Surprise! I'm Blogging!

Well e-friends, it's another riveting day here at the office, so what better to do with my time than to blog! Hooray!

My life recently (outside of work) has been pretty busy, which is what I will use to excuse my absence from blogging.  A few weeks ago, Tyler and I went to New Braunfels to visit his family for the weekend.  That was fun.  They were really sweet and threw a little birthday party for me on Friday night, so I got lots of great things.

As soon as we got home from that trip, Tyler had to leave for some work-related travel.  He's training in the small town of Indiana, PA for a month.  I miss him so much!  He's been gone this long before, but usually only to places within driving distance to home.  Not being able to see him on the weekends is NO FUN.  The nice thing is that he's within driving distance, albeit 6 hours, of my family's house in Virginia, so he's able to go there each weekend and spend time with them.  He's played golf and gone fishing and explored the forest. I'm jealous!

So, my nights have been pretty quiet all by my lonesome, but at least I've come up with fun things to do on the weekends.  The weekend of my birthday, I got to fly home to Virginia and spend some much-needed time with my family.  Tyler was also able to come down and meet us for most of it.  It was great!  My family is awesome.  My birthday was the day after the series finale of LOST, which we happen to all love.  I'm probably definitely the most obsessed in my family, so it was only fitting that the majority of the birthday celebrations and the weekend be LOST themed.  On Friday evening, I arrived in Blacksburg after the weather caused some close calls with my flights (although, thanks to the weather, I got bumped up to first class for free, so I'm not complaining!).  Tyler was supposed to arrive at around 11pm, but surprised me big time by getting there at around 7 or 8. 

On Saturday, we all woke up early-ish and packed a lunch and went hiking.  We went on a hike called Falls Ridge.  Within the first 5 minutes of the hike, you arrive at a beautiful waterfall.  It's really different because the water is rich in minerals and over time there's been a huge build up of calcium carbonate, leading to one of the largest-known exposed travertine deposits.  There are really cool caves on the trail that you can explore.  We even got my mom to go inside one, which was a huge feat!

Then we drove up the road to another hike called Wind Rock.  That road takes your right through the resort which was used in the filming of Dirty Dancing.  It's pretty cool to see all of that-- the barn where everybody dances, the resort itself, the cabins, the lake and gazebo.  Pretty neato!  It was raining pretty strongly by the time we made it up to the top of the mountain, so we had a picnic in our car.  Kyle, Tyler and Kate went mudding in Kyle's jeep, which caused something in the engine to flood and the jeep to later be reeaaally sassy about starting.  Once the rain stopped, the hike itself was a short walk, but the destination is totally worth it.  There are huge rock faces jutting out over a huge valley overlooking the Jefferson National Forest. 

We sat out there for a while and climbed around on some rocks before heading back into town.  On the way home, we stopped at a place called Pandapas Pond and walked around the trail there.  It was really neat because there are beavers that live there and you can clearly see where they have just chomped clear through a tree and are about to haul it off into the water.  There were also squillions (real number) of baby geese that we chased and loved.  Nature is neat!

That evening, I got to open my birthday presents!  WOO!  My family again brought the awesome and made my birthday amazing.  If you're a fan of LOST, you will recognize and appreciate everything herein just as much as I did!  We were all down in the basement and my little brother brought me something wrapped in newspaper-- specifically the section of the newspaper that had a huge photo and story on LOST.  Inside the newspaper, there was a walkie-talkie.  I tried to turn that on, but the battery appeared to be dead.  So I opened the battery hatch and instead of a battery, I found a typed message on a little piece of paper.  It was in French.  I don't speak French, but I used my resources and asked my little sister (who's in French classes) to help me decode.  The messages said something like "Find the hatch. On the door to the hatch you'll find 4 8 15 16 23 42.  Your presents are inside the hatch."  So now I'm on a crazy search for something in my parents huge house (which I've never lived in, so I'm unfamiliar with the in's and out's of) for something that could be considered a hatch.  Somehow, I relatively quickly located it.  On the door to the air filter in the sunroom, I saw the numbers.  I opened the door to the hatch, and there they were!

I was very lucky and must have been very good this year, because I came away with a new Nikon DSLR (YAY!), a huge memory stick, a spare rechargeable battery, all the manuals and DVDs I need to learn my new camera, an awesome carrying case, a fancy tripod, the 3rd season of LOST on DVD to add to my collection, $20 and a cool thing to keep my hair out of my face and off my neck while I do things around the house.

That night, we went out to dinner at the River Company Restaurant and Brewery, where we had some great food beer and wine.  Then we went home and ate some delicious birthday ice cream cake.  What a great end to the best day!

On Sunday, my parents and Tyler and I left and went to Chateau Morissette, a winery on the Blue Ridge Parkway.  It's nestled in the woods up on top of a mountain and the views were amazing.  We went on a tour of the winery and then had a tasting of 10 different wines.  It was really fun and relaxing.  After that we stopped and ate at a yummy Mexican food restaurant on the way home.

That evening, Tyler left to go back to Pennsylvania and we started preparing for the Lost series finale event.  Dad and Kyle and I assembled some awesome torches out of materials that the Losties would have had.  Dad went out into the wilderness and cut up some limbs.  Then we wrapped one end with shredded towels and some wire.  Then we soaked those in 1 part tiki torch liquid and 2 parts motor oil.  They worked amazingly well.  Like, they would not go out until completely submerged in a bucket of water and they put off a ton of light and heat.  SUPER COOL.  The plan was to dress up like various characters from Lost and go on a torch walk through the woods behind my parents house.  There are trails and creeks and it looks a heck of a lot like the island back there.

While we were making torches, Mom was setting up the viewing area in the basement.  We had a giant tiki man poster, some netting, some inflatable palm trees and a string of paper pineapples.  For dinner, we had a giant spread of delicious food.  There was tropical chicken kabobs with onion and bell pepper, boiled shrimp, barbequed ribs, mango, kiwi, strawberries and some chocolate/peanut butter treats.  The girls also had flowers to wear in our hair.  It was great. 

We watched the series finale event, but by the time it ended we were kind of all at the end of our emotional ropes, so we postponed the torch walk to the next night.  We stayed up trying to digest what we'd just seen, Mom and I watched Jimmy Kimmel's Aloha to Lost special and then we hit the sack.

On Monday, my actual birthday, we took it pretty easy.  We went shopping a little bit and talked a lot about Lost.  That night we went out to dinner at an Italian place called Sal's.  Deliciouso! 

I had to leave on Tuesday, so it was another day of taking it easy.  My mom and Kyle and I went to Kyle's girlfriend's house for breakfast and coffee.  Her family just put in a beautiful new pool and guest house, so we got to see all of that.  It looks so nice!  I would spend all of my summer out there if I could.  From there, we just kind of sat around the house and talked about our upcoming trip to Montreal.  Then I had to get on the plane and fly back home.  Sad.

And that was my birthday weekend!  This post is really long already, and I'm about to leave work, so I do believe I will just have to tell you about this past weekend another time!  Maybe I'll even blog some more when I get home!  Makin' up for lost time!  :)

Huh, Look at That...

I'm still the worst blogger in the world.  It's nice to know that some things never change.

Also never changing: the amount of boredom I'm feeling at work lately.  I'm told that it's our slow season and I'm believeing it.  I've never worked anywhere that had a "slow time/slow season", so this is a big change for me.  It's TERRIBLE.  I can't really do distracting things like play games or Facebook, because so many websites are blocked by corporate.  And, the things that I can do to distract myself, I feel guilty doing.  It's like I'm worried they're going to realize that they don't need me and shouldn't be paying me to be here and I'll get fired or something.  But, I guess it's good to know that things will be picking up in a big way once we get closer to Fall.

So, what have I done since my last post?  Well, I went to Austin for the weekend!  That was super fun.  I got to see a lot of friend that I haven't seen in a while, including my friend Courtney who has been in the Peace Corps in Fiji for a year.  Tyler and I drove in on Friday night and met everyone at our friends' apartment. They'd made dinner so we ate and had some cake and had a grand old time catching up. Then we went out to this super cool bar that's in a really old house. The backyard was huge and filled with picnic tables and lights in trees and a bunch of hula hoops and ping pong tables. We played a LOT of ping pong and hula hooped and laughed a lot.
On Saturday we got free bagels for breakfast from this cool place and then walked to a super cool coffee shop along a creek and sat and talked and drank coffee. We were going to then go lay out and swim at Barton Creek, but it was really cold and overcast so we went and bought a volleyball and went to Zilker Park. We made a huge pallet with beach towels and played sand volleyball and other silly games and laid around once the sun came out. it was really fun and relaxed. Then like 10 more of our friends came in town and met us at the park so we played more games. Then we went to this yummy burger place and sat outside together and ate, then we went dancing at a country-western place. There was a pool table and a shuffleboard thing in the front room and the dance floor in the back, so we played games and dance the night away. We all drank some beer and tried to build towers out of cups and beer bottles that would reach the (incredibly low) ceiling, and that turned out to be really funny. After the dance hall, we went to Gourdough's, which is an airstream trailer out of which gourmet donuts are sold.  I don't even like donuts, but that place was heaven.
Sunday we slept late and watched a movie and then went to lunch with some other friends who were just driving though from Dallas. So that was really fun. I also had the best macaroni and cheese of my life there. YUM.

That weekend was fun.  Since then I just been working though.  I've also been working out some, but I think I've decided to take a little break from that.  I just don't think I'll ever be one of those people who likes running.  Plus it was making me knees hurt really badly. 

Tonight, Tyler and I are going to New Braunfels to visit his family.  I'll get to see my sister-in-law for the first time in a long time and I'm really excited about that. That should be really fun!  And then on Sunday, Tyler leaves for a month of work-related travel.  Boo. 

Anyway, I'm at work right now and I might get slammed with tasks soon (yeah right), so I'm going to go!  Hope everyone's doing well!

I Am The World's WORST Blogger!!!

Holy crap.  This mission of blogging consistently is taking a downward turn.  It has been so long since I've posted! 

Let's see if I can recall what's happened since my last post.  I'm sure it's riveting!  :)

April 23: Worked.
April 24: I think I was mostly lazy this day, at least until evening arrived.  Then it was party time.  It was Tyler's aunt Meg's 50th birthday party and her friends and family all met in the party room at a Mexican food restaurant and had a blast.  Fajitas, chips and salsa, beer, margaritas-- fun was had by all!  Everyone got good and buzzed off the free margs and beer and it was really, really fun to hang out with my new family in such a fun environment.  Then we all went back to Meg's house after dinner and visited a little more with just the family and that was fun too.  I hope I'm as cute and fun as Meg is when I'm 50.
April 25: Tyler and I went to lunch with his parents at a really cool Asian bistro in the Galleria.  They have cheap all-you-can-eat Dim Sum on the weekends, so we went to check that out.  It was really good and we ate a lot and had a great time.  Then we went to the Houston Museum of Natural Science (love!) and meandered there a little before going to see the Hubble 3D IMAX.  Um, if you have an IMAX near you, you must must must go see the Hubble 3D IMAX.  It was phenomenal.  I would watch it every day if I could.  I literally cried. Leonardo DiCaprio narrated it and he was great.  It was all so amazing and beautiful.  I love space.  When I die, I hope my heaven is made up of nothing but limitless space exploration; filled with stars.
April 26: Worked and started my super new work-out routine.  More on that later.
April 27: Worked, worked out, fought with Tyler about some travel plans.
April 28: Worked, worked out, and then went to an Astros game!!  It was so fun!  I had no idea I liked baseball.  I mean, I don't think I really like baseball; I just like the baseball atmosphere.  The weather was perfect, our seats were awesome (8th row right behind 1st base-- Thanks for the free tickets, Michael!), and we ate lots of yummy food and drank beer.  The Astros lost big time, but I got a loaded baked potato and some Cracker Jacks out of the deal.  Plus, the tickets were free.  YAY!
April 29: Worked, worked out, caught up on the Modern Family and Cougar Town that we'd missed the night before.
April 30: Worked, worked out, stayed in and reveled in my laziness.
May 1: Went to the pool and got a little sunburned (which is now peeling, but only between my boobs, so that's fun), went shoe shopping, at dinner with a friend (holler Ashlea!), went to the grocery store.
May 2: Tyler and I went to lunch at Cafe Express with some great friends, including our pal Russo who just got back from some a stint living in Australia and being awesome.  He still is awesome, FYI.  It was great to hug him and catch up.  He did some amazing things during his travels and I've decided I have to go to Australia/New Zealand soon or I might die.  After lunch, Tyler and I drove around doing some "where are we going to try to buy a house when we magically have money to buy a house one day" research.  Oh, and of course then I worked out.
May 3: Tyler left for a few days of work-related travel.  I worked and worked out.
May 4: Worked, worked out, watched LOST.

Today:  Worked, shopped (don't tell Tyler), ate dinner and watched Modern Family and Cougar Town, worked out, and now as I type I'm waiting for Tyler to get home from his travels and contemplating making muffins. 

Now, if you know me at all, you're probably thinking "What's this?  Ashley must have mistyped "worked out" like 11 times up there. She doesn't work out!"  Well friends, I do now.  I've found a cool 6-week work out routine in Women's Health magazine.  I'm trying it out because...well...some of my pants don't fit so well anymore.  I've been doing it for 10 days now, and I'm really proud that I'm keeping it up so well.  I hate it while I'm doing it, but as soon as I'm done I'm so glad that I've done it.  It involves running, which I'm so not good at, but I'm getting better I think.  Hopefully I'll make it the whole 6 weeks and by the end of it I'll be able to fit into my clothes again! 

Tomorrow, we have an event at work and this weekend I'm going to Austin to see some great friends, so hopefully I'll be able to blog during all that.  I will remain faithful, dear readers!

For the First Time...

For the first time in probably 12 years, I am wearing my hair completely down. 

This may not seem like a big deal to anyone, but believe me, it's a big deal to me.  I have been battling something called Trichotillomania since I was 13 years old.  It's an obsessive compulsive disorder that causes people to pull out their hair at the root, most of the time without realizing their doing it. 

It sounds really scary and gross, but for me, it was mostly just embarrassing and frustrating.  For years, it's taken me longer to get ready than normal because taking a quick shower and leaving the house without drying and strategically styling my hair hasn't been an option.  I constantly worry about whether the short hairs that are growing back in are sticking out or whether my small patches of thin hair were showing.  I simultaneously love and hate swimming.  It's something I really enjoy, but I hate having my hair wet because it gets tougher and tougher to hide my problem hair.  I can only wear my hair in basically two styles.  If I was wearing a hat, that was my chosen look for the day and I wouldn't be taking the hat off unless I was semi-alone and in front of a mirror so I could quickly put my hair up into a ponytail.  I have an abundance of bobby-pins so I can control any pesky hairs that try to break free.  I can't wear my hair down in a headband, and I love headbands!  I had to give a lot of thought to this problem when I was choosing a hairstyle for my wedding, and I hate that.  It's FRUSTRATING.

Not very many people know that I've been dealing with this, so this is a strangely big confession for me.  I've always been and probably always will be really embarrassed by it. Going to get a haircut is on par with the nerves you'd feel going into a job interview or on a first date. I'm always so envious of people who can get a real haircut, who can do a real style, who can do whatever they want with their hair.  It complicates things so much when your hair is a million different lengths.

Luckily for me, and maybe unbelievably, my Trichotillomania was much more manageable than most.  I only pulled the hair from my head, and for whatever reason, my focus was always on the crown of my head.  That made it easier to hide.  Some people pull hair from all over their head, others cause complete bald spots that are sometimes permanent.  Other people pull their eyebrows and eyelashes out. 

It's also one of those terrible habits that is almost impossible to quit.  On more than one occasion, I've commented that trying to quit pulling would be like trying to quit breathing or blinking.  I would be doing it without noticing, but even if I did notice, I couldn't stop because it felt "good" or something.  I've tried EVERYTHING to quit.  I've played with stress balls while doing things that I thought I might pull during (watching tv, reading books, etc.).  I've worn gloves while just hanging out at home (that SUCKED and that attempt ended quickly).  I've made a million promises to myself, created a million deadlines; made a million New Year's resolutions.  I've tried sheer will power; I've worn hats.  I've even taken pills that my mom and I found on the internet.  I've done practically everything except hypnotism, and believe me, that was next on the list.

But for some amazing reason, this year I made a New Year's resolution that stuck.  It has been almost 4 months since I've pulled a single hair.  That is the longest I have ever gone without.  And I do not even feel like I need/want to pull.  It's not even a struggle.  I don't think I'll ever pull again.  I don't know what happened...what clicked in my mind that made me be able to give this up.  I just know I am so thankful and happy.  My hair is still different lengths, but now it's growing back in.  I can actually part my hair!  You wouldn't believe that something so small could bring such excitement, but I haven't had hair to part, and if I have it's been much too short to stay in place for any amount of time. 

Today, I went to a new salon for the very first time and met an adorable girl and introduced her to my troublesome hair.  Cue the nerves.  Her skill with the scissors combined with the fact that my hair is growing and filling in so amazingly lead to me leaving the salon completely and totally giddy.  I told Tyler it's the most confident I've ever felt leaving a hair salon.  And on top of that, my hair was totally down.  No clips, no bobby-pins, no ponytail holders.  Granted, she blow-dried it straight (and did a stellar job at that), but it's really blending so well!  You can hardly tell!  She said it looks like I just looked like a had a cool layered cut that gave me more volume in the back.  That may be a stretch, but I do know that I walked around in public with my hair completely down and uncovered.  I haven't done that in 12 years.

So, we'll see what it does when it's curly.  I'm sure I'm not totally out of the woods and I'll still be sporting my half-up/half-down look for at least a few more months.  But keeping the rest of my hair cut short will really help as far as how long it will take for the previously-pulled hair to catch up.  I can't wait for that day.

I'm sorry this is such a long post.  If you read all of this, know that it means a lot to me that you know what I've been through now.  So many people have such bigger struggles, so I'm sure I might sound silly or dramatic to some, but this has really been my own personal demon for so long.  And I'm glad I'm writing all of this down.  If I ever think I might slip and start pulling again, I'm sure it will really help me to read this and know that it can all be so different.

Awesome Things

First, there is a man who lives next to us in our apartment complex who is an AMAZING opera singer.  Like, it's got to be his profession.  He practices sometimes and we can hear it faintly through the walls.  He's so good!  Tyler mentioned tonight that he suspects that it might be a recording we're hearing.  I choose not to believe that, though.  For one thing, I've heard the man doing scales over and over, and no recording would have that.  Also, tonight (while I had my ear pressed to the wall in our office so I could hear better), I heard him stop singing and start whistling at one point.  He's totally real and totally awesome.

Second awesome thing:  Lately, I've been getting randomly murderously bored and to remedy that, I've been re-reading some old emails in my oldest email account inbox.  It's been HILARIOUS.  I have a bad memory and this has allowed me to get some good laughs and remember the drama I've survived.  But the awesome thing is this-- I found a photo I'd taken in high school that I thought I'd lost forever!!!!  I took a trip to Paris with my dad before college and while there I took a really awesome photo of the Eiffel Tower.  I'd loved that picture so much; it was the background on my desktop.  Then, my laptop crashed and I lost my Paris pictures forever.  I was sad about all of them, but mostly about that one photo that I was so proud of.  And tonight, I found it in an email I sent to a friend from high school!  She'd asked about my trip and I attached it to the message!  HOORAY!!!!

Oh, and here's the photo!

This Day is Full of FAIL

Ugh.  I'm such a bad blogger!!  I can't believe I let so long go by again.  When I'm old and gray and wonder what I did in April of 2010 (which, naturally, I won't remember because I have the worst memory known to man) there will all of these big gaping holes in my bloggy-diary.

Anyway, on to today's post.  As the title says, this day is full of fail.  I totally love my job, and let's remember that, but this workday might cut my life short.  TGIF.  Here's what's going on (or not going on, as it were):

1. I burnt my finger on the toaster.  Trying to retrieve a bagel.  Lame.

2. It's the most boring day ever.  There are technically 5 people in my department, including me, and today 3 of them are off.  Granted, there are other people in my office, so it's not awkward and lonely, but it is definitely SLOW and QUIET.  Hence me blogging while at work.

3. A wheelchair tried to kill me.  I had to help a coworker roll some new wheelchairs down to Guest Services (I do the most random things at work...) and on the way, one of them fell over and hit my left hand in a weird way that's making me pout.

4. I'm having trouble finding a magical solution to the problem entitled "Ashley & Tyler Want to Go to Montreal With Family, But Are Poor". 

5. I tried to do a Sudoku puzzle and a Crossword puzzle that I found and they were both too hard. 

6. Three of the ladies in the office and I ordered lunch from Jimmy John's at 12:15pm to be delivered to our office.  It's something we've done many times bc Jimmy John's is closeby.  This time though: FAIL.  The delivery man with our food got into a small car accident on the way here.  Someone had to come get the food from the bad driver and bring it to us.  Apparently, this transaction took a VERY long time, because our food was just delivered at 1:45pm.  We were all starving to death and two of the ladies had to stay late at the office (they normally leave at 1:15-1:30 on Fridays) just to get their food. 

7. I had to carry three heavy bags of mall directorys to the opposite end of the mall and they were hurting my hands and threatening to break the whole time.

8. Our office computers were made sometime very shortly after the Jurassic Period and are slower than molasses.  The server that we have to log into in order to do anything work related is even slower.  I'm trying to upload about 5,000+ photos from this past weekend's fashion shows, and it's going so slow I could probably draw an amateur sketch of each photo by hand before the files finally transferred.  It's. So. Slow. Today, that slowness came to a halt when the server crashed. 

9. I did a post to our website, but because of our computers' lovely lack of function or ease, it posted 4 times instead of just once and then proved nearly impossible to delete.  It's not user error.  I know how to do these things.  It's the fact that you can click something, the computer will sit still and appear to have no knowledge of the fact that you've requested any action, so you'll do it again like 7 minutes later and all of the sudden that triggers the computer to go into super-action mode and do what you've asked, only a million times.

10. The mall manager (aka the big boss) asked me to do him a favor and make a survey for all of the tenants to fill out.  He wants it to be "fancy", incorporate photos and words and boxes and blah blah blah.  Problems: I am not a graphic designer. I can't get Paint to open and/or function on my computer.  I don't really know what questions he wants included on the survey.  I'm limited to one page.  I can't get the fonts to function in a manner which will make selection easy for me.  Mall manager is at a seemingly-unending lunch meeting and I can't run anything by him.

Anyway, I think that's all I can come up with to complain about.  It's really not that terrible, I just think this day definitely has an air of FAIL about it.  Despite all of that, I'm still having a good day.  I got to blog!  It's almost the weekend! And, for some reason today I decided to dress cute, wear heels and straigthen my hair, which has garnered me some compliments.  Most of the compliments are because of my shoes, which I find AWESOME because they are from Payless.  Take that, you rich, Galleria-shopping, designer-label-wearing ladies! Muahaha!

Sorry It's Been a While!

I have been a very, very bad blogger.  It's been too long since my last post!  I'm failing miserably at posting every weekday, but I think that's okay.

Since my last post, I've had a SUPER crazy few days of work.  Simon Fashion Now, our big weekend of fashion shows and events, was last week and it was awesome.  It was my first one, but I have to say I think everything went really smoothly and successfully.  My only complaint is that my feet hurt so bad by the end of it all, just from the overwhelming amount of walking I was doing, that I could not imagine a reason strong enough to make me ever walk again.  Which could be why today (which I had off from work) I did not change out of my pajamas and I did not get off the couch.  My feet looooooove me for the time off, I can tell.