Girl on Her Own

With recently ending my 3-year relationship (hi, Zach -- I hope you're doing OK), I am really trying to get back to who I am and the things I like to do and speak up for.  Plus, I am also on my own again, which I have not had since my first two years of college.

This means I am digging up all my old skills on How To Take Care of Myself.

In a way, it's been pretty comical, and I am actually toying with starting up an entirely separate blog, just to journal some of the crap I have been getting myself into.

A preview:

1) Ashley vs. the Pottery Barn Desk
With some of the items we split up during the separation, the bigger items that Zach took were the bed and our computer desk.  (I have been sleeping on a mattress on the floor since February because of this, but that's a different story.)  However, I have stepped up and finally ordered my very own computer desk!  It is from Pottery Barn and it is the one nice thing I am allowing myself to get.  I am very proud of it.  It showed up on Monday.  In three different boxes.  I was dumbfounded.  However, the very nice, very young, UPS man in the brown shorts helped me carry the boxes up the steps of my apartment!  One felt like it was holding a small elephant inside 60 pounds of material.  Now the boxes are here, staring me in the face, and I have myself a little weekend project to figure this out and assemble this puppy.  Yeah, more to come on this one I think.

2) Ashley vs. The Random Act of Kindness 
Spontaneously helped a young kid last weekend by pushing his stalled car out of the middle of a 6-lane intersection outside of Easton. Poor guy was hanging his head in embarrassment when I came upon him, didn't look older than 17. No thanks to an intersection full of honking cars, with drivers that went speechless after they saw me do all of this in jeans and open-toed heels, dressed to the nines like a total girl.  (P.S. The shoes were my new ones I bought while I was in Germany!  My European summer sandals!  AH!)  But you know what? I felt GREAT! I called all the shots, got help, stopped traffic, and got him off to a side street within a minute and a half. And then I was gone, back on my way. What a cool feeling to come to someone's "rescue," I like it. Good deed done for the day! 

3) Ashley vs. The Disgusting Clogged Shower Drain
Long hair on a woman entrances a lot of people.  It flows, it shines, it is pretty, you can style it in many different ways...but it is also a lot to take care of.  I should have known.  Slowly, ever so slowly, my shower drain has not been swallowing quite like it used to.  My feet have been getting a built-in bath each time I shower.  Time to go in and de-clog the drain from my precious long hairs that I have shampooed out.  And today, I conquered!  It wasn't so much sticking the spiral chord down inside the drain to pull my hairs out -- again, already learned how to do that one in college in my Milwaukee apartment -- but today it was more figuring out how to unscrew the damn drain cap off the drain!  Thank you to YouTube!!  Woo hoo!  I got my little hand tools, my rubber gloves, sat down next to the tub, and took charge.  Now I am about to go shower and get ready for night shift.  My toes will be happy, and hopefully, not so soggy.  Oh, and by the way....I am convinced that any sort of plumbing work is the most disgusting part of being a homeowner or renter.  OMG.


More to come, just give me a few days...!  Jeez.