Two months from now, I'll be at boot camp in Great Lakes, Illinois.




Whoa.





Things I need to do before I leave:
Cut my hair. I'm slowly getting there. I've got about four more inches to go. The final cut will be at the salon in September.
Box up my belongings. I probably won't do this until the beginning of September unless our house sells before then.
Smile like I mean it. I've been smirking like nobody's business for almost the last two years. Why?--braces. But, I get them off at the end of August! I have an ortho appointment on Friday and they'll hopefully tell me when I get the darn things off for good. I cannot wait. I've been told two things my whole life: keep writing and keep smiling. Now it's time to do at least one of those things again.
Go to the dentist. As much as I dread this, I have to. I really want my teeth to be safe from proding and poking and Hell-ish pain at boot camp and the only way to prevent this is to make sure my teeth are all happy and cavity free before I go. Thank God I already got my wisdom teeth out (which, by the way, is the main reason I had to get braces in the first place).
Visit my old high school teachers one more time. I can't do this until school starts again in September, but I can still write letters or email some now. And you can all stop rolling your eyes over how much of a teacher's pet I am--believe me, I am well aware.
Finish 5 novels. My sister bugs me everytime I see her if I've finished the books she let me borrow. It was a bad idea to get her into reading--what was I thinking?! I just started one today, but I should be able to finish them all with plenty of time to read some of my own before I depart. Reading is more than a hobbie with me.
Take a bubble bath. Okay, so I haven't done this since I was, like, 4 years old, but I've had such a great urge to just soak in the tub with a good book. The next time I have a free weekend by myself--since I'll be teased for it if I do it when other people are home--I'll fill up the jacuzzi.
Go to bed earlier. I've already made a large stride in this. If I turn off my computer at 11pm, I can fall asleep by 12-12:30am--that's back from my 1:30-2am usual time.
Take a beach vacation. I have one semi-planned, but then I did a couple weeks ago too and look how that one turned out. I don't care if I have to go by myself, it will happen.
Have one more fling. Alright, I don't have flings. I just want one more guy to show me some extra attention and have me actually want to return it--that's a feat in and of itself.
Reach my PT goals. I surpassed my sit-up goal last month! I'm still struggling with my push-ups and a bit with my mile and a half. I haven't been trying all that hard on the push-ups until about a week ago when I started lifting weights, so I've got a ways to go. My goal is to do 50 in two minutes and right now I can only do 35. The run--well, a year and a half ago it wouldn't have been a problem at all, but since my surgery, I just can't go as fast. It's totally killing my morale. It's not that my knee hurts while I run, it's actually that my lungs are so shocked that I'm doing so much at one time that they just kind of give out on me. They can't handle all of this. I can run a mile and a half in just under 12.75 minutes and my original goal was to reach 12 minutes. I think I can do 11 minutes if I really push myself. Again, if this were a year and a half ago, I'd be able to do it in 9.5 minutes.

Pat is in the Navy, so we talk about it fairly frequently. This is what he said about me and boot camp...
Pat: You'll probably like it...because you're weird like that.
Me: lol, thanks.