Confession Friday

I really had intended to write another post between last week and today, but it just didn't happen. Maybe next week. Haha. Right.

Anyway, my confession for this week is that I am absolutely terrified of heights. I am not sure when this happened. When I was in high school I went on all kinds of roller coasters and up in high overlook things and none of it bothered me. My friend and I went on this Xtreme Skyflyer thing several times at a local amusement park. I mean, they hoist you 200 feet in the air and drop you! What the heck?

Well, a few years ago when we visited the Grand Canyon, I noticed that I was more nervous around heights. Getting too close to the edge made me nervous, but I was okay.

Last month on our Yosemite trip, we found out the hard way that I am now completely terrified of heights. We did a hike to the top Sentinel Dome. It is this awesome rock from where you get this amazing 360 degree view of Yosemite - many of the falls, Half Dome, the valley - and it's breathtaking. But to get to the top, you have to hike up the steep side of it. In snow. And it's pretty curved so you kind of feel that if you slipped too far to either side, it wouldn't be too difficult to keep sliding and fall over the edge.

It probably didn't help that as we arrived at the base, there were three people slipping and sliding their way back down. Ryan talked me into going up (I mean, we have life insurance, so it's okay, right?). I just put one foot in front of the other and charged up the thing. When I got to the top, I was shaking. And almost hyperventilating. And almost crying. And I'm not a crier. I couldn't help it. I had to sit on a rock in the middle of the dome and compose myself. Ugh. I felt like such an idiot, but I couldn't make myself not freak out.

We did several other hikes to the top of very high places, but I always had to stand way far back from the railing along the edge, just to get used to being that high up. I wasn't going to let my fear keep me from seeing Yosemite, but I realized that there are some fears you can't make go away just because you don't want to be scared. Fear of heights is real, people. And I have it.

See those happy people at the Upper Yosemite Falls Overlook there by the railing? The ones enjoying the view of the Yosemite Valley?

Then see the legs of that person against the rock wall? Yeah. I don't know those happy people, but the legs are mine.

Friend Quota

"Since there is nothing so well worth having as friends,

never lose a chance to make them."

- Francesco Guicciardini

Am I the only one who feels like a lot of people have some sort of pre-determined "friend quota?" I don't know. Maybe it's me. Maybe I'm just not that funny or not that nice. Maybe I'm too weird or too silly. Maybe. Or maybe it really is what I think it is, that some people have reached their quota of friends and no matter how great the two of you seem to hit it off, they just don't have any more room in their lives for additional friends.

I don't mean this in any sort of desperate "I need more friends" kind of way. I actually have plenty of friends. It's just that sometimes I meet people and we seem to talk easily and we have kids the same age and feel the same about a lot of things. These are the kind of people who say things like, "We really have to get together again soon!" when we part, without me even bringing it up. And then? Nothing. I may even try to invite them over once or twice and they say they are busy but would love to get together soon. And they will let me know when. And I never hear from them.

Now, I'm pretty busy. I work full-time and have a husband and two crazy boys. My parents and my sis live nearby, so I spend a lot of time with them. There are friends who I consider very dear to me, with whom I always have a blast when we hang out, but who I can only get together with every few months or so. I guess I just don't feel like I have to be talking to someone or seeing them all the time for us to be friends, even GOOD friends. I really don't like to talk on the phone, but I usually keep up with people enough via Facebook, instant messaging, and text that I feel I have a decent idea of what is going on in their life, yet I'm not so involved in every second of their days that we have nothing to talk about when we see each other in person.

Is that it? Is it maybe because I can go a while without talking to someone and still consider them important in my life? Or maybe it's that I don't actually believe in the whole "BFF" thing. I don't have a BFF. I have my "person," my younger sister Tiffiny who I have a special connection with in a lot of ways, but I just don't like feeling as though I have to limit my interactions with friends by assigning labels. I think we need multiple people in our lives, who communicate in different ways and have different interests. I don't want my friends to all be the same as me. I just want us to have enough in common that we can really enjoy each other and be understanding enough that we can appreciate each other's differences.

I have no idea where I'm going with this. Now I'm just rambling. But seriously, has anyone else noticed this with some people or is it just me?

Confession Friday

I was doing pretty well with my Confession Friday posts there for a while.

Side note: I don't know if Confession Friday is actually a thing. I just kind of made it up and put it on my blog, but there are so many thousands of bloggers that someone has probably already thought of it and done it so... sorry if it seems like I stole someone's idea, but I really didn't. Not intentionally, anyway.

So, yeah. I was posting kind of regularly. But then life happened with all it's birthdays and other craziness that happened in the month of June and I got way off track. Again. I'll try to get back into it with this, another Confession Friday post. I have two confessions for this week. Here goes.
1. I went on vacation without my kids and only missed them a little. I know. How can I even say that out loud? To celebrate our 10-year anniversary, we decided to go on a trip to California, just the two of us. My very wonderful sister and brother-in-law stayed with our boys so we could pretend we were jet-setters for a week. Leading up to the trip, I was anxious about how much I would miss the boys. However, once we were away, it was just SO nice to have that time to spend with Ryan and to have "us" time, that I was able to completely enjoy our adventures. Sure, I thought of the boys and there were a few times I had those pangs of homesickness for them, but it wasn't until we were actually on our way home that I felt overwhelmed with wanting to be back with them.

2. My husband is a much better photographer than I am. My sister is an amazingly talented professional photographer. I guess she got all the photography talent from our family gene pool, leaving me with only the ability to snap random photos and sometimes luck into a decent one. Here are a few photos from our trip. If you like them, my husband probably took them.

And this is why I hate trying to add photos to my posts.

I can never get blogger to let me caption!

Here is what the photos are, in case anyone is still reading:

1. A lighthouse in San Francisco

2. Us in Napa

3. General Sherman, the worlds largest living tree

4. Me trying to get a picture of the Kings Canyon sign

5. Rivers converging in Kings Canyon

6. We finally made it to Yosemite

7. And it was awesome