Such a Good Cook

There comes a time in a woman's life where she must learn to cook.

That time is not now. Thanks for all the food and back massages honey.

Chasing Down a Dream

You ever get an idea in your head of something you want to do, and then the more you find out about it and the more you think about it, the more you are dying to do it. Then all of a sudden you realize that you would do anything for this dream to come true and you don't know what you will do if it doesn't?

Yeah, me too.

I am DYING for my dream to come true. Every forward step I take towards making it happen makes me want it so much more. I can physically taste the sweetness of achieving it and the sour feeling of failure.

What were you thinking about? I hope everyone had a dream that came to mind.

I have decided to pursue my dream, like with everything I have. This change, if it happens, from an engineer to a doctor of some sorts, will be life altering. I have committed 100% to getting accepted to a PA (Physician's Assistant) program in 2009 and am spending countless time, money, and effort in order to give myself the best chance I have of getting in. Average acceptance rates are somewhere around winning the lottery or getting struck by lightening. It makes it very scary to blog about it because I am cementing myself as a failure if I don't get in, since you all know about it.

But if you never go for it, if you never try... I think that is the true failure.

I shadowed a PA recently at my orthopedic clinic and it was awesome. The love that is passed from patient to doctor and back is amazing. To help an old women in tears, to take away her pain...it was beautiful. To listen to the story of a women who was in a Jewish Work camp in Germany for 12 years talk about how needles don't scare her, because nothing can...it was inspiring. To meet with a young man, who is one breath away from getting into the fire department, if he can only fix his shoulder enough to pass a test...it was exciting.

So whatever your dream may be, (big or small, easy or impossible), don't spend your whole life wondering what could have been, because I have realized that sometimes just trying will change your life for the better.

Fossil Creek Is Awesome.

As I walked over to my computer to type up this blog, I just about stepped on a scorpion in my bare feet. No matter how long I live here in Arizona, I will always scream like a girl when this happens. They totally freak me out and I always seem to be barefoot when I encounter them in the house (which isn't that often, maybe a couple times a year).

Ewwww. Just ewww.

Okay, back to the blog. I had a good weekend, my older sister was in town visiting and I took her, Tom and some friends hiking to Fossil Creek. In my explorations of the Verde River Valley, I discovered an awesome little waterfall that is only an easy mile hike from a parking lot at the end of a steep dirt road. It takes a little driving to get to it, but it is easily one of the most beautiful water holes in the state due to the brilliant turquoise water and numerous waterfalls. I have definitely blogged about it before which you can see by hitting the "water" label, but I can't resist photographing it every time I go and throwing up the pics. It is amazing that this is all within two hours of the extreme desert known as Phoenix.




Afterward, we also took a walking tour of the town of Jerome which is basically a ghost town turned hippy enclave at the top of a mountain. This town once was a thriving 15,000 person mining town, but once the mines went dry, the people disappeared. It used to be half run by a harlem who owned a brothel and was the richest woman in the west. Apparently, they still have a lot of love for strong women, as seen here.

A Boring ACL Post

If you have no interest in things such as ACL tears, rehab and graft healing, please come back tomorrow. This post is for those who have been devastated by the words "you have torn your ACL". In my case, it was "you have re-torn your ACL," which was immediately followed by me bursting into tears and removing the knife from my heart leaving a raging hole of depression.

If you have been following my rehab from this second ACL reconstruction, you know how awesome my knee has been doing and how anxious and ready I feel to get back to my normal athletic endeavors. You have also been treated to my many rants about slow doctors, physical therapists and how I know how my body feels, etc. blah blah blah.

After getting a stern talking too after disclosing to my PT that I have been hiking, I was told the words that every rehabbing patient hates to hear, "don't do it or you will be back here in a year". I have been completely forbid from jogging, rock climbing, riding my bike on anything but the road, most hiking, and pretty much everything else outdoors that I love and want to do. Rather than just blinding follow the words of medical providers, I need to know WHY these things are bad and I need to see the research for myself.

So I am attempting to answer these questions for myself and I will share what I find with you. Now that I am gaining a small working knowledge of medical terms and what they mean, I find it is easier to read the mumbo jumbo white papers on different medical procedures for fixing ACLs and particularly on rehabbing ACLs.

My research concludes that there is a maturation process for an ACL which is varying and extensive. It depends on how quickly the fixation of the graft occurs in your bones tunnels which may be impossible to predict. People who do not form scar tissue easily may not obtain fixation of the graft in the bone tunnel for longer than those who do. My incisions have very little bumps under them even though I have had two surgeries with the same incision points so I am assuming I fall under the category of those who form very little scar tissue. I also read that scientists believe that allografts (cadaver tissue which is what I have) have a slower maturation process than either patellar tendon or hamstrung grafts (autografts).

Another interesting concept brought to mind for me was the neurological components of rehab. I am studying neurology right now in my physiology class and so find this sort of interesting. We have neurological cells running down from our brain to our feet as part of the Peripheral Nervous System (PNS). These contain proprioceptors which are basically sensors that tell our brain to react to something. They also are vital in the movement of muscles. These also get damaged during the surgical or injury process and must rebuild into a network of synapses which are connections where stimulus are passes from nerve cell to another. We must train knee's proprioceptive abilities through balance efforts and firing of the muscle cells. This is one of the reasons that your quad muscle fires so slowly after rehab (a process called recruitment where each muscle cell activates the next until an entire fiber and group of fibers fire in a contraction). This makes sense to me as I still find steps ups and other normal activities to be slower than normal even though the weight is fine.

The other interesting thing is that studies show changes in the ACL and the structure around it for up to 24 months depending on how quickly graft maturation occurs. This means that when I re-tore my ACL at 16 months, while I considered myself completely healed, it is possible that I still had not reached full maturation of the graft.

So what does this mean for me? Well, I need to be smart and possibly listen to my PT more. The body is complicated, you may feel better than you actually are and there is a degree of truth in that you must give your ACL time to mature and strengthen even if you feel great. I still believe in listening to your body, and in shifting time lines depending on the person and the goal. What do I recommend? Get a doctor who has the same rehab philosophies that you do and do what you feel is right. And I recommend doing some research for yourself because it will make you feel better and will prevent you from blindly following or blindly discounting everything your doctor and PT say.

This is a good link for a typical aggressive rehab strategy. This was similar to my first rehab. My second is much slower although I am easily ahead of their current schedule on my own.
Link to Harvard Journal on Speedy Rehabs

Watch Out for the 87-Year-Olds.

I couldn't keep up with an 87 year old women today. She totally kicked my ass.

I was volunteering at a local hospital in the patient care area, and she was training me for her job that she has been at for 20 some years. Once she had a destination in mind, she would crank on the after burners and be basically running down the hall. Me and my gimp leg would follow behind all the while my PT's voice was running through my head "absolutely no running yet Hannah". It wasn't my fault, great-grandma's training wasn't for weaklings.

She informed me that she was also too busy in her life to sit around bored while volunteering, what with her full social calendar and her golf game. So she kept us moving for four hours. She also basically told all nurses what to do and if she was displeased with them for not putting something back in its place, she let them know. They were all as afraid of great-grandma as I was. I pretty much laughed to myself the whole time at her antics. Some old people rule and she is my hero.

I have my last lab practical tomorrow on the brain, eyes, ears and spinal cord. Just two more weeks of class, aka working every night till 1am. Application time can't come quickly enough. Whitey wrecker is pretty pissed at how much I have been ignoring her lately. But in an update to the dramatic tales of epoxy gone wrong, the garage floor is all done and bangen now. Stay tuned for a picture of the devil that stole our souls.

Watch Out For Pig Turds

Pigs are flying. Hell hath freezen over. Bubba is voting Democrat.

Something crazy must be going on because my company is now offering an across the board policy of free tea, coffee, and soft drinks plus ... fruit. Yes, we get free fruit such as pears, bananas and apples. This is the best thing that has ever happened at work. Much better than than when they offered free vending machine only to that other group explained here.

I am implementing the "eat an apple instead of chocolate" policy for myself starting now.

Oh and the Suns better wake up and smell the sweep. I still have faith because sometime karma has got to come back and bite San Antonia in the ass for the injustice of last year's playoff series. You should not be able to cheat to win and never pay up for that microcosm in the tapestry of life. I trust in the greatness of Steve Nash and the hotness of Raja Bell. Amen.

Epoxy = Violence

So while it may appear that my weekend was all exciting swimming holes, lollipops, and sunshine, it was actually anything but. The hiking was neatly fit into the picture between hmmm, oh crap and this sucks all weekend long.

I am going to give you a freebie piece of advice today (I am very nice you see). Listen carefully. NEVER. EVER. DECIDE. TO. EPOXY. YOUR. GARAGE. FLOOR.

Did you catch that? If not, start over at the previous paragraph and repeat it until you do.

Am I being dramatic? No, I am understating my stance. Dramatic would have been a picture of me holding a gun saying I will shoot anyone who mentions epoxying a garage floor in my presence.

On with the story. We started this home garage makeover edition a couple of weeks ago. Last weekend was a hard but extremely rewarding couple of days of cleaning and painting the garage and getting a new awesome door installed. Our agenda this weekend was the floor. We had already bought an epoxy kit and figured we could knock it out in a day. Hence I planned a hiking trip on Sunday as a reward.

So Saturday we get up bright and early, take every last item out of the garage (most of it is still sitting in our kitchen), and start the process of cleaning the floor. I figured this would be the hard part, hahahahahahahaha wrong. So we sit down to watch the dvd that came with the kit. There is your first clue that this might not be something you want to attempt. IKEA sends a picture to assemble an entire office, but these people need a dvd? Hmmm.

So it mentions that if you have any previous paint on your floor (we do) that you need to make sure to remove it before starting the prepping layer. We thought we would just ignore that direction, but unfortunately realized that just by spraying water on the garage floor, paint was starting to peal up. Honestly, who paints a garage with normal paint? Dumb. So we realize that we need to remove the paint. I got to Lowes (trip #1) to purchase a large paint scratcher and a wire brush and we still naively think we can do this.

Very quickly we realize that while some paint comes up easily, the bottom layer and other spots do not. So Tom takes Lowes#2 trip to the store for advice and they send him home with a chemical paint remover. Sweet, just pore it on and watch it go to town, right? Not quite. First, the stuff is acid and burns the skin. Secondly, it smells terrible, is very slippery which makes work with a new ACL very dangerous. And third, IT DOESN'T WORK! The worse part is that it ruins the entire finish of the floor and leave the paint bubbled and sticky. Now it all MUST be removed.

So back to the store for trip #3 and this time to rent a power sander. We get the biggest one they have with a 14 inch diameter. Tom plugs it in and tentatively pulls the trigger. I must admit I still laugh when I picture Tom's entire body getting thrown around in a circle in as that sander spun. Needless to say that after ruining 8 pieces of sandpaper which kept ripping off and throwing my poor man around, we went back to the store for a fourth trip with power sander permanently removed from the Christmas list.

Trip #4 yields the rental of a pressure washer. This was our last resort before selling the house for peanuts and moving just to avoid the garage forever. Luckily this worked, but only if you held the nozzle 1 inch from the floor and slowly swept it along the paint. Only problem was that it was kind of like coloring a garage floor with a marker: very freaking slow. So that took most of day in itself. The big problem was that the paint would fly up everything: on you, on the freshly painted walls, on the brand new door. It made a huge mess and in spraying down the walls later to clean, we effective water logged the paint and will pretty much have to redo it.

The final fun portion of Sunday evening was clean up. The entire driveway as well as the street in front of our house was filled with a gray goo also known as paint flecks mixed with water...very appetizing. Cleaning that up was a saga in itself. So basically after 48 hours of manual work and countless wasted moolah, we now have a floor with spotty paint and soggy walls and a musty smell in our garage. The saga continues as we still haven't actually epoxyed anything.

So please, next time your significant other decided that redoing the garage floor sounds like a good idea, smile at them, sneak up behind them and clobber them over the head with a blunt object. Hope that they wake up with nothing more than a headache and no memory of anything remotely like the words epoxy nor garage.

Postscript: We plan to hold a gourmet meal on our floor when we are done because it better be that damn awesome.

Tonto Creek Narrows Exploration

Today, my friend Sarah and I drove on a mission to find a swimming hole in the Tonto Creek whose picture we found in a book. We had some vague directions, but when we turned off the highway into a weird little podunk town in the desert, I gotta say I was skeptical there was going to be any water at all. We started down a dirt road, which turned into a little path, and suddenly we hit a little creek which led to a much bigger river. Following the river for a ways, we were not prepared for what we were going to find. There is so much beauty hidden in this state that it makes me wonder about what else we have yet to discover. The "swimming hole" was more like a deep canyon, sometimes with a slot like feeling full of deep clear blue water and a million place to climb, jump, explore, camp, and just lie on a rock.

Pictures don't lie, even those taken with a crappy camera which refuses to focus. I am already planning my return trip when the summer takes a turn for the hotter and I need to get away and this time I plan to bring my camping gear. This little mecca of H20 is only 1 hr and 20 minutes from the front door. That is AMAZING!

The trail head was hot and dry, no water in sight.

This was the first canyon area, known as the Narrows.

Looking back towards the Narrows.

Upriver there was some funky pyschadelic green moss.

The water is green with moss but somehow very clean.

Sarah swims the rapids further upstream.

Sometimes we had to rock climb steep walls to get over a deep rapid area.

Sometimes we were just able to wade up the (frigid) stream.

Seriously, training in these conditions is OH SO HARD...

And the best thing is that the knee did awesome out there, no issues even though most of the day was spent rock scrambling in wet shoes on wet rocks. We went about a mile upstream I would guess although we were on the move for around four glorious hours. Don't tell me you aren't a little jealous...

Something I Have Missed

The good news is that I got out for some hikes this past week. I wanted to test out the knee on some of my favorite local climbs: straight up and then straight back down. Who wants to mess around with switchbacks? First I climbed up to the ridge line of South Mountain, my favorite biking paradise. Telegraph Pass is normally a pretty easy little hike, just 700 feet of elevation gain in 1.5 miles, but I wanted to test my knee and see how it handled the up. The up was great, I felt really strong and was able to move up at a really good pace. The down was well...in a word: slow. I didn't feel unstable really, just unsteady and really slow. So I chalked it up to a success and decided to move on to bigger hikes.

Next up was the famous Phoenix landmark Camelback Mountain. This sitting camel mountain is the premier hike within the city limits with it's hump reaching an elevation of 2,700 feet. The Echo Canyon Trail itself rises 1300 feet in 1.2 miles which is quite a steep grade. I have done this trail many times with my fastest ever up/down being 50 minutes (hauling ass up, running down). Its a hard hike for multiple reason, one being that there are some very steep areas that need handrails to get up and second being that the final 0.5 mile is a boulder field straight up. So for every step up, you also take a half step down. I went with a friend after work and of course we got a late start so we tried to make up for it on the way up: 30 minutes to the top. Not bad for 8 weeks post-op. The sun was below the horizon before we started down so we were in a rush against the clock, but I soon realized than the only thing slower than walking down a steep trail is climbing down a boulder strewn rock slide. It was pitch dark before we reached the car 45 minutes later and once again like this time, the hike become a lot more interesting in the dark.

I definitely need to get faster, but in comparison to my last ACL surgery, I did not climb Camelback until around four months after surgery so I feel I am ahead of the game. Also, my new camera is getting returned because for some reason, it can't focus with any sort of zoom, but I did get a couple of pics on the hike that weren't terribly blurry. The last picture is a view of the highest point, the hump. The plan tomorrow is to explore some new water holes (YEAH!!) so I have been cramming everything I have to do today in so that I can go tomorrow. This includes scraping the garage floor. We have hit new lows people.

The Garage Got a New Do

Our new garage door is purdy, ain't it? Notice the keypad which raises the door through the power of magic. We spent a good many hours this past weekend cleaning the garage and painting the walls while a nice gentleman installed this bad boy. I love this door so much that I open the door from the house to stare at it every time I walk by and I am not even joking. I caught Tom doing the same thing.

Diving in the Desert

My girls D & P along with myself of the world famous (in our minds) Team ODP adventure racing team have spent many a day "training" for our races by taking long weekends hiking, biking, and camping in beautiful places. This sort of training is very mentally taxing with very little reward along the way as you can see. Right. Every once in awhile, we would actually throw a race into the schedule, and usually always due to the worst navigation known to the human race or bringing an inflatable banana instead of a kayak, we would come in way below our desired results.

I am jonesn bad for some more training and as I look through pics on my computer, I realized that D has a natural inclination to jump off of objects in perfect form. Each photo was taken at a separate training ground in completely different parts of the great state of Arizona. From top to bottom: Flume Falls, Fossil Creek; Mooney Falls, Havasu; Bell Trail, Sedona

I <3 ARIZONA...ITS A DRY HEAT

OMG, What table should I sit at?

A couple of month ago, I quit books*. As time became constrained, it was blogs or books and I chose blogs. Blogs are the most dangerous, entertaining form of reading that I have experienced in a long time. Drama unfolding unedited on the internet? You can't beat true life for craziness.

So I divide my Google Reader up into several sections. I have the biker blogs, the adventurer blogs (some fit into both), the pro athlete blogs, the funny blogs, the crazy life blogs, the great writing blogs, etc. If you write a blog and I read it, I have you pegged my friend, you are nothing more than a category. But then I try to figure out where my own blog would fall. A little part of everything: life, some lame attempts at humor, some really embarrassing attempts at competitive races (those might be considered humorous), a lot of boring posts about biking or hiking or other endeavors, some bad writing, some stories of childhood I should prob just keep to myself, and lots and lots of whining about work, injury, school and other annoyances.

I don't keep it impersonal, but I do hold back what I say (contrary to what you may believe). I say a lot more in my mind. I keep it family friendly, mostly because I think most of my entire blog readership is somehow related to me or friends with me or what not. But when I look at my statcounter, I do see a lot of diversity in my audience. I don't think I have any friends in Beijing, do I? So just like when you are 15 and you trying to figure out what group of kids to sit with in the cafeteria (Could you move up a rung on the social ladder? Would they laugh if you sat with them?), I wonder what you think of me? And no, I don't think blog persona = real persona. We write to be peceived as we want to be perceived, not as we are. I definitely don't tell you every dumb thing I do on a daily basis, just about half of them.

Also, my husband doesn't think I'm that funny. He quotes Wedding Crashers & Dumb and Dumber all day so I think I win.

*That is not to say that I don't read any books, just not regularly. I used to be a HUGE book reader, but then I realized that I had read all good books in the world. Just kidding, only half. I just read a book called 23 Days in July about Lance Armstrong's 6th Tour De France victory. It was a pretty good read actually and I learned my first bit of knowledge about road racing. It is way more complicated than I would have guessed. I got excited as Lance climbed the mountains coming from behind to find out if he would win evening knowing he is now retired with 7 Tour wins.

Thank God Its Friday

Thank. God. Its Over.

This was a week from hell. A great way to start off a terrible week is by going away all weekend, getting back at midnight on Sunday night and having a 7am meeting on Monday morning. Lets just say that between 40 hours of work, three therapy sessions, a research paper, 8 pages of homework, three quizzes, and a test over the brain, nerves, muscles and the entire nervous system, I am fried. I think I have slept about 22 hours this week total, and have not really gotten to work out as much I like, which makes me cranky.

But its the weekend now and I am going to drink a beer, relax and go for a hike/bike tomorrow hopefully. In other exciting news, I just received my new Olympus Stylus 790 cam to replace the other one that I lost. I told you I have a problem. It's actually a vortex in my house that sucks up things and never spits them back out. Finally I will be able to take pictures again when I don't want to carry my big Sony. Oh we just bought a new garage door which is being installed tomorrow morning. Married life is soooooo exciting. This was an essential purchase though so that someone can't steal Whitey Wrecker. I would cry my eyes out if they took my bike.

And speaking of whining, I cannot believe I did not get a 100 on my freaking anatomy test this time...what a bummer. I was going for 3/3 on that. Apparently the brain is complex.

My Celebrity Make Out

So...the Backstreet Boys. Right. Story coming up.

It is a little known fact that the BSB are not actually a product of the boy band generation. Their fame (circa 1997) most definitely is, but they actually were a band years before they ever became well known. I know this first hand, because when I was in 6th grade (circa 1993), and akwardly trying to navigate the treacherous terrain known as bratty preteen girl world, they came to my school and performed. They were part of the infamous magazine sales spoils world tour: bands that performed for school that sold a certain amount of magazines for some greedy company. So when they first showed up, we were all pretty pumped, because concerts were few and far between in the center of the heartland. Plus, there was this dreamy boy who was our age named Nick who sort of resembled Jonathon Taylor Thomas and everyone knew that JTT was the hottest thing since sliced bread. So they performed and they were just okay. I don't remember having my striped gym socks rocked off or anything.

Fast forward two years to 1995 and guess who's back? That's right the BSB were back for another middle school concert. We were all much cooler then being top dog eight graders, and so we didn't show our excitement as openly for the concert. Been there done that, they weren't that good. So they show up, and bam. The had upgraded their wardrobes, gotten haircuts and were suddenly much more cuter. Mr Nick Carter (who was still our exact age) was suddenly wayyyyyy dreamy and their music was actually pretty good. They won us over with one concert. After the show, the clamor for autographs was insane, but since I was a top dog 8th grader, a couple of us stayed after for some alone time with the band. Now Nick was a regular casanova, even at a young age. He lined up all the girls (like around 15) and told them to stand in line for autographs. Each girl would get their autograph and then recieve a small kiss on the mouth as a token of his appreciation for our reverence. You can be sure I got in that line and got my kiss, and I think that he may have let it linger for a second or two longer than the others, if you catch my drift. The BSB left that day and we figured we would never hear from them again, but I kept my autographed photo of the band in my special box right beside my other autographs from bands that came that I never heard of again.

Fast forward two more years to 1997 and my sophomore year of high school. I am flipping through my Seventeen magazine, enjoying the latest gossip when I see an advertisement for a band. It's the Backstreet Boys! I remember running to show my sister and then calling up my friend, the same friend who was pulled on stage for a serenade during the concert. If the BSB were in Seventeen Magzine, they must be making it! And sure enough, they made it all right. Right to top of the charts and the whole time, I just shook my head and laughed as I remember what they used to look like. I admit to enjoying some of their music and they were good dancers, but in our town, you can't talk about the BSB without making fun of them because afterall, we knew them first.

Fast forward to present day. The reason I want them to break through the ceiling once again is purely selfish. I have an autographed picture to sell on Ebay of a very young version of the BSB with bad clothes and hair, and if I can get $100 for it, its gone. Should have done it last time, but I was still grasping at straws of the great love affair with Nick Carter that should have followed our great kiss of 1995.

My claim to fame, ladies and gentlemen, and my two degree connection to every famous person they have ever known.

PS, Nick. if you are reading this, you are still a cutie honey, way cuter than JTT.

Life.

The BSB will have to wait another day. They have already waited 15 years for their big comeback so I think they can wait a little longer.

I have nothing funny nor boring nor entertaining to say today. I am all felt out, other than feeling super tired. I think my brain just exploded and the fallout is burning the cracks of my soul.

Too deep, too morbid, too much? Probably. This is life: the cycle of stress and fun and striving and chilling and pain and joy and love and it never ends, it just goes on and on. I love my life and I actively choose my path, but the down cycle of hard work that is required to get to the upswing is sometimes tiring.

Auditory Therapy: Missy Higgins, James Blunt, and Dameon Rice
Edible Therapy: Coffee & Chocolate

Backstreet's Back All Right!

So I have to weigh in on something.

How do you, Miss/Mister Internet feel about the upcoming news about a Back Street Boys Reunion Tour? Most people are skeptical and some are downright laughing.

But I gotta say that I am thrilled and that I hope they become uber famous again. Why you may ask? For money and fame for me, I may answer. How you may ask? Well, the answer to that requires a longer story than I am currently able to give, but I promise, it is forthcoming very soon.

The bottom line is, when you talk about degrees of separation, I feel pretty confident that I am two degrees of separation away from most Hollywood stars. And this is all due to the Backstreet Boys. So when I tell you the story of how I kissed a certain blond boy from a band that later became famous, you will understand.

The Quickie Tripie.

Guess what?

Nope still not that. We are back from a very quick 4000 mile jaunt across the country. Tampa was fun, especially the water in the sky part. Between humidity and rain, every article of clothing in my suitcase, even the ones I didn't wear, smell funky and are wet to the touch.

We did nothing athletic, unless you count wearing heals and dancing as a workout. FYI, it is, me is ti-ti. I won't lie though, the weekend was definitely rough on the knee. Flying always sucks because atmospheric pressure exaggerates swelling. I developed a weird bump over my largest incision that may have a small alien living in it. I am not sure what it is from or why it developed, but it caused a little pain yesterday on a long travel day.

On Friday, we met up with an old friend who I haven't seen in four years. It was great seeing her and meeting her husband and buddies and we may have rocked the Rock Band karaoke bar a little too hard. I swear it was a live version of Guitar Hero, outfits and hair styles included.

Saturday dawned hot and sunny but unfortunately, I had a small headache from unknown origins (right...) so we just hit up the hotel pool until the wedding went down. Tom was a an usher and speaker at the wedding and it was so amusing to watch him read scripture in front a a large group. He did awesome though and engaged the audience like a pro. Sunday before our plane took off, we hit up the beach in a rain storm and then ate some killer non desert seafood.

This post marks the end of wedding season for at least two months thankfully and we can now get back to our regularly scheduled weekend outdoor adventures. I loved living in Tampa (for a summer about 6 years ago), and I definitely miss the GREEN & the WATER. But when we touched down in our dry desert air, Tom and I both felt normal again.

I think this pic is so cute. It shows his usual smirk, right before he LOLs.

Don't Do This.

Ranting is fun, I promise!

Example A: Here is some free advice. Don't plan to give the dictionary definition of a word in a speech and then base the rest of the speech off of that definition. It is so 1995. That right Jared's Jewelry Slaveshop. Stop with your crappy radio advertisements that give the definition of love according to Websters and somehow turn that into equaling buying diamonds.

Example B: Also, if I say "guess what?" to you and I haven't seen you for a couple of weeks, don't assume I am going to tell you that I am pregnant. I got married. I didn't lose all brain cells and immediately forget how babies are made. I probably just want to tell you about my new bike or this guy that smelled in the elevator at work.

Example C: Guess what? No I am not pregnant (pay attention...ex B), but I do want to say that not every piece of advice a doc gives works for 100% of the people. So don't shake your head at me and tell me that I am going to tear my knee a third time because I don't listen to my doctor. It may happen because I can't control life and choose to engage in adventurous activities where this type of thing happens. But don't presume to know my body more than I know my body which is better than my doc knows my body. Maybe next time I will break my collarbone not my knee. So there.

In other news, I am heading tomorrow morning for the great state of Florida to watch a friend tie the knot. Congrats to TL & his lovely fiance. We didn't think you could do it. As Chris pointed out here, it still might not happen. What this means internet, is that I will most likely not be posting again until next week. Dry your eyes, there are exciting archives to read. I suggest the my life is boring tag if you enjoy sticking a pencil in your eye.

My First Planned Competition

I just challenged my 6 foot 2 inch male coworker to a 3 mile running race on August 1st at high noon. The prize: free beer for one sitting. The expected temperature: 112 degrees F. Will my knee be ready? That is five months and 1 week after surgery. He's a big guy, but a little older than me, so I need to use my youth and competitive nature to crush his dreams. Bring it.

Damn the [DPS] Man!

I am so sad.
They took away my hole in the fence / portal to a free adventure. Wahhhhh.

I rushed home last night so that I could take a long ride on the Ak Chin Reservation, my first dirt path ride. Grabbed the bike, a bottle of water and my mp3 player and was off. I have spoken before of my excitement of finding a hole cut in the fence 1/2 from my house which allowed me unlimited access to miles of dirt road and deserted desert riding. I ride a lot on this patch of ugly beautiful desert and actually really enjoy the solitude.

Well, the hole in the fence is now just a fence. I am really hoping the vandals come back through and cut a new one. Do we have a wire cutter honey? Just curious.

Well after swallowing my disappointment, I figured that I couldn't let the man get me down. So I rode down the road, through the mall and hit another road that parallels the rez. Sure enough, I found an area of construction that allowed me back onto the rez. Yeah! It is a much crappier ride to get to it (hello, it involves riding through a mall...yuck), but it is still doable.

So I spent about 1.5 hours on the bike last night with some uneven ground and a little handling required. It felt good and I finished hungry but not that tired. I have more PT today where I get to pretend that the 10 minutes on the stationary bike is challenging & exciting. Do you think my PT would catch on to my secret of road riding if I road my bike there?