Afghanistan Number 21

Alright everyone, I know I have been slacking and haven't posted in about a month, but now that things have calmed down a lot, I am ready to get back to it.  This last month has been pretty crazy.  I have been traveling, working out in one of our yards doing some manual labor, spending time with great people and have awesome conversation with my husband.  The last month of so has been drastically life altering, but also very fast paced.  I have no idea how many weeks I have been here now, but I can tell you I have about six weeks left! So here we go!

Physical: Ok, so this one is disappointing. I missed the Army ten-miler here in Bagram.  It was actually this morning, but I didn't know until 1500  yesterday afternoon (not enough time to recover and hydrate properly).  Plus, I ended up getting a killer headache last night.  So that little nugget has fallen through.  I have been working longer hours again, which was sacrificing my PT time by a lot.  So I made a new routine.  Now, instead of trying to go in the morning or evening, I go in the middle of the afternoon when I have down time.  I think I am going to try to keep this up when I get back to Fort Carson by going to the gym during lunch.  Before I left, I would travel back and forth from home multiple times a day.  To help save on our budget (updated financial goals), we are looking for ways to cut out the little things and this is definitely one of them.  Plus, it has the added benefit of me getting a good workout in during lunch. I have a PT test in a few weeks as well, and my goal is to get another 300 before going back home and eating really yummy food again.  But we will see how it all falls.

Our new 2014 Ford Escape!

Financial: My stocks are doing really well.  I am currently holding two of them that have provided some good gains for me.  Both are kind of plateaued, but they plateaued high enough that I am just keep them.  Right now, I have basically made 50% return on my initial investment.  I could definitely see myself doing this some more, but I haven't had a ton of time to devote to it.  I need to start looking at some potential new buys before the next set or quarterly earnings comes out.  Aside from that, Kevin and I have made some new financial goals.  We just bought our first car together (a 2014 Ford Escape Titanium, which we love!) and have decided we will probably not be moving again next year.  There are several factors going into that decision (like the new car!), but also the fact that I haven't really got to live in my house (or any place) for very long and I would like to take the time to start a garden, redo gutters, redo cabinets, plant some bushes and so on and so forth.  And I don't want to be rushing to do that before next spring.  So Kevin and I have decided to just say in the house we are in and try to get that paid off as quickly as possible.  We are also looking at ways to reduce our budgets.  Aside from trying to drive less, we are also looking at ways we can keep costs down and try to basically live on one income, with the other completely providing discretion to pay extra off the house and do projects and vacations and things.  Basically, we want one income to frame our spending and the other income to frame our saving in such a way that we can give money away, invest and just have fun. 

Our new garden window!

Mental: I finished my Lean Six Sigma project!!! Can you believe it?!  I ultimately reduced my standard deviation (Six sigma) and shifted my mean (lean).  It is now being submitted, and once that is done, I will have a DA 4187 with my skill identifier saying I am a certified black belt for the Army.  Now I just need to pull my project off my computer so that I will have it and all of my reference materials and I am done!!!!  Aside from that, I have been playing more with Microsoft excel and even with macros.  I think I might keep studying excel a bit because I am learning some really interesting things.  I am also going to try to spend the winter reading up on building my first green house and learning some fun gardening tips and tricks.  I think the fact that I haven't seen much green here has given me a very strong desire to decorate my house with lively plants.  I also have a desire to do some manual labor (building cabinets and trying to do gutters and small projects ourselves) after spending the last 7+ months sitting behind a computer.  I really enjoying working with my hands and haven't gotten to do enough of it here.  Plus, I enjoy working on our home.  Kevin has had a new garden window installed and we are having work done on our patio in the next couple of weeks.  I can't wait to get home and join him.  And I look forward to starting new projects and learning new crafts!

Emotional: So this one has been going pretty well.  I think Kevin and I have been connecting so much better as we have started discussing our plans for the next year or so.  Truth be told, earlier in the month, we were in a rather depressing rut and neither of us could really tell why.  I think Kevin just didn't like the sound of two more months and truthfully, I was starting to feel overwhelmed by the idea of making decisions again.  There are limitless possibilities for the future and what is coming next that I felt kind of overwhelmed by the idea of preparing to face it.  But as Kevin and I started moving forward (Kevin got our new garden window installed on the house and is having the patio done next month), things started getting easier.  That's why we decided to by the car (which we are so excited about) and start making plans for what the next year holds.  And things are really starting to come together.  Kevin is loving his job and I am loving mine.  And though there are definitely no concrete plans right now, there is a pretty good likelihood that I might stay in the Army for longer than my contract.  We have a lot to figure out on that path, but we have decided to wait until I get home and see how I am feeling six months from now before making too many decisions.  For right now, we are both giving up control of a lot that we like to hold on to just to imagine the world of possibilities.  We have decided that both of us are going to stop worrying about what we "should" or "shouldn't" do and start focusing on loving God, loving each other and loving others and living a life that is going to bring him the most glory.

Spiritual: Well, obviously this one is tied to my current emotional state as well.  Basically, the idea of giving up control of what I want versus what I think I should want has been very relieving.  Telling Kevin that I might want to stay in the Army was very difficult, but mostly because of the church, not because of Jesus.  I feel like within Christianity, we tend to limit the roles for women into what we see as best for her family or manageable.  Telling women I am in the Army is usually stomached in the same manner as me saying I'm sick or I have cancer.  They want to tell me that's horrible (and some do) and that they can't wait for me to get out.  Even my most well intended friends ask me about deploying and having kids to just get out of it.  It is inconceivable to them that I love this.  It's even crazier to them that I am really good at it.  But I let myself fall in that box too.  I told myself I couldn't stay in and be a good wife and mother.  Every day, I think that is less and less true.  Would there be hard parts? Yes. Is moving around all the time easy? No.  But would my kids and husband get to experience things that others might never get to? Yes.  Can we use it as the opportunity to bring our family closer together? Yes.  But most importantly, does it bring more glory to God to live the life he first put on my heart as a twelve year old girl and has reaffirmed many times since? Does it bring more glory to God for me to live my life in such a way that it ties together the unique characteristics God decided to ordain me with?  And does it bring God more glory when I live out the things that interest me and help them to grow and develop my family?  It might seem simple to just say yes and move on, but I am spending time with these questions.  I am leaning more towards them than I am away.  I am breaking down my own religious rules and trying to find the truth in the center of the Gospel.  I am done telling Christ how Christians are supposed to live.  When I look at biblical women, I see women who work and serve.  Ruth was a laborer, Esther was into politics and the proverbs 31 woman ran a very successful business (and all in the Old Testament too!).  Maybe my primary job can be wife and mother even if I don't spend all my time doing those things from home.  I don't know.  We have a lot of exploring to do, but I figured I would share with you where we have explored to thus far.

Army: Afghanistan number 11

Post 11: Week 15
Ok, so I know, it is about dang time that I posted again.  Today, I want to start with a few shout outs of things I have missed back home in the states.  First off, I want to congratulate my sister on completing grad school and heading out to Wyoming to to be the assistant stage manager for a musical called South Pass  that my dad will also be staring in.  I also want to congratulate my brother on his high school graduation.  I know he is waiting expectantly on a couple of job offers and is also looking at going back to school in the fall.  Whatever he chooses to do does not matter to me, because I am very proud of him.  These are just two big moments in my siblings lives that I am unfortunately missing as I sit in the sand box.

But on another note, I am moving to a different base next week.  Our battalion is jumping locations and I am trying to plan/ manage a lot of moving pieces (with a lot of help of course).  But I just got back a couple of days ago from our leader's recon and am feeling pretty comfortable with the plan.  That being said, my next update will not be until I am settled in my new location.  So here is my update:

Physical: So, somewhere along the way, I have lost approximately five pounds in the past couple of weeks.  I am feeling really healthy and good, even though I am noticing several knots reappearing in my neck and shoulders (see old post for reference).  Kevin sent me some peppermint oil though, so hopefully that will help and I can avoid some very painful headaches.  As for PT, I have been mostly focused on push ups and situps but not nearly in the frequency with which I need to be. Now that the highs are in the 100's every day here, I feel like my desire to work out has diminished greatly.  Plus, I really need to get packing so that I am prepared to move next week. Hopefully while I am packing and unpacking, I can find my motivation to work out.  I am sure it is around here somewhere.. it is just a matter of finding it.

Mental: So, now that I am getting farther into Lean Six Sigma and I am understanding the class materials better, I am taking a second look at my data and doing a bit of recapturing.  The jist of what I am doing is trying to take as many trucks off the road as possible and creating efficiency in our movements.  Taking trucks off the roads takes Soldiers off the roads and I think everyone can understand why we would want to do that.  But aside from that, putting trucks on the road costs money, usually to the tune of several thousand dollars for each trip.  So what I am looking at is getting the right stuff, to the right location, the first time.  And I finally feel like all of that is starting to come together.

Emotional:  I don't even know where to start with this one.  Work has been a bit of an emotional roller coaster, but that is hardly surprising given our plate right now.  Relocating a battalion is no simple feat and this one looks like it will be taking a majority of my time for awhile. But at the same time, I have been relaxed.  I am really at a place of comfort in my job.  Nothing I am given feels challenging any more and I have confidence in my success.  I am ready for the next job or task the Army has for me and I look forward to it.  As far as being a wife goes, I am experiencing frustration at living a different life than my husband.  I normally cycle through this every now and again after I process the inevitability of the situation.  There are days when I am very ready to be home and there are days when I am really glad to be here.  I can say that there are a lot of people I look forward to meeting when I get home, to include families and babies.  There are new people in Kevin's life that I am very interested in meeting and some that I have only communicated with online.  And of course, babies are just babies and I look forward to holding them all!!!!

Financial: So, I just sold off another stock today at a 15% profit.  Unfortunately, that leaves me currently stock-less and between trying to get ahead on my Lean Six Sigma project while also preparing to move, I don't think I will be picking any new ones up in the next couple weeks.  But, since earnings reports have lulled, I am not too worried about it.  My overall gain since starting just over 6 weeks ago has averaged to 20% or so and I am good with that.

Spiritual: So, I have been praying and reading my bible every night for the last three months and I am very grateful for how much growth I have seen.  When I look at my prayers from when I first got here, I can see a lot more selfishness and a general brevity.  Along the way, God has taught me to spend more time thinking about him and less time thinking about myself.  And I have learned  a lot of humility in praying for forgiveness of my sins, my shortfalls and my weaknesses.  It has given me a new found love for other people as I realize how much Christ has saved me from myself.  He is made perfect in my weaknesses so why I am not willing to admit all the more that I have so many of them.

Health & Exercise: My Journey into Alternative Therapies

I mentioned in my yoga post that I see a massage therapist and thought I would share about the alternative medicine that changed my life.

My pain began probably somewhere between my junior and senior years of college.  I had experienced joint pain in my knees (mostly from running long distances on hard surfaces and years of improper running shoes) before but I started to experience pain in my shoulders, especially when doing push ups.  Slowly the pain grew and I occassionally had painful popping in my right shoulder and then the left.  My treatment... ignore it! Suck it up! Rub some dirt in it! Drink water! And every other terrible piece of Army advice.

Then about a year ago, I started having neck pain.  I thought it was from bad pillows and some lack of sleep.    I tried some Aleve and of course, that did very little.  So I ignored it some more.  Then in January I had the worst headache of my life.  I was sensitive to light, my right hand went numb, and I was slurring my words, when I could find them.  I went to see my doctor after and she was concerned that it was either occipital neuralgia, migraines or a stroke.  I was having lots of what I called residual headaches (basically two weeks of minor headaches constantly) and so she gave me medicine for that.

At this point, I had never considered that the shoulder pain was related to the neck pain was related to the headaches.  So, I kept ignoring it.  Then I had another crazy headache in May.  I took two fast dissolving pills that are over $100 each and it did nothing except make me nauseous and sick the whole next couple of days.  So I went to see my doctor again.  Though still concerned about occipital neuralgia, and about why I wasn't going to the ER about possible strokes, she knew that since I didn't respond to the migraine medicine, it wasn't that.  So she wondered if it was tension headaches.  And, being the best Army doctor I have ever met, she sent me to Acupuncture and a Chiropractor to see if some of the tension in my neck, shoulders and back could be causing the headaches.

Both the chiropractor and acupuncturist believed this to be the case.  My chiro explained it like this: The muscles in the neck and back are connected to the nerves at the base of my skull.  There is so much tension in my back and neck that when it gets too tense my muscles are pulling on those nerves causing terrible headaches.   So I started seeing each of them weekly.  The chiropractor's adjustment helped more than the acupuncturist's needles, but both were only causing temporary relief.  I was still in so much pain and it was really interferring with everything by that point.  The little relief I was getting made it feel that much worse when the pain came back.

My chiropractor then told me that really what I needed was a massage therapist who could specialize in trigger points, because I have so so so many of them.   Unfortunately, massage therapy is one thing that Fort Carson doesn't offer, so it wouldn't be covered by Tricare (the Army's medical insurance), like acupuncture and chiropractor were.  

However, my husband's flexible spending account (FSA) would. Anyway, seeing Parker at The Shade Tree Massage in Colorado Springs changed everything for me. She is a neuromuscular massage therapist and I see her for trigger point massage. It is a very painful type of massage because it goes deep into very tender areas, but Parker helps increase circulation to the areas and always keeps moving around to cause less pain in the trigger points. After all the pain I have been in for months, I am finally reaching a point of being pain free. I am certainly not there yet, but there are many days where I have little to no pain. And most of the time, even when the pain comes back, it isn't as bad as it was before I started massage therapy. I was in so much pain that I pretty much quit doing outdoor activities, couldn't clean my house without pain and headaches, and simple things like laundry became nearly impossible. I needed so much more sleep and rest and I was begining to feel like I couldn't do anything else. But with Parker's help and a lot of trigger point massage, I am truly getting my life back! *For more information about Parker and The Shade Tree please visit her website at theshadetree.massagetherapy.com.