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.

Army: Afghanistan Number 10

Post 10: Week 13

 Ok, I know I have been slacking the last couple of weeks, but I am finally getting back to writing again.  It has been a crazy last couple of weeks.  I have been working on some big projects at work between creating a brief for our brigade commander (and eventually his boss) and working on lean six sigma.  Plus rocket attacks, lack of sleep, football games, cook outs and everything else in between.  It has been a busy couple of weeks.  Plus, it has been nearly in the 100’s around here, and with the heat has come a new form of laziness. I am not looking forward to how July will feel around here.  But, cookies from the St John’s Lutheran church, and cards from the cedar ridge elementary school and tri-valley school (from Bloomington, IL: see pictures), plus a video chat with my pen pals (a fifth grade class from Everglades Elementary School in Okeechobee, FL)  have all been refreshing to my spirit and have given me renewed strength even in this crazy heat.  But, true to my style, here I go again.

Mental: Oh Lean Six Sigma.  This has been a chore.  I have been pouring over a spreadsheet that started with over 40,000 lines of data for my measure phase.  The spreadsheet tracks how we move containers around Afghanistan to include which carriers we use and how much they get paid.  I ended up pulling 400 lines of data out of it, focusing on only the lines that had been completely filled in.  I have been paying special attention to how far something travels and how much we are paying to move it.  Our Master Black Belt (instructor) put my data into minitab (program used to create histograms, pareto charts, etc.) and I am now moving into my analyze phase.  It is hard to know what to focus on and what not to.  There seems to be a lot of things that don’t add up or don’t prove some of my original assumptions about how we move things around. 

Physical: So, as shameful as this is, I haven’t been doing much PT recently.  Any free time I have gotten has pretty much been spent relaxing.  After the last couple of days of getting 9 hours of sleep (amazing right?!), I plan on doing some yoga tomorrow morning, and starting to get back into a regular run/ workout routine so that will be good.  I have been learning to play football and am actually not bad at throwing.  My accuracy has increased a lot and I enjoy the excuse to be outside.  I also have learned what an in, out, slant and hook are.  I guess that’s what happens when you spend this much time with a bunch of guys. 

Financial: So… I may have gotten a tiny bit greedy, but not really.  I currently have one stock that is not performing where I had hoped it would and missed my target price before falling. There was another one that was in the same boat but I ended up selling it for about a 5% profit.   I haven’t lost anything  yet, but on the one I am hoping it will build up a little bit more before I sell.  I set more reasonable limits and am expecting to sell it in the next couple of days.  The hard part is knowing what to invest in next.  Fewer and fewer earnings reports are coming out and that has been my primary method of choosing.  Normally, I look at the earnings report dates and focus on stocks that have EPS greater than 1.00 and are below $30/share.  I may need to rethink this strategy as the earnings reports become scarcer but we shall see. 

Emotional: So, I wish I had something brilliant and inspiring to say on this one.  I wish I could say that I had some marvelous epiphany and had great words of wisdom to share on this one, but I don’t.  All I can say is that I still am struggling to find how to be a good wife when I am in Afghanistan.  I know I am making some progress, but it never feels tangible.  I know even blogging has not only helped my husband to see where I am at, but has made it easier for others to share with him and join in our struggle.  But at the same time, I feel absolutely torn in many directions. Having just past the 1/3 mark, the next 2/3 feels like it will take forever.  My desire to be home and move on with my life is strong and yet, I like it here.  I have found joy in my circumstances and wonder if returning to my previous distractions will take me away from that joy.  I am afraid of losing what I have gained and I am already concerned that the change won’t be lasting.  I have grown as a person immensely here, but I still don’t like change.  It is easier to maintain everything if my circumstances don’t change.  I think that is my hardest emotional struggle right now.  I feel like I am trying to run in two different directions.  I want to stay here and live in the joy I have found and I want to be home and live in the happiness of my home and my marriage and my comforts. 

Spiritual:  I have continued in my scripture readings daily.  I am trying to now read at least twice a day.  I am trying to read through the new testament again as I am reading through the old.  (The old levitical laws of throwing blood around altars still grosses me out, so I found balancing it with the new testament gives me a stronger desire to keep reading as I find the hope the new testament brings).  And my prayers have changed for the better too.  I have been trying to spend more time focusing on asking for forgiveness.  I have never been oblivious to my sin, but I have never taken the time to truly reflect on it and thank God for his mercy and forgiveness and for giving me the power to overcome any of it.  What made me realize I needed to do this was really thinking about Is loving people and wanting to love people better in all circumstances, not just when it is easy.  But I also made the connection to Luke 7:36-50.  It is when Jesus tells of how those who are forgiven little, love little and loves who are forgiven much, love much.  But the difference between those two people (those that are forgiven little and those that are forgiven much) is their attitudes.  If I am never spending time reflecting in how much I need forgiveness, or I take it for granted, I am not going to love very much.  And it is not that I need forgiveness any more or less than the next person because we all have the same need for forgiveness.  God isn’t saying that some people get more forgiveness than others.  The difference is in our attitudes towards God and our realization of how much WE need HIS forgiveness.  I need to spend more time contemplating the things I have already been forgiven for and not take for granted that fact that I am forgiven.  And when I ponder these things in my heart. I can see more and more of God’s love for me and humanity and my desire to live in joy and peace and love other’s grows exponentially.  I need to be forgiven much so that I can love much and love genuinely. 

But there is something else I have been realizing too.  Since I was 14 years old, I have pretty much always had a guy in my life.  And I have always let my faith be dictated by those men.  If they weren’t as spiritual as me, I would hinder myself to “let them catch up” and I, without realizing it, refused to grow in my relationship with the Lord without someone there to grow with.  Even as I got married, I have never wanted to strike out on my own and have my own relationship with the Lord.  I have always rather been dependent upon my husband to fill that need (which isn’t fair to him because it makes him responsible for something I am accountable for).  Since coming to Afghanistan, I am finally stepping on my own, without input really from anyone.  I am running as if to finish my race well and have grown so much since I have gotten here.  And even though I have had multiple conversations (and arguments) regarding faith and the gospel, it hasn’t really caused any growth for me.  It hasn’t encouraged me or discouraged me towards the Lord and I believe it is because he doesn’t intend for it to.  The longer I am here, the more convinced I am that God pulled me out of my comfort zone to finally teach me to rely on him first.  I couldn’t let go of that control and so he put me in the situation where I would have to.   But there are people here I could rely on for spiritual growth, this time it is only about me and Him.  I no longer feel or see a connection between any one person’s spiritual growth and my own and never have I been more FREE.  Never have I been more at peace nor found more joy in my circumstances.  And it is not that Kevin’s spiritual journey isn’t relevant to me; it is that I am no longer dependent upon it.  And my concern is that, upon returning that I would lose what I have found.  That my strength would again be found in my husband and not from God.  I want to protect what I have found and I want to keep it.  I think most people feel that way when they do mission trips (I know I did).  At the end, you don’t want to go home because you don’t want to lose the growth you found because you have never been so reliant upon him and you know that once you get home and back into your routine, you will likely lose it because you won’t have needed God in the same way that you did before. 

But, I have 6 months to figure out how to let this time change me radically and how to make it so strong and firmly apart of who I am that changing my circumstance doesn’t shake who I have become.