August 31, 2005

Katrina

Well, unless you have been living in a hole, you know what is going on. Here is one interesting way to donate, and also the Red Cross and other organizations. I have a few friends who's families have lost everything and are going to have to restart.


In other news, don't always trust your caller id. I got a phone call from my best friend, so when I answered my cell phone I answered "yes dear?" SGT L, this is SSG W. OOOOOOOOOPS! hehehe, I was quite embarressed by that. He had been borrowing her cell phone:)
Gas prices havel just hit insane here, up to $2.88 in places. Here on post they have left it down at $2.34 but they are out of Regular unleaded. SCARY. My drive to Miami tomorrow is going to be interesting to say the least.

August 30, 2005

Fine and dandy

I wrote what I wrote last night in a fit of rage and for those I worried, I am very sorry. I am fine now though, if not a little HOT and sweaty! I have spent much of the day in the motor pool, ICK. I am so looking forward to going home tonight and just soaking in a shower for a very long time.
In other news..................................well, actually there really isn't any. I go to work, I come home, I talk to darling dearest, I go to sleep, I do it all again the next day. Sounds kinda boring right? WRONG, wouldn't trade it for the world. Simple, uncomplicated, and relaxing:-D

August 29, 2005

Things in life never make sense

Really not much to this post, just that. You try so hard to make life easy for a person and they go and stab you in the back or worse. What gives?! I spend much of my life being a doormat, so I really have to blame this partly on me, but still, you give and you give of yourself until you have nothing left. I guess hurt and angry describe things right now, but what else can I do? Pick up, carry on, and make life a little easy for those you can and if they appreciate it, fine, if not, well, Such is life.

August 25, 2005

Long days

Yesterday I was out at the range all day, HOT as all get out. Thankfully my only job consisted of being on hand in case of injury, and as I am just that darned good, I did nothing but sit around all day long reading my history and writing my story:-D I was never so glad to get home though cause I was HOT, sweaty and stinky. That shower felt SOOOOO good.
Today was very very full, busy most of the morning catching up, then I got a call this afternoon from the medical board section, it came back from San Antonio. I won't go into specifics, but I am officially unfit for duty, and will be out within two-three months. A very intense feeling right now. Everything I am, my identity has been so wrapped around being in the Army, being SGT L. that I am uncertain now. I have been looking online, and have done my resume, but it is still a very unsettling thing to think about. Thankfully I have the support of my family and my wonderful sweetheart, I know that this will come out ok. I do enjoy challenges, so this is a new one to face. Life on the outside, here I come, better watch out!

August 22, 2005

Ok, I got an 11, beat me:-D


There are 25 questions about things we see every day
or have known about all our lives. How many can you
get right? These little simple questions are harder
than you think It just shows how little we pay
attention to the commonplace things of life.

RULES: Put your thinking caps on. No cheating! No
looking around! No getting out of your chair! No using anything on or in your desk or computer!

Can you beat 20?? (The average is 7) Write down your
answers and check answers (on the bottom) AFTER
completing all the questions. REMEMBER-NO CHEATING!!!

It doesn't matter if you cheat, actually, because if

you have to cheat, then you don't know the answer, thus,you've already missed the question. BE HONEST!!! That means no looking at your phone or anything on your desk...

Then, before you pass this on to your friends, change
the number on the subject line to show how many you
got correct. Forward to your friends and also back to the one who sent it to you.


LET'S JUST SEE HOW OBSERVANT YOU REALLY ARE. - If
not, just have fun!

Here we go!


1. On a standard traffic light,is the green on the
top or bottom?

2. How many states are there in the USA? (Don't
laugh, some people don't know.)

3. In which hand is the Statue of Liberty's torch?

4. What six colors are on the classic Campbell's soup
label?

5. What two numbers on the telephone dial don't have
letters by them?

6. When you walk does your left arm swing with your
right or left leg? (Don't you dare get up to see!)

7. How many matches are in a standard pack?

8. On the United States flag is the top stripe red or
white?

9. What is the lowest number on the FM dial? (Don't
look at that dial!)

10. Which way does water go down the drain, counter or
clockwise? (Get out of the bathroom!)

11. Which way does a "no smoking" sign's slash run?

12. How many channels on a VHF TV dial?

13. On which side of a women's blouse are the buttons?

14. Which way do fans rotate?
15 Ho w many sides does a stop sign have?

16. Do books have even-numbered pages on the right
or left side?

17 How many lug nuts are on a standard car wheel?

18. How many sides are there on a standard pencil?

19. Sleepy, Happy, Sneezy, Grumpy, Dopey, Doc. Who's
missing?

20. How many hot dog buns are in a standard package?

21. On which playing card is the card maker's
trademark?

22. On which side of a Venetian blind is the cord
that adjusts the opening between the slats?

23. There are 12 buttons on a touch tone phone. What
2 symbols bear no digits?

24. How many curves are there in the standard paper
clip?

25. Does a merry-go-round turn counter or clockwise?









Keep Going for the answers










ANSWERS
1. Bottom
2. 50
3. Right
4. Blue, red, white, yellow, black & gold
5. 1, 0
6. Right
7. 20
8. Red
9. 87.7
10. Clockwise (north of the equator)
11. From lower right to upper left
12. 12 (there is no #1)
13. Left
14. Clockwise as you look at it from the front.
15. 8
16. Left
17. 5
18. 6
19. Bashful
20. 8
21. Ace of spades
22. Left
23. * and #
24. 3
25. Counter

August 20, 2005

is that camera STILL pointed at me.

My two year old brother is actually a bit camera shy around me, maybe because he is one of my favorite subjects LOL. But he is such a cutie I can't help it:-D

Picture post cause I am too lazy to write tonight.

Washing sticky face:-D

It is a lazy Saturday evening at home for me. I spent the day cleaning and now I am sitting back, relaxing, and talking to the same person I talk to everynight:-D

This is what happens when you put four unruly teenagers together:-D










"Lizzie, look at my tonsils!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

August 18, 2005

Looooooooooooooooong weeks

I am so looking forward to this weekend. We have had an exercise ongoing, and while I am not a direct part, it has kept me very busy. 7 new guys in this week, one person to help them, and I am up and down the stairs constantly. Not so good for pain, but I deal:-D

I had a most intersting conversation with my Grandmother tongiht about tolerance of others. In her words, The thing she is most intolerant of, is intolerance., and I agree with her completely. God says to love all, and his answer for all is love. But intolerance completely violates that in my opinion. We should resepct others, regardless of their beliefs and their ways. I am not saying you can not discuss with others, what you believe, BUT don't be disrespectful. That is not showing love for your fellow man. Anyway enough of that soapbox.

Next week is the range, then shortly therafter I get to see my dearest, hopefully. I need a miracle, but don't we all:-D

August 15, 2005

I don't like Mondays

My soldiers are going to be the death of me I swear. Anyone who knows me well, knows that my first priority in anything is always going to be them. I piss people off frequently for working way too hard for others and ignoring myself. Anyway, majority of my company is in the field this week, so I am left at the office pretty much alone, and we just have 4 new guys show up on my doorstep with only one other person to help take care of them, and he just got here last week himself! So this morning has been entertaining trying to make sure that they get where the need to go, and are taken care of, as we also have 2 married guys who need to get places to live. Hotel living is just not fun. Being new they have tons of questions of course, and I am more than happy to answer them, but lordy, I have questions coming at me from all different angles ROFL:-D
I didn't actually go camping last Saturday, no one else apparently planned on it, so I loaded my stuff up after being at the company picnic an appropriate amount of time and headed home to talk to my sweetheart. I'd rather talk to him than be bored any day. I was kinda dissapointed I didn't get to go camping though, as I really do enjoy "roughing" it:-D

August 14, 2005

Concerts

Montgomery Gentry is in concert tonight, less then half a mile from my room. I love their music! Why am I not there you ask? Something about extremely LOUD noise, and LOTS of people:) I can hear it from here though.
Seen on a big truck: Hunting is like Sex: You need the right equipment, size, and talent. Oooooooooooooooook:-D
Tonight is movie night: National Treasure, Romancing the Stone, and Monk, season 2, volumes 1+2. Got my cobbler, check, ice cream, check, remotes, CHECK! See ya later.

August 13, 2005

WOWSERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ladies and gentleman, My little corner of the blogoshpere has recieved Over 50,000 visitors as of yesterday, over half of them visiting yesterday! Thank YOU for the continued support of myself and all troops out there, and for all those who like to spread negativity, please remember that we stand in front of you, so that you may continue to have the right to spread your negativity and your beliefs. As for me, I will continue to soldier on until the day I leave this great Army. HOOOOAH! Nuff said.
In other news, I went out last night for the first time in ages, and as it was 80's night dressed appropriatly:


The cigarette is a prop!
Today we have a company picnic out by the lake and those of us who so choose plan on staying the night. I am dragging my (army issue) Pup tent, air mattress (not THAT hardcore), and my sleeping bag, and I plan on having a blast.
Someone made the request (Street) yesterday for me to relate a REALLY bad story about myself that occured about 4 years ago while I was on an exercise in Camp Casey, Korea. So it goes something along these lines: We had been up in Camp Casey for an exercise, out of Camp Humphreys, so all of us females were staying in one tent together. There was a couple of other girls from another unit, and one of them had her tongue pierced. I was very fascinated by this, and asked her about it. She told me that she could actually do it, having done it before, so long as she was able to get the necessary equipment. Me being the impetuous 21 y/o I was at the time, decided what the hell, why not? A few days later, we had everything together, needle soaking in listerine, and me with a paper towel under my tongue. "This won't really hurt" she said as she stuck the needle through and I proceeded to wince in dire pain while giving her the look of "you will die evil being". I was good and done and I had a metal post running through the rear of my tongue. Of course, just about everyone in the unit found out in rapid time, and I was subject to a bit of ribbing and warnings (this is not allowed in the Army after all). A couple of days passed by, I didn't eat much and had exceedingly fresh breath from all of the listerine I was swishing about. I was on night shift and about the second night, my tongue began to swell to the point where the bottom ball dissapeared INTO the tongue. BAD THINGS! So I had to fess up to my Master sergeant, as I needed to go to the hospital soon. He, after a bit of laughter, loaded me up and off we went to the emergency room where we spent two hours. The first hour the docs were trying to contain their laughter and figure out just what to do with me. They finally ended up shooting my mouth with lidocaine, relaxing me with Valium, and then prying this post out. Almost immediatly my tongue began to ease. They then gave me Tylenol with codiene and sent me packing. By the time we returned, I was high as a kite and there were thankfully only a few hours before time to go home. I spent the rest of the night blissfully high, and as we left, the girls tried very hard to get me to bed. ("see the pretty purple elephants............") I don't remember exactly when it was, but my BC (Battalion Commander) came up to me, and mentioned that he had heard about the little incident. His only remark was "did you learn your lesson?" YES SIR!!!! and I was left alone, subject only to the endless torment from my peers. (No, I didn't learn my lesson I did it again 8 months later, this time by a professional. It ended up getting pulled about a month later under threat of punishment. NO we will NOT being doing this again (maybe) :-)

August 12, 2005

On Being compared to Ernie Pyle

The New Ernie Pyles I was quite pleased with this comparison, as I have read every Ernie Pyle book out there and loved them. I do have to make one correction here (Sorry Mr. Finer:) I was born in Haverhill, Massachussetts, but was raised as an AF brat, so my roots run where I plant them:-D But it is a wicked cool article, and has caused some amusement around my company this morning from those I have shown it to:-D
In other news, I am preparing to head out to the field next week for a company exercise. A chance to lay out the cot, roll out the sleeping bag, and play like I was camping LOL.
Actually, I am supposed to really go camping this weekend, though that may be postponed due to weather. My company is going to have a get together this weekend, and the original plan was to meet out at the park, cook out, throw a ball around so on and so forth, and then those who wished to were going to stay out there overnight. I was going to throw up my army issue pup tent and everything. I love camping, don't do it nearly often enough, but I do NOT go by myself. I am a little chicken when it comes to being out in the woods alone at night. Something about big bad scary animals. I am just hoping there aren't a lot of daddy long legs out there. We had that problem during PLDC a few years ago, and I woke up to find at least 10 of them crawling around my tent. NO I did not run outside screaming (as the boys apparently expected any female to do when encountering these creatures). I learned a long time ago that they can't hurt me. Now a black widow...........that's another story. Anyways, I am starting to ramble on and I really should be working.
PS was thinking about what I am going to retitle this blog when I leave the Army. The web address will remain the same, but I was thinking something along the lines of "this girls life after the army" Who knows and we shall see.

August 10, 2005

Ooooo Lala


Now this guy is not a cute little boy. I think he is the most gorgeous, good looking, and sexiest guy around, and really wish he were a hell of a lot closer to me:-D (Sorry girls, he's mine!!!!!!!!!!!!)

August 09, 2005

cute little boys


Isn't he just the cutest.............. This is my new background on my phone.:)
(ps, That's my littlest brother, just in case you were wondering)

August 05, 2005

Keywords

According to Blog Patrol, the last 20 Keywords that sent people here were:

05/08/2005 13:25:17
women being deployed (Google) (Not me, not anymore)

05/08/2005 12:48:56
sgt lizzie (Google)

05/08/2005 11:42:51
Armor Gedden Blog (Google)

05/08/2005 10:54:32
www. Lizzie com (MSN) (No, I don't have my own domain. I am a little too cheap for that)

05/08/2005 10:44:39
picture of girl in army (Yahoo) (Very generic)

05/08/2005 10:10:32
life in this girls army (Google) (Taking suggestions for a new tagline)

05/08/2005 08:32:34
boyfriends in the army shirts (Yahoo) (Shirts?)

05/08/2005 03:35:06
big booms (Google) (Big Bada Boom)

05/08/2005 02:55:35
I AM IN ARMY NOW photos (Yahoo)

05/08/2005 02:53:05
girls getting there arses stuffed (Google) (SAY WHAT??????)

05/08/2005 00:46:36
painting splatters (Google) (Interesting)

tucson junior strings (Google) (Huh. Surprising link)

04/08/2005 22:44:59
life not going anywhere (Google)

04/08/2005 22:36:40
army life jokes (Google) (And I do love those jokes)

04/08/2005 21:46:57
Army AWOL (Google) (Never been Awol, this one is strange)

04/08/2005 20:51:35
tragic happenings (Google) (Oh yeah, my life is REALLY tragic. Oh please)

04/08/2005 19:35:53
Female army blog (Yahoo) (Certainly fits me)

04/08/2005 18:03:25
vbied (Google)

04/08/2005 14:44:04
blood boiling point (Google) (Another one of those Huh? ones)

04/08/2005 14:04:11
sgtlizzie.blogspot.com (Google)
(Strangely enough, I know a few people who do this and I could almost guarantee I can name names.)

August 03, 2005

You know, I usually never see cops on US 25 on the stretch between Augusta and I16. Now I've seen 3 in the last 20 minutes! Straaange. Go

August 02, 2005

Back to the beginning

As I am gone the next couple of days (Hellaciously lot of driving over the next 5 days: 1600+ miles just so my 18 y/o can see the rest of the family) I wanted to post the very first posts to this blog a year ago. Back when life was just a little more innocent for me, and way before finding out what big bombs could do to a girl:-D

August 3, 2004

Swimming, eating, and getting hit on
Being a female in Iraq is not really that fun, but occasionally there are funny points to it. Example: Myself and 2 other girls were sitting at dinner tonight, when we were engaged in conversation by 3 Brits sitting next to us. Forgive me, it was 2 Brits and a Scotsman. Either way, the conversation devolved rapidly, and soo we were all laughing at such things as why the US has the World Series (Baseball for those dorks out there), yet we are the only ones who play, or why we have Iced tea. To them, that is babaric. It simply isn't done. As we left, one of my compatriots and I were discussing the gentlemen. (I said "Goodnight Gentlemen" to which one responded "oh I am not that", so I asked him if he was an "arsehole" instead!) Anyway, she seemed rather insistent that they were hitting on me specifically, to which I pointed out that while they were doing considerable flirting, it was directed at us as a whole. It did make for an enjoyable dinner though, much different than my usual meals alone with my food and my bood.Back to the first subject in my title. I went swimming today for the first time in a long time. The pool is a small one that sits by one of the lakes on post, and is 6ft deep, all the way across. Me being 5'4", this was a slight issue. I treaded (I have no idea what word to use here) water for quite sometime, dunking people right and left, and when my back was turned, being dunked myself. Of course, now I am going to hell, as one of the persons dunked was the Chaplain. Hey, he started it by threatening to pull me in:-D While hanging out on the side looking around, I talked to one of the ISG civilians that was also there about the camp. There was an old Baath party building across the lake from where we were, and according to tale, there are still dead bodies in the theatre that was bombed last year during the war. The camp is an interesting mish mash of interesting architecture. While some of the buildings are very plain, and functional, such as the buildings I work and live in, others are beautiful. I think I am off to bed now. I am going to AG in the morning to provide administration support. Yay. (Yes, that was sarcasm:-)
posted by SGT Lizzie at 12:20 0 comments

Killing time
Somedays I have to wonder about people around here. I say things, I email things, but yet they don't listen. I am under the wire from above, and can't do anything because I haven't the information that I need! Then, from below, I have to deal with people who somehow think that I am 3, not 23. And of course as a result of that assumption, they then feel the need to question every move I make. The last time I checked, I had earned the rank on my collar by being competant at what I do. Granted, this is not what I was trained to do, but I work hard and learn what I can. If I do not know something, I ask. It's as easy as that, I am not about to jump off of a cliff without first making sure that there is something to slow my fall.
posted by SGT Lizzie at 06:35 0 comments

The Beginning
Since this will actually be read by other people than myself, I am not sure how to proceed. Mummy kept my diary online, and I think I will do the same, save for certain parts of course. You guys can't know everything about me:-DIt is August 3rd and I am sitting in my new offices in Camp Deutsch, located in Camp Slayer, near BIAP in Iraq. Confusing enough? I know. This place isn't that awful, at least we don't have to wear gear walking all over the place, and I now have a bike to ride to chow and such. We even have a swimming pool on post that we can go to. Not that I will frequent it, it is still quite sunny out and I have no intention of burning. The building I work in smells of cat pee unfortunatly, but it has become the running joke, and to be quite honest, most of us who work here become accustomed to it during the day. The place where I live is quite crowded and infested with ants, but so long as we are careful with food we don't have a problem. As we have no showers nearby, we have to ride about 3/4 of a mile away to shower trailers. Hopefully soon we will have our own. This place gets more and more frustrating though. I quit smoking finally, and I am thinking I should have waited! I have around 4 more months left here, and I am still steadily going insane.

August 01, 2005

One would have thought I'd at least score over 90%

What'd I do wrong?
You Are 87% American
You're as American as red meat and shooting ranges.
Tough and independent, you think big.
You love everything about the US, wrong or right.
And anyone who criticizes your home better not do it in front of you!

Nit picky people drive me crazy

I got back, for the FIFTH time (I think), the paperwork for someone's back pay! Why did I get it back? I had written a date in pen, not typed. Oh, and the time before that, they sent it back because it didn't have a VOCO date (don't ask me, I don't know). But believe you me, it was STUPID! Hello, persons PAY here? Money? Anyway, enough ranting.
I had an appointment this morning with a resume professional, and she was GREAT. I got lots of great ideas to start my first one, and I will see her again next week after I have written up my first one.
It is very hard to write one's resume and babysit, but I did accomplish that this evening. I now have a problem though, my resume is 3 1/2 pages. From all that I have read, this isn't exactly a good thing. I just don't know where to pare down. Ah well, I will fix it next week with the resume professional.