Blog Bum

Hey everyone,



Sorry about being such a blog bum, I've just been crazy busy. I'm trying to remember what I've done in the last ten days that have passed since my last bloggeroo...Hmm, well, I got to see my best friends in the entire world this past weekend at Mallory Gill's bachelorette party. I'm in her wedding in August and it was so wonderful to be reunited with a lot of old college friends and to meet some new people that'll be in the wedding.

My flight times were brutal from Texas with one leaving @ 5:30 am on Friday from Dallas/Fort Worth which is about 2 hours from where I live. I made the bold move to just stay awake the whole night instead of trying to get a couple hours of sleep and then groggily try and drive two hours in the dark in the middle of the night. Either way, TOOOTAALLLY worth it all because I had a wonderful time. On Friday I got to meet up with Steph, Mal, and Kayla and just relax and catch up at Steph's house in Plainfield, IL. That night we made bachelorette-esque inappropriate jello shots for the party come Saturday and threw a few beers back.



Saturday we took our trip into the city and stayed at a wonderful hotel right in the Lincoln Park area. It was a really old-time, classic hotel. We met up with everyone at our hotel and gave mal her presents, began drinking and then headed to out to eat a Mexican restaurant for margaritas. Then we just went bar hopping and everyone was so fun. We seriously made the party everywhere we went with our dancing and oh ya, our CRAZY WIGS. Kayla, the MOH, had a wonderful idea to have everyone wear black outfits and brightly colored wigs as a fun idea and to keep track of everyone's ass in those crowded bars.





On of the bars had a mechanical bull and it was sooo much fun. I do have to say I owwwned it!Everyone had all these high expectations for me because apparently I'm from "texas" now. Psshh, I'd never ridden a mechanical bull before but we all know how competitive I am. So with white knuckles, one arm in the air and my powerlifter thighs digging into the sides I rode that thing forever! What a wonderful time. I cant imagine how fun the wedding is going to be



In work related news, things are slowly but surely taking off! My "Outfitted for Success" job skills program initiative is starting to come together and I'm planning to meet with civic organization and have a kick-off for the program mid-May. Im going through the process of cataloging and doing an inventory on all the things brought in so that when people looking for things I'll have a wonderfully organized program on my hands. I'm going to be going out into various organization and seeing if they will partner with us to collect old work attire from their employees, spouses, etc. I have a feeling the problem will eventually not be if we have clothes but where I am going to put them all. What a great problem that will be though. I have also recruited the head coordinator from the Experience Works program as a part of my Advisory Committee and he has already set me p with some great connections.

I also have to go to a "Bidder's Conference" tonight for a grant that we are applying for for $25,000 that will go toward my program. It is very exciting to think of all of the possiblities and to think that when I'm done I will have hopefully created a sustainable job skills program that reaches 4 counties. Is it silly to say it makes me feel really proud? That this program is mine for the planning and it has the potential to change peoples lives, giving people the tools to find jobs in an economy that has knocked everyone to the ground...not many people get to say that about their job and I feel so blessed to be able to a this point.

Hope everyone has a great rest of your week. I'll try and have better attendance with my blog worthy news since I know reading this is what gets you out of bed in the mornings ;)

Much Love.

Short N Sweet

This is a painting by Wayne Thiebaud. He was one of the first artists to start the "pop art" movement. I based my senior artist work on him in my painting class. I did a replication of this exact painting for one assignment. I love how his work has this feeling of a simpler, innocent time and he makes his paint look like creamy frosting :)


How was everyone's weekend? I had that softball tournament and we went 2-0 before the tourny got rescheduled for next weekend because of the pouring rain. We seriously played the entire second game drenced. Not one thing on me was dry. The cool thing is only us and one other team was undefeated so we play them next weekend for the championship. I won't be there since I'll be in The Chi celebrating with all my beautiful friends but I made everyone promise to keep a t-shirt for me once we win :)

So I'm super bummed. My camera broke this past week. Every time I turn it on it says lens error and that I need to restart my camera. I feel so lost without it and not having a way to document everything I see. Luckily the prices on camera aren't as bad as they once were and maybe I can save up for one pretty quickly with plasma doe. I really wish I had it for this weekend and the bachelorette party. Damn it..

If you need cheering up like I did while mourning my camera I suggest youtubing Louis CK. It was suggested to me by my wonderful friend Ross Wiemer and the man is hysterical. I lol'd at least 15 times while watched a few clips of his stuff.

P.S. Even in the days of ipods, I still love burning CDS for my friends. Picking out the songs, ordering them so that its got the perfect flow. Ooo the little things :)



“We dance for laughter, we dance for tears, we dance for madness, we dance for fears, we dance for hopes, we dance for screams, we are the dancers, we create the dreams.”~Unknown ( orat least unknown by me)

Love you all!

Daily Significance

Hola,

Today feels like one of those days like the bajillion other days that will come and go withoutany recollection. Sometimes it makes me feel this anxiety like I'm wasting all these perfectly good days not doing anything special, but the truth is they're inevitable. Its so naive to think that every day can be the most memorable wonderful day ever. That almost sounds exhausting when I think about it. Then it got me to thinking, every day has some significance to somebody.

I mean even though I think today is boring as shit and I'll probably never remember what I did, somewhere babies are being born, people are getting promotions, visiting foreign places, or maybe mourning the loss of love ones. And I know it's totally creepy to think this but sometimes I think about how each year the date that we are going to die someday comes and goes without us giving it a second thought.I guess the same thing can be applied to things like the date you might get married or have children too.

I still remember this poster my sister's roommate had in their dorm room when she was in college that said 365 REASONS TO PARTY. It gave some crazy fact that had happened on each day and it is the reason I now know I share my birthday with Elvis!



So I know you guys are all dying to know some of the signficant things that happened on April 15th throughout the history of mankind.(I know, nerd alert!)

*Leonardo Da Vinci was born in 1452


*The Titanic sank in 1912


*Jackie Robinson made his debut as Dodger and scored the game winning run in 1947



Interesting huh? I'm done with work for the week. Have a great weekend everyone. I'll have to fill you in on how my weekend of softball activities pans out.

Oh, and I thought this website was cool. Its got photo journalism pieces from across the globe. Isn't this nuts? I cant imagine 120 degrees...or jumping off a steer like that..

Pakistani boys swim in a pond to beat the heat in Hyderabad, Pakistan on Monday, June 8. Recently most of the country is in the clutches of a sweltering heat wave, with temperatures raising up to 120 degrees Fahrenheit in some cities. AP / Pervez Masih

Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/static/weblogs/photos/2009/06/daily-life-4.html#ixzz0lCd3Zqh2

Lots of love.

P.S. I'm really in the mood to go fishing. Lots of guys I play co-ed with are fishreman so I may have some "fishing tales" soon!

Lets Play Catch Up

Hi everyone,



Not to much to report here as this seems like any other Wednesday. I'm blogging during my lunch break and planning on heading to our men's slowpitch game tonight with Casper. They have dubbed him their team mascot, woot woot. We have the big East Texas Shootout Co-Ed Tourny this weekend that should be really fun. I'm excited to be out in the sun all day playing.

And now with the assistance of my camera chord I can blab about all the things I've told you I would!

I drive by this car every day on my way to work and I finally had to stop and take pictures with the flowers in bloom. It was perfect timing too becaus the next day they had mowed the grass. Don't you love when things like that happen?




I finally got food stamps!As most of you know a big part of the AmeriCorps program is subjecting yourself to a intentional life of poverty for a year. Thus government assistance is a must for pretty much everyone that participates. I had been receiving them in Wyoming but it has taken 2 months for me to start receiving them in Texas. It was like Christmas morning shopping for groceries last week. Before stocking my shelves I thought a before and after shot was appropriate...




Here is a picture I took when I was at Tyler State Park this past weekend. Beautiful!



***I get to see my best friends in the whole world in exactly 9 days. We have all been counting down the days until we reunite to celebrate our girl Mal getting hitched. It should be an incedible time.



Ok, I need ya'lls help. I have mentioned that I am in charge of creating and implementing a job skills training program. The first step I'm taking since we are incredibly low in fundage is a clothes closet for interview and businss attire. People will be able to come in and we can hopefully give them a suit and help them with their resume, interviewing skills, etc. I'm also trying to network with local businesses to see if any salons will collaborate with us to give people free hair cuts, colors, etc. I'm contacting organizations in town right now with the plan to put on a clothes drive sometime in May. I think it is something small, low cost that we can supply people with that can actually make a real difference.

The thing I need your help with is a catchy name for it. There is an international program that does this type of this just for women called Dress for Success. I thought of Career Closet? I thought that wasn't too bad. If you guys have any suggestions let me know. Any other ideas you can think of as well that would low cost, helpful program initiatives don't hesitate to let me know. I'd love all the help I can get!

Oh, and Happy Birthday to my brother-in-law JOsh!

Have a good one everybody!

Sunday Funday

Hey lovelies,

Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. Mine was spent enjoying the outdoors, playing bush league sports, and laughing with friends. I spent Saturday afternoon up at Tyler State Park with Casper hiking all the mountain bike trails they have there. (I'm at work and I forgot my camera plug-in so pictures are temporarily on hold...) Just visualize rolling green hills and gigantic dogwood trees that only bloom in the month of April.


(Photo by pearson 251)

It was good to find a place to hike. It is definitely something I missed about Wyoming and even though this isn't as great it's a great way to spend an afternoon. There were a lot of people out fishing, canoeing, kayaking, camping, etc. It would be fun to get a group out there for a weekend to camp and have a good time. I could use the sweet new tent and cooler my mom got me on her visit too.

Saturday night I went with Kalen and Stephanie to BBQ in Jacksonville and play cards. The food was soooooo good. It is nice to have some good souhern cooking or any decent homeade cooking for that matter. I brought fudge brownies I made out of a box and I went home with an empty pan so I declare SUCCESS! Stephanie made these awesome jalepeno pepper things. You gut the peppers an fill them with cream cheese and wrap them with bacon and then grill them. I am NOT a spicy food person but I actually really loved these. If anyone wants the recipe I'll ask Steph so you can give it a try.

Sunday was filled with sleeping in late, co-ed practice and bowling. A bunch of people from my slowpitch team all got together to have some pizza, beer, and a few laughs. I wore a really bright orange shirt on the chance that it could be galaxy/cosmic/blacklight bowling and it toooooootaally was. That was the good news. The bad news is that I traditionally suck at bowling.



We had two lanes going and after people started going home myself and the few guys left started playing "competitive" bowling as I coined it. You do a count down and bowl at the same time and compete against each other each frame. Obviously once I had this new found competitive aspect to bowling it was ONNNNNN. I kicked all the boys asses and would say things like "booya" or "how'd that strike taste" Obviously my competitiveness hasn't weakened but has somehow managed to make even casual bowling a shit-talking event. Love it.

Soon to come:

*Before and after shots of my cupboard
*Old cars in spring
*Tyler State Park
*Bachelorette party count down
*Brainstorming

By the way, I absolutely love baseball season.



"Baseball is an allegorical play about America, a poetic, complex, and subtle play of courage, fear, good luck, mistakes, patience about fate, and sober self-esteem." ~Saul Steinberg

Holler Atta Scholar

Guten Tag,

That means Good afernoon in German for all those wondering. See! I did learn something in German class. Speaking of German, I found this really bizarre photo from a "domesticated series" in a German magazine. The article was animals themed and the people who work with them. This is a photo taken by Albin Biblom, documenting the last of Bulgaria's dancing bears and their trainers. There is such a sadness to the entire photograph.



Sorry I'm so random. I just always find these interesting things I want to share with everyone and I figure who isn't dying to see Bulgarian dancing bears, right?

Well, I met with my academic advising person last night to see if what I have set up for my summer classes is going to work. I found out that since I did miss the acceptance deadline for February I have to be a provisional student until they begin accepting applicants for Spring of 2011 in October. The only real difference is that I can only take 9 graduate classes as a provisional student but that actually won't affect me at all. Since I wasn't a Psych undergard I have some prereq classes I have to take as part of the program and I can take as many of these as I want as a provisional student. I'm going to be taking one class each summer session and then probably 2 or 3 classes for the Fall Term. Busy, busy but happy, happy.

And now to spotlight some great finds by others. My beautiful best friend, Stephanie Kelly, showed me this website and I think its so wonderful. Its called "1,000 Awesome Things" and its a book meant to shine a light on the little things in our every day life that put a smile on our face. I actually visited the site and signed up to have them send me one of the little awesome things each day. It has cute things like finding change on the ground or channeling surfing and finding a favorite old episode you love. I always read it and think, "God, that IS totally awesome!" It reminds me of one of the first blogs I wrote on here about appreciating and loving the little things in our every day life. Check it out, it'll make you smile.

http://1000awesomethings.com/

The other gem was given to me via facebook wallpost by KC Boldt. Aside from the obvious state of crisis our country is in inregards to childhood obesity this is pretty comical. There will always be something comical about fat people and people falling down. Combining the two is ideal but this will do. I don't know if this is creepy or funny or sad or cute? What I do know is that he created an undeniable urge to grab those chubby cheeks.

No More Cupcakes!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ysqh1uzqGrc&feature=related

Hey, will one of you a-holes comment on something for once? I just want a "nice picture" or maybe a "fun weekend". I even checked the comment settings to make sure you could, AND YOU CAN! One comment in all this time. A special thank you to Mallory Gill for being the only commenter thus far. But the rest of you....Tisk, tisk. Is it rude to scould people that read your blog? Those rules don't apply when its just your friends and family reading it I'm going to assume.



Ok, love you all. Have a good'n.

Ash

No Shoes Blues...

Good morning all, I'll start today's blog by encouraging everyone to participate in the One Day Without Shoes event on April 8th. It is a great initiative that people all over the country are taking part in. I have already "pledged" to go a whole day without shoes on Thursday and I hope you do the same. I know many of you work in professions that might make it tough but try it if you can. This event is being promoted by TOMS Shoes who I looooove. Here is the promo video for it and check out the website for their awesome new Spring Shoes. I love the T-shirts they are selling for this day too. Some plasma money might have to be saved for those bad boys. Using plasma donation money to buy shoes that will in turn buy shoes for kids in need...I can justify that all day long, right? I like the tye-dye ones.Ooo I'm more and more like my mom every day with that.

Check em out... http://www.toms.com/

So I know my sister and I are all about the biggest loser. I actually think it would be a cool thing to try and do at my job since most of us are pleasantly plump :) It seems like something that would be a great initiative in a seditary office job like ours. I'm actually just competitive as hell and I think it would help me get serious about slimmin dowwwwwn. If I wasn't broke as a joke I'd sign up for the real biggest loser club thing they have online. I just think that it is the most incredible show. It used to be timed perfectly for when I would work out and ride bike at the YMCA when I was in Wyoming. I'd want to get off after a half hour but my love for the show, lack of tv at home, and the fact that 450lb people were working that hard always kept me there a while longer.
If you are interested in any or all of this check it out.

http://www.biggestloser.com/

And here are some photos from the beautiful visit from my mom. I think all the spring flowers blossomed the moment she landed in Dallas. What a blessing it was to have her here.Love you momma!

Friday we headed to Lousiana to enjoy some cajun cooking(fried alligator and crawfish) and see the sites. We ended up going to a nature reserve and hitting the trials since we both would rather see that than go shopping.
On Saturday we traveled to Canton for their First Monday Trade Show. It was GIGANTIC. The best part was the yearly Texas Chili Cook-off as taking place so we got to taste lots of great chili and listen to live music.
Old men and babies might be the two cutest things that can be seen dancing on this or any othr planet... !

This guy and his friends had this lawn chair with duck tape hanging there offering a "FREE BIKINI WAX" to every woman that passed by. It was hysterical. I got him to pose for me, haha.
What a vuuunderful weekend. How can you top chili without beans, a free bikini wax and an old man getting down like that? Ahhh, good luck topping weekend to come

Book Learnin'

Hello all,



I'm all dressed up with so many places to go...I am traveling to a big community meeting tonight that one of our key partners is holding to assess community needs in that community. Basically all the things we will b trying to conduct in the upcoming months. It doesn't start until 7 and is about an hour and 15 minutes away. Starting the week off with a bang I'd say. I'm wearing a pretty blue dress and my pink heels. I told the ladies at work it's sloppy seconds to the hot little Easter dress I tried on at our garage sale last weekend ;)

I haven't put the pictures on my computer from the wonderful visit from my mom, the real blog worthy topic of the day, but that is soon to follow. I wish I had some of her wonderful photos to start this blog off right. It would add a splash of much needed color on my long work day and this overcast weather. Mom, would you like to be a published photographer? Send some of those bugs and flowers my way and you can have the first artist spotlight on the famous Ashley Wolter blog..viewed by millions daily ;)

So as many of you family members and facebook creepers may already know I have been accepted as a provisional student into the Counseling Psychology Program at UT Tyler. wooo hooo! Yes, it still has that damn provisional in front of it but initially I was going to have to take the GRE before they would even grant me that. Now, once I take my test and hopefully have the scores they wan I'll be the real deal. This allows me to plan classes for the summer session though which is great news. I'm still planning on taking my GRE mid April (a few weeks, yikes!)and I have an academic advising meeting tomorrow night with the head of the department (booya) Hopefully this will get me well on way. I'm intimidated by this whole thing but it feels good to have this kind of challenge in front of me, like rechanneled competitiveness. Thank god that's finally going to good use, right? Pheeww.

So in honor of all the book learnin' I'm about to embark on I thought I'd leave all of your with some quotes to ponder.


"The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn. "~Alvin Toffler

"Conservatives say teaching sex education in the public schools will promote promiscuity. With our education system? If we promote promiscuity the same way we promote math or science, they've got nothing to worry about."~Beverly Mickens

...get it, because Americans suck at Math and Science....

"It has always seemed strange to me that in our endless discussions about education so little stress is laid on the pleasure of becoming an educated person, the enormous interest it adds to life. To be able to be caught up into the world of thought -- that is to be educated."~Edith Hamilton

"Education is for improving the lives of others and for leaving your community and world better than you found it."~Marian Wright Edelman

A couple photos I enjoyed. Check out their work if these photos tickle your fancy like they did mine.


This photograph was done by Catherine Hall. It was taken in Florida. Listen here little boy, Iowa is John Deere country..



This photograph is done by Doug Barber aka Q-ball. He seems like a renegade and a tad grumpy but he's worth checking out.

Have a wonderful day everyone!

I'm Engaged...I'm Pregnant...I'm moving to Hawaii

Happy April Fool's Day!

How many have you have fallen for some April Fool's shannanigans today? I've totally been annoyingly doing it to everyone I know and work with today. The only problem is I keep thinking of intense situations that I was going to try on my family but then I realized they would never be funny after I say April Fools...I was going to tell everyone at work that I had found a job back home and that today would be my last day with my mom moving me back this weekend. Pretty good, right? I decided not to do it because a) I don't think I could have kept a straight face and b) It would have been awkward if they seemed secretly excited somehow, haha.

In unrelated April Fools News, pictures from around the globe....







I miss the days when it was socially acceptable for me to hunt Easter eggs. I still remember my burning competitiveness being applied to that when I was just a little tike, racing my cousins for every plastic egg hidden in the backyard. I would always compare my candy, money, etc. getting secretly pissed about all the jelly beans and crusty half folded peeps. Whata brat? For the record, I did win the preschool division of the Denever Prestein Park Easter Egg Hunt and my mom has the newspaper article cut out to prove it...somewhere.


Now that I reflect I have a lot of childhood memories from Easter. Going out into the yard at the farm with my grandma to find a branch to make her Easter Tree we'd decorate with ornaments. My sister being a total nerd and making a gigantic Bunny cake with Big chew bubblegum for the whiskers. The smell of the hot water mixed with dye coloring Easter eggs. Nick Weber lying about seeing the Easter Bunny in Kindergarten and me feeling totally jealous at the time. Hating Easter Sunday outfits when I was in my tomboy stage aka most of my childhood. It is always strange the tiniest details that stick with a person a lifetime.

I hope everyone has a Good Friday, a great Saturday, and a wonderful Easter Sunday.

Ash