The Sparkly Happy Sunshine vs. The Gloomy Dark Grey Cloud

What do you write about when all of your thoughts seem too personal to share? Admittedly, I’m having a hard time thinking of something entertaining and amusing to write about today. I’m sad, and those of you reading my blog certainly aren’t interested in reading about the things that have made me sad. You have enough of your own sadness. It seems there’s more than enough to go around for everyone. I’m a sunny, spunky, sparkly person trapped in a sad time right now, and I don’t like it. I try to keep busy, think happy thoughts, and keep my situation in perspective. I pray about it, I ignore it, and sometimes I even flip out about it. Still, I’m sad and my little grey cloud doesn’t seem to be going anywhere soon. So today, in an effort to will away my sadness, I’m going to share with you a list of things that make me happy:

God
Family
Friends
Music… all kinds!
Art
Photography
Long walks on the beach… haha just kidding! I couldn’t resist!
Ice Cream… duh!
Escaping into a good book or movie
Adventures
Flowers
Exploring and trying new things
iPhones (It would be a flat out lie if I tried to deny how happy this little tidbit of technology makes me!)
Road trips
Funky shoes & jewelry
Comfy jeans
Flip Flops
Hoodie sweatshirts
Fluffy pillows
Peace
Dreaming
Singing in the car!
Rainy days
Vintage treasures
Giving gifts
Loving others
Spa days… specifically pedicures & massages
Home

The list goes on forever, but the party never ends! Bonus points if you get the musical reference. Anyway, on sad days like today, it’s good to focus on the happy blessings that life has to offer. In the big scheme of things, the happy always outweighs the sad!

The Possum in the Closet

My recent house hunting adventures reminded me of a story from my past that simply cannot go untold. Several years ago, one of my best friends, Lindsey, and I had just graduated college and landed our first real jobs at Southwest Airlines. We thought we were a big damn deal. We were not. We worked for almost nothing just so that we could have the honor of saying we worked for one of the best companies in America. The benefits were legit, but the pay was not! Still, every day was a fun day at SWA, and we were high on life… ready to go out and conquer the world. Obviously, we were silly and naive. After getting a few months of steady post college paychecks under our belt, we decided that perhaps having a roommate would create a little additional disposable income for the two of us. Because we were extremely bright college graduates (insert belly laugh here) it only made sense to live together and somewhere close to work. SWA headquarters is across the street from Dallas Love Field Airport. The kindest adjective I can think of to describe the neighborhood is SKETCHY! Suitable apartments in the immediate area were few and far between so we opted to rent a house. What an adventure! Our first foray into house hunting! So very grown-up! We had no idea what we were doing and no business doing it without a gun or a bodyguard in that neighborhood. The very first house we visited ended up as the setting for one of our most hysterical and EPIC stories of all time. After work one afternoon we rushed to the car and set out to view the house that we were just sure would be our new home in a few a short weeks. Based on the pictures and description online, it was a jewel… a hidden treasure in the barrio! Back then we still used MapQuest to navigate our way around the big city. As we pulled onto the street of our afore mentioned jewel of a home we were absolutely certain we’d made a wrong turn. How could our hidden treasure be on a street of homes with garbage pilled high in the yards and old cars up on blocks?! After double checking, we realized we were indeed on the correct street. Still, the red flags didn’t register… odd given that we were extremely bright college graduates (insert belly laugh here… again). We pulled up to the house (sans realtor… yet another red flag), walked up to the door, put in the code to the key lock box that the “realtor” had just given us over the phone, and sauntered into our dream home… or so we thought. We both wondered around imagining what it would look like with a little bit of paint and all of our charming home accessories. Then we got down to business and started looking for all those things our parents had reminded us were important… plenty of cabinet space, updated appliances, and most importantly an abundance of closet space. Closet #1, just right. Closet #2, kinda small, but okay. Closet #3, a possum… not okay! At this point Lindsey was still in the other room mentally filling it with all her most prized possessions. I screamed, “There’s something in the closet!” and ran to the other room. Lindsey felt sure I was being dramatic and had just imagined it. So, because we were extremely bright college graduates, we went back and decided to inspect the closet a little closer. We opened the door again, and sure enough, there sat a very angry possum… very angry… not the cute kind like in that book Possum Magic… this one was very very angry.

We slammed the door and took off running. We couldn’t get out of that house fast enough! Then, when we got outside we were so flustered we couldn’t get the key back in the lock box. While struggling with the lock box, we noticed something else we had been oblivious to when we pulled up… a whole gang of men standing around drinking beer and leering at us in the middle of the afternoon. Finally, we got the key in the lock box, our butts back in the car, and our doors locked. It seemed like it took an eternity to escape! THERE WAS A POSSUM IN THE CLOSET!!! How does that even happen?! And what kind of realtor just gives out the key lock box code over the phone to a random person?! Obviously, it’s the kind of realtor that is too afraid to venture back in there a second time. Needless to say, it didn’t take long for us to decide that a commute to work wasn’t so terrible after all and perhaps a swanky apartment in Plano was more our style. Now, I’m a bit older, and I’ve accepted that I’m not nearly as bright as I once thought, and I’ve come to learn that a college degree is certainly no substitute for good old fashioned common sense. I hope that this time around I’ll be more aware of the red flags, and thankful that I can afford to live in a possum free environment these days.

Boredom *INSERT DRAMATIC SIGH* Overwhelms Me!!!

What's a girl to do when the only activity of any interest is dwelling on your own elevated level of boredom?! Last night I did the following: ate dinner, filled out a home loan application, ate a snack, exercised, canceled out the calories I burned by eating another snack, thought about how badly I need to go to the grocery store so that my pantry will be filled with yummy snacks and not weird random snacks that make it clear that I haven't been to the grocery store since they invented sliced bread, watched TV, drank a glass of water all the while wishing it was a delicious diet root beer, checked Facebook, read for a while, played Words with Friends, and finally flopped back on the couch and gazed at the ceiling for, shall we say, an extended period of time.

Ugh. It's been a while since I had to entertain myself night after painfully boring night. You're probably thinking I should get a hobby. Never fear, I do indeed have a hobby... several of them actually. The problem is that all of my hobbies are labor intensive and it's so much easier to just stare at the ceiling hoping that a meteor crashes through my living room window and spices up my night a bit. Boredom forces you to think about unlikely delusional scenarios like that....

Ashley Aspires: I need to GET A LIFE!

I've spent the last 6 months allowing my universe to revolve around another person. I spent all of my time and energy on said person, and somehow forgot to take care of me. I moved to San Antonio in June 2010, an here we are months later in January 2011. I'm still in the same place I was when I moved here... alone and ridiculously bored. I'm not entirely alone obviously.  I have my family and a few close friends who live in the DFW area, but for all intents and purposes I'm alone. After a long talk with previously mentioned person on Saturday, I decided my universe needed to revolve around me an only me for a while. So Sunday I spent the day crying, wondering if I'd made a mistake, and feeling lousy about life in general. Then, on Monday I woke up, and decided to GET A LIFE! No more dwelling on what might have been. No more feeling sorry for myself... okay well maybe a little of that still. No more feeling stuck. Now would be a good point to mention that I'm not good at doing things alone. Wait, I should qualify that statement. I'm not good at venturing out on my own in a social setting. This may come as a surprise to those that know me, but I need a wing man... at least I prefer one anyway. So, figuring out how to get involved and meet new people on my own presents a challenge. I work alone and I live alone. By the end of the day on Monday I had come up with a solution... take a class... any kind of class... just do something! Yoga seems hard and they're all about being silent and breathing funny so that makes befriending your classmates difficult, and I couldn't find an underwater basket weaving class. Alas, I settled on a series of art/craft classes at a hip little studio on Broadway. I went to bed feeling good about my progress. Tuesday rolled around and I decided to do something else good for myself. I took a walk. It seems so simple, but that walk gave me time to think about my past, my future, my goals, brainstorm, pray, and just enjoy myself. While on my walk, I decided to start a blog... which is why you're reading this nonsense right now. I needed a place to mentally purge, and journals are so 1980. I also decided to stop dreaming about a house and just buy one already! Which brings us to today, Wednesday. I'm meeting with a realtor and a loan officer after work. I'm not 100% sure that I'm going to buy a house, but I owe it to myself to explore the option. Basically, I'm trying really hard to GET A LIFE, and not just any life, but a life that is generally awesome in every sense of the word! It's not going to magically fall into place, I have to work for it. Tomorrow is my first art class, and who knows what Friday will bring. One thing I do know for sure, I aspire to do something meaningful with my life and I'm tired if sitting around waiting and wasting time. I'm going to accept that God put me in San Antonio for a reason, and I'm going to be grateful for all the nifty things this town has to offer. I'm going to get past my fear and experience new adventures. I'm going to meet new people... and force them to read my blog! ;-) I'm going to go out and GET A LIFE!

Lions & Tigers & Bears! Oh my! Just kidding, you only need worry about feral hogs, coyotes, snakes, bobcats, and mountain lions…

In typical Ashley fashion, I set out on an adventure this afternoon… one of the outdoor variety. As many of you know, the outdoors and I are generally not on good terms. I’m allergic to just about everything, and I don’t like to sweat. Thus, I generally avoid the great outdoors at any and all cost… unless I’m floating the river… never mind, I digress. I like to think I’m an outdoorsy person, and I like to play dress up in REI/North Face gear, but truthfully, I’m a fraud. Today was the perfect day for an outdoors adventure. The weather was just right, the painters were repainting my recently flooded home office (don’t ask!), and I recently bought some snazzy exercise gear. AKA, new stretchy pants and a matching hoodie. I had heard that McAllister park had some great trails for walking, biking, hiking, etc. I also heard that someone was murdered there, but seeing as how I subscribe to the belief that I’m invincible, I wasn’t worried about that part. So, with the park address entered into my trusty GPS, I set out on my great adventure. When I arrived it looked exactly as I had imagined it… a forest-like hideaway in the middle of San Antonio. I parked, hopped out of the car, and took off! A few feet down the trail, I encountered this:

I had no idea where the trail ended. Did it wind around in a circle? Right of the bat I was a little apprehensive, but then once greeted by this ominous sign I decided I was doomed. My confidence in my ability to make it out of the park alive was severely damaged by this sign… and that little tidbit about the murder I mentioned earlier. However, I forged on! Much to my delight, I passed several other walkers that had no visible signs of being attacked by wildlife or a stranger wielding a gun. In fact, they were all very polite and humored my West Texas tendency to greet them with a friendly wave and a hello. About 20 minutes into my walk I started to hear some rustling in the bushes. I panicked. There’s no other way to describe it. I thought surely I was about to be dinner for a heard of feral hogs. Alas, I was wrong… which doesn’t happen very often. Upon closer inspection I discovered this:

What a beautiful blessing! I was going to live and I got to see a whole heard of deer instead of a whole heard of vicious feral hogs… or worse. Suddenly, they were all over the place. I don’t know how I didn’t notice them before, but for the rest of my walk I was on high alert snapping pictures right and left. Luckily, they live in a park in the middle of the city so they didn’t exactly run off screaming STRANGER DANGER when they saw me. Mostly they just looked at me with indifference… which was only slightly insulting given that I was sporting my snazzy new exercise gear. Anyway, my walk turned out to be more fun than I could have possibly imagined, and I think I might just try it again tomorrow. Only this time, I might take something to protect myself just incase word travels fast in the park that there is fresh meat on the trail…