Did I Shave My Legs For This?

232 days left...

I cannot wait.

What happens in 232 days? I will officially be retired! 20 years and 11 days of Naval service.

I'm so tired. I just want to have my life back. I'm tired of getting home from work and doing nothing because I'm too exhausted from the mental stress of my job. The job itself is easy, but the fact that out of the 15 people working for me, only about a eighth of them act like adults and do not require me to hold their hands constantly. It is totally draining.

I cannot wait to cook every night. I cannot wait to play with crafts. I cannot wait to do the things I took for granted even five years ago.

But on a different note - married life is AWESOME! It's hard to believe it's been three months since the wedding. It seems like longer, in a good way. I can't wait (I keep saying that!) to get a house to live in forever and just be us together. Sappy, I know.

Edit: I just received my official authorization to retire this morning!  Whoop!

Day 106

It's Christmas Eve in the part of this world. Well barely anyway. The ship is conducting a Replenishment at Sea on Christmas Day (nothing like getting gas for 6 hours on a holiday!) so we will be "celebrating" on the 26th. Yay. Supposedly, we are to receive 27 pallets of mail, I just hope what I ordered is in there somewhere.

It doesn't feel like Christmas. Sure, some divisions have put up lights in the passageways (hallways) and we're playing Christmas movies on our movie system, and even our messdecks is decked out, but it doesn't feel like Christmas. Hopefully this is my last one underway, ever. Praise be to the baby Jesus!

Day 102

We left Israel yesterday, and I was sad to see her go. It really was a beautiful country. I was mildly disappointed in the tour on Thursday. We spent most of the day in Masada, with a late lunch at 2:30 and only about half an hour at the Dead Sea. Well, a smidgen of it really. About 20 yards across. At a resort. With a bunch of other people. So I got a bottle of Dead Sea water and a few chunks of Dead Sea salt directly from the source. I also bought a lot of mud and salts from a store to bring home as souvenirs. By the time the bus got back to the ship, I was way too exhausted from walking around a bunch of ruins that I'd never heard of to go back out for another chance to eat some regional food - like a fresh falafel. I did get a leftover one though.

So now we're back doing circles and I'm in desperate need of a looooooong nap.

Day 97

So we're in Israel. Haven't been out looking around yet because I had duty yesterday. The landscape looks a lot like Japan, with buildings up the sides of the hills and mountains, stacked so close that they look like building blocks. And that's just the view from the ship.

I'm supposed to go on a tour of Jerusalem tomorrow. It should be interesting. Then Thursday I'll be going to the Dead Sea. I'm really looking forward to all of it - since I've never been here before and I don't plan on coming back this way into the foreseeable future.

The plan is to go walking around the city today and do some shopping. But we'll see. I have to find another girl to go out with because that's the ship's policy. Now I'm off to exchange some money. Have a great day.

Day 95

I'm standing the 02-07 with an hour left and I'm fighting really hard not to fall asleep. So I've decided to share with you a few of the sites I surf to keep from falling asleep. Some of them you might have even heard of. /sarcasm

I Can Has Cheezburger LoLcats
I Has a Hotdog LoLDogs
XKCD Webcomic
Kingdom of Loathing A web-based game that I have seemingly made six other people start playing.
Cracked This site amuses me for hours.
Den of Geek Yet another that I get lost in.

Day 94

So umm...yeah.

Day 91

It's 6am and I'm already tired. I'm just SO excited about spending Christmas underway this year. We're almost at the halfway point and a talent show is planned. I'll probably have watch and can't be there to see people making fools of themselves. My mother finally sent off a box for me, but she sent it to my old command in Bahrain. Poor Mom. Other than that, the sky is still blue and the water is still wet. Go figure.

Day 86

It's been ten days, and absolutely nothing has changed. I got to see the cool moon/star/planet smiley face thingy while in the middle of nowhere. That was pretty neat. The ship ran out of hamburger buns, so we had "ground beef patties" for lunch yesterday. We haven't had French fries in a month. I need to start working out. And start playing Guitar Hero again. Some days I am so tired for no reason at all. At least we're almost at our halfway point. The three-month point sucks.

Day 77

Another day, another view of water. There's not a whole lot going on. They've decided that Thanksgiving day will be holiday routine, which is nice, but I suspect that they are going to take away Sunday's HR to make up for a day of loss work. Or something will come up and we'll have to work both days. God I love deployment.

Day 71

So last week I went back to my old stomping grounds, Bahrain. It's a lot different when you visit than when you're stationed there. I did a lot of necessity shopping at the exchange. And I keep telling myself that yes, Guitar Hero is a necessity! Before we pulled in, we escorted a four-masted sailing ship around; it was very slow. Our upcoming schedule is looking like utter dog crap. This is why I'm glad I'll be retiring soon. Gone are the days hanging out in seedy pubs in Australia until 5 in the morning. Now we have to request to stay out overnight even though we are adults, and that's if we are even allowed to stay at some hotel.

The Navy isn't fun anymore. :(