#AtoZChallenge - my "I Love Me" wall

Hi, Welcome to my little corner of the Interwebz! I'm doing a pretty random theme this year - things that make me happy / are guilty pleasures / whatever makes me... ME!

From 1992-2000 I was enlisted in the US Navy.  My 2015 A to Z Challenge was all about sea stories and it was my favorite theme out of all that I've done.

Just a quick rundown of those 8 years.
March - May 1992 = bootcamp
May - September 1992 = NTTC Pensacola (school I ultimately dropped out of)
September 1992 - December 1994 = USS Canopus AS-34 / a submarine tender
December 1994 - April 1997 = USS Abraham Lincoln CVN-72 / an aircraft carrier
April 1997 - March 2000 = Naval Station Everett, Wa

Anyhooo.  I have an "I Love Me" wall.  Several of them in fact since my house is really small, so they're kind of scattered.

This is in the hallway outside my bedroom.
(the shadowbox with the flag belongs to Spouse, who was an Arkansas Constable many moons ago)

I have my rating badges from my summer whites as I progressed thru the ranks.
All my ribbons & medals. Rockers from the 2 ships I was stationed on.
The second class crow (E5) on the left that I wore on my ballcap. My Enlisted Aviation Warfare Specialist (EAWS) wings.  2 different name tags because I got married to Spawn's dad while I was in (to be divorced later). The name tag off my working sweater.  And the postal clerk rating / cancellation stamp pin on the left center that I wore on the back of my ballcap.

I was on the decommissioning crew for the Canopus - she sadly got scrapped and watching that YouTube video was the saddest thing ever.
And apparently the lighting in the hallway in the evening is orange!

I got this plaque when I reenlisted and I really wish I had photos from that day, but since the Lincoln was in drydock and we had gone down between the rudders......no cameras were allowed down there.  But seriously - I couldn't have picked a cooler place to reenlist! 

There was a variety of neat patches you could get in the ship's store during the cruise.

These are in the office area of my bedroom....

The Domain of the Golden Dragon is for crossing the International Date Line.

 The Persian Excursion is for spending quality time in the Persian Gulf. 
The Lincoln spent 3 months there and I spent half of that in Bahrain, loading mail onto helicopters to send back out to the battle group (the Lincoln & all the smaller ships)

My Shellback Certificate

This one means the most to me.  This is to commemorate crossing the Equator for the first time and the initiation that went along with it.  Otherwise I'd still be a slimy pollywog.   

 

I got this tattoo on my thigh in 2015 on the 20 year anniversary of becoming a Shellback.

The hull numbers of each ship are on the outer prongs of the trident and my rate PC2(AW) down the center. And the years I was in are on the anchor's stock.   

I'm so glad I thought to do this - these are t-shirts from each of my ships.
Above is the Canopus - it was called the Starship Canopus because Canopus is the second brightest star in the sky - in the constellation Carina.  The star was named after the mythological navigator for the king of Sparta.   The "shuttles" on the shirt are a couple of the submarines we tended.

What better analogies for an aircraft carrier than a slingshot to launch the planes and a baseball mitt to recover them?