Its been a very long time since my last post. In fact, I almost forgot that I even had a blog! Since my last post, I have been blessed with a beautiful daughter and I have moved on from my job at the United States Military Academy. I was given the opportunity to attend a fully funded graduate program by the Army. I am currently a graduate student at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. I am currently in the Master in Public Relations/Corporate Communication. As a communicator for the Army this program will be a benefit for my career. My classes lately have been focused on digital communications. Specifically, blogging and the power blogs have gained in the past few years. I doubt that my blogs will become powerful and or widely read, but it will be interesting to see if my blog will evolve during my time in the program. Here's to what the future of digital communications hold!

Grace

This year has been great in so many ways but at the same time so depressing. I feel that God's Grace has been so uplifting in my personal life, work and family. I have to admit that I do forget to seek the Lord at all times. I am sure like everyone else, its easy to remember to pray when you need it, but do we pray when we don't, or rather when you think you don't need it? I have been fortunate this year that so many of my worries and questions have been answered. I have struggled mainly this year about my career. Who am I, where do I want to go. In the past month, I have really felt a sense of unhappiness about who I am and how my career fits in. I was so blessed to have been able to find strength in my circle of friends. My Grace Group has been so uplifting and helpful. I was reminded that others do not decide your fate or career, God does! How these words brought tears to my eyes. How true, that God's plan is the ultimate plan! I really found comfort last night with The Afters song "Lift me up." How amazing that God's Grace can warm your thoughts and hug you close. How God has answered my prayers about my parents struggles. I pray that my attitude is changed and that I believe through my core that God's Grace is all I need. His plan is the only plan.

Getting Ideas

So, its been quite a while since I last really wrote anything. I have done some serious thinking about who I am, how I see myself in the Army and where I think I need to go. I was invited this past spring to a luncheon hosted by USO in NYC. USO was hosting the Woman of the Year Luncheon. I was honored that I was able to attend and represent West Point. I met a few lovely ladies and heard the guest speaker and how her career in the Navy has been successful. While at this luncheon and speaking about my career, I had a moment. I realized that my happiness and how I should view success as a women who has a career in the Army was based on such silly standards. I had realized that instead of trying to be Lara Croft I had to be simply myself. I could and can be successful by aligning my career path with what I believe as a Christian. Let me explain, I truly believe that God in his great plan and mercy created the most perfectly flawed human beings in the Garden of Eden. He created Adam and in His plan created Adam with some flaws. In order to complete Adam, God created Eve. Eve was his match, his companion that completed him. Eve too had flaws but they were flaws that complemented Adam. So if we were created to complement Adam and not created to over shadow Adam, we cannot be Lara Croft. We have a role as a woman and that role is glorious and has purpose. Instead of trying to work so hard and ending every day with disappointment and sadness (because I am trying to be Croft), I needed to realign what was important. My success is how I can serve and be glorious in the design that God created for women. I can be beautiful, strong and successful without trying to be Croft or better yet, GI Jane. I left the luncheon on lighter feet, a great sense of burden had been lifted off of my shoulders and on my heart. I realized that trying to be the next successful Army Officer based on male standards isn't realistic. I am not a male and what I can accomplish and achieve is based on me being a woman; the perfectly flawed portion of Adam to complement him to achieve the glory that God has designed for me. My Adam is my husband, Lawrence. Who pretty much understood this so long ago. I just didn't get it. I kept pushing forward with aggressiveness, eagerness and hard work. I thought that as long as I work hard and keep pushing forward, I had to be doing well. My efforts would be recognized and that I would finally achieve that level of success that I was so longing for. I wanted to be in the top 10% of all officers, I wanted to be the best officer that my commander could count on. Regardless of the job and my gender, because I was so good, I could do anything. I could be a successful combatant commander. The sad truth simply because I am not male/combat arms I wouldn't be the top 10%. I had finally accepted that the top 10% could be achieved but not based on the standards set by men, but rather the design set by God. My role was to serve as the best officer that I could be in a support position. I am the flawed woman that was created for the man. Now, I am not by any means saying that we don't strive to work hard. I am not saying that we cannot be successful. What I am saying, just as I realized that we have a divine role that was designed for us by God, men have a job too. Men need to understand their role is to lead the house, to be the spiritual leader and also to recognize that being the lead (combat arms) that those that serve in positions of support are due your respect and courteousness. Since that day this past spring, I have been growing my thoughts, ideas on how to strengthen what I believe. I also understand there will be many that won't believe in the same things. There are those that will continue to push for women to rise to the tops of all positions and ladders as well as being Infantry Soldiers. I truly wish the best for anyone, but I know my success lies in the design that was created for me by God.

Its GRAD Week!

As so of you may know, I work in the public affairs office at West Point. This week has been rather crazy! Its grad week here at West Point. Grad week is full of activities that center around the upcoming graduation this Saturday for the class of 2011. The crazy part has been the weather. It has rained rather hard every day making most of the planned activities unbearable.

This week has been long hours but on a positive note the amount of social media products that have been created has been great!

In case you didn't know the following links are for the social media sites that I am in charge of for West Point.

USMA Web site: http://www.usma.edu
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/WestPointUSMA
Parent’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WestPointParents
Twitter: http://twitter.com/WestPoint_USMA
Twitter News: http://twitter.com/WestPointNews
Parent’s Twitter: http://twitter.com/WestPointParent
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheWestPointChannel
Flickr: http://flickr.com/West_Point
Parent’s Flickr: http://flickr.com/photos/westpointparents

I hope you would check them out and even like our fan page on Facebook!

Sorry that I haven't written in a long while. I have been doing a lot of thinking and praying.

I look forward to a great summer and triathlon training!

I believe

Below is a post that I put on my Facebook this morning. I just wanted to share it with you all. My workouts this week have been rather crappy. I have hit or miss most of my exercise time due to really long hours at work. However, today I finally feel that I can play catch up and I will be able to get back on track this evening. I hope you all are having a great day and prepping for a great weekend!

I believe in Jesus Christ and have accepted him as my personal savior. One facebooker has challenged all believers to put this on their wall. In the Bible it says, If you deny me in front of your peers, I will deny you in front of my Father at the gates of Heaven. This is simple. If you love God and are not afraid to show ...it repost this. Amen

As FEB comes to a close

Well, by far FEB was a much better month for me. I was able to workout more than JAN and I committed to a workout plan. I have been on the INSANITY kick for 2 weeks now. Its a great butt kicker at 0500 in the morning!

I have been really busy at work lately. My new job as the social media chief is really kicking my butt. I feel that I spend most days trying to get a head of the news ball and share what comes in, out to the people that like us on FB and who follow us on twitter.

I have also spent more time keeping my FB and twitter updated as well. I have grown over 20 followers on my twitter in the last 2 weeks alone! I am so excited about it! I work hard in trying to provide information about myself but at the same time providing news about the Army.

I am still training for my half marathon, its slow and I am going in on the training with the mind set; one foot in front of the other slowly! I am up to 5 miles and no issues thus far. However, I have a 7 miler this weekend, time to bust out the energy gels!

I have also added lunch time swims, so far I get to the pool twice a week.

Today I find myself in a pinch. Today around 1600 or 4pm; I have 3 events. 1. pick up dog from the vet (he got his teeth worked on) 2. buddy is getting promoted to LTC (this is a big deal!) 3. run 3.5 miles with my running group.

all three events are really important, hopefully I can figure out how I will be getting to each event!

I hope you all are having a great day!

Still Going!

I'm continuing to do my INSANITY workouts daily. This morning was a bit rough though, I really didnt get much sleep last night and so moving to workout was slow. I was super productive this morning, took all my vitamins, made lunch, ate breakfast, showered and even managed to get to work on time!! Woo Hoo!

Diet is getting better, I have changed my dinners to protein shakes and packed protein, and complex carbs during the day. So far its ok, I find myself hungry a lot though so I drink a lot of water. Yeah me for water intake!

My whole office is going lap swimming today at lunch, I am looking forward to it! I also am leading a 3 mile run this afternoon with my ladies running group. I guess I should build a route for it, huh? LOL.

I have been really busy with social media at work. My job now encompasses the social media chief for West Point. I am in charge of the West Point facebook page, you can find it at http://www.facebook.com/WestPointUSMA

The more fans that like my page the more cool toys and creative latitude I will get. I am also in charge of the West Point twitter page too, you can find it at http://twitter.com/WestPoint_USMA

I still have a lot of work to do but social media is coming along nicely.

Well I hope you all are having a great Wednesday, I know I'm looking forward to the weekend already!