I wonder whats gonna happen to you..

Something is about to give
I can feel it coming
I think I know what it means

I'm not afraid to die
I'm not afraid to live
And when I'm flat on my back
I hope to feel like I did

And hardness, it sets in
You need some protection, the thinner the skin

I want you to know
That you don't need me anymore
I want you to know
You don't need anyone or anything at all

Who's to say where the wind will take you?
Who's to say what it is will break you?
I don't know which way the wind will blow
Who's to know when the time has come around?
Don't wanna see you cry
I know that this is not goodbye

In summer, I can taste the salty sea
There's a kite blowing out of control on a breeze
I wonder what's gonna happen to you

You wonder what has happened to me ...

I'm worried and I need to share this.

My Mom has been having some health troubles for many months now. I thank God all the time that she was able to quit smoking after, I think, nearly 40 years. I begged her to quite since I can remember. It broke my heart that, when I was working at a CVS just after HS, she came in the front door while I was at the back of the store and I heard her cough and knew that she was in the store.

She doesn't really seem to cough anymore, but instead of her health improving after she quit it got worse. Several years ago she told me that Doctors had told her she had pre-emphysema and that it was mild.

Now, after many trips to a pulmonologist to see why she just can't breath, we've finally gotten some answers. The nurse yesterday when calling about Mom's catscan results asked her if she knew about the emphysema. Mom said, "Yeah but I was told its pre-emphysema and mild." The nurse said, "No. Actually its moderate to severe."

My husband, having had family members who have had this disease, told me (not to be blunt) but that I needed to start preparing myself for the worst. He said that emphysema is a progressive disease and even though quitting smoking slows it down it doesn't stop it.

Mom's on at least two inhalers every day and right now is hooked up to a heart monitor at home.

I just don't know what to think. I need to read more about emphysema. I think that my Mom is either unaware of the seriousness of this or she's in denial.

My heart aches and I'm praying for God to heal her and to not take her from me early. I would deeply appreciate your prayers as well.

-Gina

An Cat Dubh

Today I am fierce. I am a warrior. Yesterday, and since Thursday last, I was a by-stander, a lump on a log. . Not today. Today I am a lioness.

Something clicked today as it always seems to do after a dry-spell with my exercising/eating. I haven't exercised since last Thursday when I did Zumba (which I dearly love!). I sort of fell off the wagon again. I'm not sure why this happens sometimes. And worse than all of this I haven't run for something like 2 weeks now I think. I was kickin' ass and takin' names in the gym for a week straight and finally moved up to a mile and a half with me run and then totally fell apart. Thats when I had the string of bad workouts. I'm not sure where that came from but I certainly know I've been in a weird, dark place since then.

Today, I tore into a couple of morons on the Women Redefined Facebook page. These morons have been creeping on the page for a few days now and generally harassing the women on there. They started posting comments that were extremely derogatory towards women and several things which fit the definition of sexual harassment to a T..so I took them apart. I didn't get emotional..I didn't really even get upset at all. I just put them in their place and then toyed with them for a while..like a cat with a mouse. ;)

For some reason today if you have a penis you're going to act like a moron. This generalization is not extended to my husband and a few other good men. First it was the idiots on Facebook and then (if you can believe this) these college-aged guys at the Y today nearly got into a fight. The guys were obviously friends but started raising their voices and making fun of one another until they started talking about taking it outside. Now..I am of the opinion that boys don't become men and grow a brain until at least 30..and even then not always. Sure there's are exceptions but they are just that! I was amused that during all of this there was an older guy with gray hair and a young face that just casually kept on working out and ignored them. He was so yummy. This, ladies, is why I married an older man. 'Nuff said! LOL

So I was feeling very fiesty after dismembering the misogynists on Facebook so I took my fierce behind over the Y and ran a mile and a half again! Woohoo!! I also did it while sprinting at 6 mph! I had soooo much energy and I've never run that fast before. I usually run between 4.3-4.5mph. I felt awesome! My strides were so long I felt like a freakin' gazelle. Take that boys!

Ladies...not that this was the case, but don't ever let a man belittle you, try to control you, or tell you that you're not good enough.

We are women. Hear us roar!

Future Sailor, GM Ringle

After the flood all the colors came out..

Phew! What a rollercoaster my moods are lately. For this I blame Mother Nature..pure and simple. I came to that realization yesterday evening and when I lie in bed last night I prayed..

"Okay God...PLEASE let me be myself tomorrow. Please let me get the things done that need to be done. Let me actually accomplish something. I need to workout. Help me to do that. Give me the air in my lungs, the strength in my muscles, and the stamina in my mind to do that......"

Well it seems to have worked. I woke up this morning. Or, rather, was woken up by the guy arriving to do the semi-annual inspection on our heating and A/C. Let me tell you..alarms thus far have proven to be worthless for me. With a normal alarm I just hit snooze until I either tire of it and turn it off (all done in my sleep mind you!) or I wake up and hour and a half past the time it was scheduled to go off and don't remember hitting snooze 400 times.

I've tried putting it across the room. I just hobble over totally pissed off and shut it off because, I will NOT be getting up to do that again!! I have an alarm program on my cellphone and at first I thought it was great. One of the features of it is that you have to solve a 3-digit+3-digit math problem. (Like 394+283) Now...I do not consider myself to be very good at Math. In fact, I have sort of a block about it because I had such an awful Math teacher in HS that made me feel like a retard. So I'm really slow at it. Well guess what I now do? I solve the question half-asleep without thinking about it and it snoozes. So I shorted the snooze to 3 minutes. I just do it again and immediately fall back asleep.

I'm actually pretty worried about this. When I student-taught I was able to get up on time every day. But I think it was in the back of my mind that I COULDN'T be late. That was in the Fall of 2008 and since then I haven't had to get up early for hardly anything. I'm worried about either getting a teaching job and sleeping through my alarm or not being able to wake up right away in the Navy. Can you imagine how much that would piss the lovely folks at RTC off? Yikes!!

So thats my alarm dilemma. I have found a huge list of alarms that do all sorts of crazy crap which you can view here. I am also going to ask my husband if we can spend the money to get me this. This bad-boy allows you ONE snooze and then leaps off of your bedside table and goes rolling around so that you have to get your sleepy butt out of bed and find it. This one also has a touch-friendly face that works like an iPod and you can add your favorite mp3s to it to wake up to or even a voice recorded wake-up call. Pretty rad, huh? Its kinda expensive though, thats the only problem. My dog also tends to sleep on the floor RIGHT beside my side of the bed and I can just see this thing popped off and landing on his poor head.

Any suggestions?

On another note I just biked around 8 miles which felt awesome after four days of no exercise and (Shhhh!) 2 days of McDonalds. So maybe I'm coming out of this. Again..I blame Mother Nature. Either way..as of right now I'm moving forward and not backward. Thats always good for me. :)

Later Taters!

Future Sailor, GM Ringle

You're out of luck, and the reason that you had to care..

I'm just not feeling like myself lately. This has been going on since last week. I haven't exercised since Friday last week and it doesn't look like I'm going to be doing it today either.

I have been busting my butt trying to find a teaching position, a subbing position, even a teachers/classroom assistant position...NOTHING! I'm sending resumes, now, out to counties that are far enough away that I would have to live away from my husband to take the job. I have $100k in student loan debt.

So here I sit with this education, with this tremendous debt, and I feel like that War song..."What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!"

In the meantime I've slowly slipped into this funk and I'm just not happy. I feel like doing nothing because all I want is to have some purpose for my life and a career would do just that.

So I'm going to pop a movie in and just veg out. If the motivation comes from somewhere I'll ride my bike today, but I don't see that happening. I'm fighting the urge as it is to just not go back to bed. I hate this economy and the fact that I graduated and was thrown out into it without a lifeline.

Sorry about the negative post, but its just true, honest-to-God feelings right now. I know I'll pull out of this, and for God's sake I don't deserve any pity because MANY people have it far worse than me. Kudos to Sailor Taylor for keeping on trucking, because I might have just shut down by now..You keep going girl! You're almost there!

And as for me I'll see you on the other side of the rainbow when I pull out of this silly stupor.

Frustrated,

Future Sailor, GM Ringle

Restart. And. Reboot Yourself..

Ahhhhhhhhhhh! That was a big, deep, breath of contentment!

After a terrible string of workouts, and having found myself in a total frustrated rut because of it, I decided to take the day off today. It was freaking marvelous!!

I ended up doing Turbo-Kick at the Y last night, which turned out to be like Tae-Bo on Meth. It was fairly hard-core. They were even doing some 8-count body builders in it. I wasn't ready to do those yet. At least not in public! I don't want anyone to be around when I fail and do a belly-flop on the ground. It was a great workout though, and I left feeling rejuvenated and very glad that I hadn't thrown the towel in.

Today, however, I just decided to remove myself from the entire situation and just relax. I didn't want to slip into dwelling on my workout failures from this past week and cause another one. So, instead, I put on my new bathing suit and went to the pool. It was fantabulous! I absolutely love being in and around water so that was great. I spent a whole 3 hours there, ate Chik-Fil-A for lunch (thats what they serve in their concession stand apparently! Cool beans!), got some sun, swam, read, and had an intense conversation with a little girl who didn't "like yellow jackets" just like me and who thought that my nails were "pretty". haha (I work with kids for a living, but they never cease to amuse me!)

Then I ended up going to get some fro-yo for me and my dog. Yes, thats right...and my dog. My fav. fro-yo bar sells dog-friendly frozen yogurt for a buck. It comes with two little dog biscuits on top. I mean..you can't beat that. So Guinness rode down with me to pick it up and then devoured it when we got him. He loved it! Then we sat on the couch and watched Nat'l Lampoon's Vacation.

It was a great day and I feel like I'm gonna be back on the ball tomorrow feeling revitalized and having my spirits lifted.

Peace!

Future Sailor, GM Ringle

You're in the muck..in the maze of your imagination..

Ladies! Today was another tough day at the gym. I gave up on running after a little over half of a mile in. It was pathetic. I'm in this psychological funk from screwing up yesterday and I think the only way I might get out of it is to try to mix up my routine tomorrow and do Zumba before I go do strength training.

I wanted to give ALL of my Sister Sailors from Facebook a massive shoutout, because you guys totally brightened my mood today when I talked about how disappointed I was in my run. You girls can always make me smile and laugh and I'm glad that we're all going through this together. It will be a shame when some of us split to go to RTC at different times. I wish ALL of you the best of luck and maybe we'll see each other on the other side during sea duty or something. I do know one thing..there isn't a ship in the entire fleet of the Navy that could contain our silly asses. I'm quite certain that we might have a blast, but we're likely to get thrown overboard with the way we all act. And to sum up this silliness I just wanted to share a preview of how sexy we will all look at RTC in our BC Glasses (female version, of course!) teehee


























Lots of Love to my girls!

Future Sailor, GM Ringle

It's just a moment.. This time will pass

I had an absolutely awful workout at the gym today. I'm crediting this to 1 factor..

I ate like CRAP over the weekend!

It wouldn't have been so bad if I had stopped at the pizza on Friday. No..then yesterday when we went to the zoo I had two beef hot dogs for lunch with some "orangeade" drink and a powerade. Great! Sugar and fat overload! And then last night I had Chinese. Like a Chinese combo thing and I ate a good deal of it. Laaaaater, because my favorite frozen yogurt place had my all-time fav combination on tap (Mint Choc. Chip and Dark Chocolate..) I went and got a big ole serving.

Needless to say I felt guilty as hell today. Then went I went to the gym, first I forgot to do my push-ups before I left. I always do them before I leave. Then I got there and just couldn't do half the stuff I usually do. It sucked big time. Lesson learned.

So all day I have been trying to wash the junk food and all of its toxins out of my system with tons of water and by eating right. Fingers crossed that I have a good run tomorrow.

The lesson for today, kids, is don't eat like a piggy and expect to have good results come Monday. LOL

Until Next Time,

Future Sailor, GM Ringle

All That You Can't Leave Behind

There are a number of things that you are not allowed to bring to RTC with you. Lets start with the things that you CAN bring to RTC with you.

The following is a list of authorized personal items that you may want to bring to training, but are not required. Any unauthorized or unnecessary items (including your civilian clothes) will be boxed up and shipped home at your expense.

OK to bring:

1. Wrist watch, wedding ring.
2. Religious medallion (No larger than the size of a dog tag).
3. Writing material (NO bottled ink).
4. Pocket dictionary.
5. Pocket bible.
6. Small address book.
7. Hairbrush and comb.
8. Pre-paid phone cards.
9. One pair of prescription glasses, reading glasses or contacts (with one week of cleaning solution).
10. A small amount of cash (i.e. less than $10).

Female recruits may retain the following personal items:

1. Feminine sanitary items.
2. Conservative cosmetics. Female/one of each: face powder, blush, lipstick, eye shadow and mascara (non-aerosol or glass). Make-up will be authorized for division photos and graduation weekend only.
3. Barrettes (Female/must match hair color).
4. Birth control medications.

Note: Female recruits are not authorized to bring a swimsuit, underwear or bras. All will be issued upon arrival.

(Source: RTC Website- http://www1.netc.navy.mil/nstc/rtcgl/what_to_bring.asp)

That being said..These are the..

Things that I will Miss at RTC/"A" School/Sea Duty

1. My glasses. Oh you'll get glasses alright. They call them birthcontrol (BC) glasses for a reason. This is more comfort than anything. I'm sure those things are going to be sweating right off of my face.
2. Sleep. Yeah..that should have been #1. I like my sleep and I'm a VERY deep sleeper. This is a concern of mine. I'll live.
3. Long luxurious showers.
4. Face Wash. Lord knows that we're gonna be getting that go-jo mess that the Y provides for you to wash EVERYTHING with.
   
5. Facebook. Its a 12-step thing..back off!! ...........I know I'll get it back after boot. So I'll live.
   
6. My phone. Yeah..you deny it too, but we're all very attached to our phones. I'm not sure if I can have it at "A" school or on a ship...Can I?
   
7. My bed. I have a king-sized bed with a pillow-top Mattress. Its heaven.
8. Concealer/foundation. Yeah I used to not be such a girly-girl, but then my hormones changed and I got ambushed by the pimple fairy. Bitch...
9. My husband. 'nuff said.
10. My dog!...No really...MY DOG!! Look at this face!

LOOK me in the face and TELL me that you would not miss this guy like crazy. I told a couple of people today that I'm going to bring him on the ship as a stowaway. What are they going to do? Make him walk the plank?? Chief Underwood suggested that I try to conceal him as a drug-sniffing dog. I told him that would only work if they were also concealing cheese. Besides..he's such a dope he'd probably trip over his own feet and go overboard. I love my Guinness dog! :)


Disclaimer: Things mentioned in this post are not to be taken too seriously, this is my poor attempt at humor, anything said or used against me or to make me seem like I'm not fit for the Navy will make you look like a jerk and so you shouldn't try it I mean really where's your sense of humor surely you didn't get through bootcamp with that stone-cold attitude....erm...right..moving on..

The End is Not as Far as the Start..

20100710





I kicked the gyms ass this past week! Tuesday and Thursday I ran 1.25mi and 1.5mi, respectively. This is major, boys and girls. Not only did I finally break a mile (Lord knows I've been there forever!) but I pushed myself to run a mile and a half. I moved up a half a mile in TWO days! And the best part of this is that 1.5mi is the minimum distance you have to run for your PRT (Physical Readiness Test).
HOOYAH! CAN I GET A WOOT WOOT??

Folks..lemme tell ya. Running= 40% Physical+50% Mental. Fo' Real!

Some of the things that run through my head while I'm running are:

"Breathe. Just Breathe."

"I'm a bad ass I'm a bad ass I'm a bad ass I'm a bad ass.."

"Just. Do. It."

"Run with me Jesus!" This is the point where I'm literally picturing Jesus in a pair of Asics like mine and I nearly start to crack up

"Screw it! I've come this far, so I can go the rest of the way!"

.....And a whole lot of praying! To the point where I'm really considering getting a tattoo of Phil. 4:13 which states:

'I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me.' Amen to that!!


Also making an appearance this week was a helluva lot of strength training. This is what I really credit as being the reason why I was able to increase my distance by a half mile in two days. I have a membership at a Y near me and here is a list of the things I do there:

Leg Press: Currently 150lbs (2 sets of 25)

Leg Extension: 45lbs (2 sets of 25)

Hip Abduction/Aduction: 45lbs (2 sets of 25 on each)

Shoulder Press: 15lbs (2 sets of 25)

Chest Press: 20 lbs (2 sets of 12)

Bicep Curl: 20lbs (4 sets of 12)

Abdominal crunch machine: 15lbs (4 sets of 20-25)


Also I'm working with free weights on my triceps. You can do this easily at home. Sit in a chair or something straight backed. Lift a weight straight above your head and bend your arm only at the elbow so that you're lowering the weight behind your head. Straighten your arm at the elbow using your triceps. You should feel this in the back of your arm. I use two 10lb dumbbells for this. Believe me! Its working! You can also do tricep dips at home. Just grab a sturdy chair (not one with wheels!!) and you grab the seat on the edge and lower yourself down and raise yourself up in front of it. This works pretty well too!

At home I do my push-ups on the stairs. I still can't do them on the floor which makes me feel like a total wuss. But keep something in the back of my mind and, if you're like me, you should do this as well.

1). Women are naturally weaker than men in their upper body. So don't always expect to nail something like this off the bat. There's a reason why girly push-ups exist.

2). I am pushing up a LOT of excess weight still.

Its healthy to keep this perspective, but don't let it talk you out of doing them at all or doing girly push-ups. They will not help you prepare for boot.

How to Work up to Full Navy Push-ups At Home

* Find a set of stairs if you can..otherwise you'll have to read on and improvise...Surely you can find steps somewhere??
* Start on something like the 4th step. Lean over, keeping your core firm and straight and see how many you can do. If its really easy to do 20 of them than move down and start there. Start where it is difficult but not impossible for you to do the push-ups. For me I started on the 4th step and worked up to 2
* Move down the next step and work up to 20, move down and repeat, etc.
* Then you're on the floor, baby and you're good to go! :)


Well, ladies. I hope that this little tutorial helps some of you. It has certainly worked for me. Just remember that losing the weight or getting fit is not going to be an overnight deal. The two biggest factors are willpower and remaining consistent. And guess what? You're in control of both of those bad boys, so you've got this!



Gotta get in a bike ride before the rain really comes..Catch ya later!


Future Sailor GM Ringle

Its Not a Hill its a Mountain, When you Start out the Climb

20100708



So I figured that I need to get this bad-boy kicked off the right way. So, of course, I'm going to have to post some before and after pics.

Now, that being said, I didn't do this the right way. I realized when I did a lifestyle overhaul that I should take some before pics for comparisons sake. The problem was that I didn't want to look at them afterwards. LOL

So what I have instead are pictures from around the time that I started training and pictures now.


BEFORE







AFTER (So far.....)





As you can see I looked like the Goodyear Blimp in the before pic. I didn't realize just how big I had gotten. I got up to a size 20 at that point. In the "After" pic its still not so pretty, but damn..I've come a LONG way!I'm now down to a size 14, but my current weight is 195.

I started at 240, which means that I've lost 145 Hooyah!! The strange thing is that 14 is the lowest size I ever got to (this was back in HS!) and at that point I weighed like 145-150. So the only thing that I can figure out is that I've toned more than ever and put on a good deal of muscle weight. But Hey! I'll take it! Nothing burns fat like muscle!

So I've now done the prerequisite "Before" and "After" shots and now I'm free to delve into some other topics. Some of the things that I would like to address are: nutrition, exercise routines, Navy Fears, Navy Questions, Navy Hopes/Dreams, and things of this sort.

If you want to contribute or have a question for me, please post it in the comments and if you don't have a livejournal account just leave your first name. A BIG shout out to my girls on the Women (Re)Defined Facebook page. We all stalk that page like crazy!

TTFN!

- Future Sailor GM Ringle

Infinity's a Great Place to Start

20100707








Over a year ago I sat down with my husband at our nutritionists for the first time. We were just returning from our wedding and honeymoon and I was not the picturesque image a bride should be. I was fat. Ohhhhhh so fat. LOL I weighed the highest that I had ever weighed in my life coming in right under 240lbs. That was after I had gained an additional 10 lbs on our honeymoon..All-inclusive resort = non-stop alcohol and food. Sweet! Until I stepped on the scale again.

Our visit to the nutritionist couldn't have come a moment too soon. I have been ready to get out of this fat suit for my entire life. Now hear me out....I'm saying very harsh things here and using the word "fat" a lot. That doesn't A) mean that I might look at others and say "Moo!" or that B) I'm suicidally depressed about myself. I just needed to change. Unlike many other people who have weight issues, I have always had one. I have been overweight since I can remember. Boy was that fun as a kid!

So let me speed up here to where this was all heading. My husband and I had decided to make a lifestyle change. This meant, no more flimsy diets, and starting (and sticking with) an exercise routine. You see...he was a runner for many years and what you will often here me refer to as "manorexic". He is the only man I know that worries as much as he does about his weight. He can also lift a notebook and lose 5 lbs. I eat a french fry and gain that. My point is..he didn't need it in the same sense that I did. Though I wanted to look better I decided to make this change as much for the benefit of my health and future as anything so vain as my appearance.

We went to the nutritionist and got set up with eating right for the first time. I also started an exercise routine. My husband and I had been biking here and there (him much more frequently) and he began to run again. At some point in the Fall I began to follow the Couch to 5k program. That worked for a short time.

Then I got sick. Oh brother did I get sick! I ended up getting two different (nasty and prolonged!) strains of the Flu and that went into pneumonia. When that was all said and done I was on drugs I'd never heard of that had me trippin' off the walls and had to go through 2 breathing treatments to ease the wheezing. NUTS! This and the resulting breakdown of my immune system meant that I was sick for probably 90% of the Fall. Every time I’d start to feel better I’d get back on the wagon, so to speak, only to fall off again when my health would decline. It was a mess.

It was during this time that I confided to my husband that, had I made different choices, I might have liked to go into the Navy. It was an aspiration I harbored as a kid. My Dad was a Marine and my Grandfather was a Sailor. I always loved hearing his war stories. My husband surprised me by saying that it wasn’t too late and that I should go for it. At first I blew it off as ridiculous, but then I thought about it and thought, yes why shouldn’t I go for it??

So this is where my journey began. I decided to challenge myself. For once, get up off of my butt and really do something. I have a Bachelors Degree in Secondary Education that is completely going to waste right now because the schools simply do not need me. More than that..I need this. I need to prove to myself that I can do this. I want to belong to something this big and this important. I want to travel and explore. I want to be pushed to my limits, wipe the tears and say, “Thank you, Sir, may I have another?” LOL. I have a fear deep down that if I don’t do this..if I don’t at least try..then I’ll never know what I might have been able to do. And I’m not okay with that.

So here I begin.. This blog will chronicle my journey to join the NAVY. It will catalog all of my obstacles and confront all of my fears. I will share my ambitions, hopes, and dream sheets with you all. (That was an insider and I’ll get to it. Settle yourself!) So follow me if you will and I’ll move through the process of getting fit enough to talk to a recruiter, and if that plays out then I’ll move as far with this as I can. Even if that ends up being rejected , or in another realm of possibilities, settling into a Navy career. Along the way if anyone has questions, thoughts, or comments; I encourage you, please, to share them. Afterall, I know I'm not alone on this journey.



Until the Next Time,

Future Sailor GM Ringle