Sunday, May 15, 2011
My Lilies
Oh my achin' body...
Geez blogger is finally up and running. I haven't been able to get on all week.
Anywho, so the hubby's out playing army so I decided this would be a perfect opportunity to start p90x. The hubby and I had been discussing starting it before but once I got all the equipment together I got no motivation from him. I decided to do it on my own. I am doing this for toning really. I'm not trying to get buff I just need to add some shape to my "twig" body. I have always been a skinny girl. My parents were both thin when they were younger so that's where I got that from. I was expecting to keep on the weight after I had a baby, like my mom did but that just didn't happen. When I joined the army I was 113 lbs. Ony 1lb above my minimum weight for being 5'8". After I graduated basic I was 145 lbs. I LOVED it. I was curvy. (hee hee) I was still pretty thin but I had a shape. I pretty much maintained that weight until I deployed a year later. I was 120 during most of the deployment and up until I was pregnant which was a year after I got back. After I had my son I made it a point to keep that weight on but being a new mom I just couldn't do it. I was too hungry and too sleepy to really care about anything else. Now, nearly 3 years later I am going to do something about it.
It's not all fun and games being skinny either. People always think I'm anorexic; then they see that I eat like a horse and then I become bulimic. Clothes are the worse. I am not a small or a size 2. I always think about how models are suppose to be 34-24-34 and are like 5'10". I am 5'8" and have larger measurements why do I look thinner than them? Makes no sense.
So since the hubby is gone I decided that now is the time to do p90x. I am currently on day 6 and... omg. I started on Monday night after my son goes to sleep and Tuesday morning I couldn't move a muscle on my upper body and on Wednesday I couldn't move my whole body. This program is no joke. It's not necessarily hard it just uses all the muscles that I never use. As a runner, I have never really done upper body workouts. I started Monday at 117 lbs and as of Friday I am 119.2 lbs. I am really excited. 2 lbs in 5 days. Woohoo! I have been using a spreadsheet I found online and it has a calorie counter on it. According to that thing I should be taking in 2800 calories/day to reach my goal of 130 lbs. What?! I would have to eat all day to achieve that. I have been looking for a weight gainer to take to supplement some of those calories. I am taking a Whey protein supplement right now and that is helping. I'm really starting to get into this weight lifting process. Who knows, maybe I'll go a little further.
Anywho, so the hubby's out playing army so I decided this would be a perfect opportunity to start p90x. The hubby and I had been discussing starting it before but once I got all the equipment together I got no motivation from him. I decided to do it on my own. I am doing this for toning really. I'm not trying to get buff I just need to add some shape to my "twig" body. I have always been a skinny girl. My parents were both thin when they were younger so that's where I got that from. I was expecting to keep on the weight after I had a baby, like my mom did but that just didn't happen. When I joined the army I was 113 lbs. Ony 1lb above my minimum weight for being 5'8". After I graduated basic I was 145 lbs. I LOVED it. I was curvy. (hee hee) I was still pretty thin but I had a shape. I pretty much maintained that weight until I deployed a year later. I was 120 during most of the deployment and up until I was pregnant which was a year after I got back. After I had my son I made it a point to keep that weight on but being a new mom I just couldn't do it. I was too hungry and too sleepy to really care about anything else. Now, nearly 3 years later I am going to do something about it.
It's not all fun and games being skinny either. People always think I'm anorexic; then they see that I eat like a horse and then I become bulimic. Clothes are the worse. I am not a small or a size 2. I always think about how models are suppose to be 34-24-34 and are like 5'10". I am 5'8" and have larger measurements why do I look thinner than them? Makes no sense.
So since the hubby is gone I decided that now is the time to do p90x. I am currently on day 6 and... omg. I started on Monday night after my son goes to sleep and Tuesday morning I couldn't move a muscle on my upper body and on Wednesday I couldn't move my whole body. This program is no joke. It's not necessarily hard it just uses all the muscles that I never use. As a runner, I have never really done upper body workouts. I started Monday at 117 lbs and as of Friday I am 119.2 lbs. I am really excited. 2 lbs in 5 days. Woohoo! I have been using a spreadsheet I found online and it has a calorie counter on it. According to that thing I should be taking in 2800 calories/day to reach my goal of 130 lbs. What?! I would have to eat all day to achieve that. I have been looking for a weight gainer to take to supplement some of those calories. I am taking a Whey protein supplement right now and that is helping. I'm really starting to get into this weight lifting process. Who knows, maybe I'll go a little further.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
The New Promotion Point System
Promotion point UGH! The best part about being out of the army is I don't have the stress of getting promoted; Now I have the stress of getting my husband promoted. Yay! He came home today and said he finally got an appointment with his "wonderful" S-1. He also tells me that they are changing to promotion points system. "Great" I think. So he goes through his excellent "I Love Me" book that I made him to make sure he has everything. Come on I'm more organized and on top of things than he is. Who's he kidding. I'm up (2am) thinking how is this going to effect his points. "I" have been working really hard to motivate this man to get promoted. I make him work out with me when he gets home, I watch his eating 2 wks before a pt test. I tape him to see how much more I need to starve him (ha ha) I make him take every military class he can. I bug the hell out of him to do those STUPID correspondence courses (don't miss those). He's a crack shot so I don't have to worry about that but I do all of this because he refuses to do college I don't force him because college just isn't for everyone. This means I have to push him to do better in everything else if he wants to make up for the lack of civilian education. I did a little research to see what kind of impact this change was going to have and I find that it's going to effect everyone a lot.
Well, the biggest thing is now the commander's points and board points are basically a Go and No go deal. That hurts because those were pretty much free points.
Next is awards, if it's a young soldier trying to fast track this will hurt. If you are a seasoned soldier you aquire Good Conduct Metals, ARCOMs, and AAMs like nobody's business. Escpecially if you deploy. You automatically get something for deploying and usually get an award for PCSing. Unless you get a company who doesn't like doing paperwork. :cough cough:
Military education I'm not too sure about yet. This still covers NCOES and ACCP but only courses, not sub-courses. Those receive 1 pt for every 5 hours. But DA 87 (certificates of training) I'm not to clear about. It says that DA 87's will only be accepted unless the course is formally listed in ATRRS or AR 350-1. Now when I checked AR 350-1 there have been some courses removed and added so your going to have to look those up.
Civilian Eduction: This is going to help some young soldiers out a lot since for SGT it has been dropped to 75. They have also changed the pt value per semester hour. What used to be 1.5pts for semester hour is now 1pt for semester hour. It's a smaller impact on the overall score.
Military Training: Here's the pick me up. They are now awarding points for combat experience.
Next is awards, if it's a young soldier trying to fast track this will hurt. If you are a seasoned soldier you aquire Good Conduct Metals, ARCOMs, and AAMs like nobody's business. Escpecially if you deploy. You automatically get something for deploying and usually get an award for PCSing. Unless you get a company who doesn't like doing paperwork. :cough cough:
Military education I'm not too sure about yet. This still covers NCOES and ACCP but only courses, not sub-courses. Those receive 1 pt for every 5 hours. But DA 87 (certificates of training) I'm not to clear about. It says that DA 87's will only be accepted unless the course is formally listed in ATRRS or AR 350-1. Now when I checked AR 350-1 there have been some courses removed and added so your going to have to look those up.
Civilian Eduction: This is going to help some young soldiers out a lot since for SGT it has been dropped to 75. They have also changed the pt value per semester hour. What used to be 1.5pts for semester hour is now 1pt for semester hour. It's a smaller impact on the overall score.
Military Training: Here's the pick me up. They are now awarding points for combat experience.
2 pts for every month in combat. 30 pts max for SGT. 60 max for SSG
Of course APFT and Weapons Qual will be judged on a different scale.
I've been reading some comments on another website and have realized that this has a bigger impact than I thought. Some peoples points have dropped from 710 to 406. I hope that this also has an impact on the "skillport" certificates and that actual good, well trained, experienced soldiers will become NCOs. The army needs experienced NCOs. I used to absolutely hate it when there was a kid that fast tracked ahead of me because they had more college than I did and had no idea what was going on with anything. That just gave me more work. I had to do my work and make them look good because some how if they didn't know what was going on I would get in trouble for it. If they can't do their job why the hell did you promote them. I hope this squashes that problem.
For more information on the new promotion points system check out : ncopromotionboard.com
Cameron Park Zoo in Waco
This past weekend the hubby had a 3 day weekend with early realease on Friday for Earth Fest. It was a combination of environmental awareness and a celebration for the month of the military child. They had free food and drinks. Inflatable bouncy houses, games, and events for the kids. We all enjoyed ourselves very much eeven though we had an incident with parents letting their kids run around without supervision (it always happens to me) but thankfully the event volunteers were aware of the situation and took action.
Saturday the hubby woke me up and said that he wanted to go to the zoo. I was shocked. He never tells me he wants to do something. So I got up and did all the preparations. This time I did thorough research since what happened with the Austin "zoo." We do get a military discount. The Cameron Park Zoo is the most beautiful zoo I have seen. It has a few parks around it since it is adjacent to the Brazos River. It was very big and clean. It was very easy to go through. If an exhibit was off the main the main trail it would take you in a circle back to where you started so you wouldn't have to back track. This was nice since a lot of times we are thinking. "Did we go this way yet?" The Lemurs have their own island on the lake. There are also lots of tables on the deck so you have a nice view. We saw EVERY animal. They were all out in the open. I'm thinking we were there around feeding time since the lions, and tigers were pacing by the zookeeper's door. All the exhibits are well put together and nice and open so you are able to see the entire exhibit. They have a nice aquarium with lots of interesting fish. The had a "nocturnal animals" house that was kind of creepy. You open the door, it's pitch black and all you see is a manikin of a bee keeper. This house is only lit by dark lights, so takes a minute to adjust. The only bad thing I found about this place and not really bad but there is only one concession stand throughout the park. It seemed to be right in the middle of the park but I would still have to walk to/back to it. Then to top it off their credit machine wasn't working. Luckily there was a tiny gift shop next door that had bottled drinks and took credit card. We had a great time and plan on returning to the zoo and the many parks around it.
Saturday the hubby woke me up and said that he wanted to go to the zoo. I was shocked. He never tells me he wants to do something. So I got up and did all the preparations. This time I did thorough research since what happened with the Austin "zoo." We do get a military discount. The Cameron Park Zoo is the most beautiful zoo I have seen. It has a few parks around it since it is adjacent to the Brazos River. It was very big and clean. It was very easy to go through. If an exhibit was off the main the main trail it would take you in a circle back to where you started so you wouldn't have to back track. This was nice since a lot of times we are thinking. "Did we go this way yet?" The Lemurs have their own island on the lake. There are also lots of tables on the deck so you have a nice view. We saw EVERY animal. They were all out in the open. I'm thinking we were there around feeding time since the lions, and tigers were pacing by the zookeeper's door. All the exhibits are well put together and nice and open so you are able to see the entire exhibit. They have a nice aquarium with lots of interesting fish. The had a "nocturnal animals" house that was kind of creepy. You open the door, it's pitch black and all you see is a manikin of a bee keeper. This house is only lit by dark lights, so takes a minute to adjust. The only bad thing I found about this place and not really bad but there is only one concession stand throughout the park. It seemed to be right in the middle of the park but I would still have to walk to/back to it. Then to top it off their credit machine wasn't working. Luckily there was a tiny gift shop next door that had bottled drinks and took credit card. We had a great time and plan on returning to the zoo and the many parks around it.
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| Waterfall at Lemur Island |
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| My son and I at another waterfall in the zoo |
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| One of the many statues. This one was so big and life like it was scary. Right across from the real one too |
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| An interesting fish in the aquarium |
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| This slide went right through the river otter exhibit. I could not pull my son away from it. The otter would swim around him and he would be fascinated |
For more information please check out: Cameron Park Zoo
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