Getting Squared Away

With the 10-Day Challenge, I feel like I haven’t really written anything of substance in a while. So here goes…

First, I attended my first "Squared Away" meeting with Charlee. The unit is deploying in a year and this is supposed to help us prepare for that. The 4-4 is by far the biggest unit on Ft. Carson, so things are going to be awfully quiet when they leave. At any rate, what this will do is help us organize everything and get things like power of attorney and temporary guardianship settled. The idea is that if anything should happen, everything we need to know will be in one place. Honestly, it was a bit chaotic. Like I said, it’s a big unit and they’re all deploying next March, so there were a lot of people.

Secondly, I’ve been very good about working out lately. I’ve done Zumba, Spin, Step & Tone, and cardio and strength training. Unfortunately, it’s not showing. What the hell? I would really like to lose about 30 lbs. Ideally I want to lose more, but right now 30 lbs. seems achievable. Only, now it doesn’t because despite working out at least 5 days a week for the last three weeks, I haven’t lost so much as an ounce. What I’d like to do is up my workouts to twice a day, but the management of our apartment complex decided to close the fitness center for two weeks with no notice, so that’s not going to be an option just yet. I do appreciate the fact that they’re improving the place, but a memo would have been helpful. I just hope they finally get around to fixing the big weight machine in the middle so I don’t always have to go to post to get my strength workouts in.

Actually I shouldn’t say that it’s not showing at all. I can absolutely attack the elliptical on resistance 8 now and not max out my heart rate. So I’ll have to up the resistance again. So I suppose I’m healthier. I’d just really like to fit into smaller clothes.

It appears we’re getting new neighbors. I can’t figure out if they’re military or what. The car’s plates say North Carolina, which would certainly be a good sign of military, but they have a lot of furniture store boxes, like this is a first apartment. There were also two guys there this afternoon, though I did see a girl there earlier. Either way, it implies that whoever is moving in has been here long enough to know people who will help move. It could be a military couple who just got married and are moving off post. It’s also possible that they’re college kids moving off campus, which would explain the new furniture too. Alan’s buddy Pez also stopped in when he dropped Alan off from the rock gym. He’s getting married soon and has been looking into the various apartment communities. I think he liked this one. It’s pretty far from post, so even though there are plenty of soldiers around, they don’t really care about the rules. Alan saluted a Captain here once and the guy actually told him not to because he lived all the way over here to get away from all that. And I know Pez doesn’t really want his wife involved in the typical Army wife drama of living on post. However, I like to think that Charlee, Erica, Jacqui, and I are pretty damn drama free. Then again, except for Erica, we’re all a bit older and way past wanting to act like high schoolers. Besides, it’s good to know other Army wives. Who else could possibly understand this lunatic lifestyle?

And finally, in a wonderfully surprising twist, my grandmother has decided to take my mother and me on a cruise to Bermuda. How awesome is that?! I think sometimes that she’s trying to keep a certain tradition alive. When my great-grandmother was alive, she was fond of sending her relatives off to exotic places. She once sent all the ladies of the family to St. John in the Virgin Islands, then a couple years later gave my dad a ski trip to Lake Louise in Canada. And she paid for me to go to summer camp every year. Since she died her daughter-in-law seems to have taken over. My grandmother took my cousin Hilary to Norway one summer and Nora to Alaska the next. Now this! The cruise is in May and the only thing I need to do is get myself to Connecticut. I’m planning to fly there the day before, then fly home a few days after we get back so I can visit with my friends and family in Connecticut. Alan will be out in the field by that point anyway. Charlee already agreed to look after the cats, so when I get back to the Springs, I can get a cab to Ft. Carson and pick the car up from wherever Alan parks it. I’ve sent in my renewal/name change form for a new passport with EXPEDITE in big letters and a $60 fee for the rush. Now I just need a bathing suit. ::shudder:: I’m leaning heavily towards ordering one from ModCloth. They have really cute retro-style ones that I think would be modest and flattering and not an obvious "fat girl" suit. That can wait a little while though. I’d like to really kick-start my weight loss first. There’s no reason that I can’t drop 10-15 lbs. by then if I start kicking ass at the gym and go twice a day. And we’re doing a couple hours worth of hiking tomorrow, too. With Bermuda lying in the near future, I’m sure I can psych myself into sticking with my exercise routine.

~Liz

Also, this might be totally random, but it occurred to me that my eyes aren’t the least bit blue anymore. They used to tend to look blue in pictures, which made it hard to convince people that they weren’t, but now they are consistently gray-green. Weird.