A Year in the Life

Today is a happy day  It's Hopson's birthday.  He's 29...again.  He's off with Harry & Henry hunting in Clarksdale.  It's his birthday & I want him to do what he loves.  I think he would really love it if it were warm outside so he could sit on the porch at the lake during the gloaming .  It's his favorite time of day.  He would be drinking a beer & playing Rummikub with the fam.  There would be love, lots of laughter & me getting eaten by mosquitoes.  For his birthday I didn't spend any money.  It's one of the things he always wants.  Hopson works hard for our fam & he is the best builder, fixer, ski instructor (water & snow) & manliness passer oner around.  I did get a chuckle at his expense the other night.  He loves to brag about how he still gets carded.  We had a Costco date, and as we were checking out, the wine he was purchasing was scanned right over the bar-code reader &...

It is called soul food for a reason & I have my own definition too.  To me, soul food is feel good food.  It reminds me of my grandmother's & mother's kitchens.   Old school southern cooks are some of the best around.  Do you think they worry about fat, sodium, or calories?  Um, no.  No they don't.  They want you to leave full and happy.  The biggest insult to a soul food cook is for you to leave hungry.  If you want bland, soul food is not for you.  Anyway, who wants bland?  Not I, said the pig.  In case some of you are not from the deep south & wonder what in the world is soul food, I found a great website that describes what it is .  I love the line that says:  "...all soul food is southern food, but not all southern food is soul food".  Amen to that.  If you've never eaten soul food, I'm so sorry.  It's homemade with heaps of love, so you an have happiness on your plate.  I...

Ok, I have a new recipe for y'all & I'm so EXCITED.  I know that I should post it on a Measure of Joy, but I haven't posted anything on there since 2013.  Wait, what?  That's 4 years.  Yikes!  I'll post it there too.  OMG. It has finally cooled down from the raging summer we had this year.  We had a few weeks of cooler weather in, I think, early September, but that was a joke.  It happens to us every year.  We have a cooler spell for about 2 weeks & we think fall is here!  Then we act shocked when it shoots back into the 90's or high 80's until November.  (there's usually humidity that goes with it and makes it feel like you're walking around with a wet towel on your head.) With the cooler weather brings, for me, soup season.  My people are sick of the same old soups though.  Chili, a southern staple.  We also have wonderful variations of white chicken chili and taco soup.  I make beer cheese soup, ve...

 A friend from grade school was going through old pictures and found a picture of the house I grew up in.  I have wonderful memories from that home.  We played football in the front yard, swam in the pool, built homecoming signs, and watched movies and the 1984 Olympics.  My parents let me invite the entire 8th grade over to swim the day we officially became 9th graders.  That house is filled with laughter.    My parents didn't care about your background.  They didn't care what kind of home you came from.  They wanted you to feel loved and accepted when you came over to our house.  It was a house that love built.  It's funny looking back.  You think that some kids have it all together just to find out they saw themselves as misfits.  I was always the one who felt like I was on the fringe.  Not cool, not as smart as I wanted to be, not a lot of things.  I wonder how many other kids felt & feel like that to...

Can I tell you how upset , frustrated , angry I am?  I am tired of adults, men and women, having children they are not willing to take care of.  I don't care about the circumstances you had your children under, what I care about is that you man-up and take care of them.  It's time for you to stop saying you want to be an adult and just act like one. I was reading an article online  about the surprising number of children who are at risk from toxic stress.  They are saying this stress can "change the brain and it can interfere with learning and lead to disease in adulthood".  This is not normal stress:  homework, activities & school.  This is children seeing and experiencing things a lot of adults haven't been through.  The numbers listed in the article are staggering.   Here's what they say & this is directly quoted from the article: More than 1 in 4 U.S. kids experience a serious traumatic event by the age of 16, includin...

There are so many who make these vows, and then quickly forget them when the difficulties of life hit the proverbial fan.  It's easy to love when the going is easy.  It's another when your slogging your way through life, marriage, and children.  I have been blessed to witness so many whose vows were a way of life.  They weren't words; they were actions. Today I went in to get my crazy hair cut and highlighted.  I'm sitting there with my hair pulled through a cap (I look like a lionfish), bleach smothered on my hair and cap, and a clear shower cap on top.  Yeah, it's a rockin' look.  We're all talking and I look over to see an older lady shuffling towards a chair get her hair washed. This is a common sight because there are women of all ages who come into the beauty shop.  It's what happened afterward that had me in tears.   As she is walking, I noticed she had a belt on and her husband, a younger woman along with the hairdresser hel...

and I think I have OCD. The older I get the more I like things 'just so'.  Well, maybe a little more than just so.   I had to run to the grocery store to get some noodles for tonight's dinner, because of course I forgot to get them yesterday when I went to the grocery store.  The joys of getting older & speed grocery.  We have a grocery store that has smaller carts that I have fallen in love with.  I only have two chicks at home, so I don't need a ginormous cart anymore.  This isn't so much about the carts themselves but about the cart return areas.  One a side note, I'll admit I'm somewhat lazy.  I don't park my car closest to the door to the grocery store, I park by the cart return.  It's also a habit.  Ever tried loading four littles into the car, putting all your groceries in the car & then returning the cart before your children die from a heat stroke & everything frozen melts?  Good times.  The way ...

I even asked nicely.  I have sacrifices I need to make.  Just kidding.  In case you didn't know, I'm allergic to alcohol.  Yes, it includes all kinds of alcohol.  Even if it's clear without sulfides I will have a reaction.  It's really pretty.  Think temporary hives & swelling.  Yeah, it's great. Last night I went out to dinner with a group of girlfriends.  It was hot & humid...duh, it's summer in Alabama.  My hair was exceptionally big, but that's another story.  I asked my waiter if I could have a virgin margarita.  It's a limeade with salt, but hey, I was in the mood for it.  It was so pretty when he brought it out.  It was limey & I really wanted to use the glass as a salt lick, but decided to use my manners instead. The first sip was so refreshing.  After about 3 sips, I started wondering if there was some alcohol in the drink.  I was starting to laugh a little  more, and I noti...

Time, ugh.  I picked up E's senior pictures today  & then I started looking through pictures trying to find one of Elizabeth when she was little & found a bunch when all of mine were small.  I don't remember them growing so quickly.  I know didn't want them to grow up quite so fast & I think a small part of me has changed my mind.  There is a little piece that misses the crazy schedule and all the teaching moments ahead.  It seems they were all here & now most of them are gone.  It's funny because this is how I still see them, not how they are today.  I'll be ok...maybe the next time I see a screaming toddler, or a child that has projectile vomiting.  It has been a great ride so far & I will appreciate every second I see all my crazy kiddos no matter how old they are. Celebrating Life, ~ashley

The "most dreaded" phrase for all children and teenagers.  There are many who feel this phrase should be not used when talking to children.  They say it's vague and authoritarian.  I had an epiphany this weekend about what 'because I said so' really means & what it should mean to our children when we say it. When parents use 'because I said so' the first thing we want you, our children, to do is to have trust that the decision we have made is in your best interest.  Sometimes we don't have time to sit down and explain every thought that went into our final decision, but we need y'all to understand we have your best interest in our hearts. We need you to know we have years  of life's experiences under our belts.  We understand that in your teenage minds you are already grown-up, but let me assure you, you are not.  Oftentimes we will consult with other adults (some older & some our peers) to get to our decision if we are vacillat...

Everyday women are amazing.  I know many people look up to celebrities, but honestly, I know regular people who are incredible mothers and professionals.  They get up everyday, grind it out, and don't expect special treatment for doing the normal.  Family and friends are the ones ordinary women lean on, because no one thinks twice about the normal.  Everyday things accomplished by a non-celebrity go unnoticed, but you have a celebrity talk about or do anything , and people lose their ever-loving-minds.  It's nuts, and pregnancy is a big one. Have you seen some of the names celebrities come up with for their kids?  Just Google it...yikes.   There are those women who love being pregnant.  Their skin glows; their hair is silky smooth; and their nails are super strong.  They can eat what ever they like and they sleep beautifully.  Yeah, I don't like those people.  Just kidding; really am just jealous.  I fell into the lucky 10% o...

dance /dans/ verb 1 . move rhythmically to music, typically following a set sequence of steps. "their cheeks were pressed together as they danced" synonyms: sway ,  trip ,  twirl ,  whirl ,  pirouette ,  gyrate ;  More 2 . (of a person) move in a quick and lively way. "Sheila danced in gaily" synonyms: caper ,  cavort ,  frisk ,  frolic ,  skip ,  prance ,  gambol ,  jig ;  More noun 1 . a series of movements that match the speed and rhythm of a piece of music. I grew up dancing.  There is something about telling a story through movement and music that is cathartic and beautiful.  The story is told from the dancer's finger tips to the end of their toes.  Dancing requires core strength, bursts of power and balance.  Like all g...

I'm hard on my stuff.  I don't mean to be, but I am.  I guess I fall into the work hard/play hard category.  (or at least that's what I'm telling myself.)  It's something I didn't mean to pass onto the chicks, but I did.  Ugh, can we have anything around here that's not chipped or broken?  Feel free to giggle at the pic on the left, because it's pretty funny when you see it for the first time. Speaking of chipped or broken stuff...I have a love/hate relationship with my fitbit.  It's great because I roughly know how many steps I take a day & the amount of calories I burn.  I'm super competitive and it allows me to compete against others while making me get off my booty to do it.  At my age I need all the exercise I can get.  The muscles are not holding their tone as long as they used to, and they have to be worked pretty hard.  My first fitbit I had wouldn't keep a charge after a few months so the company sent me a replaceme...

Ugh stained sink This weekend our fam of 6 was able to spend some time together.  It's getting harder, but those moments are wonderful.  I talked to Harry earlier in the week and he wanted to know if I had some of that 'oxy stuff' that could get stains out of his shorts.  He wore them to work and got grease on them.  NOOOoooo!   Of course they are his nice shorts; and he probably tried washing and drying them to get the stains out; but set those stains right in.  Great. Oxyclean and very hot water I pulled my Oxyclean off the top of the dryer & went to my porcelain sink to soak them in very hot water, because that's supposedly how you remove grease stains.  A side note about my sink.  I think it's the original to the house.  It has seen its better days.  (I would love a copper sink, but am not willing to spend the money to get one; there is too much money going out.)  One of my children, and I won't name which one (co...

Not to brag, but (actually I am bragging here.  FYI, when someone says 'but' in the middle of a sentence, they are oftentimes contradicting themselves.) I have successfully taught three children how to drive.  Today, I begin my fourth and final journey in teaching the art of driving.  Don't kid  yourself, driving is an art.  Have you seen how half the people drive on the road?  Some of them need a few more lessons.  It's a ready and go kind of day! I used to joke that, with my brother being 7 years younger than I am, my mom just threw him the keys and made him teach himself how to drive.  Henry is 7 years younger than Hopson, and  I've been looking forward to having a chauffeur since Elizabeth turned 16.  I always have to drive everyone everywhere, so I'll be happy to sit, observe and teach from the passenger's side.  (Hopson is turning into his dad & likes me to drive him as well.)  Now I don't have to go to the groc...

We wear pink on Wednesdays. Suck.  That's right I said it.  Mean people suck.  I'm fuming right now!  My heart beating like a drum & hands shaking kind of mad.  Mean people, ugh!  I asked my friend if I could tell her story here about her encounter with some mean kids & I have her ok, but I'm changing her name. Jana is 24 weeks pregnant.  Not all of us are blessed with wonderful, glowing, easy pregnancies.  Some of us are sick and struggle through the 40 weeks of growing another human being inside our bodies.  Jana is one of these lucky few.  Did I mention she is also chasing a 2 year old around?  Talk about compounding your sickness and exhaustion. It's summer in Alabama, and if you live here you know that means hot and humid.  Add in that it's been raining a ton, which we need, but it jacks the humidity close to 100% & makes it feel even hotter.  Being comfortable while also trying to chase said toddl...

Hop's graduation from Auburn this May. First off, I know how weird this is.  I've posted two days in a row after not writing anything for almost a year.  All my coherent thoughts are finally surfacing after all this time. :) How my life has changed in 10 years!  10 years ago I was a crazy and stressed mom of 4 ages 5-12.  Fast forward to today & I'm still crazy, but I'm now a mom of 4 ages 15-22.  I don't know where those 10 years went, but they flew by.  While I was driving children places, teaching kids how to drive, cooking dinner, folding clothes, and monitoring homework, all my little chicks grew up.  I have always loved my children.  Duh, they're mine.  What I've really noticed over the last few years is that I like them, and I tell my children I like them.  At first they said:  "you have to we are your children", but that's an untrue statement.  I have to love them, but not like them.  I heard a mom say sh...