Like Summer Camp...

...Only with lots of screaming.

While working at Honda there was a young woman who would come into the office a couple times a week to have lunch with her mom. She always had something Army on. I asked her if she was in the Army - yes, she was. She completed Basic Training and started her job training when they found a tumor in her brain. She has been under treatment ever since with varying degrees of success. She now has ambitious plans - to be married, to have children, to live a full life. I pray she does these things. Mostly she just wants to be back in the Army. I pray she attains her goals.

I asked her about basic training once... she said, "It was great fun, like summer camp, only there was a lot of screaming." I was not sure if she meant that the drill sergeants were screaming, or the recruits were screaming... but for some reason I tend to think it was the latter.

I am sitting here tonight with my stomach in knots and my chest feels like I am toting around a hundred pound weight. The weight is representative of the responsibility I feel in making it through this training. There are so many people praying for me, rooting for me, encouraging me and they have so much confidence in me. I will have to complete so many tasks over the next five months, physically and mentally. I really don't want to let anyone down.

This journey has the potential to set my husband and me on the path to a debt free existence. We would like to get to the point of actually progressing financially - rather than just surviving as we have always done in the past. It is important to us to have something to pass down to our children and grand children.

A summer camp would be nice... on a lake, in the mountains,.. one without any screaming...