Reckless Abandon:

Means, just go for it without worrying about anything.

Easier said than done. What happens from the time when you are a teenager about to enter adulthood and the world seems SO full of excitement... and the spot I am now where the world in general, seems almost terrifying. How do we somehow lose the will to be dangerous when we are suddenly unleashed and allowed to be as dangerous as we want to be? What happened to my desire to be reckless? When did things start becoming so complex? I want to do something daring. I want to have good stories to tell my children one day! I don't know what it is yet, maybe skydiving or cage diving with a great white. I'm going to experience the exhilaration of ignoring the consequence of an obviously dangerous decision and I'm going to live to tell you about it!

Goal of the day: start living again, with reckless abandon.

Reaching Towards Simplicity

Is it wrong that I am aspiring towards a simpler life? I suppose most people want to achieve more as they get older. But what is "more" anyways??

These are the things I want:

I want a house in the middle of no where with enough land for me to become a fabulous farmer woman. I want gardens and chickens and a goat or two. I want to can and freeze my food. I want permanent dirty fingernails from digging in the dirt!! *that sounds so gross* I want to become an amazing baker! I want to go to bed exhausted and fulfilled every single night. I don't EVER want to use good customer service again! :) Auh.. these are the things I'm working towards. Not more, but less.

Can't I Just Rent Forever?

Aaron and I are buying a house! Why do people act like this is so exciting?? They must not have actually ever bought a house themselves because this sucks! I apologize ahead of time for my negative attitude. It's very unlike me. I just don't understand why it has to be SO difficult. Never mind, I take that back. It may have something to do with the near downfall of our entire economy. But come on guys, seriously? We're not asking for much!

There is a bird making it's home in the bottom of the pool table we have stored on our back porch. Every morning for the last week I've torn down little bits of moss and grass and sticks. Every morning they are right back in place. I gave up. The bird did not. He's got quite a nice place for himself, er.. herself now? I decided that if that's not a perfect example of God or someone out there trying to teach me a valuable life lesson, I don't know what is. I'm not giving up.

It's Actually Going To Happen

unless I get pregnant before then.. ugh. LOL!

Scratch that, we are actually going to go to Portugal. I made it totally official by creating a facebook event page for it and everything, haha. I put it out there in the universe and now I have to follow through. So the date is set, well not the exact date but I know it will be the end of May 2011. I know I want to be in Portugal for our 2 year wedding anniversary which is May 30th.

Al Jr. and Joann are going to Portugal this April. That's what really spawned this all again. Aaron and I have been talking about going to Portugal since we got together 6 years ago. That is all we have ever done, talk. We throw around the "one day we'll go" ALL THE TIME! Well then, out of no where.. AJ and Joann are going. Like, they're really going... they bought the tickets. We started thinking hard about this concept. Doing something.. instead of just talking about it? We thought hard about just going with them. It isn't going to work. We are going to try (again) to buy a house this May. They are going in April, you see our dilemma? But, there is no reason at all we can't plan our very own trip and actually make this happen, right? RIGHT!

So we're going. I have NO earthly idea what I am doing. I have a LOT to learn. There are a few things I know for sure I'd like to do.

First- We will need to stay with Uncle Joe for at least a day or two, otherwise he'd be deeply offended. Plus I love that jolly old man.

Second- I want to stay at the famous hotel in Lisbon. It's the one Samantha Brown stays at on her trip to Portugal. I think the hotel might be pricey so 1 night will suffice. But it's breathtakingly beautiful and I've always said if I got the chance to go, I'd stay there for a night. Aww.. here I've googled it. It's the Pestana Palace. Absolutely amazing.

http://www.pestanapalacelisbon.com/index.html

Third- I want to possibly visit the Algarve. I found another good website that maps out Itineraries for you. I'm not sure how we will manage this trip. I mean there will be at least 6 of us. Probably more. We aren't all going to fit in one car and our luggage certainly won't! But I'm trying to stay positive here. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can. Here's that website.

http://www.visitportugal.com/Cultures/en-US/default.html

Fourth- Final request (for now), I want to go whale watching. I haven't found a good resource for this one yet. I know they have trips in the Azores you can take but I haven't found one off the coast of Portugal yet.

I'm excited. I really need to bust out the old Rosette Stone and get crackin on my Portuguese since we will most likely not have our translator (Al) with us for the trip.

Well, there are my ideas for now. Written down so that I cannot forget them :). Just think come June 2011 I will be blogging with all of our fabulous stories, adventures, pictures from the trip. CAN'T WAIT!

Mountains and Bears and Hiking.. OH MY!

I survived! We went camping this weekend and here I am back in front of my computer mostly in one piece:). All joking aside, I really enjoyed myself. I mean I could have gone without descending one thousand feet down a mountain only to realize I had to climb back up those one thousand feet (yeah my legs are thanking me for that one). But hey, it was an experience.

The mountains were beautiful! There really is something magical about places like that. You come back feeling refreshed and mostly in touch.. with something (I'm not sure what, maybe yourself) that you were not so in touch with before.

The best part of the trip for me.. besides the usual comedic drunken night.. was when we were leaving! And no.. not because we were leaving.. but because we saw a bear! A real, live, not in a zoo, black bear! It was SO awesome. I wanted to see one the entire trip and here we are driving out of the park when I see him. He was just truckin' through the woods munching on bugs and such. We pulled over and jumped out of the car. We then proceeded to run (somewhat chase) him down the road taking pictures of him. I realize that sounds a bit absurd but if you had been there you wouldn't think so. He was amazing and had no intention of bothering us.. he really didn't even care that we were there. I keep calling him a "he" because it must have been a male. He was gigantic and just so powerful... I can only picture him as being a he. I'll put up some of the pictures we took but none of them do him a bit of justice. I don't care the pictures were more for proof that we actually saw him. I was there and that's all that matters to me.

The Spiderman Chronicles

Before you read any further, let me clarify. I do realize that as a woman it is my duty to fear spiders. I am supposed to screech and run and/or stomp at the sight of the little guys. For whatever reason, I never adopted this "attractive" quality. I, on the other hand, feel bad for them. I mean, it must be a tough life... being the most hated and feared insect out there. When really, if you take the time to watch and pay attention, spiders are really quite beautiful.. magnificent even. So there I said it, my name is Ashley.. I am a woman.. and I LIKE SPIDERS! (unless they are of the poisonous variety)

I'm not sure when it all started. A few days ago I suppose. I wonder into my bathroom and what do I find? A silly little spazzed out spider. This guy was teeny. Again I realize that as a woman every spider should be a threat to my well being, but I see past that. I could have spit on this spider and injured it. It was harmless and cute and quite attentive. Every where I went in the bathroom it spun around to face me. It's probably very instinctual to fear me. Not just because I am a giant either. Mostly, because of thousands of generations of spider stompers that have gone before me. Now, I'm getting off track. Where was I... oh yes, so I walk in the bathroom and there he is. My little spiderman. I decide to try and save him which is my usual reaction. I attempt to scoop him into a cup using the flat side of a comb laying on the counter. I fail. He is SO small and fragile that I'm afraid I'll injure him. So I scamper off and figure he'll be gone by my next visit to the potty.

I come back later that day and much to my surprise he is not gone. He's in the same spot that I left him in. Now, I'm starting to bond with this spider. I leave the bathroom and tell Aaron that I have a spiderman pet and he better not smoosh him. I've started to call all spiders, spidermans. I get it from Aaron's crazy Uncle Abel. He's the cutest little Portuguese man you'd ever meet and he loves animals or creatures, rather. Anyways, he calls spiders "spidermans" and it's just so stinkin cute and catchy. I do realize that saying spidermans is probably killing you grammar nazi's out there but then again so probably, is my grammar! haha.

Off track again.. yesterday morning I was getting ready for work and the little guy was still in there! I realized that maybe I should help him.. what if he's starving! I remember seeing a dead fly on the window sill in the living room so I go scoop it up and bring it to my buddy. He runs. The fly is 4 times his size. I sit down on the toilet seat and watch. He inches slowly, so slowly that you can barely tell he's moving, towards the fly. I'm amazed. He finally gets up to the fly, assesses the situation and jumps on top of him. I suppose maybe he tears a chunk off, I'm not so certain. I decide when I get home I need to try to capture him once again.

I get home and head for the bathroom. Spiderman is gone. GONE! I look in every nook and cranny and he's just gone. I'm imagining the worst, he's crawled up and died in a crack somewhere cause I starved him. I accuse Aaron of stomping on him. He thinks I've lost it. I go to bed that night worried for my little guy.

This morning I wake up and head for the bathroom (I spend too much time in there, lol). He's back. Waiting at the door for me begging for help! I run to find a piece of paper and a cup. I scoop him up and carry him outside. I place him in a dilapidated herb garden we have from this past summer. I feel content. I did feel a twinge of sadness, of selfishness maybe. I'm sad he won't be in the bathroom for me to admire anymore! But I'm happy he's found a forever home in my herb garden. So, there it is. The story of a bonding experience between a girl and a little spiderman.

Here you see my little spiderman on our bathroom floor.

I shot this right before I scooped him up and took him to his new home. Ain't he cute?

You can hardly see him but there is. Happy as a clam.. or a spider.

I'm Back!!

Hello World,

It's me. I have to admit.. I wasn't really interested in blogging, not at all. I started one for something to do one afternoon and pretty much forgot it had existed. I am terrible about completing anything I start.

Well anyways, I'm back and I'd like to commit myself to updating here on my life in general. Whether anyone is reading... or I am just writing to myself.

When I was in High School facebook and myspace did not exist. My friends and I kept in touch via freeopendiary.com. It wasn't until today that I realized that opendiary was like an old school blog! It was much less sophisticated but even still. The basic concept was to write, farely often, about your life and everything in it. I loved opendiary! I wish I had printed it out and saved it all those years ago but alas my teenage writings have long since been lost. But hey, here I am ready to start anew.

On a much different note. The hubs and I are going camping this weekend! We're headed to the mountains and I must admit I have a small fear of being eaten by a bear. I'm pushing that one back inside though because I know the trip will be fantastic. The weather is absolutely gorgeous right now and I think the fresh air will do us all some good.

Well, I guess I better go perform some of my wifely duties around the house.. Goodbye for now!