27 Feb 05

Hello Again. Let's try this again. I tried to post a message yesterday and the computer locked up on me and lost everything. I was a little upset about it. Life is going pretty good here. I'm sorry to say that I can't explain in great detail what I am doing here. When my mission is complete, I will describe it to you all. All I can say is that it is pretty dang easy, and I am in no harm what-so-ever. The only crappy thing is that the dust blows in my little eyes. I also want to apologize for not posting any pictures right now. I don't have the capabilities while I am here to do so. So for now, my words will have to be good enough. Let me tell you, I have been taking some classic shots of stuff around here for everyone to see. I hate to say that I haven't gotten a good one of a camel yet, but I have seen a few. Whoever said that camels had more than one hump was wrong. A couple days ago I received a package from my mom with my socks (YES), hair color and the DVD
. Yurick and I highlighted my our hair last night. It took her an hour and a half to pull my pieces of hair through the cap. Bless her heart. I think she liked it because she got to gouge my head with the pick thing. I didn't know if you knew, but I can be unbearable at times, and she is the one who has to deal with it the most. Anyway, the highlights turned out very nicely. I watched the DVD yesterday, and I thought it was so cute. I had a tear (or maybe an ocean of tears) when my mom spoke at the end about seeing Darla in the grocery store. It was really great to get to see you guys in action. I can't think of too much more to say. I miss you very much.
-Mere

25 Feb 05

Hello Again. Nothing too terribly exciting going on besides that we finally started working. We had our first convoy come through two days ago and another come through last night. We had been hearing horror stories about how mean they are, but none of us had a single problem with any of them so far. Other than that, it sprinkled a little bit yesterday. I've come to like when it rains a little bit because it does a great job of keeping the dirt on the ground when it is windy and when we are driving. Can't say that too much else has been going on. Take care of yourself and I'll blog you later.
-Mere
This will probably be a duplicate.

22 Feb 05

Hello Again. Thanks for all the comments on the last blog. I love reading them. Nothing too interesting has been going on around here. Work hasn't begun yet. I'm thinking things will pick up in the next couple of days. I do have a story that happened to me yesterday. I was at the chow hall and I decided that I wanted a carton of milk (like a juice box). I grabben a Skimmed milk. Then I went back to the table and thoroughly enjoyed my fried shrimp. I grabbed my milk, stuck my straw in, and took a big suck through my straw to wash it down. I swallowed a tiny bit of it. Then I froze. I held it in my mouth and grabbed my carton to see if I had accidently grabbed orange juice instead, but it most definately said milk. I bent over with a horrible expression on my face and spit my CURDLED SOUR MILK onto my plate. Then I grabbed a girls water bottle next to me and washed my mouth out. It was so nasty. I have never ever ever tasted sour milk in my life. We squeezed a
little of it out on my plate later, and it was like a blob. So disgusting! Then when we left the chow hall, I wouldn't call it throw up, but some that I had swallowed came back up and then once more when I was in the shower later. How nasty is that?! Then last night I also went through my first SAND STORM. We didn't know up from down and right from left. Thank goodness someome came and picked us up in a bus and took us to our tents. Then some of you know Mandy (Mr. Hovland's niece). She went to the porta-potty the other day at night, and almost sat on a turd the size of a banana! She screamed, came running inside to tell us all, and then took a picture of it. It was pretty funny! Anyway, I supposed that is all I have for you today. Thanks for checking up on me.
-Mere

20 Feb 05

Look at that...it is already the 20th. Time sure flies when you are having fun...or when you can't see anything because your eye boogers are a reddish brown color from the layer of sand and dust that coat your eyeballs. Ah, as you can tell, it was another very very windy day today. I didn't have to go to work until 9am. I think that is a good time for me to be up and at 'em. To clarify...I (me Personally) NEVER saw the arm. I'm not even sure about what post it was found on or when, but it did happen. So no need to fear, I never saw a person's limb. I am excited because today I am going to go buy myself a mattress because I can't handle anymore aching nights on a cot. I will put the mattress on top of my cot so the camel spiders can't climb up and get me. Dad, did you ever find me an article on camel spiders. I am still interested to find out if they are poisonous. I heard they weren't. Anyway, I have a fun story to tell...When we got here, we were told about how
unsafe the men are and how they will just walk right into a tent and jump on a female. (I know. You would feel safe too, right?!?) So anyway, we decided that we were going to make one entrance to our tent and secure our back door (right next to my bed) shut. We wrapped some 550 cord around the door and had this whole contraption rigged up. Yesterday morning when most of us were in our underwear, somebody starts pulling on our back door. I yell out, (and I won't use the exact language that was spoken from my mouth). "What are you doing? Go around. That door is locked." The guy reaches in, takes a knife, and cuts our door open, then says, "That's against fire code to have your door locked like that." and I said, " I don't give a ****, I don't want to get raped!" So that night we rigged up a better door with cots all stacked up and a wind chime hooked to the door so if anyone decided to come in, we would all be able to hear it. Our Lt. let us lock it up. She doesn't wa
nt anything to happen to us either. It was kind of fishy that he said he was a fire marshall because they have to tell you that they are coming and then they explain to you why you can't have stuff the way you do. This guy pulled up in a Humvee, cut the rope and left. Can you say "suspicious"!? So that's my story. It's not too exciting. I don't know what else I am going to do for the rest of the day. I'll write later...As Emily was saying, I would love to know who is checking the blog, I consider it an honor to have people checking up on me, and I want to know who you are, so post something every once in a while, or if you don't want to do that, then e-mail me and let me know that you are watching out for me. Take care everyone, and I'll talk to you later.
-Mere

18 Feb 05

Hello once again. I hope everyone is doing well. It was good to get to talk to my dad last night. Thanks for everything. Nothing very cool has been happening to me lately here. We had a drill today to see how long it would take all of us to get to work should we have somebody show up that needs to drop their stuff off. I was kind of incharge. Little ol' PFC taking charge. It doesn't happen very often. I guess I have a cool story. So we have these things called Amnisty Boxes all around every post, and what they are is a box where you can put things that you aren't supposed to have such as pornography, alcohol, unused ammunition, people's arms...YEAH THAT IS RIGHT...somebody was emptying out the Amnisty box and they found a person's arm in it. How crazy is that?!? I thought some of you would get a kick out of that story. The weather has been heating up around here. My chocolate covered peanut clusters almost became a casualty today, ALMOST being the key word. The
y are so good. I even have been sharing them. I got packages from my mom and Mallory today. How wonderful! I am busy writing back to all the great letters that I have been receiving. I feel like my lungs are no longer pure anymore. The dust is so bad when it is windy that it feels like I have mud in my lungs from the dust invading my moist lungs. I am waiting for when I start coughing up dirt. That was a pretty good simile wasn't it! I know. I'd been thinking that one up for a couple of days. Anyway, I best be going for now. Keep checking the blog. I will try to do it more often. I think we are going to get the internet at work! YES! Later.
-Mere

15 Feb 05

Hello Blogger Friends from near and far. The last few days haven't been filled with much work. Yesterday we got mail, which was really nice because I got a small Valentine package from Kimmy. Thanks Kimmy! Plus, I got some great letters from others. Tomorrow we should be getting some more mail. Emily writes some of the funniest stories. I usually have tears rolling down my face, and for those who know my true laugh...It shines through with flying colors! Between the crazy lady at McDonalds to getting her arms stuck in the steering wheel when she is driving to hitting herself in the eye with her toothbrush, I get a harty laugh, so I would like to give her a shout out for that! Keep them coming, Emmy! To explain just how little we work when we are at work, I would have to tell you what I did today. It started off by getting to work at about 7am. Then I proceeded to write Kimmy a letter. Then I PLAYED PHASE 10 FOR 6 1/2 (SIX AND A HALF) hours! It was great. Like t

he game that never ended. I didn't come in first place, but I didn't come in last either. It was a good game. Then I went to find some 2 x 4s for some signs that the others were making. All in all it was a good day. Oh, did I mention that I got to take an hour nap this afternoon...YES! Tomorrow, I have the day off. It will be a good day because I am going to sleep in. Until later I bid you a great day...
-Mere
I posted this a while ago, but for some reason it never got posted...

12 Feb 05

Well, so much for those wonderful barracks...they were great for the 2 nights we got to sleep in them. Then someone decided that we needed to go back to our roots and sleep in tents again. It isn't so bad, I suppose. I am used to it. We will stay in the tent that we just moved into for 6 days, then we will move again. I am not a fan of all this moving stuff. Oh, well. At least we don't have dirt floors. There would be one miserable PFC Petersen if that was the case. I don't really have any information about our mission yet because we really haven't started it yet. I will start setting up the lanes tomorrow. Don't ask what the 'lanes' are because I couldn't tell you. I can tell you now that I am at Camp New York. It is roughly 10 miles south of the Iraqi border. I don't feel that my life is in danger here, so don't fret. I have more of a chance of getting raped from the men coming out of Iraq who haven't seen women in a year than from getting shot. Don't worry,
I sleep with my switch blade open under my cot just in case anyone tries anything. (I hope none of the girls try to wake me up to go pee in the middle of the night.) Just kidding. Ok, that wasn't really funny at all. I'll be alright. The only other thing that stinks here is that they don't have showers for females, so we can only use the showers from 5-5:30 in the morning and 7-7:30 at night. Pretty rediculous if you ask any of us. Only six days and then we will move somewhere else that is hopefully more female friendly on this base. Anyway, I am having a good time, and the first couple of days have flown by, so I hope the rest do as well. Keep us all in your prayers. I miss you.
-Mere

9 Feb 05

P.S. You can continue to send mail to the same address...I will still get it.

PFC Petersen, Meredith
158 CSB/ A Co. 434
APO AE 09366

Take care!!

9 Feb 05

Good day to everyone. I am leaving in 30 minutes to go on my mission that could be between 1-2 months long. That is why I have put Mallory in charge of my website. I will try to comment as much as possible when I get the chance. Continue to check the blog because when I get back I will be posting a ton of pictures. Stay well.
-Mere

7 Feb 05

What a wonderful day again! I have had two great days in a row. I hope they keep on coming. Last night I decided to play a little volleyball. I haven't really played since 8th grade, so I was a little rusty, but I did pretty good. I ended up doing the splits about 3 times in the sand. I hope I don't get any sand fleas. That wouldn't be good. Then this morning, I didn't roll out of bed until around 10am. I woke up at 8am but decided that there was no hurry to get out of bed. Then we had a 2005 Kuwaiti Dance Party in our tent while we got ready! That was fun. Soon following that we decided that the weather was just too perfect to waste, so the girls and I all put on our swim suits and headed to the pool for a couple hours to worship the sun god for a while. It felt so nice. The pool was about 12 degrees. I swear you could have dropped ice cubes in there, and they wouldn't have melted. It was still fun. Now, I am here writing to you all, and then I have a meetin

g about what will be going on at our mission. I wish you all the best. Chat soon.
-Mere

6 Feb 05

Oh, what a great day I have had today! It all started out knowing that I was no longer going to be working at my security job. Then I talked to my parents this morning, which was really nice. From there, I organized my bags for the big move. I went through all the mail that I have received since I got here. I had to count each piece that I received from my immediate family. I was suprised by the results. I thought that I must be missing some because the numbers don't look right, but they have to be because I haven't thrown away a single piece of mail yet. As the competition stands Mom is in the lead with 12 letters and 3 packages, Rachel and Emily both have 12 letters, Mallory has 11 letters, but she has has 2 packages under her belt. Then I have a ton of letters from the rest of my fan club. If my calculations are right, I average approximately 3 to 4 letters a day! That is better than anyone else here. I must give my shout outs to everyone back home who makes t
his possible. Keep it up! You all are the best. You keep my morale up. That's exactly what I need. THANK YOU!!!! Well, after that, I went to the px and proceded to spend yet even more money, and then I packed my bags, took a two hour nap and went to chow. What a great day! I'll talk to you all soon. -Mere

3 Feb 05

Glad to see that you all enjoyed the pictures. I heard some good news today. I guess that the place I am going to IS going to have internet access. It is just a matter of when I am going to get to use it. Probably not very often. I am starting to get packed up and ready to leave. I am not looking forward to it at all. It is so dusty up there. Ugh. Also, for this last week that I will be pulling security, I will have to work 6am-8pm as opposed to my usual 7am-7pm. Sucky deal. Someone is trying to make me speak my mind here, and after only a month it is getting really hard to hold it back. I mean, don't get me wrong, I still speak my mind plenty, just not to the proper athorities. Oh well I guess. I hope everyone has a great day. Also, to Kim's comments, as for the time change on the computer, it could be because I am not on my computer which is still on local home time. I don't really know for sure though. Chat with you later. -Mere

Here is a helicopter that flew over my tower. They are so loud. 

This is SSG Posch. Can you say "fat man in a little coat!" 

This is the beautiful sunset looking out from one of the towers. The sun sets way up in the sky, and it take only about 3 minutes. I find that a little weird. 

Finally, here it is!! The picture of Nipples. Her nipples were hanging down about 2 inches further a week ago and flopping all around when she came bounding at me, but she's had time to dry up a bit. Now, she just scavenges for food.