Ashley’s Neighborhood

Originally published at diaper bag princess. You can comment here or there.

what do you do when you feel unproductive?

what are some of the things you like doing to make you FEEL productive?

do you have any favourite chores/things you like to do in your home?

I totally should be working on etsy today but I just REALLY don't feel like it.

Originally published at diaper bag princess. You can comment here or there.

Probably should preface this with I AM NOT LOOKING FOR A NEW JOB.

For the past two weeks or so, I've been having completely outrageous dreams. Last night it had to do with being drug addicted, having a man who was 33 want to date me, and needing to learn Ruby on Rails. A while ago I dreamed that Richie left me, took Cary, and I had to live in an apartment with my mom who insisted that the reason Richie left was all my fault. And then Shylo and Porsche ran away from home - everyone was leaving me!

I remember, when I was thinking I had to learn Ruby on Rails in my dream, how hard it was going to be. When I was about nineteen I thought I'd be brilliant and teach myself ColdFusion because hardly anyone knew it, and I thought it'd be an asset. Well that went down in a brilliant cloud of smoke, lemme tell ya. I couldn't get anything to work in CF.

I've had lots of work to do lately, which is why I think this Ruby on Rails nonsense came up. Lots of work, and I've been thinking in/about code and wondering the validity of jQuery (it's good, just want to put that out there) and that under "programming" on my resume, that PHP and ASP seem kind of lonely by themselves. Not a whole lot of people know Ruby and I guess my brain immediately went to Ruby because it'd already failed with ColdFusion.

See, the thing is, I already get a lot of syntax messed up when I go from PHP to ASP. I add semi-colons all over the place, use curly brackets in my if statements and in general make a mess of ASP. Once I'm in ASP, though, it's fine. Once I've wrapped my head around Microsoft's easy, but limited, programming language that requires 37 times more code than PHP to accomplish the same task, I'm all right.

Do I REALLY want to add Ruby into the mix? do I actually NEED Ruby? Would I ever, in my wildest dreams, ever get a client ask me, "So, can you program me this entire site using Ruby on Rails?" The answer is probably no. I've never had anyone, at any job or project, ever ask me if I could program them something in a specific language.

Maybe my brain is trying to trick me into learning something else so I can forget a bad thing that happened a long time ago.

With all this said, I should have probably saved this post for my portfolio. My super-secret-not-yet-available portfolio. It'd make much more sense over there anyway.

Also, has anyone upgraded their WP lately? Are they HATING it? Tons of my plugins are all wonkified now!

Originally published at diaper bag princess. You can comment here or there.

Back when I was a freshly minted (and out of a ridiculous relationship) eighteen year old, my best friend and I decided that we were going to go to the Trooper concert that was being held in our hometown. I didn't have a lot of clothes to choose from at the time, but I dressed my best as best as I could. We both had on jeans, white shirts and our hair was down.

I ordered us a couple of Zombies and while standing in line I had an Electric Popsicle. This was back in the day before I drank beer or wine. the point of this story is to say that we were both kind of drunk, and me moreso.

Before the concert gets started we're sitting around, drinking, and laughing at stuff and I see this really, REALLY hot guy. He had a shaved head, red t-shirt, nice jeans, and this cool Japanese lettering tattoo down the side of his neck. He looked awesome. With my recently bruised ego still afoot, I didn't bother to go up and say hi to him because I thought he'd just shut me down and I didn't feel like being shut down that night.

Time goes on, the band starts playing and I have another drink of some kind. I'm rather wasted at this point. My friend and I were dancing and cheering and singing along when who comes up to me, but red t-shirt hotness. I can barely hear him because the level of the music is so loud and the fact that I was looking at him through Zombie goggles didn't help.

He leaned over and said (what I thought), "You ... good".

I couldn't hear, so I motioned to my hear and leaned over again, and he repeated the same thing to me.

Still not sure of what he said, I gave him the thumbs up with one hand and said "good?"

He nodded excitedly and I replied, "Yeah, good!" and went back to dancing.

My friend told me, about six seconds after the guy and his friend walked away that what he had actually said was "You look good."

There's no way to recover from that. Just wanted to put that out there.

Originally published at diaper bag princess. You can comment here or there.

Dear Cary:

This month feels like it's gone by in a flash. It seems like hardly any time ago that you were just my little four month old who didn't know how to sit on his own. Here we are, twice that age, and you can sit by yourself, and are very much enjoying standing. While sitting on my knee, if you are holding onto my hands you can pull yourself into standing position.

Crawling, on the other hand, seems to confound you and you just won't do it. True to new-mom form, I'm feeling a little anxious about this. Why won't you crawl? You're content to lay there in what we affectionately refer to as "baby skin rug" pose. You'll lay there for hours, crying if necessary, but you just won't make any effort to get up and crawl. You can hold yourself in crawl position: we try it daily. But to get you to actually go is a completely different matter.

Eating is going very well. You've graduated to two-or-three ingredient meals including ones with turkey or beef. I was the same way when I was little. When I was done with single ingredient meals I was DONE and I was ready for meat. You're a good eater and love your vegetables. Happily you accept three meals per day as well as nursing in between any of those, though, love, I will admit that it's a little hard on Mamas boobs. As in they are always bursting at the seams. This doesn't seem to bother you at all, and you take it in stride.

About two weeks ago we got family portraits done and you needed your first hair cut. I thought I'd cry about it, but you looked like such a little hobo that I was utterly desperate for you to get a hair cut. It was long and stringy, and with your penchant for screaming nonsensically accompanied by your lack of teeth, you truly resembled a hobo. To see you with prunes smeared from eyebrow-to-chin completed your vagrant look, and while you were adorable, it was a touch unsettling.

We have seen your first two teeth. You are one of those kids I said you were going to be. The kind that sit there and drool and pretend to get teeth for months and then end up with two in one sitting. Your two bottom teeth have appeared happily, and you mow your way through Cheerios, pickles and the tender flesh of my body. Not only bitten in the boob, but you've bitten my nose and chin on two separate occasions.

You have learned to "dance" in the cutest baby way I have ever seen. Watching the old Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, you sat on the couch with a Baby Mum Mum cracker in one hand, and when the adorable, ancient characters burst into their tiny songs of delight and charm for Christmas day, you wiggled back and forth and bopped your head along with the songs. It's the sweetest thing I have ever seen.

We are in full swing of celebrating your first Christmas. I even wrote to Santa on your behalf, and am waiting for a reply to add into your baby book. You've been such a good boy, though, that I'm sure you will be spoiled rotten.

I love you so much, my sweet Cary Love.

Mama.

Originally published at diaper bag princess. You can comment here or there.

Every night I lay in bed, and now without my handy little notebook at my side, and I have all of these great ideas. Ideas of things I should make; things I want to do/try with Cary; things I need to do the next day; stuff that would make GREAT posts. The next morning, the whiteboard of my brain is wiped clean and I'm forced to either come up with new, interesting things to think about, or to try to figure out what I actually wanted to think about. It's exhausting.

I moved the booklet away from my bed because it was keeping me awake with night. I have become rather skilled at writing in the dark and my handwriting, though a tad childlike, is still extremely legible despite the 1AM scrawls. I was getting upset, though. It was causing me to think, and re-think, and think some more about things. Not bad things, just things that I needn't be considering that much. It's been hard. I also am too lazy to actually get up, now, to get a piece of paper and write down these things, thus, I have been left with this lovely little conundrum.

I don't really have a point to this today. See, this is what happens when I don't have anything to say. I ramble on and on and on about nothingness and I'm sure it annoys the ever loving living daylights out of everyone.

I guess I can point out some of the new things I've got on the blog now...

I've changed the navigation because it was getting too long. And I had wanted to add more stuff, so I found this sweet CSS menu.

Under the "This Girl" section, formerly "About", you can still find information about yours truly, but now have access to a plethora of more information, such as Frequently Asked Questions. Who doesn't love FAQ's? This one is neat because you, yes YOU, get to drive that machine and send me your questions that I will answer/post some kind of response to. Unless it's about bags of toenails or pictures of me without any clothes on. Something I was piddling around with before I took my "vacation" was the Library. See what drivel I have been reading :) Also added a bit of a gallery because I am just far too cheap when it comes to buying a pro account on Flickr. I have the space here, why not use it?

The rest of the stuff you have access to was accessible previously, just re-categorized.

Something I know I've talked about 49583 times is opening an etsy store. Well, this time I actually have ideas, patterns, products and have been researching branding, fonts, information and such to actually open the shop. So, Diaper Bag Princess is now on etsy. I currently do NOT have any items listed, as I have recently become a bit more busy with life things, and while I don't have the same time to dedicate to this that I had before, I am still going to give it my all to get this little guy up and running by the end of January, 2010. I will definitely keep everyone posted about what's going on with that...I don't even know if anyone cares or not, but this is a huge thing for me. I'm always so afraid of failing at these things that I end up full of ideas and never take it any farther. I'll see how this goes, if there's any success whatsoever, and then I have plans for opening a second store for horse things. That, however, is completely dependent on how DBP goes. If it's really dead I won't bother going ahead with it, and if DBP is really busy (which I doubt, but you never know!) then I won't either, because I won't have time. It's also a secret right now as to what exactly is going on with it ;) But I do promise to keep those interested parties in the loop when there are things to know!

In whatever spare time (read: that time when I have no work to do and I can't sleep) I can find, I've been clacking away at a silly novel called Undying Love: a Zombie Romance It's fromage to the tenth degree, but it's funny too. Not Shaun of the Dead funny but...well, lame-funny I guess. It's still in its infancy and is only, like, three chapters long so far. I'll post some snippets of the cheese-factory when I'm more comfortable and in depth with the story. Maybe you'll like it, maybe you'll think it's the worst thing in the world. Either way, it's something that I've wanted to do since I've been about seventeen years old (write a full-length novel) and it's something that's on my life list to accomplish.

I've been feeling a lot better these past two days as well, after MAKING myself get up and MAKING myself get out of the house. It's so depressing to sit around and do nothing!

Originally published at diaper bag princess. You can comment here or there.

I am writing this a few days earlier than the fifteenth, because, well, I am bored. I wanted two weeks off, and I almost made it ;) I am sucker for this online stuff. Actually, I just kind of wanted to talk to myself out loud and not annoy anyone.

My depression has been incredible this past month. Like, gut wrenching, heart hammering, brain numbingly awful. Many days I spent in bed for a good long time, consuming cup after cup of caffeinated beverage in an attempt to jump start my life. Isn't this the exact opposite reason I had for going on this break? That I didn't want to feel like proverbial crapola, and take my life by the reins?

It got so bad again that I was thinking about what it'd be like to just go to sleep and not wake up. I just couldn't stop thinking how awesome that would be; I would no longer be in a loveless marriage to Zoloft and that I would finally feel like I wasn't falling behind the pack. It's terrible to think like that, and I am aware of this. I so desperately want to be normal again that I had to institute, and recently, a new set of life hacks for myself. I just love that term, life hack, don't you? It's like you can fix yourself a little bit at a time.

Exercise. I need it and I don't get it. This past month, with the horrendous snowfall has left me feeling shut in and emotionally crippled. I feel like I can't carry on a normal conversation about anything with anyone. My growth is stunted in my brain and I've often felt like a failure in life. Three - four weeks feeling that way is no way to live, and I don't encourage people with depression to try to fix it themselves. I'm at a point, though, where I don't have a choice. I can sit around and feel like shit for the rest of my life, or I can accept that my life is going to include a pill once a day, and that I am going to have to do a little more than hope that it works. I'm so over hoping that it makes me sick to taste the word in my mouth. I can't hope and I just need to DO. Even if it means braving the freezing cold with my son strapped to my back.

My baby has teeth. There's really no other way to segway into it than just to come out and say it. Teeth. Two bottom teeth, cute and unsuspecting until he bites on your finger. Coinciding with this blessed event is his inability to sleep more than 40 minutes in a given stretch - even at night. Night has become a series of naps with me getting up five-six-nine times during the night. He can't help it, poor little guy, and I truly feel bad for him. But I feel bad for me too. Last night was the first night he slept more than 40 minutes and I woke up with some seriously rock hard boobs because he hadn't nursed the daylights out of them the night before.

Baby is also loving food. He'll eat nearly anything. He's up to three big-boy meals a day and he nurses in between those times. He's enjoying feeding himself Cheerios, and has recently learned how to feed the dogs his food - except when it comes to toast. He's surprisingly strict when it comes to that.

Another lovely habit he has recently acquired is growling at me. He doesn't do it when he's mad or anything, so the only thing I can come up with is that he's learned it from the dogs, as they tend to growl at one another 9849503 times a day over everything.

I feel like my little "break" was wasted, but on the other hand it wasn't. I was able to actually get some gears in motion to accomplish one of my life list items. For real this time. I was able to sit and play with my son and be able to shut the computer off for a while and not have to think about it. My house didn't get cleaned, and it was apparent from the state of its disarray that it was clearly displaying the turmoil surging through my gut, but it doesn't matter. It got done today and for that I am proud.

Thank you.

The birth of my brother 22 years ago automatically secured me with a built-in room mate if ever I needed one, and well, the time has come. I asked him some months ago, following me telling Chris I want a divorce, if he would be interested in being my room mate. Three weeks ago I became full-time status at work, thus allowing me to think more strategically about living on my own. Him and I found a place, and will be moving in sometime next week. There are several caveats that come to mind, however:

1. Neither of us plan on being in San Diego for very much longer (much to my parents dismay, I'm sure). Referring back to my previous post, I plan on being in San Diego no longer than 1 more year, and my brother will be discharging from the Navy in 2011 to join the Marine Corps. 
2. Related to caveat 1, we need to decide within the next 6 months if we're going to continue living there until he leaves (meaning I will be paying rent for a place I won't be living in for 3 months and potentially not be going back to at all after I complete Officer Candidacy School).
3. We have absolutely nothing to put in our house besides what little belongings we both have, a TV and various game consoles that are rightly his, and a cat that is rightly mine. By some act of God, I managed to secure a mattress and two couches from various coworkers for a small fee. Supposedly it's all in great, gently used condition. At this point, I couldn't give a shit...
4. Despite being able to "afford" living on my own, I will be living just within my means. I will be broke for a long, long time, which will make me leaving for OCS that much more meaningful.
   

But everything about the situation makes those three (and I'm sure there are more...) points completely worth the trouble. Our situation is entirely temporary. Just the fact that I'll be on my own, with my own room and own space, is more important to me than any of the negative aspects that may arise.

Not all those who wander are lost...

...life moves on. I'm still living, still breathing, happy with myself and the choices I've made with my life. Instead of succumbing to the split-second thought "it's 9 in the morning and well, I'd rather stay in bed all day", I realized not a whole lot gets done when you're just laying there. The same could be said for just about everything in life. Every day, I am faced with a situation that proves just how true that is. So I get up, time and time again. Pull back the covers and face the world, because the world will go on without me regardless.

I am on the move. In 3 months, I will be done with nursing school and ready to face the world. I want to join the Navy as a nurse; I am forcing myself to meet new challenges that I never thought I'd ever choose to take on. If I do this, I will be moving to a completely different coast for 3 months, by myself. Who knows what kind of physical and mental challenges I'll go through once I'm there to prepare me for the military life. On top of that, where will I decide to "end up" once I'm done with my training: back to San Diego, stay on the east coast, go overseas? The possibilities will be endless, and I can't wait. This is exactly the kind of thing I've been waiting for, what I've broken away from my old life for. To not only find myself, but to make myself.

The stress, frustration, and anguish of a life gone wrong are dredged up constantly. I need a fresh start to mend this broken heart. Granted, everything that ever happened to me was partially because of me, but it doesn't hurt any less. I look forward to moving on from all of this, creating a new image for myself, and coming home eventually to find that time really does work miracles. At least, that's what I'm hoping for. I will miss my family and friends more then anything, but I'm no stranger to this. For this I am thankful for coming from a Navy family. I am no stranger to change; in fact, I often times crave it. Stability, stricture, and discipline are some things I need. I'm far too spoiled for my own good, I need a swift kick in the ass and a little growin' up to boot. I also want to see the world (for free) and the spare change I'll collect along the way isn't a bad incentive.

Divorce is hard, heartbreak is hard too. But an unhappy life is unacceptable. And I am finally happy.

Originally published at diaper bag princess. You can comment here or there.

The following is a list of items that I want to make shortly. And if this seems kind of random, then yes. Today it is random. Tomorrow, on the other hand, you will be able to see why I have chosen to make this list. I'm sure you're guessing what's coming up ;)

• Felt monsters
• Terry cloth kitten
• Cloche hat
• Changing pad
• Burp cloth
• Ribbon teething ring

Today I was in nursery in church. Wow...was that ever interesting. All the babies, even my usually sweet tempered boy, were practically hysterical. Each of the six children we had took their turns crying, being upset and needing to cuddle. Of course, mine was really pissed off that I was cuddling someone other than him. He's very attached to me for some reason ;) Eventually he got over it, but that was mostly due to the fact that he was completely and utterly exhausted.

I've been putting him to bed at nine for the past week - strictly. Before he'd play in bed until, sometimes, eleven thirty, and then he'd wake up a lot in the night. I thought maybe trying to give him a schedule now would help him out - and so far it's been going along swimmingly. He does occasionally wake in the night, and often it's good enough if I go in very quietly to comfort him - not even taking him out of the crib - and he's back to sleep. He's also been having much better routine sleeps during the day.

The only draw back is, now, though that he is sleeping so well (9P-9A), that if the schedule gets interrupted, he doesn't handle it quite as well as he used to. I'm sure we'll get over that eventually :)

Originally published at diaper bag princess. You can comment here or there.

A while ago, I mentioned some of the wordpress plugins that I enjoy using. This is round two.

• Feed Statistics: to avoid going to feedburner to get numbers of how many people are subscribed to my RSS feeds, I simply installed this handy, lightweight plugin to do the job for me.
• Now Reading: a great little plugin to give your blog a whole 'nother dimension: a library. While this isn't a necessity when it comes to blogging, it is a cute, fun, addition that is really easy to use.
• Wordpress sIFR: have you ever seen sIFR? It's great! It gives you the ability to have really unique titles, while still being search engine friendly. Download this plugin, go through the steps and you'll be sIFRing before you know it. Works with any font, by the way. It's a step up from the graphic titles, because with those you tend to lose searchability. Not so with sIFR. If your visitor doesn't have all the necessary permissions or flash components installed, it will still display a text-only version of the header so they aren't missing out on any content.
• I like this: give your visitors another way to interact with you that doesn't involve comments: by using "I like it! - a popular feature on sites like Flickr and Facebook. Also comes complete with a module you can show in your sidebar or any PHP-enabled wordpress page to show what your most popular "liked" posts are!