So….

here we go!

here is my first online article on relationships.  Check it out!

The more comments and subscriptions I get the better I do.  =)

Clarity Removes Awkwardness from Relationships

Adulthood is everything I imagined it to be and way more than I anticipated.  There is so much responsibility and an unavoidable necessity for focus, time management, determination, hard work, and patience.  Most-importantly, there is an overwhelming necessity to have your relationships in order, first with God and secondly with others.  If these two things are out-of-whack, it is amazing how much stress is added to your life as well as how your witness will be damaged and the joy taken out of your life.  Anyway…

My schedule for the upcoming 6 months is insane (What else is new?)  My big tasks seem endless.  My daytimer for 2010 is filling up like there’s no tomorrow!  For the next 6 months, I will be buried in a variety of tasks including wedding planning, 2 directed study courses from Master’s (Rhetorical Criticism and New Testament Survey II), 2(Distance Education) Courses from Master’s (Intro to Biblical Counseling and American Literature), working for A.D. Bowman & Son Lumber, Co, Inc. (Adam’s family’s mill), and writing 3-4 articles a week for Examiner.com as a relationship advice examiner. (I get paid to write on relationships!  How cool is that?!)  [Deep breathes...lol]

I am feeling pretty stoked (there’s a California word for you.. ) about it all, and at the same time trying to be realistic and not bury myself.  Too late? I half think so.  lol…oh, well.  What else is new?

So, as I just mentioned above, I did just get hired to write about relationships online.  I am officially a sub-contractor to Examiner.com and I have my own site to write as many articles as I want on whatever aspect of relationships and advice that desire to.  I’m super excited.  This opportunity will help get my name out there into the writing market as well as open other doors of influence internationally with whatever counsel I offer.  I really pray that this can be a neat witnessing/sharing tool for God’s glory. =)  Pray, pray, pray!

So… I will let you know when my first article is up and officially published.  Then check out my page, comment, and support me in this new career possibility!!  =)

Well, here is the moment you have all been waiting for: my engagement story. =)

This year I knew I was spending Thanksgiving with Adam and his family.  On Thanksgiving Eve (is that really a day?) we went out to the Texas Roadhouse with his parents and Chad, a close friend/adopted brother.  I knew we were getting close to the moment of engagement for numerous reasons.  I know Adam extremely well, and I began to notice a few comments he made to people about things happening in a few days and he was thinking too much about things he wouldn’t normally have talked about.  Anyway, I was holding my breath, hoping the time was coming soon, but at the same time, trying to keep my expectations low.  (Psssh…. is that possible when it comes to engagement???)

Like every home, there are certain traditions in the Bowman home.  One of those includes hunting on Thanksgiving morning.  Up to the point of Wednesday evening, Adam hadn’t decided if he was going (Gasp!)  I asked him that night as we drove home from the Roadhouse, and he responded by asking me what time I was coming over.  I really want him to be able to do the things he enjoys, so I encouraged him that I’d just come over whenever and help his mom cook until he came back.  He in turn asked if I’d like to go horseback riding instead. 

I love horses. I have ridden them since I was 11, and I used to train racehorses fresh off the track.  Adam and I have talked about going horseback riding for months now, but time and circumstances have never allowed it.  When he asked me if I wanted to go horseback riding, I was super excited.  Adam pawned off the opportunity as taking advantage of an offer by a local family whom he had worked for this past summer.  They had tried to pay him, and he, knowing I loved to ride, told them he’d refuse the money but take them up on a horseback ride later some time.  Apparently, he had called the Wards and they were game for us coming over on Thanksgiving morning to cash in that offer.

So, at this point, I’m really curious.  He’d been unconsciously leading me on to think engagement was coming soon by a variety of things, and now he was giving up hunting to go horseback riding with me….????? HMMMMMMM……  I fought my own imagination and just chose to focus on the horseback ride.

Thanksgiving morning I got to Adam’s around 9:40. ( I was 10 min late)  We  headed right out to the Wards and after a nice talk with Mrs. Ward and Lajoie her daughter, we took the horses around their nice pond and up the hill.  Unfortunately Adam’s horse was not cooperative at all, and he took off cantering and bucking.  A little frustrated, we decided to walk them for a while.  I cinched up Adam’s horse’s stirrups and tried to take his horse for a ride, but he started bucking big time.  Since we didn’t have helmets on, we just decided to walk for the rest of the time and avoid any accidents.

At the top of the hill, we paused in the middle of a corn field.  Adam made a few comments about the scenery and what we could see, and we just stood talking as our horses grazed. 

It was the perfect set-up.  We were standing between our horses and talking and enjoying a beautiful morning.  I turned to my horse to fix something on his bridle, when out of the corner of my eye, I caught Adam going down on one knee.  There, on November 26, 2009, Adam Garrett Bowman asked me to marry him!!!!!!

I would write out exactly what he said, but hey… it was for my ears only. [Another long sigh.....] =)

We were standing there caught up in the moment when suddenly, Adam got a text-message.  It was from Punkface (if you’ve read my blog before, you know who that is), and it was a picture of us WHERE WE WERE STANDING RIGHT THEN!!!  My response: “What the heck?!  Where is he?!”

Adam, my wonderful fiance, had the whole event perfectly planned, and Aaron was awesome enough to help the whole morning go so smoothly!  Adam had dropped Aaron off on the hill at 8 that morning, and Aaron had camouflaged himself in a bale of hay at the end of the woods nearby to take pictures of our special moment.  After a few more minutes of talking and laughing, we headed down to the Ward’s pond, where Aaron took more pictures of us.  [Long sigh.....Big smile] =D

What an amazing morning!!!  How awesome!  I am now engaged to the man of my dreams and the love of my life!!!

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Well, my day today can be summed up with odd-jobs.  I worked from 8-4:30 doing everything from mass-mailings at work to making pizzas and starting a chicken stir-fry to cleaning dusty Legos (yes, it was very tempting to play with them in the process) and a few other odds and ends.  When I got home, I made some applesauce that totally hit the spot (I’ve already made plans to have it for breakfast), ate some dinner, did dishes, cleaned the bathroom, and hung out accomplishing some of my own random tasks.  Whooohoo!  My to-do list is getting smaller by the day, on one hand, and yet more and more defined on the other. 

The other, of course, is referring to wedding plans and to-do’s.  Wow, there’s a lot to think about.  I just got a book today (Well, Mom Bowman got it for me actually. =) ) called The Knot Book of Lists.  It is a wonderful checklist of to-do’s before the I-do’s (yeah, I just came up with that…. lol).  Thankfully, Adam and I talked about a ton of the decisions before we actually got engaged (by the way, engagement story to come shortly!!), so some of the to-do’s for later on are already decided upon.  That’s been handy.

=) I feel like sharing all my wedding plans on here… how boring would that be?  There would be no surprises for you on the wedding day itself if I did that.  I am super excited though, and I cannot wait to be past the holiday season so I can focus a little better on planning (oh, and school and work and life… and anything else that happens to be thrown my way).   The more I think about this actually, the more I feel like I should be doing as much planning now during the holiday break as I can.  Aaaahh!!!  lol…why do I write outloud as I would think outloud?

I’m off to get ready for bed.  Ugh, I have a massive load of laundry on my bed that has moved from there to the floor and back again for the last few days.  I need to organize my clothes better.

My word, I go to bed early now.  It’s 11:05, and I’m exhausted!  What an old fart!

“A musical: it means the actors periodically dance about and burst into song.”

LOL..the line above is from the movie Sabrina…. don’t ask.  I have no idea why I’m watching this.. Emily and I are sitting here enjoying a movie Sarah brought back from China.  This is hilarious, a weird movie with somewhat well-known actors and strange but hilarious dialogue.

Stupid movies.

So, I love my new job.  I am getting paid to work alongside people I love and getting to know the business Adam works in.  It’s been neat.  I’m liking it, and yet I continue to look for good job opportunities in my major. I have applied for a few positions around, and I …

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“I DID knock.”…. LOL…another classic line from this movie…..after the awkward secretary walks in on a kissing couple…

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I really do want to work in my major and write.  I have loved reading The Firm so far.  I’ve found myself thinking about it and what Grisham was thinking and intending, and again, I’m thinking ahead of him, so that I have ruined portions of the book for myself already.  I know I have, for things have been alluded to.

So, here’s for a more personal update.  Healthwise, nothing really has changed.  It will be almost a year now since I have been experiencing serious health issues, and still no resolution. I  have been told four different things by four different doctors and so far, no improvement.  I could say ‘oh well’ and proceed with life (in a way I am) but I have to honestly say this is getting old.  Hopefully this new doctor and this new medicine will slowly kick in and work.  His diagnosis seems the most-probable out of all four.  We’ll see.

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Dang, this dad in this movie just gave his daughter $2 million that he’s been saving up for decades…

I could use that to pay off student loans…. lol

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Blogging is a whole new world to me when real life is so much busier than just sitting in front of my computer every day.  To-do lists never end…

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“We were up to our elbows in your underwear…. it was like touching the Shroud of Torron.”  The secretary again….. wow…. kinda makes me think of cleaning Adam’s room today….. lol…..jk

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… and sharing my day with the internet world involves writing about working whole days in the real world, making real food, learning real lessons, and growing in real ways.  My days are hardly classrooms and textbooks and homework and writing…. I love them – don’t get me wrong – but how interesting would that be?

Let me know… do you want to hear about my every-day?  Should I reserve my blogs for things more interesting to you than my plans and thoughts and quotes from random movies that are playing when I come home?

School is almost over for the semester – Hallejuah!!  I can’t wait to be done with Broome Community College.  I’m PAYING to go here?  My professor is rambling on and on, “reviewing” the first – and only? – point he made in the class this semester: use the pyramid structure when you’re writing news stories.  I always forget the name of this class.  I like to call it Rambling 101 but I guess the official name is Writing for the Media. 

I have only three more days left here at BCC, then one more semester long-distance from Master’s.  Then I’ll be officially done, a graduate with a bachelor’s in communications!!!  Whoohoo!!!   I am so ready to be done with the classroom, and I cannot wait to get out there and write my heart out in the real world.

So, as you might be realizing rather quickly, these last two blogs are a little different writing style than my previous blogs.  I’m trying a new angle.  From now on, I’m going to be blogging daily a little something about my everyday life.  I might even be starting another, new blog that will be a segmented fictional story.  I’m  not 100% settled on the details of that, but that’s the plan.

Writing is a serious thing.  Sure, it’s fun, and heck, if I can make you laugh, I have done well.  However, on that same thought, if I can make you cry, I have actually been successful.  That is my desire – to make you laugh, to make you cry, to make you understand a little more about God and mankind than you did before, and to encourage you to look at life and the people around you and the life you live with a different perspective than perhaps you had before.

Class is ending soon.  I have 45 min to print out that paper I was writing last night and take The Firm out of the library.  Dr. Jack Simons would be proud.  Part of getting back into writing is getting back into reading.  

Reading is hard for me.  Don’t laugh; it is.  I hate thinking ahead of the page I’m reading and having no ability to sit back and turn off the critic within me.  I want to utilize that actually.   That’s not a mistake.  I want to fine-tune that gift/curse and perhaps build some future off that as well. Hmmmmm…..

Well, I’m off.  Over and out.

I could start a million places with this blog.  Since most of you are expecting that my title will somehow determine the topic of conversation here, I will refrain from talking about my health or even anything food-related.  Is that even possible for me?  I don’t know.  I love talking about food. Ugh…. bad idea to make that move, Ashley, but what is done is done.  No food.

I was researching quotes about love tonight.  No, not because I am lovestruck, in-love, or as Punkface (Aaron, my future brother-in-law) says, “twitterpated.”  I’m in the process of writing a paper on the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.  I had to watch it in class here at my local community college (a subject in and of itself and most-likely for another time).  I ran across this quote, and I have left it open in a separate tab for over a half-hour now.

” Find a guy who calls you beautiful instead of hot, who calls you back when you hang up on him, who will lie under the stars and listen to your heartbeat, or will stay awake just to watch you sleep… wait for the boy who kisses your forehead, who wants to show you off to the world when you are in sweats, who holds your hand in front of his friends, who thinks you’ re just as pretty without makeup on. One who is constantly reminding you of how much he cares and how lucky he is to have YOU… The one who turns to his friends and says, thats her… “
–Unknown

You probably are rolling your eyes, thinking how cliche that quote is, wondering if you know the person that should be attributed to, or even just saying, “Yeah, Aaron is right.  You are twitterpated.”  Well, although all those things might be true — Hey, I never said Aaron was wrong.. — the reason I love that quote is because, thank the Lord, that is what I have!!!!

Adam Garrett Bowman is just that, and I love that. I can be me… and he’s 100% okay with that!!! lol…ok… so that might not seem like a big deal to some of you who don’t know me well, but I’m sure those of you who do are now laughing.  I’m not the most-graceful person, the most-girly, nor the most-traditional.  I’ve asked Adam so many times “Is that weird?” and have just given up on waiting for the affirmative answer and often just answer it myself.  ”Yes.”  Oh, well.  I’m weird, and I’m proud of it.  My consolation: he’s even weirder for loving a weirdo like me. =)

Enough of my lovestruck stories (Heck, I’ve not even shared the best ones yet!)….

This is my attempt to start blogging again.  I miss reading and writing and, after some good talks with Adam on the subject, we have decided it’s important that I make time to not only keep up my blog, but also to keep writing and pursuing what God directed me to those few years ago.  I am about to get married and start a new phase in life.  I am about to graduate and enter the full-on world of working people.  I am about to work my butt off in order to pay off student loans I tried my darnedest to keep small and somehow failed to do so.  However, I am a writer, and after all this school (and debt!) and training and knowing the Lord has given me this talent for a reason, I am most-definitely not going to set it aside.  I don’t know how I’ll do it all.  However, I do know that God has that all figured out and the only place to be is in His Will doing what He deems best…. even when somehow it doesn’t seem humanly possible to do it all.

My to-do list tonight is never-ending and my day-timer for 2010 is already filling up with plans and fun and things I/we hope to accomplish.  Keep me in prayer, please.  I so desire to be faithful to all I need to do, but most-importantly, I pray I can be faithful to the people I have relationships with.

That takes this blog on another turn.  Relationships.

Why is it that we expect that which is worth the most to come the easiest?  Sometimes I think I forget that in the midst of everything. I forget that nothing worth anything comes without a fight. I forget that.

I’m off for now… off to accomplish another to-do, then crash.

Good night, blogging world.

If you know me well, you have for sure heard that I don’t like doctors…

I don’t like going to them, I don’t like their offices, and I don’t like the nurses.  Ironically, I don’t mind dentists, dermatologists, chiropractors, and podiatrists; but general practicioners, eye doctors (hehehehe…even more ironic is that I work at a optometrist office), and physical therapists creep me out.

This semester I have been reminded of yet another reason I don’t like them.  Forgive me for using this blog as my soapbox for complaining, but I think that this is worth noting.

The second thing most anyone would know about me is that I am always hungry. I am like an eating machine, and yet I still struggle with bouts of what I call “low sugar,” where I feel dizzy, nauseous, jittery, moody, and an unusual craving of sugar (I have no sweet tooth whatsoever other times).

I was first told about hypoglycemia in 7^th grade by a friend’s dad who overheard my symptoms, but I never thought much of it. To me, it just equated: my body went through food fast, so I needed to eat more. I finally approached my doctor about this after seven years (yes, I did just say 7) of wrestling with this phenomenon myself and after experiencing a rather severe bout my spring semester of freshman year in college. When I asked him if it was possible I had hypoglycemia, I was told “that everyone nowadays thinks they’re coming down with hypoglycemia or diabetes” and was sent on my way.

I was disappointed in general with how I was treated as a patient (but after all, I’m not a big fan of doctors anyway, remember?); and unfortunately, I believed my doctor and avoided thinking or dealing with the symptoms for a season.  This has only prolonged the problem.

Recently, because of both an increase in symptoms as well as a study I was doing on yeast infections, I began to look into hypoglycemia again (some doctors say the two are related) only to find my answer for both studies in what I knew all along: hypoglycemia.

I took a quiz on www.hypoglycemia.org to help determine whether or not you have the “disease,” and here are my results:

Other research I have done confirm the symptoms I have had for the last 8 years now have been and still are hypoglycemia: (these are taken from www.hypoglycemia.org and www.edocrineweb.com)

Some of the symptoms of hypoglycemia are:

The Classic Symptoms

• Polyphagia (frequently hungry)
• Polyuria (frequently urinating)
• Polydipsia (frequently thirsty)

Other Symptoms Might Include

• Weight loss
• Poor wound healing (cuts, scrapes, etc.)
• Dry mouth
• Dry or itchy skin
• Recurrent infections such as yeast infections, groin rash, or external ear infections (swimmers ear)

While thankfully I haven’t had all of the symptoms listed here, I have exhibited a good number of them – maybe I can blame bad test scores on forgetfulness and mental confusion … LOL – and am thankful to finally be able to understand the reasons behind them.

Looking back and reading what I’ve compiled here, this all seems so dramatic and scary and life-changing. Well, it’s not really. It is in once sense, in that I’m altering my diet as much as is possible here at school. I’m supposed to limit certain foods and focus on others and be sure to eat breakfast (Yeah, I know, Mom and Dad, you’ve been telling me that all along) and have six meals a day (won’t complain there). We’ll see how practical that is in a cafeteria that serves almost complete carb meals, doesn’t have a convenient breakfast schedule, and definitely isn’t conducive nor cheap enough for six meals a day. I’m not sure how this is going to work, but the last few weeks I have tried to experiment with certain aspects of this plan, and I have consistently felt better.

If you’re interested, this site was really helpful in explaining the whole diet to me: http://www.gicare.com/Diets/hypoglycemia.aspx

So, here I go, stepping out without doctors and diagnoses and am adjusting accordingly. Hopefully, this will prove to be successful.

So, it’s the 2nd week of classes,…. and I’m feeling like I’m about to die.  Okay, that’s overdramatic, but I am feeling a tad bit overwhelmed.  Or maybe just tired.  I can’t tell.

I know I love a busy schedule, but I’m beginning to wonder if it’s too much:

I’m taking 16 units:

• Persuasion
• Editing
• Econ and Society
• Christian Theology II
• Preparation for Global Missions

The Preparation for Global Missions class is just that, a preparatory class for the trip I’ll be co-leading to South Africa this summer.  It’ll be great, but there’s a lot of out-of-class involvement including team outings, meetings, a retreat, and numerous fundraisers.

I am still working 18.75 hrs/week at the admissions office.  It’s a great job with great coworkers and a wonderful atmosphere, but it not only requires a lot of time and effort, but also after-hr work hours.  View Weekend and Presidential Scholarship dinner are both coming up and I’ll be there late in the evening and early in the morning on top of school to make those events happen.   I got a second job too.   I’ve just become the official TMC Baseball statistician.  My work hours range from 0-12 hrs/week.  It is definitely the ideal job, and as much as it is another responsibility, it is more fun than work and, praise God, still helps pay the bills.

I’m also on student leadership staff here (assistant resident advisor) and trying be involved in the lives of the girls on my wing.  So far so good… but small groups haven’t started up yet.  I meet weekly with my the women’s dean here at the school.  Not only is she a great friend, but a humble and wise counselor.  It’s great and totally worth the time and effort.  I’ve recently started working in the nursery at church too.  It’s not additional time because I’m already there, but the additional effort contributes to my feeling of numerous responsibilities.  I love the kids – they’re 2-3 yr-olds!

To add to the list, I’m the head of The Crew, the baseball fan club here at school.  We have our big Opening Day Ceremony, which of course I’m planning (along with some AMAZING help from my friends and my coleader Lynnsey).  As if that weren’t enough, somehow I’m editor of MasterMinds, the school newspaper, which is trying to not only restart after a long furlow but expand, change, and otherwise completely revolutionize our past “newsletter.”

Well, homework is supposed to fit in there somewhere, as is running (yeah, a new hobby I’ve picked up), talking to family, doing some personal writing and reading (Yay! I finally bought Story by Robert McFee!), and sleeping.   Sleeping.  What is that?

It’s only the end of January.  Wow.

P.S.  I still somehow manage to have fun.  Thank God.  I think I might go crazy if I didn’t. =)