Books that have influenced my life

The following books have influenced my life greatly and they are books that I will keep on my bookshelf for the rest of my life. I reread them at least once a year.

1. Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller
2. Mere Churchianity by Michael Spencer (www.internetmonk.com)
3. Dangerous Wonder (The Adventure of Childlike Faith) by Michael Yaconelli
4. Safe People by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend
5. Messy Spirituality by Miachael Yaconelli
6. 70x7 and Beyond by Monty Christensen
7. To Own a Dragon by Donald Miller

First 10 songs that play when I set my Ipod to shuffle

I am online tonight going back and forth between playing Wetopia on facebook, reading through tweets on Twitter, catching up on emails, and taking breaks to pin a few things on Pinterest and all the while I have my Ipod going and I decided to set it to shuffle and blog the first 10 songs that play. So here they are:

1. Hangnail by Nickelback
2. The Way I Loved You by Taylor Swift
3. Exit to Exit by Ryan Cabrera
4. Won't Let You Go by Shannon Noll
5. Magic by Colbie Calliat
6. Hating Hollywood by Theory Of A Deadman
7. Billionaire by Travie McCoy (feat. Bruno Mars)
8. I Wish We'd All Been Ready by DC Talk
9. Enough by BarlowGirl
10. Harder To Breathe by Maroon 5

Things that make me happy:

In no particular order here are some things that make me happy...

Fuzzy socks (especially purple ones with aloe)
My Callie kitten kneeding on my chest
Surprise get well gift bags from Chris full of little things he knows I love....aka: green apple chapstick, fuzzy socks, dove dark chocolate etc.
When Chris sings "soft kitty" to me when I am sick
Signing in to facebook and seeing that I have notifications
My group of online girlfriends--Valerie, Julie, Monique, Chris and Candace
Music
Watching my kittens Oskar and Daizy play with the cat toy app on our Ipads
Bunny kisses from my Chrismouse
Nicknames between best friends...aka Chrismouse and Squeakamouse
Spending and sharing my life with my best friend
Reading a book that I absolutely cannot stand to put down until I finish it
When my favorite books end up as movies
Receiving a new book in the mail via Paperbackswap.com
Checking the mailbox and finding it full of mail
The color purple
Taking pictures of anything that peaks my interest
Traveling to and visiting the sites of new places
Thunderstorms
Singing along with my favorite songs
An Andy's date with Chris!
A cookie dough concrete with a splash of hot fudge from Andy's....yumm!!!
Late night drives with my best friend
Rain
Chris' silly accents :)
Staying in a hotel
Hearing my mom's ringtone when she calls me. "Yeah I got friends, yeah I got a lotta friends....oh shoot, it's my mom..."
Weather that is the perfect temp for me to wear jeans and my favorite hoodies
Playing Phase 10

Marry the Night

 

"Marry the Night is about marrying the darkness, marrying what is difficult about your life so I guess what the video is asking from all of you is to bear your struggles very close to your heart and have them be a part of you that you're proud of as opposed to being something that you are ashamed of." -Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga. If there was ever an enigma on this planet most people would say Lady Gaga would be it. People don't "get" why she dresses the way she does, acts the way she does, bears herself the way that she does. But for me, I totally get it. She is me. Just with a thousand times more guts, confidence and money. The truth is that the person underneath the Lady Gaga persona is not in any way an enigma. She is one of the very few, very fortunate people on this earth who have the courage to be completely forth coming, brutally  honest, real and extremely raw about their lives. She has been through a lot of shit in her life (as have I) and she could have let it literally kill her (like I could have many times over the years) but she chose to embrace her life and all of it's punches in the face and live her life. She is a genuinely beautiful person on the inside and she really cares about people and her musical career is her way of getting the message out to the world that no matter what we go through in life we can overcome it and be a better person because of it. May sound cheesy but for me it's exactly the inspiration I need right now. I love that she is so raw and real about her life. I love that she doesn't care what people think of her. I love her honesty. I love her creativity. And I especially love that she doesn't filter herself just to appease the masses. And I would even venture to say that she especially doesn't filter herself to appease any of the close friends or family that surround her day in and day out (unlike me). 

I have been sitting on this blog for over a week now trying to decide what my first "real" post was going to be about. I didn't know if I wanted a blog that was just kind of fluffy and fun or if I wanted to go the complete opposite and write only about my struggles in life. I kept thinking that people would probably get sick of hearing the struggles but you know what; who the hell cares. This blog is for me. This blog is to help me figure out who I really am as a person. Deep down, underneath all of the masks I wear and between the filtered lines that I speak each day....yeah, I need to get down to THAT person. I need to finally be able to embrace THAT person. Cause I really think that I will really like her when I finally find her. So I've decided that I'm just going to write each day and whatever comes out of me that day will be great....no matter what side of the spectrum it falls on.  

~Much love and hugs~

Ashlee