32!

Earlier this month I turned 32 years old (happy birthday to me). 32 is a most glorious age for me. I entered a new age bracket on the Army Physical Fitness Test. Now that I am in the 32-36 age group, the standard to achieve 100% in all three events has dropped significantly. This means, by not improving my physical capability at all, I will score higher on the test. What's not to like about that?

I took my Fall PT test this morning.

Although I actually did 3 fewer push-ups and 3 fewer sit-ups than my last PT test in May, I scored higher. Ahh, the glory of getting older. Seriously, who wouldn't love this!?

Unfortunately, I was shooting to score at least 90% in each event. I've never done that before. I though I would this time due to my old age. But those push-ups! 88% was all I could muster this morning. 2 push-ups. 2 measly stupid push-ups and I would have scored 90%! Grrr! 

I suppose I could retake it. A more likely scenario is I will bitch about it for 6 months and then when I take the Spring PT test, I will put more effort forward to prepare myself. 

Yay, 32!

Hard Work, Work

The facility I work at on Fort Campbell does not employ Privates. In fact, we don't have any E-4 and below at all. Everyone is an NCO or a contracted civilian. In the absence of Privates, I have relived many of my extra duty days doing tasks a Staff Sergeant doesn't usually do anymore. 

I have never pushed a lawn mower more in my Army career than I have over the last summer. It's so ridiculously hot here in the summer: not ideal forced lawn care weather. I have scrubbed more toilets and taken more trash bags to the dumpster than I can recall. Sweeping, mopping... you name it, I'm doing it. 

Today's big task: police call.

I found something's skull during the police call.

I have nearly 10 years in the Army and have had one field grade article 15 but I have yet to learn how to run a buffer and buff a floor. This is a point of pride for me. The way things are looking around here, though, I could be learning this valuable Army skill soon.

Its a bit humbling doing all this work that is generally reserved for Army Privates. We have a good crew out here, and we take it in stride. But I won't be really sad when I go back to a supervisory role.

New Hobby

I realized the other day that I don't have any hobbies. 

I mean, I read. I read a lot. But since I started going back to school, I haven't picked up a book for leisure. (That kind of makes me sad now that I think of it.) The only thing I do on the weekends for fun is road march 6 miles with my friend Tracy. That's actually not something that falls into the "fun" category. I have not been drinking nearly as much as I used to because my hang overs are EPIC. So I don't have that hobby anymore... 

I need a new hobby.

I knew how to crochet when I was younger. But after years of not doing it, I completely forgot how. I figured it might be a handy skill to have since I will be PCSing to Alaska next year. So I had good old YouTube reteach me. 

Right now my skill level is strictly scarf making. I figure if I get good at it again and learn a bunch of different stitches I can make afghans. And if I get really good, I can learn to make dog sweaters, which lets face it, that's the dream. I want the frenchies to be very fashion forward. Its hard to look good in cold weather.

It's good to have a hobby. Now I just have to get really good at it. I have a year to prepare before the dogs need sweaters.

This Face

I just had to share a picture of this face.

Derp.

Gertie's got to be the cutest dog in the world. She sits on the spare bed beside my desk and watches me do homework. It's so cute, annoying at times, but cute. She gets impatient that I'm staring at the computer screen instead of sitting with her. 

Ditch

I undertook a huge landscaping job in September. It took me the whole month to do it. I'm actually still not 100% done with it. 

We have a ditch that runs between my backyard and the neighbor's. It's the neighborhood water run off. The unfortunate part about it is that the actual drain for all the water to flow into is in my other neighbor's yard. So whenever it rains, all the water sits on top of our grass and eventually crosses our entire back yard to empty into the neighbor's drain. The ground is mostly clay so the water doesn't soak into the ground. Basically, when it rains I have lake front property. 

So my yard doesn't erode away around the ditch, I let all kinds of weeds and crap grow in the ditch. Tall, controlled weeds with deep roots to keep all the land together. It didn't look bad. At least, I didn't think so. But my neighbors whom I share the ditch with apparently thought it was an eyesore through their privacy fence that they can't see the ditch through. So they went out there and hacked it all down and killed everything. 

Now its an eyesore. So I undertook the job of ripping out all the weeds, vines, tree stumps and bullshit from the root to clear the entire ditch. Just pulling the weeds took me three weeks. The rest of the time I've spent rearranging the rocks in the ditch so they do their job. They were strewn around all willy-nilly in the ditch before and were not doing anything at all. Now they help filter the water coming off the street. 

I basically reinvented the functionality of the ditch. I made it a lot smaller by consolidating the rocks. I laid grass seed. I still have a lot of work to do-- more rocks need to be moved and I need to acquire some rocks as well. Next spring I will need to saturate the rocks and nearby land with Round Up 365 to keep it from growing weeds again. The rest of it should become grass and we will be able to mow it like the rest of the yard.

And when the frenchie keeping in fence goes up, my backyard will look like it should have the whole time we lived here but were too broke or lazy to do it. 

Really Big Spider

I work in the back 40 of Fort Campbell in a building that is less than bug proof. Especially now that the weather is getting cooler, the creepy crawlers of Fort Campbell are looking for a warm place to chill. It's normal to find a lot of beetles running around. But lately we have been finding spiders. 

Really. Big. Spiders. 

Our receptionist really hates bugs. Especially really big spiders. So what do the guys at work do to torment her? They catch said really big spiders in plastic baggies and put them in her desk drawer. She loses her shit and the guys love it. 

I took one of the spider baggies outside and released the spider. The guys were going to kill it but the thought of the guts and goo that would be in the bag grossed me out more than the spider itself. The spider went back into the wilderness to become a spider king among lesser spiders. Of course, he will probably get back into our building looking to get warm and once again end up in a baggie. 

Look What We Caught

James set a small animal trap under our back deck a few days ago. Our intentions were to catch a couple of the neighborhood cats. I normally don't have problems with cats-- I actually like them, but these particular cats have to go. They are on some kind of turf war over my yard. They keep pooping everywhere to claim territory. 

Both of the frenchies are shit seeking missiles and eat said cat poop. Of course, the cat poop is never solid cat poop. It's cat explosive diarrhea. I'm constantly wiping cat shit off the dogs' faces. I love those dogs, but if I could not do that chore, that would be super. Hence, we set the traps to catch the cats. For relocation. I don't want to hurt them, I just want them to poop somewhere else. 

Anyway, backstory aside,  I peeked under the deck today while I was winding up the hose and I was surprised to see a little face looking back at me. For days the trap had been empty. But we caught something today. And that something was pissed. We caught a medium sized opossum.  

The opossum hissed at us the entire time we had it. It was a silent hiss, but I could see the hate in its eyes and I knew he was hissing. That's how pissed off this opossum was that he had been caught-- he couldn't even articulate it. He was probably minding is own business last night when he caught the whiff of days old salmon in the cage and thought to himself, "Wow, that smells delicious! I should enter this wire funnel to eat it." And BAM he was trapped. 

James took him over to a neighboring corn field and dropped him off. I didn't want to kill the little pissed off guy. It's not his fault he's really stupid and got caught. The trap is going back under the deck tonight with more cat enticing food inside it. I hope I don't catch more unwanted critters. 

On Assignment

After months and months of going back and forth with my branch manager and my retention NCO, I am very happy to report that I am finally on assignment. I actually got something that I wanted and wasn't stuck taking the lesser of evils.

I'm on assignment to go to Fort Wainwright, Alaska. My branch manager was able to slot me in MEDDAC. I've never worked MEDDAC before. The idea of doing something so outside of the realm of anything I've done before is a bit daunting. Some people love working in the hospital, and others really hate it. But I am excited. I'm excited to go somewhere I've never been and work a job I've never done.

My report date isn't until late 2016. December, actually. I'll try to request early report so I don't have to drive through Canada in the winter. I'm so excited! I will have to get snow boots for the Frenchies!

Alaska bound!

Graduation Is Set

I just applied for graduation. Graduation of what, you ask? Well, I decided to get me one of them college degrees. It's just an associates in Health Sciences. It's not fancy, and quite frankly, I got A LOT of credits given to me by my Army experiences. Since I've been in the Army nearly 10 years, I would hope some of that would be granted as credit. Nothing better than on the job training!

Any one who has asked me knows I never had plans of getting a degree of any kind. I'm not a book learnin' kind of gal. But now that I know I do not qualify for any special assignments in the Army, I need a degree to keep me competitive for promotion to Sergeant First Class.

Graduation is in February. Come March I will be back in school working towards that Bachelors in Public Health. Oh boy. I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks.

Long Hair

My hair is really super long. I mean, kinda ridiculously long. If I wore an unfashionable long jean skirt people would totally think I was a radical Christian woman. Good thing I'd never wear a jean skirt. All my tattoos wouldn't really support the radical Christian image either... what I'm saying is, my hair is long. My hair is long and I give bad analogies. 

I've cut it back a few times. Most recently, in November 2013, I cut nearly 10 inches off. I thought it would be helpful to have shorter hair when I deployed to Egypt. I hated it. I regretted it. I don't think it made anything easier, either. My remorse game was strong.

Almost 2 years later, I am starting to feel the itch to cut my hair shorter again. 

Why? 

Why do I want to do something again that I know I hated before? Well, I'm convinced it was the style that I hated and not the lack of length. I think if I didn't go layer crazy like I did 2 years ago, I would like it more. I don't want to cut it so short that I can't put it in a bun. The ability to have a work bun is important. 

I need a change. Someone talk me out of it if you think it will make me as unhappy has the 2013 hair chopping.