Ashley

Ashley
26 POSTS 89 COMMENTS
Ashley is a back-up dancer for circa 1989 Janet Jackson in her dreams and a mother of two preschoolers in her waking life. An Alamo City native, she spent her college and post-college years in TN, CA and AZ (all lovely states completely incompetent in the fine art of breakfast tacos). After crying everyday in radio sales, working next to a sheep pen at a rural telecom, being totally confused in agriculture, and completely giving up and drawing cartoons of co-workers at an online university, she finally found her calling in grant writing for a non profit arts organization. And then her husband (who, no joke, watches college football for a living) was like, “Hey! We can move to San Antonio to be closer to your family if you want to!” And then Ashley was like, “Hey! That’s good timing because remember all that drinking I was doing last week because I thought I had really bad PMS and wanted to power through it? Well, that PMS is a baby!” So they moved to S.A. and Ashley found a job with a rural non profit, but when she tried to go back to work after the baby, living on no sleep with a newborn and a traveling husband unable to share in the workload, she quickly learned she was about five seconds away from a mental breakdown. Cut to today where she is a full time mom, loving the freedom to run all over the city each day with her kids, despite a 98% decrease in her ability to pee alone/do less than 19 loads of laundry each week. She chronicles her most embarrassing childhood moments and photos at This is Me at 13-ish (http://meat13.tumblr.com), in hopes that she never forgets that as difficult as it is to be a parent, it is just as much of a struggle to be a kid.

Unboxers: Your Child’s 12 Favorite YouTube Friends

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Hieeeeee, and welcome to the terrible world of the internet, where your child’s friends are all 30 years old and live on YouTube! Wait, was that too alarmist?  If it makes you feel better, at least three of...

The World’s Greatest Marriage Tips

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Ladies and gentlemen, if the movies Gone Girl and This is 40 have taught me anything, it’s that there are two types of marriages: the kind where you can joke about putting your spouse...

Passover Events in San Antonio

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Time to get out the seder plate you made in second grade and your grandma's complimentary Maxwell Coffee Haggadah! It's nearly Pesach! For a listing of Passover events and activities happening around San Antonio, read below: This...

20 Reasons Nancy Drew Needs Your Help More Than Anastasia Steele

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Despite very real and horrific human rights violations escalating throughout the world, the United States is STILL focused on the personal safety and emotional and psychological health of fictional character Anastasia Steele. Is her...

15 Signs You’re Living With Your Coworkers

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I’m a stay-at-home mom with two preschool-aged kids. Many are the days I miss working in an office and the camaraderie of adult coworkers. Are you like me? Do you miss those extra hours of...

Totally Sketchy Books for Kids

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Good grief, you guys. Am I the only person grabbing books off a shelf for my kids without reading them first? I mean, sometimes I’ll flip through a few pages, but if I’m being...

Blending Jewish and Christian Traditions

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Of course there now exists The Mensch on a Bench.   And of course I bought one. In a moment of parenting desperation, my husband and I discussed using an Elf on the Shelf this year as...

Thoughts on Parenthood: How to Not Raise a Jerk

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Bullying. Getting bullied. Speaking your mind. Thinking before you speak. Standing up to peer pressure. Not saying “butt” so much. Using good manners. Respecting yourself. Respecting others. Having patience. Practicing empathy. All parts of my running list of “Big Important Things” I want to teach...

Halloween in the Eighties: Then and Now

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Don’t be jealous of me you guys, but my Halloween Pinterest board has 247 amazing pins on it right now! To start, I’m making a quaint pennant banner to hang from my mantle that spells...

Should You Let Your 4.5 Year Old Decorate His Own Room?

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Should you let your child decorate his own room if he’s four and a half years old? I don’t know. Do I let my four and a half year old son decorate his own...

Mothering with a Migraine

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You want to know what a migraine is like? It’s like when Zeus birthed his daughter Athena, the most powerful woman in the kosmos, right smack out of his head and dressed in her full...

Life with a Lovey

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I willed the Gods for it. I dropped coins in a fountain for it. I spent 37 hours on Pinterest making an Oprah-approved vision board for it. And then it happened. I finally birthed a...