A Day in Ashley's Life

Hey everyone!! I really enjoyed using photos to show my days so I decided to take it one step forward and take it throughout my whole day and not just how I feel. So there are only about three of my face instead of them all being my face!!! haha I hope you enjoy because I had a blast doing this today!! :) Oh and they may not be in order haha that takes a lot of time and effort on my part haha

Picture Number One:

 I woke up at 6 this morning to watch the sunrise! I was very disappointed as it was not that good! Maybe another day I will try again!

                   



      Picture Number Two!


I decided that I was going to use one of my many facial masks and this is how it turned out. My face is feeling wonderful!!     ;)

Picture Number Three!

I decided that I should also clean my room. This is the finished product...It still looks messy but I swear to you it is clean haha

Picture Number Four

 I got somewhat ambitious and made some carrot muffins, but me being me forgot to spray the wrappers so now they stick to the muffins and make eating them slightly challenging... :(

Picture Number Five!!!

It actually got to 16 today but when I had the camera it was at 13 but still shorts weather :) woot woooooot

Picture Number SIX.!.!.!.!I got dressed! haha in my

new shirt :) You can't see

it but it does say Bench  :)

Picture Number Seven!! :)

One needs to brush their teeth whenever they get the chance ;)

Picture Number Eight!

I got to eat the wonderful muffins I made for a snack before lunch :) They were great! :) As you can tell by my expression!! haha

Picture Number Nine...

I made patterns with the muffins cause I was bored haha The person I made this for will know who they are and why I did it haha :) <3

Picture Ten! 

I warned you that there would be some of me and here is one of them! I was heading out for a walk :)

 Photograph 11

My dog and I found some feathers. Poor birdy!

 I guess this is Picture Number Twelve



We (my dog, Pudge, and I) found this old shack on our adventure walk!! :)

 We also found picture number 13

It is a HUGE ant hill! I wanted to kick it and watch them squirm  but I thought better of that since it was a red ant hill and not a black one.

 .

And this is where I call home, picture 14

And this here, picture number 15, is why you wear pants and not short while running through the bush... Yeah not my smartest moment! It is worse than it looks as well...

And last but not least, 

I was able to sit down and eat lunch

while catching up on my country

music videos! :)

A New View

Hello beautiful people that read my blog!

I just wanted to make a shout out to everyone that reads this blog! I know most of the time I mention random things that don't really make sense but I am happy to have you read it!

So today I was lucky enough (and barely patient enough) to get my colored contacts!!! I now have green eyes :) :) I am going to fix up my hair and makeup and take some pictures and if I don't run out of time I will upload them here :) But, if you know me personally, well then you know that I most likely will run out of time because I will be adding things to my list to do as I go along and then not have enough time to do anyone of it haha

So I noticed today that I kind of push people away. I like people a lot but I like certain ones for a while then I move on to new people and I just keep going...does that mean I have issues with commitment? Am I ever going to settle down?

Do I just want what others have and then when I get it I realize that, that is not what I had wanted all along? Is that one of the ways I push people away? Don't get me wrong I have friends but who knows how long I will have them if I keep up what I am doing. Why do I do this?

So I have finished doing my makeup and hair. I have taken the pictures. I have uploaded them to my computer even. Now I just had to edit them and I will have them up on here :) :) Woot Woot! I only have about ten minutes though :( Cause I have stuff to do before I head out on the town haha

 Look at me go :) Oh yeah totally got them uploaded! i am proud of myself haha hope you enjoy!

ASHLEY

Talk About Challenging!

Dear Ladies and Gents!

I have taken on a new challenge! Well more like a bet with my father than a challenge but it has stirred a few things inside of me.

I recently wrote a blog about societies and my view on being 'perfectly sized' and writing that blog made me take a step back at my own life and really think about how I was living it. I preached about how life is all about loving who you are and that you don't need anyone else's opinions to be happy but I think I may have been a slight bit unrealistic. Don't get me wrong, those things are KEY! but no one can be 'perfectly' happy without having someone standing beside them (whether that be a best friend or a significant other) telling them that they are amazing and perfect the way they are.

I like to consider myself very independent and I like to think I can be strong without the help from anyone but I have realized that I, even though I hate to admit it, need people. I need that someone to stand beside me and tell me that no matter what anyone else thinks they love me and will never judge me for who I am. If you are my friend reading this and thinking "I thought I was that person. I do that for you." Just let me finish. I have a ton of friends. They are all wonderful people. They each have their flaws BUT I do not look at their flaws. I admit that they are there and then focus on all the good about them. Each one of my friends has so many wonderful and beautiful qualities that why would you want to think about that one or two flaws that they have?

I want to say thank you to all the unique and amazing people that have stuck by my side and told me that I am worthy of love, that I am beautiful, that I am strong. It is because of you people that I can proudly sit here and say that, Yes I have flaws, but I WILL NOT let them define who I am! I will focus on my strengths and try to fix the flaws but they do NOT define me as a person!

So back to the bet, I seem to have gotten off topic, as I am pretty sure I do every single blog post I have!

At Christmas my father and I were complaining about our weights and that we wanted to do something about it but needed some motivation. I came up with this brilliant but terrible idea! We would bet to see who could lose the most weight by the time I finished college in April. I wanted to just bet a dollar a pound but my dad being my dad said that was not enough so we bumped it up to $10 a pound. So if I lose 10 pounds and he loses 5 pounds he would owe me $50! See a brilliant way to get money right? The only problem is that I have lost about a pound and he has already lost 4!

I should have seen this coming! Men lose weight much faster than girls plus he has about 70 pounds more to lose than I do! But I thought that I could do this. That I would win cause he wouldn't actually put any effort into it but I was wrong, of course!

When I went home this last week I found out how much I was losing by, which 3 pounds doesn't seem like much but that is still $30 out of my pocket! I have decided to get my @$$ in gear and start trying harder! I should mention that from Christmas to last week I really did not try to eat healthier and I did not work out at all. I have been back for two days now and I have worked out both days! Yesterday was only for 10 minutes but 10 minutes is better than nothing! Today I actually went to the gym, swam and played football in the snow which comes out to about 2.5 hours of exercise! Go me! Plus I ate a salad with water and a sandwhich for supper! :) Superly duperly healthy! No dressing on my salad either! :) I know I am pretty proud of myself haha :) Oh and to just top it off I said no to hanging out with friends to get my homework done! and I did it!!! oh yeah! :)

I am going to keep you wonderful people updated on my life style change as my mother would call it! I figure if I am telling a bunch of people that I will keep going at it for longer! :) So thank you in advance for being my support! :) You rock! :)

ASHLEY out

February 8, 2012

Hello!

Since I really enjoyed doing that one post with all the pictures I decided to do it again! :) :) Here we go! There will be a little more writing throughout the pictures and a probably a ton of writing at the end but it should be like the other one still :)

Just to start off LOOK at what my roomie and BIFL bought me for Valentines day! She sucks at hiding things  so without even trying I found it and so we exchanged gifts early :) I bought her M&Ms, red bull, chocolate and a really awesome card haha

So I woke up happy and alert this morning. I think it had something to do with the night before...

(wow this picture is not that attractive haha)  I spend class doing work and thinking about how much last night rocked! I just chilled with friends in my room and I loved every single minute of it! :) We watched movies and played truth and dare and just talked. 

Then lunch time came around and I was happy cause I was superly duperly hungry as per usual! And I got some alright pizza :)

Well then I realized that instead of having class till three I had no class at all because I had finished everything already. I was very excited and am now sitting in my room drinking Sprite and having a good ol' time :)

But by a good ol' time I mean I am doing homework and hating it haha I am like most people in this world and I hate homework! But as I have found out, procrastinating is not the way to go! Last minute cramming is not good for me. I need my sleep :)

Well I was going to write a huge long thing here at the bottom but I have decided that I really need to keep working on just my homework and writing this little note was a great break but it is also a huge distraction for me! I love writing on my blog but I really need to get my homework done!

BYE!!!

New Things

I was just driving home from the dairy farm the other day and started to think about all the cool opportunities that I have been given through college. I am so lucky to have been able to a lot of fun new things that if I were anywhere else would not happen.

I milked cows (using a machine but still) and enjoyed every minute of it!

Went to a live NHL game (although it was Calgary vs Edmonton and not a Vancouver game)

Went to a Selna Gomez concert

Visited towns that I had never thought I would see

Quaded in the middle of winter

Had a Harry Potter marathon

Played pool almost every night of the week

Four by foured on a lease in the middle of winter

Attended a winter formal

Been the president of a club with more than 4 members

Enjoyed singing rock band (and actually rocking it if I do say so myself)

Randomly drove 1.5 hours just to watch movies and go quading

Wear a wig for more than 10 minutes

Travel 13 hours on a bus

Road trip with two friends back to school

Live in a dorm room

Go to a bar

And many more!!!!!!!!!! :) :)

But I got to go chill with some friends and carpe diem! :)

ASHLEY

Oh time machine how I wish you were mine!

Well I was looking back on photos today and I realized that I have messed up a lot of friendships in the past! Looking back now I see what I was missing and I wish that I could go back and change a few things.

But since I do not possess a time machine I will just have to change my future instead.

I need to just live in the moment and learn not to say whatever is on my mind. I need to just relax and let myself enjoy everything and everyone around me. I also need to stop getting into peoples business! I just like to be the center of things and I also think that I am getting tired of hanging out with certain people so I make new friends meaning that I lose the friends I used to have and I just keep doing that! I want to stop this behavior! I need to be more open and welcoming to the friends I already have! I need to focus more on them than on me!

Over the next few weeks I have a lot of work cut out for myself! Here is what I plan to work on:
- Me thinking that I have to be smaller
- Actually exercising to make me feel better about myself and to give me more energy
- Listening to my friends
- Hang out with them more (do things that they want to do; play x-box, watch movies, watch bull riding, make food, etc.)
- Learning the difference between what I want and what I think I need
- More studying! I felt slightly worried about my exams this semester
- Get a job (this means tweak my resume, go hand out said resumes, and wait)
- Start my amazing gift for my BIFFL! :)
- Bond with my loving roommate who has unfortunately had to deal with my stupid moods lately
- Get New Zealand figured out
- If the above thing doesn't work out, figure out what to do after college
- Look deep within myself to find out what I truly want to do in life
and last but not least
- Get more sleep while still accomplishing all of the above tasks
- Oh and yeah have fun ;)

I love college! I love college! I love college! If I keep repeating it, it may come true. Don't get me wrong I do love college and it is because of college I realized I had gone so wrong in my past, but I just wish that I could still be that little girl whose biggest worry was if mom would let me play outside as much as I wanted or if I could have a piece of candy if I was well behaved.

I don't want so many responsibilities and things that I have to make sure happen. I love the freedom but with freedom comes those damn responsibilities! I guess that is the price of growing up!

ASHLEY

"I am beautiful the way I am!"

Today has been one of those days where I pick something that bugs me about society and I just stew on it all day. By around this time at night I am either ready to cry or just so angry. Usually these things that I pick are things that I don't like about myself or one of my many insecurities.

Today I picked our 'need' to be skinny or for guys in shape.

I, if you do not know me, am of a larger breed. I am not fat, I am not skinny, I am also not in the middle. I do not look my weight BUT I feel my weight. By that I mean that even though most people do not think I weigh as much as I do I feel like I weigh a ton! I feel overweight and fat, although I know that I am neither.

This has been an issue for me since day one. I used to get teased all the time about being fat or bigger when I was younger. I would deal with my pain by making the jokes first so that I was the one bringing myself down and not someone else. I thought at the time that, that was the only way to deal with it and that it was also the best way to deal with it. When I look back at it now I realize that I could have done other things. Such as, disagree with them, hit them, or just walked away. In making the jokes first I was saying that it was okay to make fun of my size and it was not!

As kids we don't really notice how much our words will effect someones life. Some moments have stuck with me. I know that I am not that old and therefore the words have not stuck that long but what I do now, at this age, will affect the rest of my life.

I want to show you a few pictures to make my words sink in, although I know that most of you have gone through something similar when you were younger, even though it may not be about your weight, and you understand what I am talking about.

I wish that I could make everyone understand, even myself, that being skinny is really not that important.

In life I want to find that one guy that is willing to look beyond my appearance and just love me, for me. Of course, I want to be called beautiful and gorgeous and all those things but I want to be told that he loves how my hair never stays in place, or how he thinks my beauty mark is cute, or that he loves the way I look at him when I am angry. I want him to love not just me, but everything about me. I want him to pay attention to the little things.

I have a rather outgoing personality and most people think that I am so confident and worry free when it comes to things like this. I try to be, honestly I try so hard, but when I sit here by myself and really think about it I know that I want to be considered skinny by the world. I want to be noticed when I walk into a room. I want guys to want me. Not just for my personality but for my looks as well.

But what I want more than all that is to be happy with who I am and what I look like. I don't want to walk into a room and worry what people think about me. I want to be comfortable in my own skin. I don't want to have to be always worried that someone might find me out. That someone might notice that I am covering up my insecurities by talking too much, laughing loud, and being crazy.

America's Next Top Model did an amazing photo shoot in cycle 15. They got all the girls to pick one word that they were teased about throughout their life and to turn that word into something good. This task was hard for a lot of them. Each and every one of them had been bugged about something and each of them were hurt because of it. Here are some pictures from that shoot.

I wish that I could make the world understand that what is inside matters so much more than what is on the outside. If people put half of the effort into their personalities rather than their looks the world would be a much better place.

I will admit I am one of those girls who cares about what they look like but I don't think I am that, that bad with it. I do care but I also won't let that stand in my way of doing something.

Take this for an example. I love swimming, but I do not like the way I look in a bikini, nor am I comfortable in one. I add long board shorts and vola I feel one hundred times better with the shorts plus it lets me go play rugby and football and tackle the boys down. I try to buy clothes that fit my body and make me feel comfortable. If you are not comfortable in your clothes that will show.

I hope that this post will have made someone, at least one person think about how they treat themselves and others. I know I sort of rambled on but this subject is very close to my heart and I think that something needs to change. I am going to start by eating well, getting exercise and being healthy. I will look myself in the mirror every morning and say "I am beautiful the way I am and no one can tell me any different".