Tough One

When I hurt my hand earlier this summer, it was because I fell off the top of the rope on the Tough One. The Tough One is one of the obstacles at the Air Assault Obstacle Course. It's also considered a major obstacle so you absolutely have to be able to do it to get past the first day of school. It's been my handicap for a few weeks.

 

 

You've got to climb up the rope and not touch the first horizontal beam with your hands or arms. Once your knees are that high, you can put your knees down on it and transition from the rope to the beams. After you're off the rope, you've got to climb over the upper most horizontal beam. Then there are a series of beams you have to walk across without falling down between them. Next there is a tall ladder structure to ascend, to climb over the top of and then descend the cargo net along the back side.

 

Since I fell off the rope, I've been afraid of it. Imagine that!? Fall all that way down and not want to do it again. Crazy....

 

I've been working at it for a few weeks now: trying to get over the fear. I usually freeze when my face is aligned with the first horizontal beam. But today I worked through it, got past the beams and got my knees onto the platform. FINALLY got my knees on the platform. That was the tricky part for me. But I got it today.

 

I did it pretty quickly, and waited to freak out and be afraid until I transitioned onto the beams. I was by myself today so I had to take a pic from the top to prove my success.

 

 

The Tough One I've been practicing on is not the exact same one that I will do at Air Assault School. They are almost identical, but the school's obstacle course is off limits unless you have permission to be on it. So that one pictured above doesn't have the safety mats underneath it like the one I originally fell off. Glad I didn't fall off today.

 

So proud of myself!!

Frenchie Kisses

 

Frenchie kisses from my little girl.

 

Taking a brief moment out from being totally bad to show some love. Quick, witness it, because Gertie's going back to being a little thug in a few seconds.

Domestic As Fuck

We took down the doors to our little laundry room nook area. They were shitty and calling them doors was really a loose term anyway. I replaced them with curtains. Super cute, matching the existing valance, expensive curtains. I love them. But they were about an inch or so too long. They drug across the floor a little. That made me like them less.

 

I entertained the idea of taking the curtains in to one of the sew shops around here to shorten them. I was hesitant because I had some curtains destroyed doing that. I took my old living room curtains and said, "I need them shortened 16 inches." When I got them back, they were only 16 inches long. I wanted to cry.

 

So I took the shortening of these kitchen curtains into my own hands and I hand hemmed them.

 

 

Above is the first one I did. I sat on the couch and hemmed curtains for almost 2 hours. I was also drinking wine and watching Friends reruns. I felt like a house wife! I even ironed the curtains before they went back up. They look absolutely fabulous. I'm glad I did them myself. The materials to hem them were under $4. To have them professionally shortened (and potentially destroyed) would have been $30. Thrifty win!

 

I can be domestic as fuck.

Message Recieved

Taco Bell sent me a message loud and clear today.

 

 

Since my mom recently joined the 21st century and got and iPhone, I just texted her instead. Yay for moms! And for Taco Bell-- solid advice!

Wasp VS Spider

I was out on our training lane at work today hanging out in the shade because it's approximately a billion degrees at Fort Campbell already. While I was shamming, I saw the most bad ass battle of wills I have ever seen in nature.

 

I noticed a wasp buzzing around erratically in the dirt. So I leaned in to see what the heck it was up to. Well, it was kicking a giant spider's ass, is what it was doing. The spider was on it's back and it was getting stung by the wasp repeatedly. It wasn't really doing much to defend itself (probably because it had been stung a dozen or so times) so I figured it had already died. When suddenly it sprung back onto its feet like a ninja and attacked the wasp right back. The wasp didn't like getting bit and started going totally ape shit, stinging the spider over and over right in the FACE. The spider eventually gave up (but didn't die). The wasp bit the spider on the FACE and dragged its body approximately 10 feet over to a connex and disappeared underneath.

 

Freaking craziness.

 

 

What a bad ass wasp to skull drag a giant spider across the grass. These wasps are all over our training lane. I have new respect (and a sense of terror) for these wasps from here on out. They most certainly do NOT mess around!!

Evolution of my Epic Wound

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to climb a rope about 10 feet up and then fall off? I can tell you from first hand experience, that it is not recommended.

 

I landed on the mats underneath in an explosion of sand and water. I hear it looked pretty cool, but it didn't feel very cool. The only wound I sustained was some wicked rope burn on the palm of my hand. It didn't seem like much at the time, but it was one of the most painful Army wounds I've ever had.

 

Day of wounding



Day 2

Day 4

Day 9

Day 10

Day 12

Day 20

It took 20 days for the last scab to come loose and for all the new pink skin to be smooth.

 

Rope burn is not recommended. Falling is also not recommended. But falling and getting rope burn on a part of your body that you constantly move and bang around is FOR SURE not recommended.

 

PS Only a Medic would photograph the wound healing process and post it on her blog.

ReModeling To Sell

It is inevitable, I will be PCSing within the year. I might not be PCSing where I thought I was going to do what I wanted to do. But I will be going somewhere. I have been in my current unit at Fort Campbell for 4+ years, so its time to hit the old dusty trail.

 

In order to do that, I have to prepare my house to be sold. I've made some improvements that I love so much I can't reason why I didn't do them sooner. We ripped out the flooring in the entire house except for the bathrooms and the master bedroom and replaced it all with laminate wood flooring. It looks amazing. The dogs don't particularly like it because they don't get good traction anymore, but it looks great so they can deal.

 

 

 

I repainted the living room and kitchen the same color. Its a very subdued tannish peachy color. It was more peachy that I had anticipated, but it turned out very nice and neutral. I also repainted the kitchen cabinets. The tops cabinets are white and the bottom row are dark brown. As seen on HGTV, I decided to give it a shot and it turned out pretty nice.

 

James even built me new shelves in the laundry nook. Since the laundry does tripple duty as kitchen storage, pantry and laundry, I have been needing more space since the day we moved in.

 

 

Now that my house looks so good I really don't want to sell it! I should have done all these things to it when we first moved in so I could have enjoyed it longer! Oh well, I hope my upgrades and changes will attract a buyer quickly once it goes on the market.

Life IS Short

Bad news in my career has made me a sad panda. So I ate tacos. I ate A LOT of tacos. Waiting for the hidden silver lining....

Throwing Sutures

As a Staff Sergeant, I don't do a lot of patient care anymore. That's entirely fine with me; I'm over it and ready to be past that. But, while I'm in Army schools like Advanced Leader Course (ALC) I have to go through a Medic portion of class. A lot of the stuff we are going over are 10 level tasks (to put that in perspective, I am 30 level). But, most of us in class don't put hands on patients any more so it's a good review.

 

I think the last time I did sutures was when I was a Specialist at Fort Lewis. My PA had me suture up some punches we had done while removing moles. So it's not like it was even doing cool sutures. I don't want to put an age on me, but lets just say I wasn't quite 25 when I did that.

 

Given a pig foot today, I was told to throw in some sutures. I was really worried I was going to be remedial and need a lot of help. But, as luck would have it, the skill came back to be pretty quickly. I surprised myself at doing a real life Medic thing!

 

Sutures

Staples

More skills to be tested and 2 more tests to take before I can check the box on this Army school. Only a week left of ALC!

Finally, I'm in ALC

Finally, I am in the Advanced Leader Course (ALC) at Fort Sam Houston.

7th Platoon GAMBLERS

 

The weather has been crazy. Either 20 or 70: sometimes in the same day. Gotta love San Antonio in the winter.

 

My platoon is full of some really cool peeps, but I'm so ready to be done with Phase II and move onto Phase III and get into the Medic training. Just a few more days!