Monday, November 12THE LIST!
[X]1) Run a ten minute mile
[ ]2) Fish with Pop Thornton
[ ]3) Learn to use a sewing machine
[X]4) Buy "Joy of Cooking", and use it!
[ ]5) Make mead
[ ]6) Get a driver's lisence
[ ]7) Ride a horse
[ ]8) Get a 25 inch waist
[ ]9) Buy a good coat
[ ]10) Squat 125 pounds
[ ]11) Design and get a half-sleeve tattoo
[X]12) Get a dog
[X]13) Jump at Pace Bend
[X]14) Read a map
[X]15) Find a hairstylist
[X]16) Get a bikini wax (we're going to call laser hair removal good enough...)
[X]17) Train a dog
[ ]18) Learn Spanish
[ ]19) Take dance lessons
[ ]20) Get braces
[ ]21) Get a photo or article published
[X]22) Grow a garden
[ ]23) Float the Guadalupe River
[X]24) Belly dance
[ ]25) Climb a 14,000 foot peak
[ ]26) Do 10 pull-ups
[ ]27) Buy good jeans, not cheap jeans
[X]28) Use sun block
[X]29) Type 30 words per minute
[X]30) Do Yoga
[ ]31) Keep a clean house
[ ]32) Shoot a bow with accuracy
[ ]33) Shoot a gun with accuracy
[X]34) Do 100 crunches a day
[ ]35) Wear perfume
[ ]36) Learn Latin
[ ]37) Play the guitar again
[ ]38) Get a sponsorship
[ ]39) Do 75 push-ups a day
[ ]40) Study plants
[ ]41) Study animals and birds
[ ]42) Deer hunt
[X]43) Buy a house
[X]44) Buy knee boots
[ ]45) Buy ankle boots
[X]46) Decorate a house
[X]47) Read the Bible
[ ]48) Volunteer
[ ]49) Drive the tractor
[X]50) Learn to swim
Posted by:Heather
Monday, June 11Hmm...
I realized a few days ago that I saw the little bear in Yosemite almost exactly, to the minute, one year after Asher was born.
I think that's pretty cool.
Posted by:Heather
Thursday, June 07Baa- Baa- Ques
A few days ago, while under the influence of several Coors Light tallboys, Tim, Linda and I became inspired to taste what we had been feeding Seona (Linda's dog). She was munching cheerfully on a suspiciously smelling treat called "Baa Baa Ques"... which we all then tasted ourselves.
I almost vomited.
I now feel immensely remorseful about everything I've ever fed a poor, helpless creature with no ability to cook his or her own food. Poor little opposable thumb lacking bastards...
Posted by:Heather
Tuesday, May 22Another injury update
So remember how I hurt my knee hiking the Grand Canyon? Well, it would seem that it's worse than I thought... because it still effing hurts!
Tim, along with the wrist brace, has bought me a knee brace, to try and stabilize my patella (see, Rocco, I can learn!). I still couldn't walk downhill without incredible pain, however, so this weekend, he bought me a pair of trekking poles. Yes, I am now somehow a part of the 40something hiker set, never leaving the comfort of home (or truck) without my poles. I feel like a complete retard with them! Every time a person my own age walks by, I want to hide them, and hang my head in shame.
But, boy, do they work.
My knees still hurt (oh, yeah, did I mention that the left knee is starting to go out, too?), but when it gets bad, I just put all my weight on the poles, and I can walk. I look like an idiot, but it's better (and much less humiliating) than having Tim carry me.
So. I recommend that anyone who has ever experienced knee pain buy a pair of trekking poles. You'll feel dumber than hell, but mobile. I'll take dumb over crippled any day.
Posted by:Heather
Friday, March 30Wrist diagnoses
So remember when I said that my wrist has been messed up? My dear friend Rocco has hit upon the problem!
Rocco climbed with Tim and I at Hueco, and heard me complain about my wrist daily. Finally, a fews days ago, he called with the revelation; I'm not 100% certain how to describe it, but I'll give it a go.
Years of leaning on my left arm while reading or writing stressed the cartilage, which wore away. When things went wrong, I had bent the wrist at about a 90 degree angle, and that created an opening (so to speak) for a nerve to slip out of place or something. (I'm not sure I'm explaining this right, but hey, Rocco's no doctor, and this is the best I can do with his explaination).
That explains the numbness; when I bend my wrist in such a way, the nerve slips and gets pinched a bit.
Rocco says that he and several of his friends have had the same problem. A few have had to have surgery, but I don't think that my problem is as serious as all that. If I keep it taped when I climb, it usually doesn't give me any problems, but when I am employed again, I will go to a sports doctor and have it checked out, as well as my right shoulder. (Oh, health insurance, how I miss thee...)
But yeah. It isn't broken. It isn't serious. My hand is not going to fall off. I'm just fine.
Well, except for the (I think) pulled groin... damn that canyon...
Posted by:Heather
Saturday, March 24Injury update
Yesterday, I almost sent my project; about fifteen feet of dead horizontal roof, called Bat Roof. Great problem. On my second to last try, I pulled on and heard a frightening sound; a loud, crunchy pop from my left wrist. For months now, that wrist has been giving me trouble; I figured it was from Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, taped up heavily before I would climb anything, and hoped for the best.
All day today, my fingertips have been numb. I'm thinking that doesn't signify that "best" I was hoping for.
Posted by:Heather
Friday, March 23...just can't wait to get on the road again.
It's funny, when we embarked on this trip, I really thought I'd spend most of my time being at least a little bit homesick, but instead, I spend all of my time impatient to get back on the road!
I find myself getting bored after less than a week in any given place. I'm always ready to leave, move on to a new place, see something new... I'm restless. (Here in Arizona that may be in part that no one, no where, in this whole damn state, carries the kind of climbing shoes I like; Evolve Predators; they carry a few other styles, but not the Predator. I think I'd be happier if I could buy some.)
I don't know what the deal is. I just don't feel content unless Tim and I are in the truck, driving to the next destination, singing loudy and (sometimes) badly along with the radio, laughing and joking. That's when I feel at home, that's when I feel like myself, and that's when I feel the happiest.
I'm ready for a little more adventure to happen on this adventure.
Posted by:Heather
Sunday, March 18Cody Vargas and Rachel Wicks
I just realized that this website gives me a wee bit of power. Just a wee bit, just a tiny bit of influence over the unfortunates who are reading this blog. Being as that is, I want to suggest that you actually go to the websites that I have linked here.
There are lots of reasons to check them all out, or I wouldn't have linked them (although if you are related to Tim or I, and think of us in terms of sweetness, you may not want to check the link to b.com!). Most are friends of ours, several are photographers of immense talent, or the sites are climbing related.
There is one link in particular, though, that I want to ask you all to visit, if you haven't already... Milkleg.com.
Rachel and Cody were my best friends for eight years of our lives. They were the most intelligent, kind hearted, loving, talented people I have ever known, and I know that I am a better person for having had known them. They died a little over two years ago, but not a day goes by that I don't think of them, and count myself lucky to have been a part of their lives. We did our growing together. We grew up together. We learned to be better people together, we learned from each other's mistakes, each other's sorrows, and each other's joys.
Shortly after we all became friends, I wrote a few lines about my affection for the both of them... "If I could be myself as anyone else, I would be myself as you..."
All these years later, I can't think of anything more fitting to say about my dear friends.
I can't introduce you to Cody and Rachel. Not in person, anyway. I can ask you to go and take a look at their website. I can ask you to learn a little bit about them. We all shared a common terror; to be forgotten, passed over by the whole world. All I can do now for my friends is ask others to remember them for the beautiful people they were.
They deserve to be remembered.
Posted by:Heather
Saturday, March 17Wedding video
Link to the wedding video
clicky clicky
Posted by:Heather
Tuesday, February 27I <3 my Fat Kid
So people keep looking at me all funny, because when they ask me when Tim and I are getting married, I tell them how many days till the day of. (It's 13 days, in case you were wondering...) I suppose that not too many folks are this stoked on getting married this day and age, but I like the idea of being bound forever to the loud, stinky, vulgar, hairy man I love... wait, somehow, that doesn't sound quite right...
Honestly, though, when I was a little girl, and I dreamed of the man I would marry when I grew up, the guy in my head looked just like Tim (minus the excessive body hair, of course, because what kind of girl dreams about men with chests like sandpaper?)... short, dark, and incredibly handsome. Shortly after we met, I knew he was the man for me, because I felt like I had been looking at his face my whole life (again, minus the constant five 'o clock shadow). I'm a little frightened of how excited I am to be marrying him. I already know what my signature will look like, although I have thus far avoided the teenaged girl repetitive scribbling of our names together on my notebooks. I never thought I'd be happy to be leaving behind my easy to spell last name, especially to be taking on one with so many more letters... from four to eight? That's a lot of letters to remember... and I'm famously lazy.
Hmm... check out how girly I am...
Posted by:Heather
Photardery 
