It's 2016... Now What?

Hello friends and welcome to the year 2016! It appears the locals have grown restless with my blog hiatus. The two yahoo's pictured above within 5 minutes of each other had given me a hard time about not updating my blog, so I said smile, you're the front page, the above picture is what you get. 

You might be wondering what I have been up to since October, well here's the short version.

In Mid November we did the WipeOut Run...

December got busy...

On the same day that NiBo arrived in Arizona, that morning I did the Ugly Sweater Run, we had an ugly good time...

Then after that Tulip and I were hungry, and since we didn't make it up to our favorite little spot in Payson to see the fall colors, we decided we would go to see the snow.

The Crosswinds restaurant is a little place at the Payson airport and they have the most amazing Biscuits and Gravy.. seriously they are worth the drive in my opinion. Payson is a small little town and this restaurant is home of the million dollar view. It's right off the runway and small planes fly in to eat and then fly back out. It's net too because they play the communications with the tower over the speaker and you can hear the pilots talking as they make their way to the airport. Both times we've been we've got to see planes coming and going.

You may remember our next stop from my 2014 post 'In Search of Fall' 

We tried to take the same road we took last time to go to the edge of the rim, but it's not maintained during the winter and was closed. So we couldn't go as far as we wanted, but we made the best of it! 

Then that same night, NiBo arrived on the mainland from Hawaii! He has all kinds of interesting stories to tell about his adventures exploring the Island and tales from the Army. (I've tried to get him to guest post but he has declined)

NiBo hung out here in AZ for a few days and while he was here I had the terrible idea of us going hiking to the wave cave that I had heard so much about.

A little background, it's been cold (Arizona cold) for the past two months here. I blame El Nino for my higher than usual winter electric bills. The day we went hiking was really the only day that would work with our schedule and it wasn't the prettiest of days. It was overcast and a bit chilly, the first picture is actually the last picture. As we began our climb down from the cave it began to mist and the low clouds came in and made for a ominous picture.

The wave cave hike is listed as a 'moderate' hike. I don't know who decides what to rate these hikes but a more honest and helpful description might have been if you are out of shape at all, reconsider. I threatened to quit at least 5 times telling NiBo to go ahead and just leave me for dead on this nice rock. He declined and was annoyingly motivating. With my complaining on my end we made it to the cave. Normally you can see the mountains bathed in sunshine as the cave silhouettes you, but that was not the case this day.

You can see why they call it the wave cave! 

We did some shopping and saw all the pretty decorations...

Even the Chicago Airport was dressed in Holiday spirit.

NiBo and I flew into Chicago on Christmas Eve and rented a car to drive the few hours back to Central Illinois. We were not prepared for the lack of food options that late at night on Christmas Eve but at last, the golden arches of McDonald's shined brightly in the distance and we knew we would not starve, for 30 minutes later that Big Mac would be ours.

When we drove down our street and turned into the drive, I joked that mom would probably be sitting in the window watching for us. And sure enough like a little kid waiting for Santa to arrive with the pretty white candle lights in all the windows, there she was. She was so excited to have all three kids home for Christmas I was honestly surprised she wasn't in the middle of the street flagging us down. I mean just look at this tree and all the presents! 

The Monday after Christmas the whole family, mom, dad, A.Drama, Marvin, NiBo and me, went to see the new Star Wars movie at the IMAX theatre, and it was AWESOME! 

We spent the rest of our time at home visiting with friends and hanging with the family while we could. After dinner at our favorite local pizza place one night, NiBo and I went and saw Star Wars again for the second time.

Our time at home seemed both long and short at the same time. We flew back to Arizona on New Year's Day and NiBo flew back to his little island the morning of the 2nd. The kitties definitely missed me as proven in the picture where there isn't enough of me for all of us to be comfortable cuddling.

The first day back to work after a vacation that long is not fun. I'm glad I gave myself the two days of the weekend before I had to be back at work. Usually I don't give myself a break in between, but with this trip I was spoiled and might have to reevaluate my thought process on trips like that in the future.

I read an article and saw some posts on Instagram about this 52 hike challenge. Basically you pledge to complete 52 hikes this year and do just that I will.

My first hike was at the Lost Dutchman State Park on the treasure loop trail. This is the same trail that A.Drama, Marvin and myself completed last year for our first day hike. {you can take a trip down memory lane here}

I even bought myself an annual pass to the Arizona State Parks, so hopefully I will get to explore those this year too.

Howard the Travel Troll went hiking too! 

Be sure to give him a follow on Instagram @HowardsTravels

I also binged watched, on a Tuesday until 1:30am no less, Netflix's documentary show Making a Murderer. A classic tale of did he or didn't he.

That pretty much get's you all caught up on my exciting life. Not too much to tell, but I'll be sure to update more often (It's on my Resolutions list) If you missed the blog while I was on my end of year hiatus, thanks for hanging in there and checking back. I hope today you were pleasantly surprised to have some new content! Catch y'all later! 

3 Years ago today

Thanks to a little app called timehop, your past social media posts are only a finger tap away. Funny that this one popped into my feed today.

Exactly three years ago an overly optimistic October Heather, signed April Heather up for a race two races. A 5k Friday night race and an exhausting 10k race Saturday morning bright and early.

You can read about how that went with the posts titled: Dear October Heather and one gem titled 9.2 Miles in 48 hours.

I say funny this popped up today because, well the thought had crossed my mind to do something similar, only instead of April the race would be in January! I do have the fact that weather will be much more on my side here in Arizona over the winter than it would have been back in Illinois over the winter (which was my lazy excuse last time) I've been throwing the idea around of starting to run, I'm not 100% feeling the snug clothes and I'm past the point of being able to say oh I just moved it was stressful, that's why I eat like crap and never go to the gym.

At the very least I will sign up for the 5k race, stay tuned. I might do something stupid like sign up for the 2nd day race too. You just never can tell here at North of 10th can you?! Also I need some way to kick my dad's butt on the Fitbit steps, that man is a beast! Anyone else fitbit? Oh and that #195 days.. it's 100 days less to prepare as of today #95days #DoubleEek

Book Talk: Elizabeth Gilbert ~ Big Magic

This is actually a really hard post to even articulate into words, but I will try.

Elizabeth Gilbert first came into my life all the way back in 2010. A little book club in Central Illinois called the Page Turner's picked a book called 'Eat, Pray, Love' to read for their August meeting. I LOVED the book. That book means so much more to me than words on pages, after I read that book I feel like it changed the way I look at myself as participant in the universe.

Fast forward five years. I now live in Arizona, and part of living in a sprawling metropolis is authors make stops here to talk about their new books, and I'm literally 10 minutes away! 

Today the author in town was Elizabeth Gilbert, talking about her new book 'Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear'. I think what I like about Elizabeth is her humor and I love a girl who will drop an F-bomb in front of a room full of strangers. She writes like I would think to myself, a flowing stream of consciousness narrative with sarcasm sprinkled in among a few choice words, totally right up my alley.

She started her talk by reading an excerpt from the book. It talks about living your creative life, whatever that creativity means to you.

"and while the paths and outcomes of creative living will vary wildly from person to person, I can guarantee you this: A creative life is an amplified life. It's a bigger life, a happier life, an expanded life, and a hell of a lot more interesting life. Living in this manner--continually and stubbornly bringing forth the jewels that are hidden within you--is a fine art, in and of itself. Because creativing living is where Big Magic will always abide"

Whoa. It's big stuff. I wish I could have recorded her talking because her responses to the Q&A session were like whoa, change the way you see yourself kind of responses. She goes on to talk about fear. Fear and creativity go hand and hand. Wherever there is a creative thought there is fear right behind. You become afraid of so many things that it steals the ability for you to find the jewels hidden within you. Fear of not being good enough, fear that others have already done it better, afraid your dreams are embarrassing or afraid of so many things. 

She ended by telling us that she was sorry. Sorry because she would not be doing a signing line and personalizing books. She did however go to the publishing company's warehouse and sign over 20,000 books ahead of time. She said this was the hard part of creativity, you sometimes have to say no to things you love in order to keep yourself healthy. She is doing her biggest book tour ever and knew that in order to do that she would have to say no to meeting us individually. 

She ended the session by reading a poem by Louise Erdrich which also makes you think...

Advice to Myself
by Louise Erdrich

Leave the dishes.
Let the celery rot in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator
and an earthen scum harden on the kitchen floor.
Leave the black crumbs in the bottom of the toaster.
Throw the cracked bowl out and don't patch the cup.
Don't patch anything. Don't mend. Buy safety pins.
Don't even sew on a button.
Let the wind have its way, then the earth
that invades as dust and then the dead
foaming up in gray rolls underneath the couch.
Talk to them. Tell them they are welcome.
Don't keep all the pieces of the puzzles
or the doll's tiny shoes in pairs, don't worry
who uses whose toothbrush or if anything
matches, at all.
Except one word to another. Or a thought.
Pursue the authentic-decide first
what is authentic,
then go after it with all your heart.
Your heart, that place
you don't even think of cleaning out.
That closet stuffed with savage mementos.
Don't sort the paper clips from screws from saved baby teeth
or worry if we're all eating cereal for dinner
again. Don't answer the telephone, ever,
or weep over anything at all that breaks.
Pink molds will grow within those sealed cartons
in the refrigerator. Accept new forms of life
and talk to the dead
who drift in though the screened windows, who collect
patiently on the tops of food jars and books.
Recycle the mail, don't read it, don't read anything
except what destroys
the insulation between yourself and your experience
or what pulls down or what strikes at or what shatters
this ruse you call necessity.

Being a Cub Fan in Arizona

In case you didn't know the Cubs have made the postseason! This is the first time that the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs have met in the postseason since.... well, ever! It's been fun meeting up with friends at a local sport's bar to watch the game. A lot of people in Arizona are transplants from the midwest so it's fun to see other people in blue cheering on the cubbies. We had several people walk up to us at the bar tonight telling us good luck, we hate St. Louis so we hope you guys win. Even walking out to your car after the game, people notice your Cubs shirt and will holler 'GO CUBS, WOO!' 

We met up with another friend who had moved out to Arizona several months after we had with our wave of hires and we were talking about how much Arizona feels like home for that same reason. Cubs are here for Spring Training, we've got Portillo's restaurant (a Chicago staple) and no matter where you go if you have an Illinois team's shirt on you'll be sure to run into a fellow Illinois person.

Watching baseball in October is a new thing for me, hopefully it continues! The next couple games will start while I'm still at work (stupid time zones) But you can bet I will be checking the score! 

Go Cubs Go! Woo!

Subject: The Blog

Actual email in my inbox this morning...

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Subject: The Blog

From: [Dad] Fri, Oct 9, 2015 at 8:05 AM
To: [Heather]
Here it is going almost two months since the ”blog” has been update. Your loyal followers are beginning to drop from waiting on an update. So if you can muster up some energy this weekend, please update it.


LOL
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well... when your own father starts to turn on you, I guess it's time to update the blog.  I do admit I have been terrible at updating this year, and I don't even have a good excuse. I've done tons of fun blog worthy things and have tons of fun/exciting things coming up on the horizon. In my defense though, I did give the blog a bit of a fall-ish makeover, so at least my loyal viewers had something new to enjoy when they visited.

Tonight I watched the cubs game with a friend at Bdubs and decided since they lost and I was nearby I'd check out a good movie to mourn their loss.

I went and saw the Martian. EXCELLENT movie. My brother saw it last weekend and described it as a mixture of 'Interstellar' and 'Gravity'. I haven't seen Gravity so I can't tell you anything about that comparison, other than it heavily relies on Matt Damon as the leading man. If you like Matt Damon and have even the slightest interest in space, definitely check this movie out. 

There dad... I hope that will keep my loyal followers checking back to the "blog"

When the Valley Gets Hot, Go North!

Last weekend Tulip and I had it with the heat here in the valley, so we decided to head North for some new scenery and cooler breezes.

We were going to go to Sedona and see the beautiful red rocks but took at look at their temperatures and decided that wasn't a cool enough escape from the 110+° so we looked farther north to Flagstaff and were much more content with those temps. I haven't seen two digit numbers for a high for a couple months now! It was definitely a nice reprieve from the heat.

Flagstaff Visitor Center:

Chapel of the Holy Dove: 

Red Mountain:

Driving through Coconino National Forest:

Inner Basin Trail: 

The drive up the mountain, rain in the distance

BEARS?!

It was too late in the day to attempt this whole trail, we only hiked in for about 20 minutes, but it was so beautiful and peaceful. Can't wait to go back! 

Howard the Travel Troll

This is Howard. Howard is a Travel Troll. You may not have heard of traveling trolls, but they exist! Howard is quite the little travel troll. He's been to Germany, Disneyland and everywhere in between. Howard usually resides here in Arizona with me but sometimes he likes to go on trips with other friends.

Howard is currently visiting Paris, France this week and will head to London in a couple days, quite the life he lives! Howard is on Instagram if you'd like to follow his adventures you can find him with the username: HowardsTravels to follow along with his trips! 

Do you have a travel troll at your house? Howard loves to hear about other traveling troll adventures, send your pictures and stories to him at howardstravels@gmail.com and maybe you'll be featured on his instagram! 

Yeah... Sure.. We'll go with that

Energy Saving Mode (ESM) has been in full effect here at North of 10th. The hot weather is a perfect time to go into ESM. This weekend I have been so incredibly hot that it's just gross. It's a constant battle between do I want to be hot and sweaty or spend money on my summer electric bill and just make my humble abode an ice castle. I usually land somewhere in the middle.

My brother ever so eloquently pointed out that I have neglected my blog for at least a whole month. Yeah yeah.... I could say to him, that he hasn't send me any exciting NiBo Hawaiian adventures for me to share with you either, so ha! 

Have any of you just been so incredibly bored that you start thinking of ridiculous things to do? My current ridiculous thought is going back to school, for a for-me-degree. I graduated six years ago with my Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration. It was one of those, this is what I should do decisions. It makes sense, Bachelor's in Science is nice. Then when you are 2.5 years in and doing imaginary number math up to your eyeballs you have that thought that maybe this isn't what you want to be doing. I've always said I wanted to be a teacher and with my current job at the insurance company as a trainer, I can start to actually see that I'm kind of good at it. On top of that I love learning things, I'm good at researching the crap out of things on even just life purchases like a car, add to that a little bit of fun, like say history and I'm hooked. I casually browsed Arizona State University's online programs, and it just so happens they have both Bachelor's and Master's online degrees for History. Hmmm. My ideal job in life would be a historian, ideally working at some grand Museum sharing the stories of the past with others.

Some of the pros: 
- It's all online so I wouldn't have to quit my job 
- I'd be in no hurry to finish, so I could take one class here and there as my wallet allows

Cons: 
- Is a for-me-degree really worth it in the longrun? 
- what if I never do anything with it, was it a waste? 

What will come of this? Who knows, I have a tendency to work myself up about these things, then just slowly back away. Just ask anyone in my family. I don't know though, we shall see. Would be cool to eventually get more degrees and be Dr. 'North of 10th' and maybe I could add some archeology in there too just like Dr. Jones and go all Raiders of the Lost Ark on life... could be cool right?