike ride.  It was all I could think about this afternoon.  Had I not run a half-marathon yesterday I most likely would've wanted to go for a run instead, but the bike ride was a good substitute. 

    When I entered the house around 6:30 pm it was clear that Karen, my roommate who owns Calvin, had not come home from school yet and that Calvin was very lonely.  My other roommate, Maggie, had just arrived home and so we were both trying to unload our things while Calvin was jumping all over us and getting in the way of everything. I played with him for a few minutes, but I was still determined to go for the bike ride. He got all excited when he saw that I was putting on exercise clothes and then looked a bit sad when I closed the front door without taking him with me outside.  The bike ride was nice and relaxing, but when I got home Calvin was even more hyper and Karen still wasn't home.  Maggie had gone out for a run and so Calvin had been all alone again.  I felt bad and also didn't want to deal with an extremely hyper dog all evening, so I took him for a short walk.  After that he did calm down a bit, although he still had enough energy to try and get to the food on the counters, jump on my bed, and find doors I forgot to close and examine any trash in the trashcan in that room.  I think the phrase I say to him the most is, "No! Calvin." 

    How do other people handle the constant demands on time and energy?  Work leaves me exhausted even though I don't think I've done or accomplished much at all, and I can't imagine coming home and having more people vying for attention. 

    My need to unwind, and inability to do so right now, surfaced again unexpectedly when I was home for Heidi's wedding.  I thought my random and unexplainable breaking down crying was finished after R&R and right after I came home from Iraq, but it occurred within an hour of me arriving home for the wedding.  I was standing in the living room when all of a sudden I started crying, and by crying I mean bawling, without any cause or reason behind it.  As usual, it frightened me a bit which made it even worse.  When it occurred I didn't want anyone to see me in that state, but when I thought I was finally regaining control someone would find me and start talking to me about something completely unrelated, which proceeded to set the waterworks off again (usually after they left).  The whole scenario repeated itself a few more times over the course of the weekend and I did my best to duck out of sight when it occurred.  Hopefully the road trip home will allow me sufficient time to unwind before I arrive in Michigan and Thanksgiving will be better. 

    I recently realized that I rarely smile at work.  The most I've smiled recently was when the Family Readiness Group hosted a party for the children of the Soldiers in my company and I was in the room watching all the kids play and make photo frames with their parents.  I had a grin plastered on my face the whole time, and a real grin, not a fake one at that.  Once the party was over and we had to get back to work my smile walked out the door with the kids. 

 

It's a Boy!

Betsy's having a boy :)  I'm so excited about my nephew. 

Sleep

I just slept for 14 hours :)

Breath of Fresh Air

This afternoon I got back from NTC and though I was glad to be back there was still a weight on me that I couldn't shake.  I also realized that I was fast approaching another point where it is either I engage the world or it engages me.  In order to combat both matters I tried to contact some women from church to see if anyone was free for dinner.  Unfortunately, nobody was free or they weren't home.  Still needing some support, I ended up calling Mike, but he didn't answer when I called.  Later in the afternoon, however, he called me back and I asked if I could go hang out with him at his house for a bit.  He was fine with that and so I went over around eight thinking that I would just use him as a listening ear. It turns out that when I got over there he was watching a video of a debate between a creationist (www.drdino.com) and an evolutionist. We ended up not talking much at all except to make occasional comments about the debate, but I left feeling more refreshed then I have in a long time.  The debate was extremely interesting, except for the evolutionist was a joke and never made a solid argument or had a straightforward answer to any questions.  The breath of fresh air for me was being around someone who is extremely passionate about Christ and sharing it with others (Mike), and the intellectual stimulation and thought provoking arguments that came about in the video.  I left feeling excited and wanting to dive into Scripture again.

 

 

Taji

A couple nights ago I had a dream that I was at home on leave, but instead of getting ready to go to NTC on Friday I was instead getting ready to deploy back to Iraq on Friday. In my dream I was talking to someone about it and the reality of going back to Taji for 15 months was sinking in during the dream. I don't mind going back, but what I am dreading is being there for 15 months. Last year around this time I was starting the countdown to coming home because it seemed like it was almost around the corner. Realizing that the unit that replaced us still has a long ways to go blows my mind. I think have about four months left in the states, but the months have been speeding up recently because there is so much to do an so little time. I wonder if once I get back to Taji it'll feel like I ever even left. I can still picture almost every detail of my run routes around the camp, the faces of the workers at the laundry facility, all of the ied hot spots on a map in MND-B (though I'm sure they've changed over the past year), the long stretches of commo blackouts, the Tigris River Chapel and the airfield gym. It's still all so recent in my memory. I was a fobbit last year and so, for the most part, all I knew was the camp. This coming tour I will start out as a fobbit given the mission of my platoon, but I don't know what position I'll be in later on in the rotation. Will I still confuse the sound of a controlled det or an ied blowing up off in the distance with the sound of a garage door closing? For some reason they sounded very similar to me and so when I heard the detonations I immediately thought of the garage door at home closing. It still hasn't completely sunk in yet that I'll be back there before the end of the year.

I've Changed

I keep thinking about writing in here, but often it is pessimistic rantings and so I refrain. I also don't have the time or creative energy to write. I don't have a lot of time or energy to do much of anything anymore. It's gotten to the point where I am looking forward to getting back to Iraq because right now things back here seem a lot more demanding and crazy than life over there. It stinks to be here with things the way they are, and it stinks to be there, but I'd rather be in Iraq.

I realized a couple weeks ago that I am no where near ready to get married, nor do I even want to consider being in a relationship right now. Finally admitting that was rather freeing. The scary thing is that I was reading a few blogs today written by women a few years older then me who have kids, and the idea of being a wife and mother was something that seemed so overwhelming and exhausting that it lost it's appeal to me. Maybe I will just stay single. My reasons for wanting to remain single aren't good at all and seem quite selfish. I like my sleep, space, personal time, quiet, and ability to crash on the weekend and not move from my bed for most of the day because I'm so worn out. The last one, not being able to move from my bed, is not something I actually enjoy because I'd rather have the energy to move, but right now I have the freedom to stay and bed and not move because I have no energy.

SHADOW TUAV

These are a couple pictures of Shadow Tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicles that my platoon operates. We finally had good weather for 4 days straight last week and got in some flights.

On a completly different note, CONGRATULATIONS BETSY AND MARK!!! I can't wait to meet my niece or nephew:)

R-Day

Happy R-day USMA class of 2011. 

Thinking

There are times that I wish I knew without a doubt that I was outwardly ugly, because then I would also know that if a guy were ever to be attracted to me it would be because the part of me he likes most is who I am as a person instead of how I look on the outside.

Crossing The Finish Line

Here I am crossing the finish line at the marathon. The time reflected is not my chip time but the time of the marathon. My chip time was a little over 10 min faster.

Yesterday I tried to go for a run, but experienced some lower back pain that I haven't had before and so I turned around after 2 blocks. It felt like cramps in my lower back because it was more of an ache than a sharp pain and would disappear when I walked. Perhaps I need to stretch my hamstrings more or something.