It’s been a long time since I last blogged. I know this because my last post was about my near-death experience giving birth to Mason, which was in honor of his birthday…seven weeks ago….

If I hadn’t remembered that fact, my absence still would have been apparent by the fact that I couldn’t remember my username. Or my password . Okay, I admit it: I couldn’t remember my blog URL. Happy now?

And why do I even bother to check the little box that says “Remember me”? It never does.

                  Blog: Password? 
                  Me: Hi, remember me? I made you? 
                  Blog: Password?
                  Me: Blog, I am your mother.
                  Blog: Password?

My failure to compose hasn’t been for lack of chaos. There’s been lots of chaos. Abundant chaos. Chaos overflowing like 6-people’s worth of laundry out of a pitiful wicker laundry basket. The problem is that either A) I get sidetracked by more chaos on my way to document the chaos that already happened, B) I compose a pithy blogpost in my mind, somebody interrupts my train of thought by asking why I’m talking to myself, and I forget that I was even thinking, or C)…um… I’m pretty sure I had a “C” when I started this list, but I have no idea what it was….

The other major stumbling block has been the fact that my blog and I have this agreement that I won’t turn it into a forum for pointless ravings and rantings, and it will remember me if I check the box that says, “Remember me”. Only one of us is keeping our end of the bargain. But if you nice people are going to spend ten minutes of your time vicariously experiencing gross ineptitude  through my leopard-spotted reading glasses, then I feel I should at least thank you by wrapping it up into a neat little package and tie it with a bow.  If you’re going to be so kind as to hop on my train, I should get you somewhere, right? But making sense out of chaos is no easy task, and so I’ve chosen the path of avoidance.

Now, it’s probably obvious by now that I’m back on track, sitting at my computer typing, and ready to share with you a glimpse of the chaos. Obvious, yes, but also dead wrong. When I sat down, I had high hopes of telling you how the two older kids and I spent our day walking up and down one of the busiest-yet-least-interesting streets in town while my Suburban was having the a/c replaced, and how we ate Sno Cones at Bahama Bucks and the toilet is so high off the ground that our feet dangled (one of us who is not me actually had to get off the toilet by falling into a fake plant). But for the life of me, I can’t think of any way to make a freakishly-high commode relevant.

But I did get this really funny email today, courtesy of my writing buddy Helen Hanson (HelenHanson.com), to whom I owe an email regarding her generous offer for me to participate in a new blogging endeavor. See? I’m not even composing email these days. Anyway, for lack of anything better to share with you, I’m going to share half of this funny email with you. I’m saving the other half in case I’m still deep in avoidance next week.

You probably shouldn’t drink anything hot and/or fizzy while you read this, unless you enjoy having hot and/or fizzy liquid come out your nose.

A paraprosdokian (from the Greek meaning “beyond” and “expectation”) is a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe or reinterpret the first part. It is frequently used for humorous or dramatic effect, sometimes producing an anticlimax . For this reason, it is extremely popular among comedians and satirists. Some paraprosdokians not only change the meaning of an early phrase, but also play on the double meaning of a particular word, creating a syllepsis.

I asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn’t work that way. So I stole a bike and asked for forgiveness.

Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.

I want to die peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather. Not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car.

Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.

The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it’s still on the list.

Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

If I agreed with you we’d both be wrong.

We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.

War does not determine who is right – only who is left.

Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.

The early bird might get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

Evening news is where they begin with ‘Good evening’, and then proceed to tell you why it isn’t.

To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research.

A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station.

How is it one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?

Some people are like Slinkies … not really good for anything, but you can’t help smiling when you see one tumble down the stairs.

Dolphins are so smart that within a few weeks of captivity, they can train people to stand on the very edge of the pool and throw them fish.

I thought I wanted a career, turns out I just wanted pay checks.

A bank is a place that will lend you money, if you can prove that you don’t need it.

Whenever I fill out an application, in the part that says “If an emergency, notify:” I put “DOCTOR”.

I read a book last week.

Seriously–I did. Cover to cover. Including the prologuey-intro part. I had to lock myself in the bathroom to do it, but I read it.

No doubt you are asking yourself, what book could be so riveting that Ashley finally broke her longstanding record of not managing to read anything longer than SkippyJon Jones? Well, I’ll tell you, because I hate to keep you in unnecessary suspense.

The book is My Bangs Look Good…And Other Lies I Tell Myself: A Tired Supergirl’s Search for Truth, by Susanna Foth Aughtmon.

Right off the bat the title had me hooked, because there is a reason why I don’t wear bangs. Just sayin’.

Now, I have to tell you—this woman is my soul sistah. Case in point: in relating a story of an unfortunate laundry injury, Aughtmon writes, “I always knew the laundry was a tool of Satan.” OHMYGOSH—ME TOO!!! Can I get a “AMEN,” fellow soul sistahs?

Aughtmon’s writing is fresh and conversational. Her anecdotes are you’d-better-read-this-with-your-legs-crossed-if-you’ve-given-birth-more-than-once funny. But it’s not just a collection of funny stories. See, each chapter addresses a different lie the Liar (that would be Satan) uses to defeat us Tired Supergirls (oh— when you read the book, you get to be a member of the Tired Supergirl club. I mean, there’s not like a form to fill out, or an official membership card stuck between page 12 and 13 or anything like that. It’s like a secret sistahood of superness. And tiredness…).

On the subject of whether God really cares about each of us as individuals (because you know the Liar would love to have us believe that He doesn’t), Aughtmon uses the example of  her love for her own children:

“I am surrounded by three small people almost all day long…they still tend to cling to my legs or lie on me or breath very near to my face almost every day. Every once in a while I just yell out, ‘Everybody give me some room!’ This works for about 3.7 seconds, and then I am back to being swarmed. But the thing is, I would do anything for these three little people. I think about them almost all the time. I will do kung fu on anyone who tries to harm them. (I don’t even know kung fu, but I’m sure it will come to me if and when I need it.)”

 I personally like the image of Jesus breaking out the spiritual kung fu on my behalf.

One of my constant struggles is hearing God’s voice. Sometimes I think that because it took me so long to finally submit to listening to Him (okay, in the interest of truth and accountability and stuff, the whole submitting thing is still a work in progress. Don’t judge.), that my ears aren’t tuned in to Him like they should be. I am easy pray for the Liar when he says (in Susanna’s words): “Obviously, God has someone else he would rather talk to. There are certain people that he talks to, like pastors and small group leaders and Beth Moore, and then there is you. You? Not so much.”

Of course, God has given us the truth in His word. In each chapter, Susanna cites applicable scripture that speaks to the tired supergirl’s heart to confront the lies.

Many of my friends—not just my real life, hug you on the way out of church friends, but those sweet cyber-friends that I am so blessed to have met through the blog and the FB Down syndrome community—have told me, “You need to take everything you blog about and put it into a book.” I love when people say that, because it makes me feel all loved and validated and stuff. And I’d love to write a book like that, if I ever finish the novel I’m {THIS CLOSE} to finishing.

But while you’re waiting (and knowing me, it could be a long wait), you should totally check out My Bangs Look Good. Just don’t forget to cross your legs….

Seriously, go get the book. It’s available NOW at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group. Oh, and from Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/goodbangs  And in the meantime, you can check out Susanna’s blog, Confessions of a Tired Supergirl. It’s on my blogroll, over ———-> there.

I love wordsmithery, shopping for words in the rich aisles of the English language, meshing and moshing and molding them together to paint pictures vernacular and spectacular. And like Ozymandius and his ill-fated stone monument to greatness, I dream that my words will live on when I’m gone. Because I’m all delusional and stuff, too….

About a week ago, I penned a quick blurb and posted it as my Facebook status. A few minutes later, a friend commented and copied it for her status. It’s an awesome feeling, knowing that something you wrote resonated with a fellow traveller on this journey. Another reposted, then another, and soon I was seeing people comment on their postings, saying things like “I like this—I’m going to copy and post it, too!”

Somewhere along the way, as I saw my words posted and reposted, taking on a life of their own, reaching people I never could have reached on my own, a thought crossed my mind.

“I’m not getting the credit for this.”

Admitting that makes me cringe.  While a whole community bound together by nothing more than a thread that runs through an extra chromosome in our children saw truth and spread truth, I started pouting that my by-line wasn’t attached to it. Nevermind the fact that somewhere in the wild word, someone might read those words and be changed by them. That person would never realize that it was MY words that changed them.

I related this story to my family today at the lunch table. I asked them if they could identify the sin behind my emotions, and before I had the “-n” tacked on to the end of “si-” Ethan blurted out “PRIDE!” 

Ah, there it was, obvious even to a 10 year old. Pride, we learned this past week, is the root of all contention. The elevation of self-interest over common good. Not to say that my words were such an enormous, world changing contribution to the common good. But boy, did I act as if they were. God’s gift to Facebook.

I’m not going to post the post-in-question here. Believe me, I want to. I toyed with the idea of starting out this post with the quote-in-question. But I’m not going to. Call it an exercise in exorcising the spirit of pride.

A few days later, it happened again. Only this time, the quote was something I’d written a few months back, recirculating among the Facebook community. And here it was, being posted and commented on and reposted. I felt that familiar monster clawing through into my consciousness. And I stopped myself. What does it matter whether anyone knows whose words those are? Isn’t it wonderful that I am part of this community of wonderful people who strive to empower each other in the fight for truth? Isn’t the far greater issue that someone might read one of these posts and see Down syndrome in a different, more truthful light?

It’s been a week of growing for me, to be sure. (And not just because I’ve fallen off of my diet and eaten an entire loaf of homemade bread and 3 boxes of Triscuits and 1/2 a bottle of Shiraz this week. Tomorrow’s another day….)  I’m honored that someone saw promise and hope and truth in my words, and that rather than tossing them into the FB dust-bin that is the “older post” page, they shared them.  That is something real. It doesn’t matter whether I get any credit for it.

At least, not until I’m a published author with an agent and an editor and an option deal. Then I’m pretty sure it’ll be copyright infringement….

As a writer, homeschooling mom, and lover of opera, I thought I would inject a little culture into my blog today.  So here, for your reading pleasure, a selection of haiku inspired by my day.

Monday kicked my butt

Nothin’ surprising ’bout that

Me and Monday…ugh.

**********************

Stupid, stupid dog

Shredding diaper on my floor

Why do you eat poo?

*******************************

Wasn’t I just sick?

Run over by a Mack truck.

Go get your own milk.

**********************************

Velcro monkey boy

Doesn’t want his diaper changed

I need hazard pay.

***************************************

Up extra early.

Didn’t make any difference.

Always running late.

***********************************

Can’t leave in PJs–

My New Year’s Resolution

Fail. Fail. Fail. Fail. Fail.

*****************************************

Garage door opener

won’t close when it gets too cold.

That’s when I need it.

*************************************************

Low Coolant? For Real?

Stupid lying dashboard light.

Hope I make it home….

***************************************************

Hurk. Hurk. Hurk. Hurk. Hurk.

Someone find the stupid cat!

On my shoe? Lovely….

*********************************************

Wiggles. Veggietales.

Wiggles. Veggietales. Wiggles.

Why some moms take meds.

**********************************************

Ssshh. I am hiding.

They will never find me here.

Dang. I spoke too soon.

****************************************

Yes, I know it’s cold.

We don’t own the propane co.

Go put on your socks.

****************************************

Cook, clean, teach, kiss, read.

Dad brought animal crackers.

I am chopped liver.

*********************************************

Thank you God for clothes

Piled in baskets everywhere.

Wish they’d fold themselves….

***********************************

Two bounty hunters

stalking through my living room

They want spaghetti.

*********************************************

Burned the chicken–oops.

What will we have for dinner?

Got no back-up plan.

****************************************

Giggling, snuggling, warm

Hugs and butterfly kisses

Man, I love my life.

I have not been in a posting kind of mood lately. Don’t get me wrong—life has given me the usual copious amount of material. But I’ve been wrapped up in some new adoption developments, and I just haven’t been able to channel my creative self. Not even when I walked past the guilty-looking dog, right into my bedroom–where said guilty-looking dog had shredded a dirty diaper in the middle of the carpet. I mean, if that doesn’t just scream INSPIRATION, I don’t know what does.

But then—bloggy-salvation! CJ over at The Crazy Hip Bloggers featured me as the BOTW (Blogger of The Week). Ta-dah!  Luckily, I answered her interview questions a couple of weeks ago, back when I was feeling a little less blaaaaaah. So head on over and check it out. After all, it’s my very first interview. I feel almost famous. Kindasorta….

Read the interview HERE!

It’s nice to be appreciated.

I’m blessed enough to have 4 amazing children who—-when they’re not destroying my house or trying to convince me that yes-they-are-actually-going-to-die-of-thirst-if-they-don’t-go-get-a-drink-of-water-BEFORE-doing-math-drills or plotting to reduce the pint-sized population of MoTopia by one—-are actually extremely grateful and appreciative. They draw me pictures and tell me stuff like “I’m so glad you’re my mommy. If I had some other mommy, I’d run away from home and come live with you.” Isn’t that the sweetest? And I’d totally hide them in the closet when the police came to look for them, because they’re really cool.

Even The Hubby tells me he appreciates me—sometimes even spontaneously.

And although I don’t doubt their sincerity in the least, each of them kind of has a vested interest in keeping  She-Who-Decides-Whether-To-Make-Pizza-or-Split-Pea-Soup happy.

But when an unbiased individual from beyond these 4 walls expresses her sincere appreciation—now that’s the makings of a little trip to Egoville, population: one.

So when Sari at Sx3 in SC told me she’d tagged me for a Kreative Blogger award…well, I got all warm and fuzzy. Which is something, because it is still freakishly cold here in Texas.

Thanks, Sari! I am honored, and kind of scared—it’s a lot of pressure for a neurotic person like me to handle! Thank you, and I appreciate it!

Here are the rules for accepting this award:
1) Thank the person giving the award
2) Copy the award to your blog 
3) Place a link to their blog
4) Name 7 things people don’t know about you
5) Nominate 7 bloggers
6) Place a link to those bloggers
7) Leave a comment letting those bloggers know about the award

Okay, now I have to try and come up with 7 things you don’t already know about me, which is hard because if they were interesting I’d have already shared them here, right? Hmmmm…..

1. During my 4th delivery, the nurses at my OB’s office and upstairs on the postpartum floor were watching the feed from my little blippy-machine remotely in tears, because they fully expected that either one or both of us weren’t going to survive.

2. I was both a heavy-metal headbanger and a National Merit Finalist in high school.

3. My dream of pursuing an acting career was killed by an angry nun.

4. I spray painted my name on the Berlin Wall under the watchful eye of an East German guard with a very big weapon.

This is getting kinda fun….

5. The least annoying Wiggle is Anthony.

6. (i wasn’t actually born in Texas…i’m from Connecticut….sssshhhhh—that’s just between you and me. Not that there’s anything wrong with Connecticut–it’s a beautiful place. But would you recognize the Connecticut flag? Are people afraid of messin’ with Connecticut? Does their football team have a cool song and cool hand symbol? Any good Connecticut battle cries? I rest my case….)

7. I want to go to Morocco and buy silver bracelets in Marakesh and eat in Tangiers (I mean, I’m sure I would eat in Marakesh, too. As long as I’m there, right? I mean, I’m not going to be like–oh, no, nothing for me till we get to Tangiers) and take an overnight camel trek through the desert. I don’t know if they actually do overnight camel treks through the desert in Morocco, but doesn’t it sound cool? The Hubby reminds me that deserts get cold at night, but I figure that if there actually are treks, the people who do them probably already know that and have it covered. I figure they have to have tents, right? The Hubby doesn’t think I’m tough enough to trek through the desert, which makes me all the more determined. He thinks that’s kinda cute. Let’s see how cute he thinks it is when I’ve dragged his butt onto a camel out in the middle of the desert just to prove him wrong. Do they have pirates in the desert?

What’s next? Oh, yeah–now I nominate 7 of my bloggy soul-sistahs. I mean, I guess I could nominate bloggy soul-brothahs, too, but I’m pretty sure I don’t have any yet. This is going to be hard—I follow way more than 7 fabulous blogs, and it’s hard to choose…. So here (in no particular order) are 7 of my way cool bloggy reads:

Helen @ Helen Hanson —my writing buddy extroardinaire.

Brandy, @ Not So Average Mama

Renee, @ My Special K’s 

Nettie, @ Nettie Hartsock.com –you really want to optimize the potential of your blog & your social networking in general? Then you should totally check out Nettie’s blog.

Jean the Resource Queen, @ Resource Queen

Cathy, @  A Walk In Lily’s Garden

Rebecca @ The Bates Motel

Okay, I’m going to come right out and cop to the fact that I really don’t know what the word “zen” means. I think I have some vague concept, but my grasp is tenuous at best. I just really wanted to use it as a post title.

I’ve been wallowing in self-pity the last couple of days. I have officially cleared the first hurdle to being an actual novelist: my first rejection letter. Actually, it was an e-mail, one of what I’ve been told are the scores–possibly even hundreds–that await every novelist. And it would probably be more accurate to call it the second hurdle, because I’m fairly certain the first hurdle was actually writing the novel.

While I’ve been wallowing, a big ol’ Texas sized brisket has been sitting in the bottom of my fridge, waiting to fullfill its destiny of becoming a mouth-watering thing of beauty on a dinner platter. I just haven’t been in the mood. I’m in a “fix yourself a bowl of cereal and call it dinner, kids” kind of mood.  I’ve made grilled cheese sandwiches twice this week–only the second time I added ham and pretended it was a whole different thing. I haven’t had the energy to think about the brisket.

For one thing, if you do a brisket right, it’s a little time consuming. First, you have to rub it all down with your own special uber-secret recipe brisket rub. If you’re out of uber-secret brisket rub, first you have to concoct more, THEN rub it down. Then you have to sear it all over. If it’s a whole brisket—which this one is—you really need to cut it in half or even thirds first. Or second—after concocting and prior to rubbing. See, I told you it’s complicated.

And the only pan I own that’s big enough to sear a whole brisket–even one that’s cut up into several pieces–has these big handles that come up on each side, and at least once during the brisket-searing process, I will forget about those hot, metal handles and the whole exercise will suddenly become a forearm-searing process, after which my children will go around calling me “Emo” for several days.

Then there’s the matter of the gravy. That’s right, you heard me. Gravy. Don’t get me wrong–I love me some bbq sauce. But for my brisket, I use the drippings—savory sweet chipotle drippings—and whip up a batch of sweet chipotle brisket gravy. My family would look at me like I’d served unfrosted cake if I gave them brisket without gravy. But it is, like the brisket itself, a labor of love: one which involves the same pan and more forearm searing.

But it’s not just the time commitment. There’s also the matter of the spirit of the brisket. To me, brisket is a celebration. It can be as mundane as celebrating that we’ve survived another week without a trip to the ER, but there’s gotta be some celebrating. I don’t feel like celebrating right this minute.

One of my wallowing rituals–which is a direct result of the fact that evidently Fall released a sneak preview, which has been playing all over North Texas since Saturday— has become sitting on the front porch swing with my mug o’tea several times a day to reflect. It’s one of the veryfine things about living in the country–lots of quiet, punctuated only by crickets and birds.

But this morning when I sat down—-which I did only after thouroughly checking the swing for black widows, which is one of the notveryfine things about living in the country—-there was a whole lot of something going on at the neighbors. Lots of cars–I’d say close to twenty. That many cars at 8:30am is never a good thing.

Turns out, the grandfather is really sick. Really, really sick. As in might-not-make-it sick. Mesothelioma. He has surgery scheduled in a couple of weeks. The doctors hope that it will give him a few more months to a year, but there’s a big chance he won’t survive the surgery.

Dang.

Not only that, but these kids just lost their other grandfather a few weeks ago.

Dang again.

Amazing how our troubles shrink like shadows when exposed to the light of someone else’s. I’m reminded of the words of Psalm 118, “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” Life is a celebration, each and every day of it. We exist day-to-day along a continuum between grief and elation. Hopefully, we’ll spend more time toward the latter. But in all our circumstances, there is cause for rejoicing: the love of friends and family, the providence of the Creator. Sunsets and singing birds. In good times, we inhale joy through our experiences; in bad, we exhale it in the form of the memories that sustain us. But in all things, let us find our way to the celebration.

Okay, I guess I’m done wallowing, or reflecting, or whatever I want to call my little pity party.

Because there’s a family next door that needs a brisket.