What's in a Name?

Ok, so I think I have confused people quite often about my name and I was thinking today that I will try and explain things a bit.  My name on my email and most of the sites that I write on, like Flickr, imply that my name is Heidi.  Let me just clear this up now.  My name is actually Jeannette.  My nickname is Heidi, it's what my husband calls me and most of the people that I have met in the last 14 or so years.  But, alas my name is Jeannette and to confuse things even more, my parents and family have always called me Jenny.  So, why do I have the nick name Heidi?  Well, maybe these pictures of me from about the time I acquired the nickname give you some idea...

I actually met my husband in 1996 while thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail.  The Appalachian Trail, if you are not familiar with it, is a marked wooded hiking trail that is over 2,000 miles long that starts in Georgia and runs clear to the middle of Maine.  Every year there are a few crazy people (like my husband and me) who decide that it's a good idea to carry a backpack and walk the entire distance in one go.  That's what we did and how we met--in the woods walking northbound.  Now, because there are a lot of other crazy people out there who also decide to hike the trail in one go, there can sometimes be a lot of confusion when you meet and talk about other hikers.  If you talk about a John, people say, which John?  John, crazy John?  Or John from Florida? Or John with the big hiking stick?  You get the idea...  Anyway, it is sort of a rite of passage to have a trail name.  My husband was "Platypus" (we have Platypus in our river here)...  Me, I had just landed on the trail after 3 years of living in the Alps and this is how I looked at the time.  Everyone I would meet would say, "here comes Heidi" and the name just stuck.  It was longer originally, actually Gone Burglar which had to do with a black hat I kept for the cold nights.  Just a joke between my best friend and me who was hiking with me at the time.  I had such an innocent look back then, but underneath, heh heh heh...  So, now I'm really Heidi Gone Aussie--hence the "Gone Aussie Quilting".  I hope that sort of makes sense. 

Oh, and not to confuse you too much, but this picture is from 1997, the following year.  In these pictures I'm solo hiking the Colorado Trail...