LaurNe

Happy Halloween two

2008-10-31T06:24:00.000-07:00

Well as I promised I have some more Halloween pictures for you. I would like to thank the donators for all they have contributed it is always nice to get this kind of thing.

This last picture is my favorite one. He looks so happy in it. I showed the pictures to the other people and told them to smile more. They told me to let them hold the huge box of candy then they would smile more. :) Have a great Halloween.

its almost Halloween

2008-10-25T08:44:00.000-07:00

So we have been getting a lot of Halloween stuff from the donators, and in our section Julia and I end up decorating a lot of the time. So I got some pictures.

This plastic spider had a suction thing on it that actually did stick to our LT's head.

Alright I'm sorry, but right now I don't have any other pictures for you. The reason is the internet is going too slow to load any more. I will have some more for you guys later. Have a good one everyone!

New Favorite Scent

2008-10-18T06:48:00.000-07:00

So I just wanted to share that I have new favorite scent that you can find at bath and body works if you decide that you like it. It is called Black Amethyst. We got a little sample bottle of it from one of the donators, and I fell in love. I bought a container of the body butter, and I have been enjoying it. Hope everyone enjoys their Saturday!

New people

2008-10-12T03:00:00.000-07:00

Well today I am going to show some pictures of the new people that I get to work with. I hope you enjoy them.

Haven't you seen that face before? The answer is yes you have, its Julia! Now I get to work with her too.

Doesn't he look busy?

This is my NCOIC, Non-Commisssioned Officer In Charge. That just means he runs the enlisted. He isn't quite as goofy as he was trying to appear.

Norman

2008-10-11T08:09:00.001-07:00

Everybody I would like you to meet Norman. Isn't he about the cutest thing you have ever seen? Today we had the swap meet, and he was in a box from the donators. It was love at first site. As my mother and sister can attest, I love bears. That doesn't mean I want any more, I wouldn't want Norman to get jealous.

I am not a silly person, most of the time, but in the face of such cuteness I can't help myself.

He went to help wake Jen up before she went to work.

As you can see Norman is a ladies bear. He has really adapted to his new house very quickly. Apparently he is a people bear, and can get along with everyone. Regardless of the cramped living conditions and the high number of roomates. Well until tomorrow I hope everyones days goes as good as mine did.
I would like to say a special thanks to Trisha for the box that she sent us. We haven't been getting as much from our donators lately and your box really meant a lot. Thank you very much!

Update

2008-10-10T07:48:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone sorry it has been so long since I blogged, let me tell you why. It is actually for a combo of reasons, the most imposing of which is that our internet was down. The other is that I'm working a new section on a different shift, I think I talked about it a little. The change has thrown me off.
I have had a few people ask me about this new section, so I'll talk about it a little. It is the ER kind of. The Army calls it the EMT section. I think because there are a lot of EMT's working there. I get to see more patients for less time. I think I like it, the conversations with patients have more to do with there medical conditions and less to do with their personal lives. It keeps you from getting attached. Even though when I worked on the ward I got to have conversations with my patients that I enjoyed, and I still see some of them sometimes and they always stop to talk to me. It is easier to not remember all the patients.
Anyway, I am thinking about staying in this new section. I get along with everyone and it seems easier to work on days. We will see, I still have almost a month to decide.
I'm really sorry it has been so long since I came on to talk to everyone, but now that the internet is back up I promise to blog more. I will be getting around to catch up on all the blogs I missed too. Thanks everyone for reading.

sand/thunderstorm

2008-09-20T03:19:00.000-07:00

Well I had a day off the other day and I witnessed my first thunderstorm in Iraq. Now I know right now back in the states that isn't a odd thing to see. In fact maybe its a little odd to have a perfectly cloudless and sunny day. But let me tell you, here any kind of rain is amazing, let alone a thunderstorm. So I got a few video's of it I hope you enjoy them. In the first video you can see the dark blotch on the horizon, that isn't dark clouds, that is the sand coming. Because of course we can't have any kind of storm without sand being involved. The second video right after the rain passed and all we had was sand. It was orange out for a few days, just about the same color as a basketball.
I hope you enjoy my video's!

I got an award

2008-09-19T10:18:00.000-07:00

I received this award the other day from my sister. She must like me or something. :)

These awards are nice to receive! She is my favorite sister. Before you start feeling badly for my other siblings she is my only sister. If I did have other sisters I bet she would still be the favorite.
As far as the awards go I think I will save them for when someone has a particularly good blog. Also I would like to apologize for not blogging as much lately. I switched departments at the hospital lately and I'm all out of wack. Thanks for continuing to read!

Dinty Moore Beef Stew

2008-09-18T03:32:00.000-07:00

Well about a week ago I got a package from my hubby. He sent me some things that I asked for plus some special things he thought I would like. Among those things was a six pack of Dinty Moore Beef Stew. I know that a lot of people don't consider this to be a delicacy but rather more like dog food (Steve). It is one of my favorite things even when I'm not here. Only at home I like to make it on the stove top and put some red wine in it. I'm not allowed to have wine here...sob.
Anyway when Steve sent me this box I don't think he realized how happy it was going to make everyone.

Doesn't Julia look happy. She said she usually can only eat half a can, but that she couldn't stop because it was so good.

I know I look like pure evil in this picture, but my eyes always turn red it pictures.

Jani had hers with a sandwich, she always knows how to make everything better.

These are some of the guys that work in the EMT, they were also excited about getting some Dinty Moore Beef Stew.

Thanks again babe from the whole gang!

males in pink wig

2008-09-13T10:02:00.000-07:00

Well I had a request for some of the guys in the pink wig. Unfortunatly none of the guys that you are used to seeing were there the night I got the opportunity to take some pictures with the wig. So you are going to see some new faces. I hope you enjoy them.

So I'm really sorry I haven't been able to blog lately. Changing shifts put a kink in my routine. Anyway I have one for a lot of days week. I'm sorry its been so long. Hope everyone has had a good week. :)

Is that ravioli?

2008-09-11T03:00:00.000-07:00

Well the other day I was talking to Steve on the internet and he sent me a picture I have been hoping to get for quite some time. You see its a picture of something you just don't see every day.

Yeah I know that looks like an ordinary can of ravioli. But if you want to take a look at this other picture I have you will see a different story.

This is maybe the largest can of ravioli I have ever seen. The boys found it at the grocery store. Of course they buy a lot of canned things because I'm not around to cook any more. So Steve saw this can and had to have it, so they own the largest can of ravioli ever now. Steve says they can't quite bring themselves to eat it, it has become like a family pet now. And no they haven't come up with a name for it yet. :)

Don't leave your camera laying around!

2008-09-10T05:00:00.000-07:00

Ok I'll admit that occasionally I do snap a silly picture and just to prove my point here are a few that I took.

Yes that is metamucil. He likes it. He is only 22.

Why can't these two have their picture taken without posing?

The following pictures are ones that I didn't take. I'm sure you really didn't need me to tell you.

That should teach him, take a picture of your open mouth it is going to end up on my blog.

Why do I need a picture of your ear?

Glove on the head, certainly not the first time it was done. But it is the first time I didn't even know the picture of it was there until I downloaded my pictures.
Alright that is all I had for today, I'm sure it was enough.

One who is missing

2008-09-09T05:00:00.001-07:00

Today I feel compelled to mention one of my co-workers that had the day off when we took the family portrait picture. Gustavo, need any more be said. If you remember from one of my other blogs, he was the one with the mustache.
Well I am not only going to mention him, but I also have a story about him. It has been his habit to claim that he doesn't know how the make things, so that I will come and do it for him. The other night I told him that he was going to have to figure it out for himself. He had a mini microwave cake thing. I told him to put in enough water to make it look like raw brownies and cook it until it looked like cake. This is the result.

I know what your thinking. Stupid Lauren you should have helped him, now he has blown up some perfectly good chocolate. Well I happen to know that this is just a ploy so that I will help him next time. And that he has used something that I have a soft spot for to make me feel bad, that would be the chocolate. How do I know this, and how can I prove it? With a picture.

Does anyone look that happy when they have just blown up chocolate? Not unless they had some other motivation for doing so. Well I'm here to say that it isn't going to work mr. Gustavo, your trick won't work. And next time your going to just have to read the directions instead of throwing them away!
Just in case this all seemed too serious for anyone, I'm just kidding. About everything except helping in with microwavable things. Have a great day! :)

Family portrait

2008-09-08T02:00:00.000-07:00

Well a few days ago we were having a little fun at work, and we decided to take a picture of all of us that were at work, that weren't taking the picture.
The first one is a serious picture.

Then we did one fun picture. Actually we did a lot of fun pictures.

In this one we are doing biggest to smallest.

Then we tried to reverse it without success.

I hope you enjoy my pictures!

Sunday

2008-09-06T07:57:00.000-07:00

Well I don't have much to share today I think I'm just going to share some of my sky watches that didn't make it.

I like how it was just floating out there all alone.

Picture of the sun, just as I was getting off work. It was already really hot.

Sunset on the way into work. The only reason this one didn't make it is because I have done a lot of sunset pictures. :)
I hope you all have a great Sunday.

Great flood

2008-09-06T05:00:00.000-07:00

Why does he look like that you ask. Well the truth is I think he just didn't know I was going to take his picture right then. But I like to think its because he is in dismay over our bathroom being flooded.
This...problem happened the same night as the luau. I had just gotten back and another group of people from our section had gone when it happened. One of the patients, who happened to be Iraqi, came out of the bathroom in somewhat of a tizzy, but I couldn't find out why because he didn't speak english. So I went in there and water was shooting out of the back part of the toilet. Maybe shooting isn't the right word, maybe gushing is better. Anyway, I don't know anything about toilets or their repair, so I went up to the desk and got this fellow in the picture to come and fix it for me. He turned off the water and the water stopped gushing/shooting out from behind the toilet. Of course at that time we were faced with a new and interesting problem. The clean up.

You may notice that in this picture the floor looks shiny. Let me let you in on a little secret we don't wax, that is water. The whole bathroom was flooded before he was able to stop the water.

This is the mop bucket when we started. You may notice the floor doesn't look flooded I took this picture before we went in the bathroom.

This is the mop bucket when we were finished.

Sky watch friday

2008-09-04T05:00:00.001-07:00

Well this week, for my Sky Watch picture, I have a picture of the night sky its very nice. The sliver of moon means that we have started Ramadan, which is a Middle Eastern holiday. Hope you enjoy.

Hula

2008-09-04T05:00:00.000-07:00

Well in our company we have a very good recreation person. She spends a lot of time organizing things that are fun, and getting us lots of food that we wouldn't normally get and so on. Well the most recent event that we had was a luau. I went for a little while, but I didn't have my camera with me. So when we were all back we got some pictures in our luau wear.

I never do get a very good picture of this lady, but she is one of the night RN's. She is a very nice lady with a wonderful sense of humor.

Here is Kim again, she really went all out.

And lastly this is a picture of another one of the night nurses who is a hoot, and Micheal. This is our night NCO, the man who leads us, and he is wearing a skirt!

Football season

2008-09-02T05:00:00.000-07:00

All of my friends and family know that I am not a huge football fan. And by "huge football fan" I mean that just about the only time I will watch football is when I'm actually at a game. And when I am at that game I will route for the appropriate team. That team being the county high school team, college football team, where I live or that state. You tell me that football is playing on tv and I can't even force a pretend excitement. Around here for one reaason or another there is a lot of excitement about football. The other day one of my roomates, with the assistance of some of the other day staff, put up a football corner in the back part of our ward.

What you can't see in this picture is the tv off to the right, and rocking chair. This is going to encourage a patient/nurse/medic togetherness on our ward I am sure. Also this may help to bridge the small gap between the different armed forces. A problem that may not have occured to some of my companions, is that sometimes, concerning football, there is a rivalry that can get kind of dirty. We will see what really happens in the coming months that are referred to as football season.

A weight test

2008-09-01T05:00:00.000-07:00

So at the same time as the wig pictures, we decided to test out a theory had by one of our nurses. This is him.

The theory was that if someone got in the pushup position on a scale with their hands on the scale.

Checked the weight, and then got on the scale in the push up position with their feet on the scale.

That it would equal their total weight.

Well this is what we do with our breaks at work, can you believe it? The weight test was only off by about 10 pounds. I actually credit the "wig" with the data anomaly.

Sunday again

2008-08-31T05:00:00.000-07:00

Well this week I was reading through my Bible and this passage just jumped out to me, it seems like that has been happening a lot lately.

2 Corinthians 2:12-13

12 We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words.

I got to speak to a friend some more about the faith the other night, and we had a few disagreements as will happen. I just wanted to share with you one passage and thank the Lord for the clarity that only He can bring. I hope all of you have a lovely day.

Is that a wig?

2008-08-30T05:00:00.000-07:00

One of our friends came over from ICU, Intensive Care Unit, the other night. I saw her and I decided we needed to get some pictures of that. You see her here with Kim, her name is Melissa. This hair piece made quite a stir.

Then Kim had to try it on.

Then I had to try it on.

So that was part of our evening I will share the rest later. :)

Sky watch friday

2008-08-28T23:27:00.000-07:00

I stepped out of my living area one day to go to work and there it was over the top of our cement walls! Hope you enjoy it.

Have a great Sky Watch Friday!

Lunar eclipse

2008-08-25T05:00:00.000-07:00

As you guys may or maynot know we had a Lunar eclipse about a week ago. We were all leaving midnight chow, when we noticed it. Very cool, it was quite clear that night so we could see it very well. We were all standing there looking up at it when Kim asked me take some pictures. I got out my camera and gave it my best shot, unfortunatly this sort of picture was beyond my little camera.

So when Kim looked at the pictures, she said I was doing it wrong, and took the camera. She changed the settings around a little and took another picture. This is how it came out.

Well we can't all be good at photography, but me and Kim are good at lots of other things.

Gods gift to me

2008-08-24T05:00:00.000-07:00

You know how they say "that guy thinks he's Gods gift to women"? Well I know Steve is Gods gift to me. I say it all the time, even when he is making me mad, there is no man on earth that fits me so well as he does. So today even though its the day after his B-day I just wanted to say that to everyone and wish him a happy birthday. The reason I wanted this to be on my sunday post is because I would also like to thank God for this wonderful man.

Happy Birthday baby!

Pancake Breakfast

2008-08-23T05:00:00.000-07:00

Well it is starting to be a tradition for night shift, all the sections, to get together for the pancake breakfast every sunday morning. For me since I'm on nights this is the end of shift on saturday, even though its sunday morning. The dining facility (defac for short) will make strawberry, blueberry or plain pancakes and they are wonderful. There is always a long line but its worth it, the military usually does a pretty good breakfast.
So we all go through the line and then sit down and talk about our shift, sometimes complain about the patients. We talk about who is going home on leave and look forward to the time when we all get to go home. Its really fun, I wanted to share some pictures I took of the last one.

See look even some of the more important people came out to join in.
I'm glad I got to share our sunday morning with all of you.

Sky watch friday

2008-08-21T12:30:00.000-07:00

Well its been another week, and I'm glad to say they are going by quickly. Today I would like to show a picture for my Sky Watch that has clouds. And as you may or may not know clouds aren't something we get to see a lot of around here.

Hope you enjoy!

Can't really tell

2008-08-20T19:08:00.000-07:00

Today I was hoping for the help of one and all of my loyal readers. The other day we had a visit from a very important guest on our ward.

The special guest is the one on the right. Of course the other person in that picture is special too, just in a whole other way. This little super hero came in the other day to wish all of our patients well, and bring a little joy to their hearts. My dillema is I think I might recognize this super hero. You tell me if you think I'm right.

This soldiers name is Tabitha, and she is one of my friends. Very nice young woman, but is she super? I haven't ever identified a super hero, do you get some kind of reward for that kind of thing?

Its Sunday

2008-08-17T05:00:00.000-07:00

For awhile now I haven't worked on my relationship with God much. It was an area of my life I was and am occasionally ashamed of. Don't get me wrong I have never been ashamed of God, I have been ashamed of myself, for not spending more time with God. I have only recently realized that there are always going to be area's of my life that I am ashamed of, but that they should all include God somehow. That only through Him do I have any hope at all. My hope is in the Lord.
Lately I have been talking a lot with a friend at work about Christianity. This friend has encouraged me to delve into my Bible, and I have been reading it a lot more lately. I'm not really sure if its the circumstances or having a Christian friend, I guess it doesn't matter, as long as I'm doing it. Well I was reading through recently and I found a passage that means a lot to me, and I wanted to share it. Its Romans 5:20-21;
1 The law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, 2 so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through reghteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
I was brought to that passage through my studies, those ones stood out to me, but that whole chapter of Romans is worth a gander. I hope you all have a great sunday, thanks for reading.

Silly soldiers

2008-08-16T05:00:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures of what may appear to be a normal CHU. But what really lurks beneath the surface? Is it really a man eating hole? So let me explain my paranoia. The other day we had a commanders call, and the commander told us that we should be careful if our doors are sticking. He said sometimes a sticking door can lead to you getting locked inside. So what exactly inspired him to let us know this? It could be, I'm not mentioning any names, that one of our soldiers got locked inside his CHU. And even though he beat on the door and called for assistance no one came to his aid until they noticed he was late for work. When we were in the commanders call one of my favorite officers asked in earnest, "doesn't your CHU have a window?" Which to my way of thinking was a very smart question.

But before you get the wrong idea, that I am picking on this soldier, let me share a little further. You may have noticed in the first picture that we have a lovely door handle there. well the reason it is so lovely is because its new, just installed yesterday. Why you ask? Well it may be because our door was indeed getting just a wee bit sticky. Occasionally it took a number of trys to escape from our chu. So I am just pointing out that if not for this one person getting stuck in his CHU we could be stuck in right now until morning.

DEFINITIONS:
CHU: Living area for soldiers in Iraq
Commander's call: When the commander schedules a meeting with his unit so he can give all all the latest stuff from higher up. Tell us what we did wrong and what we did right.

Sky Watch friday, with clouds!

2008-08-14T15:46:00.000-07:00

Well this week I have an up to date picture of our sky here. Are you ready for this? We had clouds that day. I snapped the picture on the way to work. As some of you know I am now never without my camera.

Hope you enjoy my Sky Watch picture this week one and all. Have a great weekend.

What is it with army medics?

2008-08-10T08:00:00.000-07:00

Today I pose the question, why do Army medics always want to practice IVs on each other? I have to admit I am driven to practice on people who thought they were my friends. Is this some kind of Army phenomena? If so, what causes it? While I don't want to get carried away and I don't want any of my loyal readers to either, I think it's just to get better. This experience is my first in any kind of intensive care unit/ward. In the places I have worked before when I gave people Vi's or drew their blood it was always from the easiest vein I could find. Now I am starting to realize easiest isn't always best. If we are going to have someone with us for awhile its best to put the IV somewhere other than in the crook of their arm. You see, we have these machines you hook the IV bag up to that pump the liquid into the person at a certain speed. When a person has the IV in the crook of their arm and they bend their arm it stops the flow of fluids through that vein, and causes the machine to start beeping and it doesn't stop till someone comes to turn it off. I have had dreams about this beeping; more like nightmares! So I find the best place to put an IV is somewhere between wrist and elbow, not always an easy place. Some people have tons of veins in that area others don't have any that show.

Here we have an unsuspecting patient. Well that isn't true - he is neither unsuspecting nor a patient, but you know what I mean. He has lovely veins right there at the crook of his arm and they are so temping! But I went for one a little lower down where I wouldn't be disturbed by having to go and shut off his pump every five minutes.

So, here I am picking one of the harder veins, while of course being guided by the patient, because no medic can resist giving advice on how to stick a needle into people. Why is he wearing a head lamp you ask? We turn all the lights off so the patients can sleep - isn't that nice? So I was doing this by flashlight. I did get a successful IV on him and he got 1000 ml of fluid, so he was well hydrated. I have no pictures of me sticking a needle into him for two reasons; 1. I don't want anyone to know that I was abusing an NCO. 2. I made the officer that was taking pictures stop so I wouldn't get nervous.
So who else does IVs that works in medical in the Army? The question really is who doesn't? These days everyone that works in a hospital is expected to know how to do basic life support. That includes IVs. So while we were still in Texas I gave a little class to one of our supply guys and he managed a successful stick on one of the other guys that works in our ward.

So what is all that red stuff on his arm? Well that isn't important, what is important is that he got an IV successfully. It is also nice to know that even supply people can have the disease of wanting to stick needles into people. I think maybe some of you are wondering why wasn't I the one getting an IV in the third picture. Well to be honest some people question the existence of my veins. I will let anyone try since I have almost no nerves left in those areas, but it is often unsuccessful. I should explain to that when we are in school learning how to do all these things, we learn on each other I have quite a few scars, and no nerves. Well I hope everyone enjoys this post, and the special insight into life as a medic.

Sky watch friday

2008-08-07T18:20:00.000-07:00

Well this week for my sky watch I cheated and I am taking an old photo from when we were in Texas. Hope you like it.

It seems like no matter where our unit has gone bad weather has followed. This is right before a tornado sighting, then we all went and stood in the bathroom near the showers till the alarm stopped going off. I still thought the picture was a beauty, I hope you all like it.

Well today....

2008-08-07T15:35:00.000-07:00

Today I really don't have much to offer in the way of interesting things you don't already know about. So instead I have decided to just post a bunch of pictures! I don't have many right now, well thats a lie I probably have hundreds of pictures. I just don't know if they would all be very interesting. So here we go I will put up a few then we can talk a little more.

That is me and Kim at work, as you can see we were really busy that night. I think that night we had 2 patients, which is the least we have had since we have been here. We spent about 8-9 hours that night cleaning the floors and various other things on the ward. We had fun, and we were in a picture taking mood at that time.

This is Jen modeling our balacava which is army ear and cheek warmers. I have no idea if I spelled that right, sorry if I didn't. She looks a little silly in this one but we were in a silly mood.

As you can tell from the back ground and the green things this is when we were still in Texas. I was just browsing through my photo's and noticed that this is a particularly good one of both of them.
I am sure that most people fall in some kind of schedule where ever they are, I think I have found one. The only thing is here I think its best if I try and do some different things more often, to keep things interesting. I am sorry I didn't have anything really fresh or funny to write about today, I forgot to take pictures this week. I do have some idea's for other blogs though so stay tuned.

Sky Watch friday

2008-07-31T19:31:00.000-07:00

Well today,for my sky watch, I have proof that most of the time there isn't much in the sky here.

With this one if you look very carefully you can see a little bit of cloud way up there. If your looking at the horizon thinking oh there it is, your looking at the wrong thing that is actually sand that has been blowing all night. and for part of yesterday. I have one other one that is a pretty good picture.

This last one shows the difference a few seconds can make to a sun rise. I like it much better than the first. By the way I just wanted to also share that sunrise seems to happen quite a bit earlier here than anywhere I have ever been in my life. The first rays of light start to show over the horizon at about 4 am.

A new highlight

2008-07-31T17:16:00.000-07:00

Well for the past few weeks I have wanted to try something new with my hair. You see at home I go about once a month and get a pedicure, and that is my beauty for that month. It’s not much but it does keep me feeling good. Well here they don’t have that kind of thing, but they do have some very nice Iraqi men who can do hair. I went in this morning looking for something new, I don’t want a hair cut because then I might not be able to put it up as well. Hmmmm…. I think I might go for highlights! So I did, I told him what I wanted through an interpreter and he did the highlights. I wish I had a picture of the in between, but I don’t. But anyway the highlights were terrible, at first. He saw the look of dismay when he unveiled the hair, and I really felt like I was going to throw up. You see I thought the highlighting resembled a skunk or maybe a zebra. Well he put in a reducer, and they came out just right, not too much lighter than my real hair, but to me it looks like it’s a little lighter all over.

Well that is the finished product I think it looks nicely understated. It’s a little hard to see in this picture. Anyway the man that was doing my hair was so nice, because as you can see I am not lacking in the hair department, so he had to spend a lot of time. Then I had a little freak out at the unveiling, he soothed me and said he could fix it, and it turned out really nice. When he was in the middle of painting on the reducer, I was thinking well I can just have mom send me a few boxes of like coloring and I will have my roommate Jani dye it for me and this whole thing will be cleared up. Then he fixed it and I was so happy that I didn’t have to look like a skunk for month.

See look what a happy camper I am! I know it seems a little frivolous, but I need to have something to do on my off days than sit here on the computer all day. It was record hot today, but it was still fun to go over and get my hair done. Julia went with me and got a hair cut, that took about 15 minutes. Mine took about 2 hours, so kudos to her for being patient and waiting for me. Thanks Julia.

My first sky watch

2008-07-24T19:39:00.000-07:00

I have been reading on some other people's blogs how they do Skywatch Friday, and I always thought there isn't ever anything interesting in my sky. We don't even have any clouds here. Well, I was looking through my pictures and I realized I was right - I don't have any good sky pictures. Then I remembered sometimes we do have some pretty cool things in our sky, but all I have is video. Hope everyone enjoys my little video of the medevac taking off after they dropped off a patient for us. talk to you all soon.

The other night

2008-07-23T16:55:00.000-07:00

The other night at work, much fun was had by all. It was the one night during the week when almost everyone works and we had a good time. This little video is of the fun that we were having it just so happens that in the video we are enjoying one of the bags of pop corn mom sent us. Hope you like it.

Julia's present from home

2008-07-20T20:44:00.000-07:00

Well the other day Julia received and opened, at work, a box from home. Inside this box there was a certain item that she decided to take several pictures of. See if you can identify said item.

Don't let any pointing give it away try and find it for yourself.

See look even 1st Sergeant joined in.

Also today I have a sky watch photo, I know it isn't the right day, but what do I have to lose. Mine is of the night sky because there really isn't much to look at during the day.

And no people, that isn't a street light its the moon. I hope you enjoy, see you all again in a few days.

Goodies from mommy

2008-07-17T15:55:00.000-07:00

Well today I got another package from my mother and I thought I would share the things that were in it. It seems like every time something happens to me now I want to blog about it. It may be because not much out of the ordinary happens to me, or it might be me trying to make something of my life here. :) Sometimes it gets a little boring and monotonous. So anyway today my life was made good by a gift from home. Specifically from my mother. Here are some of the things she sent.

That is at least one of everything that she sent. She must really love me! And my co-workers, because they are going to get a lot of this stuff. There is one item you notice here that is one of my favorites, but if you look at the picture you may notice something is terribly wrong.

Like some kind of nuclear radiation hit them, or maybe the mail was tampered with by terrorists! I don't really think it was anything quite as dramatic as all that, but they are quite amusing. And even though they look just a little bit different they still taste the same, although, they don't eat the same.

Another week

2008-07-13T00:26:00.000-07:00

Hey guys I have a bunch of pictures for you today from the swap meet. I wanted all of you to see what good use your things are going to. And for any of you that don't know we have one very special donator in the states called Operation Toasty Toes. These wonderful women make different things out of yarn and then send them to us for the patients and for the soldiers/marines. The last shipment we got of them were great and everyone loved them so much, that I took a lot of pictures of people with their slippers. Hope you guys enjoy the pictures. Have a great day!

Also this week we had a little bit of excitment Gary Sinise came to visit us, and he talked to our wounded and gave them some goodies! Here is one picture of me and Kim with him. I had to black out the patients face, because we aren't allowed to show it.

pictures from work

2008-07-09T20:07:00.000-07:00

Ok today I would like to apologize about missing several days. As you may have seen on the news we have been busy for the last few days, and I was tired. But now that is over and I have time to write about stuff again. The other night at work I decided to take some pictures of my wacky co-workers. That is mainly what I am going to put up today. I wanted to talk a little about the drinking water here and how it works. Every so often a man comes with a huge fork lift carrying a large pallet of about 300-400, 1 liter water bottles. Then as we need them we bring them into our living area and the hospital, clean them off and use them for drinking, cooking and patient care. Well this can be a time consuming effort, but not when you work as a team, its a good thing we all went to basic training so they could teach us that. :)

That is all of us working together to get the water clean, and look how pristine the water looks when we are done.
Alright these next ones are of the only other enlisted female working nights. These are her before and after shots, the second one I told her to smile.

This one is of my NCO's on nights. One of them said, quick get a picture that looks like I'm working. As you may notice that suggests maybe he wasn't. I'll let you figure it out from the way the picture looks. :)

Alright this last one is a picture of one of our officers, and also a perfect example of why you shouldn't leave your camera laying around.

It's the 4th

2008-07-04T03:22:00.000-07:00

Happy 4th of July everyone!!

Have a beer or three for me. Also have some steak and chocolate and fresh veggies and pot roast and fire works and so on and so forth. Have a great night!

New sand storm!

2008-07-03T02:51:00.000-07:00

I thought the storm in Kuwait was bad! I have never seen anything like this!

Now I will be the first to admit our over all situation in this part of the world is very good compared to how some others have it. But this storm really dampened my spirits! The sand is still every where from it, and we had to spend a lot of extra time cleaning the hospital after it had passed through. And to add injury to insult my allergies were really bad during it! Ok I'm done with the complaining. Here is a picture of what it normally looks like at about the same angle and the same time of day.

However not all is bad with the world, here is one of Julia crawling under her bed to clean it out. She stayed under there for quite awhile so I decided to take her picture. At one point an arm reached out and tried to grab my leg, but not to fear I jumped away in time.

Also I noticed, while I was reading through some of your blogs, that some of you are planning on sending some stuff to us. I wanted to let you know in advance that we really appreciate anything that you are able to send. The list that mom has up on her site is a very good list, that I helped make. The only thing I can think of that we really need that may not be there is shaving cream, and mens deoderant. Thanks again.

Swap Meet

2008-06-30T00:22:00.000-07:00

Alright, today I have some picutes from our swap meet. Some of you may know that I am one of the points of contact for the donations to this installation. We accept the donations from the wonderful people that send them, and then we make sure they get to those that need them. We have a swap meet every other week, where we give out shampoo, conditioner, soap, and other little odds and ends. Then we also send some boxes of things out to guys that are outside the wire that can't come in for our swap meet. About a week ago my mother put a blog out about our little donations thing, and how we can always use more things for it. I just wanted to put out some pictures so that you could see some of the things getting used.

Sorry that one is a little dark.

I just wanted to let you guys know that we have also sent out three boxes of things to the guys that are outside the wire. To us they always get first priority, because they don't have a px. We have one is just isn't the best. :) All of the things that are sent are much appreciated by one and all. Thank you very much.

I got an award!

2008-06-29T15:44:00.000-07:00

And Shay's Mom awarded me this:

I have never been awarded before so this is very special to me thanks Shay's mom.

I've been tagged

2008-06-27T00:54:00.000-07:00

This is so exciting -I have been tagged! Tonjia has tagged me. I am going to be honest- I don’t know how to use a lot of the special features of blogger, so my mother is probably going to have to help me. Anyway let me think of 7 strange things about me…

7. I have very loud fingernails. Let me explain; I have very strong fingernails they don’t really break much, so when I clip them they make a loud sound. It drives Steve crazy. Also, because it drives Steve crazy, I am not allowed to clip them in the car or any other enclosed place he is in, such as the bathroom.

6. As some of you may know my regular job isn’t the army as I am a reservist. So I go away every month to drill, which is about 2 hours from where we live. I have a friend that I share a hotel with, and so I pack a lot. I have refined my packing to the point that I keep a whole separate bag of toiletries that I bring with me every month. Right now at home I have soap, shampoo and conditioner, and a poofy loofa in the shower waiting for me to come home.

5. I like to make up new things to cook. Perhaps many people do this, but when I make dinner I cannot follow a recipe, I have to add my own special touches, and I never make anything the exact same way twice. I often get some kind of meat out of the freezer in the morning with no clue what I am actually going to make for dinner, just something with this kind of meat.

4. My initials are in alphabetical order. LMN

3. I never press the snooze button on the alarm clock. I think when you set an alarm to wake you up, you should just get up when it goes off instead of setting it earlier and cheating yourself out of 20-30 minutes of sleep by pushing the snooze repeatedly. When we got married I had to break Steve of it, because I am also not going to let someone else cheat me out of sleep. :)

2. I take about the shortest showers of any female I know, and also shorter than many of the men I know. I don’t see why people should spend a lot of time in there, just get in clean yourself and get out so you can get on with your life. Ha ha

1. And the number one most odd thing about me… drum roll please. Let me just give one example of this strangeness: deluxe nuts. Let me explain. When I by a can of mixed nuts I can’t just reach in there and get a handful of them and eat them like a normal person. Nope, first I look in there and see which kind of nut there are the most of then I carefully eat those first. So say there are a lot of peanuts in there then almonds, then walnuts, then cashews and so on. I have to eat them in that order, saving the ones that there were the least of to begin with for last, because those must be the best. I know I am a weirdo.

I am tagging:
Ellyn
Weezee
My Mom
The Dong
Trisha
Ness
Let me know when you post yours so I can come and see! I hope everyone has a great day.

Some stuff from work

2008-06-23T05:55:00.000-07:00

Today I decided to show some of the people that I work with. As you may notice in one of the pictures you see Jani. She is one of my roommates and she also works in the same section. We work opposite shifts, though, she works days and I work nights, and we hang out on our days off.

You may notice that in each of the pictures I have here there is the same little fellow. Well the truth of the matter is that on one particular night a week this poor guy has to hang out with the girls, because all the other enlisted guys are off. We think of various, some might say, mean things to do to him. One of them the other night was the mustache. The other night I was flipping through a magazine and I found a fake mustache that I decided would look great on him. By the way his name is Gustavo. One of the day nurses thought it made him look like Luigi from the Mario brothers game. You are thinking you cut a fake mustache out of a magazine? Yes that is right, it was in a beer ad it said adopt a new look or something like that, and the magazine enclosed a fake mustache in a little plastic bag. That was a real find let me tell ya. We asked him politely to put it on, and he did because he knew we weren’t really asking. He was a really good sport about it and he wore it until shift change in the morning. The girl in the picture with him is my partner in crime Kim.

At that time it was pointed out that this particular mustache didn’t meet army standards. The regulation on mustaches says that it can’t go past the corners of your mouth, or be faddish. So I cut off the corners of the mustache so that it would fit the reg’s and he was afraid I was going to cut him, imagine that. So untrusting. This last picture shows him with one of the other guys that work’s days, who was just a little bit too slow to save him, his name is David.

By the way normally at work I don’t call any of these people by their first name, it’s just for their confidentiality. I don’t want anyone reading this to think the army is going soft. :)

A brave new look

2008-06-20T03:05:00.000-07:00

I think today I may take a more serious turn. Since we got here and I have been working in the hospital, I see all the good that the US Military is doing in this part of the world. Several of the patients that I have helped care for surely would have died if we hadn’t been here to give them the quality care that they would have been missing with a civilian hospital. I, for one, have questioned some of the actions taken by our government in recent years. But now that I am here and see how some of the people have to live, I am reminded to be thankful for what I have back home. It is easy to pass down judgment when you aren’t in the driver’s seat, but maybe it would help us all to remember that running the show isn’t always the easiest job. I am proud to be here, and proud to be able to help these people that need it so badly. I look into the faces of some of the injured and realize they are counting on me and that without that little bit of help all hope may be lost for them. I like to remember sometimes when I am getting down about being over here, that when I get home I will still have the greatest gift my country can give me, freedom. And that even though I am here right now, that freedom, and everything else that I love will be waiting for me when I get home. I also remember that even though I may not go home, that the freedom of others was protected, and the health of others, I wouldn’t trade that for anything.

before and after

2008-06-19T03:24:00.001-07:00

In this particular place in the army we don't have to wash our own clothes. That’s right we get our things laundered for us by the civilians here. We turn it in one day and by the next day we get our things back freshly washed. You may think, well that is nice you never have to do your own laundry, it’s like having a maid. I am here to tell you, not really. I would rather do my own laundry for a number of reasons, the first being; when I do my laundry I always get back the exact same underwear and socks that I put in there. The second reason being; I know how to separate colors.

These two pairs used to be white in the not so distant past. Now, sadly, one is and off green. This is what happens when you put white undies and new green socks in the laundry together. In fact in this picture it really doesn't even show the stark difference in color. It’s like the difference between day and night, men and women, white and off green. Thanks to Julia for the supply of the before and after garments.

bored soldiers two

2008-06-12T22:52:00.000-07:00

Well I know we have talked about how soldiers get bored sometimes. Well we had one of those last night. Julia came in last night while we were sitting around watching tv, and told us that we had to come outside and see this. Apparently one of our friends bought a bike from someone that is slightly unique.

I may have mentioned once before that we have to walk a lot here to get anywhere. So a bike is something that everyone is looking to buy. A lot people in the unit that was here before us had bikes that they wanted to sell, some of those bikes were obviously a little different.

The red circle indicates that there is no magazine in the weapon. While this particular vehicle isn't the most combat ready, it is one of the most amusing. Maybe we could put some armor on it or something. Well as far as its transportation capacities go, I think I might ask for a ride to work tonight. :)

back tracking

2008-06-12T02:13:00.000-07:00

Alright I would like to start off by saying that I am sorry that I haven't been able to do as much blogging as I had been doing there for awhile. We have a lot of patients right now on our ward and when I get home I am a little sleepy. The patients mostly aren't wounded its stuff like appendix.
Anyway today I would like to go back a little bit to some of the blogs that I did while we were still in Kuwait. You remember I was talking about how when the units came through they painted something to represent their unit on one of the cement walls? Well we did one too, and one of my friends got a really good picture of it.

We have some very good artists in our unit, I think they did a really good job. Do you see the knight thing? Its supposed to represent a Caduceus, since we are a medical unit. The flag in the background really looks like its waving, to me. Then it has the little flags on both sides, those represent our different companies, since we went to different places. And then those little banner things had the 1st sargeant and commander on them, but I blacked them out because I didn't want to broadcast their names all over the internet. I thought they did a really good job with the whole thing, I am proud that all the other units going through there are going to see it. Hope you enjoy.

Some missing pieces

2008-06-09T04:07:00.000-07:00

Well today I have little to nothing to say, and I felt guilty about not posting any pictures the other day so here you go.

This, as you can see, is a picture of me standing by a huge wall. Isn't that fun? I mean not everyone gets to have a huge wall in their back yard, so I wanted to get a picture of it to commemorate its presence. No seriously I took a picture of this wall with me in it so that it could be understood how tall it is. This wall goes all the way around where we live, its our security blanket.

Now it’s a little hard to see in the picture, but that build up right there behind the buildings is the outer wall. It’s an interesting thing, there is a little road up on top of it that you see people driving over sometimes. It seems close, but its actually far away. This is our protection, that and several thousand marines driving around out there.
Alright the last picture I have here is of Jani one of my roommates, and one of my friends. I have put pictures of her in before, but I never said who she was. Jani is just awesome and she has been keeping watch over all the rest of us, to make sure we stay out of trouble. So I will leave you with this picture of her and I hope you like it.

A ticket in Iraq

2008-06-07T12:25:00.000-07:00

Well I'm sorry, but today I don't have any pictures. I would, however, like to share with you a few things that have happened in the last few days. First I would like to talk about where I live, it kind of looks like a huge trailer park, with all the trailers connected. The rooms are in groups of ten and they are labeled by letter for each group, so F1-f10. I live in the B's and the F's are the closest ones to the hospital, so every morning the trudge home seems endless. Well the other morning I was walking home and I was about next to the D's, and of course I look up at the doors all the time to see how much further I have to go. Well I was tired because it was after my 12 hour shift, and I started to think about the alphabet backwards. I realized that it would take me a long time to say the alphabet backwards out loud, because in my head I would be thinking it forward to the next letter and so on all the way down the alphabet. Well you know how cops always do the feild sobriety tests? I was thinking if they have me stand on one foot and saying the alphabet backwards I am going to be in big trouble because I have very little balance as well. So even though I would never drive while intoxicated, because I think its stupid and reckless, I would probably get dragged in for failing the field sobriety test.
Now I told you that little mind wandering story to tell you this one. We were headed toward chow last night and here on this installation we have rule that after dark we have to wear a reflective belt. Well some of the people that were with us had forgotten theirs and we got pulled over by a marine on foot! Yes we were talking about it later and were wondering what they would have done if we had run. Do you think they carry a little siren with them to run people down with? I will tell you what they did have, they had a little blinking light, just like a real cop with his flashing light. :)

flushing toilets

2008-06-04T07:02:00.000-07:00

So as you may remember in previous posts I did talk about the novelty of flushing toilets and how wonderful they are. And even though these particular toilets don't flush the same as our toilets back home I am still happy with them.

I'm sure just about everyone reading this has used a porta-a-potty at least once in their life, but for the army it is a way of life. In almost every situation you can find one of these plastic toilet boxes. We all had our fingers crossed when we showed up here hoping for a flushing toilet, its not much, but it is something to hope for.

Now we also got some showers, not the best showers in the world, but it is better than bird bathing for a whole year. Something that is a little bit annoying about our daily self cleaning situation, it that we aren't allowed to brush our teeth with the water. The water is what the army likes to call non-potable, which means non drinkable, or that you might get sick if you swallow it. So we get to brush our teeth with a water bottle. You may think, "hey you can't rinse your tooth brush out right with a water bottle". And if you did think that you would be right. Well anyway as far as our living conditions we really lucked out, the barracks are good and we have flushing toilets and showers. What more can person ask for?

new front back

2008-06-03T06:52:00.000-07:00

Well I finally got around to getting some new pictures of my front and back today, I hope you enjoy them.

You many notice the very tall walls that are all around us, aren't they nice. I was talking with my mother and she said that she usually waits until the middle of the month to post her front/back pictures. I said that I probably would only post them once because my view is never going to change. I guess the desert always looks the same.
The second pictures is my back picture, you may notice we don't have much of a back or even a door back there. But what we do have is our air conditioners and windows, and of course the huge wall, its very nice. There are four long rows of these trailer things and we live in the last one. Everything is very close to where we live, and its very convenient. Well anyway I will talk to you all when I get a chance. Hope you enjoy.

We don't know

2008-06-02T04:27:00.000-07:00

As you may know if you got here from my mother's blog, I am a medic in the Army. We are covering a hospital here and I work nights in an intensive care ward. It is a pretty good job so far. What I have failed to mention is that this hospital, while run by the Army, isn't an Army hospital, but rather a Marine hospital. And, as we all know Marines are crazy - sorry to all you Marines that are normal out there. What I mean by crazy isn't really all that insulting with my definition. Crazy: They want to make sure that every regulation, and Marine code of whatever is followed to the "T" with no exceptions. We decided to look up their rank structure, so that we too and can do the right thing and call everyone by their proper rank. That way no one is annoyed or insulted during their stay in our hospital. We don't have a printer though, so Jen drew their ranks.If you know anything about Army ranks you may notice that the majority of these look much like ours. If you don't know anything about Army ranks I can tell you that the majority of these look much like Army ranks. Although they do call them something different for a lot of them. It also says on there that the officer ranks are the same; what that means is Marine officer ranks and Army officer ranks are identical.
As some of you may know Marines and Navy guys hang out a lot togethe - wherever the Marines go there are always a few Navy guys to go with them, because Marines don't have as many jobs as Navy guys. In other words not all the bases are covered by one branch. So we decided to go ahead and learn the Navy ranks too, so that we could be good soldiers. Little did we know the difficulty of undertaking learning Navy ranks. We thought it would be about like the Marines since they were all the same at one time...we were wrong.As you can see E-1 through E-3 is whatever man, that is Jen's creative way of saying that could be anything. They have different ranks for different jobs they are in, crazy isn't it? So we decided it would be easier to Just learn E-4 and above - after all not every soldier can be perfect.
Sorry to anyone that may be insulted by the fun little jabs I am throwing at other branches. And I missed some branches, I'm sure I will get them another time.

new old way of life

2008-05-31T12:15:00.000-07:00

Well we have had a lot of helicopters flying around, and they come down so close so fast they shake the ground. They have to combat land so that the bad guys can't shoot at them, it just basically means they have to nose dive. They come very close to our roof and this is a probably a 10 foot ceiling. I have picture of some of them, these aren't close at all, I think these can just come straight down, so they don't have to nose dive.

The next picture I have is of the inside of the plane that we took from kuwait to here. Not exactly a made for its beauty, and there weren't any complimentary beverages, but up at the front they did have a big orange cooler full of water. I almost forgot, it was REALLY hot in there, there was something wrong with their air and it must have been about 140-150 in the plane, it felt good outside where it was only 110 when we got off.

I'm finally here

2008-05-29T02:44:00.000-07:00

Well we finally made it! This place is great too, I know that after awhile its going to get boring, but right now we are all very happy with our living conditions, it is a thousand times better than it was at any of the training sites. We even have flushing toilets!! Small victories. The pictures below is of our living area inside and out.

The bed with the blue blanket is mine the messy one is Jens. We have a little kitchen area and Jen bought a tv, it quite nice. I will be giving updates, but I don't have much time right now so until tomorrow, I wish you well.

Sorry my hair is crazy, I just took my hair out of some braids.

free time

2008-05-22T00:50:00.001-07:00

As you may have noticed, by my ability to post something every day, I have had an ample amount of free time of late. As a side effect of free time soldiers sometimes do silly things, let me explain, I'll let you know when I get to the silly part. Yesterday one of my friends here decided to re-enlist, her name is Jen and she has decided to dedicate another several years of her life to the protection and freedom of our country. As a thank you, along with generous monitary consideration, the army gave her a piece of luggage that is quite large. Jen came back yesterday from swearing in and she said, "yeah and they gave me a bag that Julia could fit in." Us being bored, and soldiers, we had to try it out to make sure she was right.

We had her put her head all the way in too, there was extra room. I think we could go ahead and pack her in there with enough snacks and water to last her till she got back to her husband. Anyway I hope you enjoy my picture have a lovely day.

sand storm

2008-05-21T03:16:00.001-07:00

Well today we are having our first real sand storm since we have been here, not so exciting as you might think. First off its never a good idea to wear chap-stick or any other kind of lip product during this sort of thing. The wearer may have a little trouble with a sand paper like feeling on their lips about 2 seconds after leaving the inside area. I got some pictures to put on here.

This one is right outside of our tent, went for a little walk over to the px during the storm, stupid soldiers! We got all dressed up.

We were talking about all the places we had gone the other day and that is seems whenever we go anywhere there is some kind of natural emergency, like tornado or hurricane. We had a tornado knock down tents in South Dakota, and a tornado ran through our sleeping area in Texas we even had the tornado sirens go off. Also the day we got mobilized is snowed in Iraq. At least here this kind of thing happens all the time.

your change is a dollar even

2008-05-20T01:36:00.001-07:00

They don't have change in Kuwait. I don't know what else I can add to this sentence except maybe they have change and it isn't american, or maybe they have it just not here, but there is no actual metal change. Instead the army has devised another way for us to get our change.

Julia calls them pogs, you remember pogs? Those little discs the kids used to collect? Well now they really are worth something, granted its only pocket change but still. You should have seen the look on Julia's face when she got them back, like what is this? Don't think just because I'm small I'm going to let you get away with giving me card board instead of real money. I gave them my money and they gave me these, is this worth anything at all. Well anyway I just wanted to let everyone know they are giving our troops fake money over here...Until tomorrow. :)

my husband

2008-05-19T03:50:00.000-07:00

Well I have realized this past week I have been somewhat remiss in introductions, this is my husband steve. We have been married for 4 years.

I know he looks a little strange in this picture, but I can assure you that is his, why are you taking my picture you already have pictures of me look. That one was taken when we were on my four day pass right before I left. That is a signature steve look that I love. He has been doing fine since I left, keeping busy with school and now work for the summer. Right now he is working with his daddy on a house that his father owns, I think he may also be getting a summber job sometime in here at a deli where he worked last year. When I am home we live in a huge house that also houses three other guys, they are crazy and loud but I love all of them and I miss them.
Well I was going to go and put on another picture but my internet is too slow I can't get it to load. So I will describe it for you, the other one has steve with a beard, a red beard. He seems to pick up more and more pigment in his hair the further down his face it is. I'm sorry I think I said that wrong the way I said it makes it sound gradual, its not. The hair goes from being white blonde to bright red in 1 milimeter, the change is amazing. As you may hear again I am not fond of facial hair, so for my birthday every year he shaves it off. Well this year I pulled the Iraq card to make him shave it for a little longer, and I think he might keep it shaved. Some people here say he doesn't even look like the same person with a beard. I'm here to tell you he is.
So I have a little story that will either make you laugh or be gross to you. A few years ago I made something for dinner that had a lot of cheese in it, Steve ate it and enjoyed it. Later that night I was snuggling with him and I said "Hey your beard smells like cheese". It stuck and I started saying it kind of often because I didn't like the beard, well my army friends heard my say it one time and they started saying "the cheese beard" too. Its funny because it is an orangey kind of color. Well now there is not a cheese beard, so its ok. Alright I have nothing left to add today, excpet that you can go and see this post my Mom did about Steve on her blog last year: The Snowman Post.

what's this?

2008-05-17T22:38:00.001-07:00

Today we got up at 2 am and wandered out into the middle of the desert to ensure that our weapons still worked even in another country. Yes, one and all, that is what I put up with on a regular basis. We really did drive an hour out into the desert fire 20 rounds and drive back. But anyway, today I was able to get a picture of some of the beautiful foliage they have out here.

Isn't that about the sadest little...thing you have ever seen? The ones that I saw as we came in were worse, they didn't even look a little bit green. Well to be fair Kuwait is having a drought right now, but even taking that into consideration there is not shell of an old tree or anything but these and there aren't any where we live.
While we were out in the desert today I decided to also get a picture of the desert, because it is hard to fully appreciate when you don't get to see it. For fun I went ahead and stood in the picture so that you would have something, anything to acually look at. The lady in the picture with me is Jaanna.

back?? front??

2008-05-17T02:04:00.000-07:00

These are my Front door/Back door pics for the photo meme my Mom has going on her blog. You just step outside and take a photo from your front door and then from your back door. Well today I have some back and front pictures that might seem a little bit different to everyone. Yes people this is another country and it does look different.Also regarding these pictures I am not sure myself which is the back and which is the front we call the first one the front, but I am not sure which the army considers to be so. The pictures of the back and front were taken at a little bit of an angle otherwise it would have been a straight on view of the tent right across from us.

The other pictures I am putting on today are of some of the painted barriers, I guess when units come through here they have some artist in their unit paint a barrier with their unit things. Some of them are a little rudimentary I have included some of the ones that are a little better. Hope you like them.

We moved

2008-05-16T01:31:00.000-07:00

So we are in a new living area and country now. We are staying in new "barracks" it's really like a big tent thing and the new country would be Kuwait! So far I have noticed that dry heat isn't fun at all, the way they say it is. To be fair to those that say so, it isn't 130 degree's most of the time in the states. Also there seems to be quite a bit of sand, amazingly, it blows into your eyes, so I bought some lovely goggle-sunglasses that are very hot! And I mean hot in every sense of the word. I have a few things that I have pictures of that I want to show. So we are going to be here for a while longer than I thought we were going to be. But this installation isn't so bad, it has quite a nice dining facility, which I will talk more about at another time, starbucks I was amazed by, taco bell, burger king, a nice sized px (army wal-mart), a beauty shop that gives massages, among other things. We will also have these things where we are giong next. Also we have internet access here in our living area which is very nice, it doesn't work very fast and we have to pay $12 a week for it, but its still here.
Well the showers here are short and I mean really short we are allowed 15 gallons per shower, I take very fast showers but that is crazy short. We also have no flushing toilets, that means we get to use port-a-potties, now I don't know if many of you have used a port-a-poty during the day when its 130 degrees but its not much fun. I am hoping the next place will have something in a flushing toilet.
New subject we will talk about males over here, WOW. They aren't so bad in our unit although they are getting to the staring phase, but these guys in the other units are to the random talking to you phase. Example? We were walking around the px and we separated because we all needed different things, and when we went to leave we had all experianced the same thing, they will just walk up and start talking to you. They aren't to the hitting on you stage yet, but it is a little crazy that they are as far as they are because as you will see no one looks good in this amount of crazy (army wear).
Well I think that is all I have to say for now I will be bloggin more in the next few days.
PS one and all we are 7 hours ahead of you on the east coast, the rest of you may adjust accordingly.

Packing up

2008-05-12T17:22:00.000-07:00

Well people, as you can see, today we are packing up. I was a little worried that everything wasn't going to fit into my bags, they only let us have two. I guess that might sound normal unless you realize we are packing our whole world into them. Well anyway I found I had plenty of room, apparently my whole world is quite small if you don't count Steve, my husband. Also you may notice that packing indicates leaving a lot of the time, even though I am not allowed to say when, wink wink. I also wanted to let you know I probably won't be able to write for awhile because we won't have electricity. The pictures are of some of my friends relaxing after the worst packing of their lives. We were talking about it the other day, and we discovered that this past year, with all the training we have done, we have all become great packers. The first field exercise we did we were living in a mud pit so we had to pack all our stuff everyday and put it on our cots during the day to keep it from getting wet when it rained, we were in South Dakota. Then we went to Georgia, then California, then Texas, then back to Texas, we have gone camping a lot this year, but even when you go camping with your family and sleep in a tent you get that little nylon bottom the army doesn't believe in that. :) A lot of it was really fun, and I got to see a lot of the world, I hadn't ever been to South Dakota or California. Well I better split. I want to thank everyone who left a kind comment, I am happy to be doing this - after all I volunteered.

Day two blog

2008-05-11T09:14:00.000-07:00

Well today we are getting ready for another country again! Everyone that knows me knows where, but I am not supposed to say. Today we have had a lot of free time, and our first formation wasn't until 9:00 am which is a first for me in the Army. This afternoon we are supposed to have a picnic, that is supposed to be pretty fun, and they may be doing runs to the px. I have little else to talk about so I will put up some pictures hope you like them.

my first blog

2008-05-10T17:43:00.000-07:00

I don't have much to say yet I just wanted to start one of these for fun.