Happy Anniversary!

Well I once again find myself 2-3 weeks from my last post. I appreciate your patience. The last year has been a fun ride. Tara and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary yesterday!!! I have always heard from so many people "oh the first year is the hardest, If you don't kill each other you will be good" Well I can honestly say the first year has been a breeze. Sure we had our moments but those moments were like a passing breeze. It really has been a great and memorable year. We spent most of our dating life 5.5 hours apart so we had so many things to learn from just being around each other every day. Tara truly is fun to be around all the time. We are always giggling like school girls and I never feel out of place no matter where we are at as long as she is with me. Over the last year I have watched more "flip this house" "Diners Drive ins and Dives" and other various Food Network/HGTV shows than i probably would have ever watched in my life but it has been traded off with many Golf afternoons and action movies. I know this sounds crazy but our anniversary kind of snuck up on us. I have been working more than i would like and sometimes planning is not our strong point. We found ourselves not really having any plans and too late to make any big plans over the memorial day weekend. So after chilling for most of the weekend we jetted to Evins Mill in Smithville for a nice getaway. You can see above we happened to run into our friends the Musical Frogs who were performing outside the mill. We basically had the place to ourselves seeing how there was only one other couple there. After a nice supper we settled down in our room to watch our wedding video and engage in the ceremony of eating the wedding cake on 1 year anniversary. I will say i was quite skeptical about the adventure and it ended up living up to our expectations. It was mostly just dry cake with hard icing that tasted like it had been frozen for a year. Tuesday morning we slept late and then headed to one of the main attractions on the Ground of Carmac Falls. The waterfall is beautiful and has a fall of about 100 feet. It was a nice end to a nice peaceful get away. I must say as we enter the summer months i have been quite excited for the many possibilities of long weekends and only part time hours. Well unfortunately those plans have changed and I will find myself inside working many more hours than i was wanting. Its okay though because I'm being able to step in and fill a gap that I know God knew was going to happen. One of the Nurse Practitioners on our team has been diagnosed with a serious medical condition and will be on leave for about 2 months. So please pray for him if you remember. His name is Daniel. So hopefully we will be able to slip away for a few days here and there and enjoy the summer sun. Well hopefully this gave you a nice glimpse of whats been going on with us. This picture to the left is of us with the beautiful Carmac falls in the background where we hiked this morning. I will hopefully have all the other pictures on our flicker page real soon.

Heady National Golf Club

Greetings to you and yours! I guess i will start off with a big ole "Happy Birthday" to me. As most of you know yesterday was my birthday and the ole "2-6" is now behind me. It was a good day really. I was scheduled to work for Dr. Webb on Monday but the beautiful weather slowed the world down and I was able to leave early around 2pm. I spent most of the rest of the day frolicking outside and soaking up the sun. Me and my lovely bride were then off to supper for my birthday meal. This past weekend we spent a few days in Nashville and had a few really nice meals so we decided to go simple and hit the El Tap. Tara treated me with a great relaxing back massage as we chuckled to Jay Leno. Today was a great day as well. I was off and enjoyed sleeping late till about 10am. The rest of my day was spent making the final preparations for Heady National Golf Club grand opening. All of the grounds were mowed and trimmed today. The course has been taking shape for the last few days but has officially hit its peak playing conditions. Some will say its just a flag,an open field, and a little boys dreams but I want to urge you that its so much more than that. I have just spoke with the marketing department and the Brochures are ready to be sent out. Please feel free to check it out at the link below. The quality has been lowered for internet viewing purposes. Feel free to drive by and tour the grounds. If you would like a higher quality brochure just let me know. We are currently experiencing some tecnhical difficulties with the link going to our brochure. It should be two pages but only the first page is showing up so we will continue to get these things worked out. thanks.
http://www2.headys.us/downloads/Heady-National-Brochure.pdf

Happy Birthday Abby!

Well tonight was Abby's official celebration for being on this earth for the big 1 year. 365 days. Time really is a funny concept to try and put your mind around. One year seems so long but it always seems to vanish like a ninja right before our eyes. Anytime i start to think about time and contemplating the cosmos I usually end up getting wigged out and my eyes glaze over. With an estimated life expectancy of around ~70 years just for example. Abby has a little over 25,000 chances to see the sun rise and set again. Thats a large number but by my calculations i have 9,482 of those days already in my personal history bank. So i have to ask myself...What have i done/accomplished in those days? What do i spend all my time doing? Well I'm not gonna go in depth about how our days here on earth are numbered but as we celebrate such a sweet innocent young life maybe you can take a personal inventory of your "days" calculator. In that I'm sure you will see what you really hold important. So as long as Your Sun shines tomorrow you always have a chance to do something special. I have posted all of my pictures from tonights party on our flicker page. Please go check them out and if you want a better quality of one just let me know. check them out here www.flickr.com/photos/camtara/

Tree Rats meet The Pumpmaster

Once again i find myself apologizing for a long break in my blogging. All has been well since my last transmission. Easter was a tiring but a good getaway to NC. Everyone in NC was doing good and it was great to catch up with everyone again. Solomon is the starting center for the Davie County diaper football league. He has went from a preemie to a beefy stud in just 4 short months. On Easter Sunday afternoon, we had some fun family Gene adventures as 7 people piled into his truck and roamed his land along with the surrounding farms. Once back in sparta all has been well. Tara continues to go to school and become Ben Lomands most outstanding employee. I have submitted all of my Loan Repayment papers and will be awaiting an answer over the next few months to whether i will be winning the 50K dollar jackpot. Not many things are certain in this world but no one else is being considered for the position and the Spencer clinic is rated as one of the higher rural health needs in this area. The NHSC gives favor to clinics with the highest rating of needs so if i don't receive the money no one will. This past weekend we got to spend some time with out good friend Bignate before he ships off to serve our country in Afghanistan. In a way i'm fighting my own little war here in Gillen once again. My little squirrel friend has started to respect me a little more and is an infrequent guest at the bird feeders. However the dark warrior tree rat clans have started taking my feeder to the bank. The black birds have raided us and are laughing all the way to the top of the trees. Last year i can't recall one black bird getting on our feeders but now they are like a bad motorcycle gang appearing every time you turn around. While in NC Gene gave me a flash back to the past when me and ryan were little boys. Gene had bought a Pellet gun from walmart for general plinking and when he walked out my eyes lit up and I said I had one just like that when i was younger. In fact, we had two... one for me and one for ryan. As i shot it it brought me back to so many good days shooting fence post and aluminum cans. When i returned back to sparta i went to walmart and found that the ole Pumpmaster 760 was only 30 bucks. So obviously i couldn't turn it down. the design is still the same....the empowering feeling of pumping it like 50 times when the book only recommends 10 times is still the same. Granted my eye sight must be worse or i haven't sighted him in yet cause i have yet to hit one of our Tree Rat friends. They just laugh all the way back to the top of the trees but they won't be laughing when i hang one of them over the tree branches for all his brothers and loved ones to see. Last night I once again found myself crunching numbers and dreaming about the future. If you ever want to have fun or get your self depressed ( you can choose) go to Dave Ramsey's website and play with his investment calculator. It was actually pretty amazing to see how much you could make long term with only starting out with a little bit of money. If you play with it you will see this but i will describe it anyways. It gives you the ability to change your initial investment, your monthly investment and how long you want to invest for. Then you can choose to see what your investment gains would be roughly in so many years. Most of the bars are blue but there is one special "yellow" bar that tells you when you would eclipse the One Million Dollar mark. I decided to go unrealistic and see how quick i could get to my One million dollar yellow bar. Granted this is a little far fetched but i gave us a marked initial balance because we said Tara would work like two years and then all that money would go towards this fund. Then it turns a little crazy hahaha. If i put most of my salary in this fund for 10 year growing with interest every year I would reach my million dollar mark in like 11 or 12 years. So I would be sub 40 years old have have a million dollars in the bank. Nice to think about but sure its unrealistic for the most part but its definitely possible to still have a lot of money down the road if you start early and do things right. Well I'll leave you with that little toy to have fun with. Click on investment calculator on the right.
www.daveramsey.com/etc/investmentcenter/

Eastbound On Easter

Happy Easter!!I just wanted to write a quick blog to all my followers before we pack up and head east on I-40 for about 5 hours. We are looking forward to a few days with family and friends. Of course for you sparta kids we will be able to fellowship with The Kings but me and tara will also get to see our little nephew who we haven't seen since Christmas. He is in the ballpark of 4 months old now so i'm sure he looks nothing like we remember him. The little NC weekend trips have transformed alot in my eyes over the last year. In the past I would be chomping at the bit to go and 5 hours however a long trip I always had my lovely friend waiting for me so my mind was always focused on her which passed the time nicely. Now since my lovely bride is always with me its alittle hard to get motivated to pack up pretty much every pair of socks/underwear i have and drive 5+ hours for only a few days time then turn around and do it again. All will be well though, I have my XM radio all wired up and ready to go along with the fantasies of being a race car drive as we weave thru the NC mountains. I hope you all have a wonderful Easter and Hopefully i shall return with crazy stories with Tim and "jumping man" furches.

Winter Wonderland!

What do myself and Donny Haley (WC School superintendent) have in common? Well 99% of the time I would say not awhole lot but this morning I got a little jolt of the power that comes with snow falling. Many of you know that for the last few months i have been working the Saturday Walk-in clinic here in Sparta. It has its good and bad sides. It was really good when we were out of income for 2 months. Well yesterday afternoon I talked to the practice manager and she informed me that in the event of bad weather It was my call whether the clinic would be open or not. At that moment i knew that I was doomed and the great power had lots of potential to corrupt me. This morning I was to call my nurse and secretary to see if they were able to make it in. I called the nurse first and she had already talked to the secretary. I heard the words, "Mindy is not 100% sure she can make it but its your call and she will get there if you want to work." and at that moment I was already in another world watching channel 4 Snow Bird scroll across bottom of screen saying "Cumberland Family Care Walk-in Clinic closed Saturday morning". Sure i could have made it work but was not at all fully stoked about going into work. So This morning I was giddy like a little school again just like all those days when school was closed. As i write its still spitting some snow and quite beautiful. On the ground i would say .5in to 1.5 in. Never the less its enough to make my heart flutter with excitement. In other news, yesterday i found myself giddy like a little school girl again awaiting a package from UPS. I'm not sure which one is more exciting...awaiting a good snow? or awaiting a anticpated package arrival. I'm just glad God has blessed me with those two back to back. The moment me and Don got done filing my income tax papers i started to think about all things i would like to do with that money. For about 3-4 weeks now i have been trying to decide between the Newest Nikon release D300, new lens and flash or new lens and older Nikon body but upgrade from my current camera body. Much like Jones flip flops on dome vs. hanger I was up in the air with my decision. Finally after many internet recommendations i decide to drop my money into a flash and nice "glass". Photography lingo for good lens. My day was a little anxious cause the package needed a signature and i knew UPS route ran around our house around noon. which was a problem and keeping the Pizza hut appointment. I called in the Don for back up as i ran to the Hut but it turned out our UPS guy was a step ahead of me and dropped it off at Tara's work cause he thought no one would be home. Which is why I love ole Greg Winton!! God Bless that little brown suited man. The lens is really amazing. It has Vibration Reduction built in which automatically takes away hand shake and essentially giving you more sharp,crisp pictures. It allows you to get pictures in low light and longer zooms that you probably wouldn't have been able to get unless with a 2-3k dollar lens. I have taken many test shots so i will try and pos some on our flickr page to illustrate the difference.
I do have one other bit of exciting news that i will pass along in this every growing blog. About 4 years ago when i was deciding which Graduate schools to apply to. I decided that i would go against some peoples logic and only apply to one school. Most people apply to 15-20 schools at minimum. I wanted to stay local and in making that decision I inherited probably one of the most expensive PA schools in the country. Trevecca being a small Christian school and the graduate PA program being the most expensive program on campus above all doctorate and undergrad degrees makes for a painful debt. Not uncommon for Grads to walk away with total cost well reaching over 100K in only 2 short years. Luckily i was not that bad via help from my family. In October when i was jobless for 2 months I started looking at many loan repayment jobs that would allow me to sign a contract to work and get my loans repaid. We seriously looked everywhere from the Caribbean Islands, snowing Colorado and Indian reservations in north Carolina. Almost pulling the trigger to pack up and leave for 2-3 years just to get this weight off our backs and have a good adventure at the same time. While looking I stumbled on an opening in Spencer,Tn. Intrigued I emailed just wondering if this was true. I got a response back saying it was not available but it was Dr. Ty Webb clinic from here in Sparta. The loan repayment position turns out wasn't available at this time. I started talking to the practice manager and she told me there was a good chance it would become available in about a years time. So that possibility is what led me to take my current job. Because I thought it would be easy for me to slip into that position if I was already associated with the practice. Well it looks that may very well happen. I had a meeting this week with our Practice manager and she said she wanted to make it happen for me that my loans would be repaid. currently i work in Spencer one day a week but to be eligible to start getting money in January 2009 I have to log so many hours in that clinic in 2008. So over the next few months I will begin to take over more responsibilities in the spencer clinic. I'm really excited about the chance to get paid and get my loans repaid but also I have grown to love the flexibility and freedom of only working 3-4 days a week. But hey i wouldn't be able to find this opportunity anywhere else close to this area cause i have looked. It will probably mean i will become only a honorary member of many lunch meetings but will still be there in spirit. i will let you know more as this story plays itself out. Well I have said to much and I don't wanted to be blasted as a long poster.

Cam and Tara update!

Hello friends and neighbors! I hope is all and well in your parts of the land. I just wanted to make a quick post and update everyone on whats been going on around the Heady home. The last few weeks have been good but different. As many of you know we have said farewell to our friends the Kings and are adjusting back to Sparta life with out them. My work is going really well right now and I really enjoy the group i'm working with alot more than my last place of employment. I still have this lingering question in the back of my mind sometimes whether i really want to do family medicine forever. Family medicine is a neat thing and gosh you basically see a little bit of everything walk thru the door. There is a lot of the same that can get boring but so much diversity that ultimately i think thats what makes me want to move on. I think deep down i have a desire to be really good at a few things. In family medicine lots of times your just pretty good at a lot of things. I would ultimately like a mix of medicine and not medicine employment i think. Find something that i just absolutely loved like a hobby that i could do while being a PA and still get paid some little something for it. Well on to my lovely wife... The last few days have been a struggle for my bride. Around 5pm on sunday night, I heard the dreaded words of..."My stomach feels funny" those words then progressed to "I think i'm dying" Much of her sunday night was spent looking very pale laying in the bathroom floor. yesterday was spent just vegging out on the couch with an occasional rumbly stomach but no throwing up so that was good. She was off to work today not a 100% but much improved. On a lighter note, many of you know that we have become quite the little bird ranch. We have two regular bird feeders, a finch feeder and a woodpecker suet. Well this morning i come and sit down at the computer only to see a little squirrel on top of bird house raiding our feeder. Not uncommon for that to happen really but don't want that going on here at the Heady Bird Sanctuary. So I grab my little Air Soft pistol and run to the door to fire off a shot. (okay squirrel lovers its not going to kill him so calm down) My first shot was horribly off and i figured well it will scare him off for awhile. Well evidently squirrels have like 3 minute memories cause he was right back almost before i got sat back down. Once again i missed horribly mostly because i was having to throw the door open and shoot before he moved. As most of you know i'm smarter than the average squirrel, so i propped the door open just enough to get my gun thru the door. Sure the first time like that i missed again but oh the second door shot Hit Center Mass. I think he was stunned actually that i hit him cause he sat there for like 2 seconds and then jumped to run for his life. I'm pretty sure if you flash forward 50 years this is what i will be doing all day then too. Course then i will just blow up the bird house cause i won't be able to see any detail just large fuzzy objects. I will let you know how the great squirrel adventures go but i think i have shown him who is the sheriff around these parts already. I'm gonna jump on the bandwagon and try the new poll feature. so please vote.

All Hail The Kings!

Settle down my little Cameron babies!! (props to Conan O'Brien on that line) I know many of you have been just anxiously awaiting another overflow of thoughts from my large brain...well wait no more. I will try to keep this posting as upbeat as possible but i fear that it will turn into the melody of one Dave Teters Dobro exhibition on Sunday night. I am giving my farewell to the Kings blog like much of my fellow bloggers have done this week. Today started off much like alot of other days in the recent past... me, tim, and ryan off on some crazy adventure. This has been a recurrent theme over the last oh 2,375 days and become much more about the ride than the actual task at hand. But today we were marching to the beat of a different melody, unlike so many other constructive adventures that have gone before today we found ourselves disassembling the Kings life here in Sparta. Its a weird thought that has really hit me hard today. I have spent more time with the Kings over the last ~7 years than many members of my blood family and in that same breath they have become as family to me. Barring some multi-million dollar blessing and this side of Our Eternal Home....these next few days will be the last days that our crews will ever actually live in the same little circle. Like everyone else who grows older I have experienced many difficult things: divorces, personal and profession medical tragedies, and many personal struggles. The Kings exodus will definitely fall into the very difficult category. Sure life will go on just like it did for my some ~20 years before the kings came but most definitely life will be different. worse? no! better? definitely no! But most certainly different than before i met them. I remember everything from the early desk assembly with Tim, Daniels "Be Silly Shoes", the quiet reserved Wenge and yes the life before Emma. So many adventures, so many silly talks, so many serious discussion, so many dreams shared, so many memories that will last forever. Tim has become like a brother, Wenge a 2nd mom, Daniel and Emma I have become to love and brag about like they were my own kids. I won't really miss the Tim as the youth minister of FBC but by far more the close friend who is at multiple weekly lunches and late night secret ops missions. I could go on and on about the many stories of affection for the Kings but the one that will stay with me forever is my beautiful wife Tara. As many of you know Tara is from tim and wenge's hometown of Mocksville and they played a huge role in our dating and our marriage. Long before Tara would even acknowledge my existence i sat with Tim on multiple occasions expressing my unexplainable attraction and love for this girl for all intents and purposes I knew nothing about. Many years later i learned that Tim could have maybe been a little better friend to me by telling me that he was having similar conversations with Tara at some points in time but thats a whole different blog at a different time. So whenever I tell my grandkids about how papa and nanny met each other the story will always be tied to the Kings on their adventure thru Sparta,Tn. Well if you Kings actually read my blog I want you to know that I really do love you and I will truly truly miss seeing you most everyday but it will only make other gatherings that much more special. I feel confident with both our family's in mocksville our paths will cross many times just in passing but it would still be nice to have you right down the road. I wish for you that all your wildest dreams come true and hopefully we both won't fall into The Bignate blog curse so we can still know all that is going on across the 340 miles of I-40.

Night on the Town with the Big Al

Today turned out to be a pretty good day even though it started out with great rage and frustration for me. The last few nights i have went to bed with pounding sinus pressure and drainage. I did not sleep well at all last night...i tossed and turned all night and could not get comfy. I figured it was just from sinus stuff but maybe it was my conscious trying to urge me out of the bed for other reasons. It may have been better that i didn't make it up and look outside because it would probably have resulted in a dead man laying out in my drive way before the sun came up. As i got in my car to go to work I noticed that something was not right. The ole mule has been faithful to me for almost 8 long years. so i'm pretty in tune with the inside. As i scanned the scene i realized that someone decided they needed my XM radio more than i did. yes...somewhere between 6pm friday and 8am saturday the ole faithful soldier of almost 2 1/2 years was snatched from its loving docking home. Well as you can imagine i was pretty hot and baffled that someone would do that here in ole Gillen. Almost immediately a suspect came to mind and all you faithful readers and followers can insert that well known name into the blank now........ But after calming down i gave the police a heads up knowing that they could do nothing really. The story ends with a new discounted XM radio and free home and car kit on its way to me this week. So if the stealer of my XM radio is reading this blog...please beware... I have enough ammo in the house to hit you as long as you want to run or at least scare you to death if i miss. The last part of the day ended with great fun. Tonight we got to get the big Al and go out for a night of fun. Ole predictable allie picked chick-fil-a for her place of dining pleasure. So about 530 or so we set our course towards the big chicken hut. I guess Al has a pretty set menu and knows all the rules that she must complete to get in the big fun zone. It worked out good cause there was about 5-6 other kids in the play area that she played with for about 20-25 minutes. As we were ordering our real food she put her sites on a brownie that she wanted and i gave her the typical oh we will eat first and play next speech. Thinking that she would prob forget about it we went on but as soon as her little crocs were back on her feet out of the fun zone she was screaming for that special little treat. After eating and wearing alot of her brownie we were out the door and headed for our next adventure. We settled on something that Allie had never even heard of I guess but decided it would be fun times. We headed to Bowling World to play what allie now calls "rolling". It was fun times and she had a blast. I think she was alittle confused at first but by the end she was really in to it. We got some good pics that will be up on our Flicker page. We returned home for a nice bath and then a little hair braiding time with Sarah C. and Tara. It didn't take long for her to crash out with her bobo. She is a pretty cool little gal and will amaze you with some fun sayings. Well i'm off to crash for the night myself. Remember kids.....lock your doors and cars. Evil loves the night.

Corn and Cardinals

This past week has been quite the interesting week. I welcomed today with open arms as it was a day off for me. Up to that point i had worked 7 of the last 8 days which was totally cramping my style of trying to follow Dr. Jones methodology. It never ceases to amaze me how your day off seems to fly by but the ole work days crawl by at a snails trot. All in all life has been good though and i'm back on my normal schedule. The last week has also brought us into the corn making business. Wenge finally revealed the true caramel corn recipe and we have already made a few batches. I will have to say that it is delicious and pretty easy to make. Granted that its just one more thing that is gonna hold me back from losing the 10-15 lbs that i need/want to lose. I have shared a picture of our yummy goodness as it was basking in the warm oven's sun. There has been one other creature that has made a glorious appearance to the Heady Estate over the last week or so. Over the summer we added a hummingbird feeder and a regular bird feeder. We had pretty good success but over the last week we have changed our feed to Black oil sunflower seed and have seen a 100% increase in our Cardinal population. We rarely ever saw one on the other feed but now we have a large Cardinal Sanctuary. After seeing the numerous beautiful creatures in our back yard, i began to see the world in pictures again and drummed up the idea to get another bird feeder to place outside the front window. With the new front window setup i have the Nikon D50 perched on its tripod and pointed right at the bird house with the hopes with the little camera remote that we will catch some great pics to post on the web. Only a few hours in operation we had our first visitors but it was already starting to get dark and was not able to get a good picture. As always, I can never just have one opportunity at a good shot so i have added another hummingbird feeder along with a Finch feeder to hang on the same pole as the new bird house. Check back in a few days and hopefully you will see one of our pictures from our new bird window.