It seems to me that I am always apologizing for my lack of posting these days. I feel as if I can make no excuses for it and just say that I promise to post more and I have a few topics that have been swirling my brain for awhile now.
With all that said, this post is yet another vacation update. Last week I was lucky enough to go away yet agin and this time to the lovely Varadero, Cuba. I realize how lucky I am to have had two vacations within such a short time of one another. I'm holding onto to this fact and am positive it is partly why I am holding on to my sanity during this dragged out winter we seem to be having.
This trip was one of the best weeks of my life. I went with two amazing ladies who I was sad to leave at the end of the week, experienced the most beautiful beach I have ever seen, drank, danced, met fun people and tried my best to make the most of every second. I'm walking away from this vacation with great memories and the reminder that yes, it is ok to stop and take a minute to relax in this crazy world.
Here are some of my memories...
White powder sand. It doesn't get any better
Yes I'm pale but look how beauty the ocean and sky is.
If I could watch the sun set from the beach every night, I don't think I'd ever complain again
We went on a Jeep Safari and I was really excited!
This is a cave that we swam in. NBD
My special friend Lizard after snorkeling
We left the maid presents everyday and she did sweet things with our towels. This was my fav!
We met an awesome group of guys from where else... Oakville! I had the brilliant idea to put lipstick on them one night and they all obliged... some more willingly than others.
Without a doubt, my favourite photo from the trip.
The theme song of our trip. A go-to sing along song.
A final frolick in the ocean with Lizard
A final dance on the beach at dusk.
Batman & I before dancing at The Cave
My lovely travel buddies. They're on my favourite list.
Until next time my friends, lets hope spring decides to show its face soon. I promise a real written post within the next week.
That feels tremendous to say. Sometimes I like to call myself a secret introvert because while I'm sure the majority of people who know me would call me an introvert I know some are puzzled by it. By this I mean, some people meet me and their first impression is that I'm shy, quiet and slightly awkward. However, I then turn to someone I know and feel comfortable with and I'm loud, animated, funny and possibly bordering on obnoxious at times. As well, I admit that I feel quite intimidated at one-on-one conversations with people I don't know but I am very comfortable speaking in large groups.
Another layer to the "secretness" of my introversion is that I used to feel somewhat ashamed to own up to this facet of my personality. So many positive adjectives are associated with people who ae extroverts. Extroverts are: *outgoing *sociable *talkative *warm *funny *life of the party
Introverts are often thought of as *shy *quiet *boring *dull *anti-social *snobby
For a long time I did not want to admit that I am more introverted than extroverted because I did not, and still do not want to associate myself with any of the above words. I also tend to pursue friends and be attracted to men who are more on the extroverted side and have spent a good portion of my life trying to be like those people.
As I navigate my way through my early twenties and into my mid twenties I realize that it is okay to love this part of myself and let it shine through. There are many great qualities to being introverted, and being able to write this blog is one of them. I also realize that being more introverted can be handy at work. When I can translate my quietness into a serene and calm vibe, I have learned that the babies really dig it.
Yes, I have difficulty carrying on a conversation with strangers or people I'm not completely comfortable with. Yes, I often find it hard to put my thoughts into words that I can speak to people, especially when I am emotional. Yes, I need time to myself without social interaction. But...
I also like being around people very much and I know that relationships are what keep me grounded. I may be quiet upon a first meeting with someone but it is because I also like to observe people and contemplate ideas to interact with them. I'm thankful to all the people who have looked past my quietness and put in the extra time it takes to get to know me. Moreover, I get along fantastically with humourous people because I make a great audience! I have had more than a few friends and family members tell me they enjoy having me around because I'll laugh at their joke even when no one else does. I still know how to have fun and I'm working hard to make sure I don't use "being an introvert" as an excuse not to meet new people, be compassionate and challenge myself in sometimes uncomfortable situations.
There you have it. The quiet girl speaks up. Think of this the next time you're interacting with someone who is a little on the shy or quiet side. Discovering the way my Maker made me and embracing what I find is just another one of those hurdles to get through.
Here's a song that I picked not because it has anything to do with being introverted but with judging people before you get to know them. J Biebz rocks, and before you hate, go see his movie, I guarantee you'll be suprised.
Once again, I haven't blogged in awhile but this time I have a great excuse! I was on vacation in a land filled with lush palm trees, terrific shopping, beautiful people and (usually) lots of sunshine. I went to Los Angeles and while the weather was less than pleasant, it was better than the snow storms my friends back home had to endure and the laughs I shared with my best friend more than made up for it. Seriously, we're really funny.
This was my third time visiting L.A but my first as a single lady and without any men in company, which made for an interesting and very fun adventure. We ate, shopped, made ourselves pretty, laughed, danced and enjoyed every ounce of sunshine we were blessed with. It doesn't get much better than that, does it?
Here are some highlights...
Our first walk in the sun!
Our destination? Latte's at Urth Cafe
Shopping at The Grove
Shopping at Bloomy's at The Bev Center
Justine's faggle tooth
I wish they all could be California Girls
Dinner on Sunset. Audrey Inspired
Yeah
lovely ladies before dinner at The Cheesecake Factory & drinks at Fiesta Cantina. Also know as the night I met old scruff and Justine got hit on by a swedish chick.
The newest dance move in LA. The "double slap" or The "devil's slap". Whichever you prefer
Ladies before going to Happy Endings
We met boys from Alaska and formed a flip cup team with an amazing handshake.
Somehow Dawn and I ended up on a double date.
It may have rained every night we tried to go out.
Palm trees are my favourite
Thank you to a best friend who always makes me feel beautiful inside and out, laughs with me, cries with me and gave me my best trip yet! I love you & your faggle tooth miss juxt!
Finally, I leave you with my favourite of all the songs written about California...
As many of you may know today is Ash Wednesday. When I was a child I thought it was a day to celebrate Ashley's. Of course, that is not the case, much to my disappointment. I now know that today is the beginning of lent. Many people who belong to the christian or catholic religion decide to give something up today and for the next 40 days.
I hate labels. I hate rituals and I especially hate following traditions without even knowing the significance of them. So as someone who doesn't want to label myself as a "christian" or follow man made traditions I've never actually participated in the giving up of something for lent.
Until this year. This year I had a different feeling about it and I can connect a significance to lent. Lately I have been thinking a lot about simple comforts and pleasures that are so easily taken for granted. As humans we really cling to these comforts and usually we do not even know the weight of them until they are lost. I am talking about comforts, both large in small. Whether its your significant other, a special blanket or the morning coffee from Tim Hortons. When it gets taken away from us, it can really interrupt our flow. I know from experience. I especially like routine, order and when things go according to plan.
I'll let you in on a little secret... I still sleep with my baby blanket and if you asked me to give it up today I don't know that I'd be ok with it. I would definitely have some issues getting to sleep.
With all that said, I'm starting small. I have decided to give up chocolate and pop. Two addicting, comforting things I am sure I can do without. I turn to both things in times of stress. Giving something up for lent is only worthwhile if one can use it as a chance reflect on an awesome God who should be the only comfort humans need. Instead of turning to an earthly comfort I can be reminded of the love and grace I receive from above. It's also a nice time to reflect on rebirth, fresh starts and the beginning of new habits. I leave you with this...
"So we fix our eyes not on what is seen but what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, and what is unseen is eternal." 2 Corinthians 4:18
There is so much hope in this passage. Not only do we know there is more to life on earth but it also points out the important things on earth today. Things we cannot see... love, peace, hope... Not material and man-made comfort.
"Once you've written about your Dirty Dancing calendar, its hard to top" -Sara M. Sinclair (Doesn't putting a middle initial in someone's name when you quote them make them sound so much more dignified?)
true story. As you may have noticed there has been a lack of posting lately... and really it all boils down to the fact that I really couldn't think of what to write about. Lot's of things have been going on in my life but nothing inspiring which I feel is a problem in an of itself. Life is kind of, in transistion right now so maybe thats why.
Nevertheless, here I am. A friend prompted me to get writing again last night and I realized that maybe I could at least offer up some thoughts on my transitional phase.
I can start by telling you this, the mind of ashley is usually a jumble of things and I can often be found zoning out into space. Usually its a multitude of things going on in my head but lately my mind has been specifically focused on thoughts of what to do with my life. Career-wise, that is. I used to give little thought to this and figured that I was just headed towards marriage and motherhood. Obviously, that is nowhere soon on the horizon for me and I think I've realized that there is more for me to accomplish on this earth before I take those steps.
I have been reading The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything and as the title suggests, trying to find my element or my passion. Now, I know you're probably thinking, shouldn't I already know my passion? This is what I used to think as well but this book has been eye-opening for me. I had never considered many of the obstacles one may encounter on the road to finding one's element. Up until very recently I had thought myself to be quite passionless. Of course, there are things I am passionate about but I don't know that I had really found a perfect little niche or habitat where me and my passion fit.
Reading The Element has also helped to put into words why I no longer want to be a teacher, something I had previously felt called to do. Reason's that have led me to feel so passionless. Here's a little excerpt that gives a peak into it...
"...young children are wonderfully confident in their own imaginations. Most of us lose this confidence as we grow up. Ask a class of first graders which of them thinks they're creative and they'll all put their hands up. Ask a group of college seniors this same question and most of them won't. I believe passionately that we are all born with tremendous natural capacities, and that we lose touch with many of them as we spend more time in the world. Ironically, one of the main reasons this happens is education. The result is that too many people never connect with their true talents and therefore don't know what they're really capable of achieving. In that sense, they don't know who they really are." (Robinson xi)
I have felt passionless, uncreative and stifled by never being able to fit in with the normalcy that formal education requires for, probably as long as I can remember. Until now. Until I have began to realize that maybe this isn't how it is supposed to be. Maybe God has more for me. I work with children under the age of five, and one of the things that I love about it is seeing this inherent creativity that is completely untarnished. I recently read an article that challenged me to look at my current job and wonder to why God has placed me there for this moment. Maybe thats why. Maybe I needed to be reminded of how creative people are before we are squashed like bugs by life.
As I have been trudging my way through this book something keeps sticking out at me. In grade one, we were given the assignment to write a story. I wrote a book about a bird named Melanie. Melanie loved to sing but had lost her voice. After trying a variety of things to regain her ability to sing, she drank a glass of water and sang happily ever after...
My teacher was very impressed with my story, and "published" it into a book that my Mom still has today. I don't know many six-year-olds who can pump out a story with a beginning, middle, end and conflict that gets resolved. I'm not trying to brag here, because honestly at 24, with a BA in English, I don't think I could sit here and give you a low-down of all the elements of a story. But that's how its always been with writing for me. I start and somehow all the blanks get filled in. In ways I cannot explain.
Maybe that's my element.
Oh, and as for my title of this post? It's from a Simon & Garfunkle song and its true. I hate the news but I love the weather network. If this writing thing doesn't work, I think I'll try and be a weather girl.
Sara, this jam is for you. Thanks for asking me to write *Ish
Jenn Heckman, this post is for you. Happy birthday and thanks for laughing at me for borrowing Dateable and proceeding to take all the quizzes with me. Two more crushes until I find the one!
Okay, I caved. I'm writing a post on love and dating and its Valentines Day. But to be fair, I've been working on this post for awhile, at least in my head. Since I saw the movie Blue Valentine I began to once again, ponder just why relationships fail. Blue Valentine was an intense depiction of how amazing relationships are at the beginning, and how sometimes, before you know it it completely falls apart with just a pull of one thread.
Why? Why? Why? I have many questions around this, because really I find it pretty heartbreaking when I hear about the break-up of almost any couple.
As a junior high leader at my church's youth group, I am able to borrow many books that are supposed to help us be better leaders to our children. A couple of weeks ago I picked up the book Dateable by Justin Lookadoo & Hayley DiMarco thinking that it would help me deal with my perma boy crazed thirteen year olds. Strangely, I found it helping me more than anything else. No, it did not give me all the answers but I think I have some pretty great insights as to how relationships can come crashing way, way down. So, of course, I must share.
I have to preface this with saying that the book relies strongly on conventional gender roles. While I am not entirely convinced we were designed to follow conventional gender roles I do believe that we are largely socialized to adhere them and therefore I think it is fair to use them for this purpose. Of course there are always exceptions but for the most part it works. Two of the chapters that really stuck out to me are called:
"If I will do it for you, I will do it to you" "Guys Will Lie to You to Get What They Want"
Instead of me trying to paraphrase or make a point thats already been greatly made, I'm just going to borrow and cite properly.
If I will do it for you, I will do it to you... This chapter goes through a few examples of this and here's one, "A Liar's a Liar, Politicians argue against this point all the time. You have some guy who cheated on his wife, abused his power to make it happen, and lied to cover it up, and his supporters claimed, 'This does not impact his decisions as President. His personal life is separate from his professional life.' No, it's not! This is a character issue. If someone will lie to cover up a sex scandal, he will lie any time the truth could make him look bad. He's a liar. He isn't a liar in just this situation; he's a liar period. People who lie are liars" (Lookadoo & Dimarco 58)
Deception is one of the fastest ways to ruin a relationship. Trust me. But this chapter illustrates a great point, "Good character and bad character can't be buds". (Lookadoo & DiMarco 68). Sometimes its really hard to look at the person we are dating honestly, especially when he or she is not being honest with us. This is when you must be aware of his or her actions to everyone and everything outside of you. Does he or she lie to other people? Then he or she will likely lie to you. Did he or she cheat on someone for you? Then he or she will likely cheat on you. These things are character issue, and if you've got good character and he or she doesn't, run far, far away. Fast.
This brings me to the next chapter, Girls will lie to themselves to get what they want. Some specific lies?
"The 'I'm Better Than Her' Lie, Every girl knows that she is so much better than his last girlfriend. It doesn't matter what the word is about the guy. It doesn't matter what he did or why they broke up. Girls know that the real reason he broke up with those other girls is that they didn't know how to treat him. You know that the reason he has never settled down or stuck with a girl is that they didn't know how to make him happy. But you do! You know exactly what he needs... Those girls were witches, and now they are just jealous. They wern't good enough. Sorry, but no... Girls listen to the exes. If they all say he was a jerk, they're not saying it because they're jealous. They're saying it because he's a jerk. He's going to treat you the same way he treated the others. The issue is not your value but his character. You are valuable. You are important. But you are not more valuable and more important than the last girl. That's the same lie she told herself when she got into a relationship with him. Protect yourself.
The 'I'll Fix Him' Lie
Another way girls will lie to themselves is by telling themselves that they can change him. (The older you get the more this makes sense.) 'He has never changed because he has never had someone to change for. But he will want to change because of how much I love him. I will be able to make him better. He will become Prince Charming and I will be his princess.' Ah yes, the battle cry of the delusional." (Lookadoo & DiMarco 93-94)
Enough Said.
Now, I know this two things that will ruin a relationship. Expectations & delusions.
A word of advice for the ladies this valentines day... Let go of expectations. Guy's could care less about this day. Out of the 20 people on my facebook list that had a HAPPY VDAY status, guess how many of them are female?
100%.
Just because he doesn't care about valentines day, doesn't mean he doesn't care about you. Let it go, don't make him care and enjoy having someone to love today and everyday.
Oh. also,
All you need is love. and I hope this happens at my wedding one day.
About a week ago I was challenged by the devotional book I’m working through (Solo: An Uncommon Devotional) to share my faith journey with someone. So I thought about it and prayed about and tried to just imagine what my faith journey may look like. The first thought that came to mind is the simple fact that I am not the most articulate person when it comes to speaking. However, when I start to write, my thoughts seem to flow through my hands into complete and understandable points and ideas. Moreover, as I prayed for the opportunity to share I realized I had one right in front of me. Not only do I have my very own blog but I also contribute to this .
As I tried to envision what a faith journey was I realized I was getting too caught up on trying to define something that was totally up to me to create. I did know that there had to be an event or an incident that could have gone either way for me. What I mean by this is that I think we all have times in our life where we make a choice. We come to the end of our rope and we either let go, or we turn to God and climb our way back up. As I listened to a favourite song, After The Storm by Mumford and Sons a lyric struck me.
“On my knees, and out of luck, I look up...”
That’s when I realized I had made a choice and I knew exactly when my faith journey began. I would say that I officially became a Christian and accepted Jesus as my saviour in the summer of 2003. However, this is not when my faith journey began. In fact, it did not really begin for me until this past summer, the summer of 2010. Yes, I have attended church in both a sporadic and committed fashion since 2003 and yes I had even branched out and began to serve in areas of my church. I was also baptised in January 2005 and I meant every word I said as I stood up in front of my church community and declared that I, Ashley McAuley was committed to following Jesus. As I look back, I know my heart was pure in all these things but I see them as external markers of a shift I wasn’t fully making internally. I knew what it took to be a true Christ follower but I wasn’t really ready to relinquish all my control. I could have very easily walked away a sad young lady until it hit me.
I have heard that when God is trying to reach you on something He will begin with whispers. Whispers to gentle nudges. Gentle nudges to speaking softly but poking. Speaking softly and poking to calmly shaking. Calmly shaking to speaking firmly. Speaking firmly to aggressively shaking and yelling in my ear. God had been whispering to me for a long time and unfortunately because I am incredibly strong willed and stubborn I wasn’t listening. I couldn’t let go. I had to be in control and I couldn’t admit that I was wrong. Until God yelled in my ear and very dramatically showed me that I needed Him.
I needed him.
I needed him and I had to give up control of my life to let Him in and fill me the way I was longing to be fulfilled. This past summer I hit a bottom that I had been dreading for a long time. I found myself with a shattered heart and everywhere I looked I was coming face to face with broken dreams. I had planned and decided so many things for myself and not one thing was going as I had hoped. I realized that the only way I was going to get better and even attempt to rid myself of the brokenness in my life was to turn to God.
So I did. I asked God to take control and I began the delicate process of trust. To put it plainly, I have some issues with trust. I haven’t been able to fully trust some of the people that I have been closest to in the past, and these are living breathing humans who I can see and touch. It was hard for me to trust a God I can’t see or touch or sit face to face and have involved conversations with. However, I’ve come to realize that I’ve had it backwards. Humans will be hard to trust at times because we are broken and we hurt each other both willingly and unwillingly. But God, he’ll never fail. This is what I can put my trust in. This is what I can put my hope in.
“So no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love. Love never gives up. Love cares ore for others than for self. Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have. Love doesn’t strut. Doesn’t have a swelled head. Doesn’t force itself on others, Isn’t always ‘me first’ Doesn’t fly off the handle, Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others, Doesn’t revel when others grovel, Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, Puts up with anything, Trusts God always, Always looks for the best, Never looks back, But keeps going to the end. Love never dies” 1 Corinthians 13:4-8. (The Message)
A faith journey begins with a decision but it doesn’t end there. I have to remind myself of my decision daily and remember that I am filled because of God’s love and grace and now I have more love to give.
Peace ya’ll, thanks for reading, and have a listen...
"There will come a time you'll see, with no more tears. And love will not break your heart but dismiss your fears. Get over your hill and see, what you find there. With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair."
