Aerobic exercise!

Aerobic exercise in the neighborhood, woo! 

I just went for a walk with earbuds and sunglasses and a headband covering my ears and a cloth mask and I gotta say, my lips didn't get dry at all since all the condensation of my breath just got breathed back in, and there wasn't any harsh dry wind blowing on my face either. And it's a good thing because I forgot chapstick. I had a packet of tissues just in case my nose started running, since sometimes it does that when I'm in the cold. But it didn't! 😊 Also my sunglasses stayed on even though the headband over my ears and earbuds was keeping the side pieces of the sunglasses from going between my ears and head like usual, so that was a relief. 

All in all, it went great and I definitely want to do this again. This time was only about a 25 min walk to the park and back, but I want to go longer and also work on doing some leg and core workouts as well. And sure, earlier this year I went to our community gym owned by the apartment complex, but that was only once. This time I want to aim for small, doable sessions so that I build up my stamina and strengthen my muscles. ^_^ now I'm gonna take a shower because I NEED one now lol

Starbucks and me just being relaxed

Location: Starbucks, I've stopped on my way home to redeem my birthday drink :)

Time: 2:30 PM, after seeing Neila and painting for a really nice therapy session

Mood (1 to 10, 10 = fantastic, 1 = absolutely horrible): 6, better than 3 hrs ago because I am making decisions and deciding to live my life and not care that I'm walking into a Starbucks (with maybe 2 people even sitting inside) in my house slippers, and not caring :P

Last Meal: I ate cereal this morning

Coffee: I had one small cup at like 11, and I'm at Starbucks drinking a grande peppermint mocha. :) I can tell that I needed more coffee. xP

General schedule of the day: Tonight, Alex and I are going to hang out, whether we go out to dinner or hang out at his place, I'm not sure. We're going out either tonight or tomorrow night.

Objective: I'm writing here so that I can figure out where I am at the moment, and what I feel like I want to do with the rest of my day. I want to get into a headspace where I can decide what will be helpful for me when I feel "meh" and "ugh" like this morning and so many other mornings. Like knowing that coffee really helps.

Dump Zone:

I research randomness

Oh memes...

So I was just watching my daily meme vids, laughing to myself and taking screenshots of the best ones that I'd want to save & share.
Please enjoy a representation of my meme humor:  (1) random human comedy, (2) mental health jokes, and (3) puns.

(my apologies for the strong language)

     I've been saving memes from "meme dealers" (like those facebook pages where they repost things from tumblr, and twitter posts, or those vine compilation videos, or this one app I had called Smile that had pretty clean funny content, or what I watch these days, just meme awards videos on YouTube, and etc) for years. And, since I transferred all my files from laptop to laptop as I got hand-me-down computers as a teen (and then my very own Mac after HS graduation), I still have all of the thousands and thousands of memes and text posts and random funny content that I laughed at 10 years ago. I have ones from probably the beginning of my internet days.
     But anyway. Those were the ones from today.

     And then, there's this one: it made me laugh out loud a couple days ago when I saw it in another video, and I saw it again today in the same video as the previous memes and decided to find out what it was about.

     I want to see this video! Haha it sounds so sad!!

     So I looked it up, and this short bit was what I found first:

     It's 6 seconds, and there's garbled Japanese narration in the background, and I have no context...

     But then I looked at another Google result, and this one made more sense:

     Poor raccoon, haha. But he learns on the third try! yaaaay

Anyway. This reminds me of how I had decorated my half of our window when I was at Liberty in the motel-dorm, The Annex, with printed memes. I wonder if I have a picture...I still have all of the little papers from when I moved and took them down. 

....I just spent like an hour looking for pictures of that, but completely forgot what I was there for, so I ended up saving a bunch of photos from my Google photos in the cloud. xD

Like this, at least this one somewhat relates to my search, but it was the wrong semester:

And then I looked in the right semester, and I did find a picture of our window (hehe):

Rachel (left) and leaning-over-to-make-the-names-readable me (right)

But that was before we decorated the window. Hmmmmmm. I still have a folder of the memes I'd printed out to put in said window.

Ah, and here's a picture I had Rachel take when she pointed out that I was very dainty (or maybe she used a different word) in the way I'd pointed my toes, and it looked like the a photoshoot with a big fancy dress or something:

Okay, I'm going to stop getting stuck looking through old screenshots of Snapchats from Alex, and finish up this blog post...which is kind of a mess now...lol. 

Here are a few of the memes I had in my window:

     I loved all the music-themed ones, because in addition to being a music student myself, my roomie was into music as well--she would have made a great music student, but she had mechanical engineering to study, and that 5-year major takes a lot of intense work. 

     But yeah. :) ...The following poem resulted from my attempt to close this post quickly. It failed, but the poem was fun to create. x)

That Meme Section

Enjoy this selection 

from my meme collection,

which began as a study on culture.

If you have an objection 

to an imperfection, 

I apologize for anything vulgar.

So upon inspection,

if I find a connection

relating to anything crude,

I'll make a correction,

for I respect the protection

of any who have not yet viewed.

But my own election

is simply deflection

of content that sometimes disturbs;

They come my direction

and escape detection:

Sometimes I don't notice bad words.

—ACS, August 27, 2018

I finally got to use my Pokemon card!

So this week, I'm babysitting one of my second-cousin's kids, like a second-niece and second-nephew or something.

     And her little girl, who's 8 years old, is a total kindred spirit when it comes to all things nerdy. I don't know if I'm allowed to give her name online, so I'll call her Skylar. 

     Skylar's gotten into Pokemon from her dad, and their family has a huge collection of Pokemon cards. Like, a 3-inch binder with pages and pages of them, plus the three Poke-decks that they play from. And the cover of her binder has a picture of about 15 Pokemon that she drew herself! It's so cute, and it totally makes me wish I'd played Pokemon when I was little. She knows all their names, and all their evolutions (she calls them "evolvements" and I don't know enough about Pokemon to know if that's what they call the next one up, or if I'm right in thinking that they're called "evolutions" instead. Hehe). 

     So I have a Stufful card, and it's one that Alex bought at Toys-R-Us and gave to me. It's a really cute Pokemon, and this one has an ability called "Baby Doll Eyes" where it can keep the opponent's Pokemon from being able to retreat on that turn. Its secondary ability is a tackle that does, like, extra damage, and that's really good—After you've used Baby Doll Eyes and trapped your opponent, you can do that tackle and they can't get away from it.

     I had no knowledge of this before Skylar's dad told her she should teach me how to play Pokemon, since I was showing her Minecraft (she picked that up lightning fast, by the way). So she got out her personal Poke-deck and her mom's deck and set it all up at the kitchen bar for us to play. 

     I was so lost, and I had that newb feel hitting me as I had to ask her to explain each and every move to me. But she explained them all, and the cards and what they were for, each time I asked. She's a great kid.

Appraising my Pokemon card

     Soon after she set it all up, I told her, "You know, I have a Pokemon card. Just one."

     "Really? What card is it?" she asked, instantly interested.

     "I think...I know it has babydoll eyes, but I don't know..." 

     She was confused, and when I went to my purse and pulled it out of the pocket where I keep business cards, I said, "Stufful. That's the name of the Pokemon."

     "Oh, Stufful—can I see?"

     And from there she wanted to take it out of the shrink wrap cover that it was still sealed in, and she carefully slid it into one of her extra sleeves. "You can keep this," she told me, and she continued to inspect the card. "This is one of the last Stufful cards they made," she said, pointing out the number 110/149. I asked, "So there are only 149 of those cards? And I have one?"

     She then explained that there are 149 different types of Stufful Pokemon cards, and that this one has the Baby Doll Eyes attack and the Tackle attack. Then she went to her deck and pulled out another Stufful, which had a different illustration and a different set of attacks. I was intrigued. 

     Time flew by as Skylar showed me how to attack with the cards in my deck—how to set them up on my "bench"—and how my Stufful could be played at the end of a round (idk what they'd call it, a match maybe?) when the opponent Pokemon's HP was low enough for that damage from my second attack to take it down. It was so fun! 

     One of the greatest things that I've experienced has been finding that connection that someone shares with me. 

     Sometimes it's discovering that another student grew up with the same Abeka homeschool curriculum that I did (it was at a Knowledge Bowl competition, and both of us knew the answer to a question about who invented the automatic reaper from our history book in 5th grade, because we could picture the exact spot on the page that talked about Cyrus McCormick). Other times, it's finding out that another MK has a common love of Tolkien and other fantasy series like The Inheritance Cycle. Once, I met the guy who had grown up with the books, and had first read The Fellowship of the Ring when he was about 11, just like me! (can you guess who that was? 😊)

     I got distracted on this post but I'm finishing it up so that I can write more posts and have them come in order... x) I had a fun time with these kids, and I can't wait until I get to see them again.

—ACS, August 2018

Cleaning the kitchen

Today I'm doing the dishes.

     There really aren't as many as I feel like there are when I pass the kitchen on my way to my room and avoid looking in the sink for fear that the guilt of leaving them there will descend upon me and keep me from being able to slack off in bliss.

     There really aren't that many.

     -_-

     In fact, I counted the number of forks, spoons, and knives that I own, because I always feel like I need more (and not just because I dirty them up and don't wash them). Man, I look bad in that picture. Anyway. I counted them and discovered this: 

     Ugh, I don't have an even, consistent number of anything! I texted Alex the results and just said..."So this is...kind of...blegh :p I will enjoy having enough money to properly stock a silverware drawer someday."
     And he agreed...I think he has, like, one fork and a spoon? I feel like he must have more than that, but that's all I remember seeing in his drawer when he moved into his new place a couple weeks ago, and I haven't seen any more since then.
     I'm proud of even having any silverware at all. There's a story to how I acquired such a random assortment of silverware, and it begins with Project Grad, 2015.

     It's not really very dramatic like I seem to be making it. But I wanted to add this picture that we miraculously remembered to take while we were there.
     "Project Graduation" was a tradition at our high school, and was a big lock-in party after the graduation ceremony for the seniors and their friends. Each senior was given a ticket and two friend tickets each, and that was the only way any underclassmen could attend. I picked Alicia and Tori, and while I wanted to invite our fourth friend, Mahliya, who was a freshman like Alicia and my brother Rickey, she wasn't allowed to come, and that was too bad. :/ But those three were my best friends from public HS.
     So this party had lots of fun activities, a buffet of food like pizza, oreos, and brownies, an art table stocked by our school's art teacher (I think, if I remember right), and--biggest of all--a bouncy house obstacle course in the gym. It was pretty sweet.
     Aside from getting to run around all night drinking soda and riding tricycles through the cafeteria and the gym with your best friends, there were also gifts for each of the graduating seniors. Since the party was parent-organized and wasn't school-funded, it depended wholly on the group of moms and dads of that year's seniors to raise money for the bouncy house rental, the food, the tricycles, and the games. They also put as much of the funds as they could into the gift baskets. Thinking back, not only was I blessed to be a senior when Miss Pam was on the Project Grad planning team, but I was also lucky (blessed!) to be at that small town school where everybody was somebody, and each student was personally thought of when they graduated and given such a wonderful graduation present.
     That year, the "baskets" for the gifts were these black duffle bags, and they were filled with things a kid might need once they moved out, either on their own to start a career or into a dorm at college. I brought almost everything that I got in that gift basket with me to Liberty, and the few things that I didn't need (like a discounted laptop that had half the capabilities and features of the Mac that I bought later that summer) were easily exchanged at Walmart for in-store credit. I sold that credit to my parents and put that couple hundred toward my own computer purchase, and it's been a magnificent deal. I'll never forget how incredibly I was gifted on my graduation. Thank you to anyone reading who made that celebration happen.
     These are some of the treasures that I found waiting inside my very own duffle bag:

• a big plastic turquoise bowl (my favorite color at the time!) that I would definitely use as a popcorn bowl
• a little bottle of Tide laundry detergent (I was going to need to have my own at the dorm)
• a set of Ziploc-brand plastic containers with lids (great for organizing things in my desk, as well as saving leftovers in the fridge)
• a drawstring net laundry bag (I also got a couple other net laundry hampers, including a three-section one from my grandma that makes it easy to organize clothes by color)
• Other things that I can't remember right now
• Silverware from the dollar store (the ones where a set of 4 forks is taped together and sells for $1) including:
• 4 knives
• 3 forks, tape cut open to remove one of the original 4
• 3 tea spoons, also with tape removed
• 3 dinner spoons, also with tape removed

     It turned out that they only had enough for each student to get 3 of each utensil, and there wasn't an even number, so some people got to have the full set of 4. 

     That's the story of how I got some of my silverware. But the whole story continues a year later in the summer of 2016.

     I couldn't find a picture from the wedding itself without going on Facebook, and I mostly want to post pics from my own photos, but this is from a wedding in Wisconsin that my friend and I (pictured above) were bridesmaids in. We flew up with her mom and stayed in the bible school's dorm, which was in the same building as the reception and was right up the hill from the chapel where the ceremony would be located. However, since it was a dorm we were staying in, and we came up a few days early to help prepare for the wedding, we needed to be able to prepare our own food while we stayed there. I don't think we knew that when we were packing, because we ended up buying pots and pans and cheap dishes to eat from while we were up there. Her mom actually carried a cast-iron dutch oven back on the plane. I contributed on this shopping trip by getting a cute yellow coffee mug from the dollar store and some silverware: knives, teaspoons, and forks, all sets of 4 that were almost the same as the ones I already owned.

     Now that I think about it, I should have another fork somewhere... I know I got 3 when I graduated and I'm pretty sure I bought 4 in Wisconsin, but I don't know where the other one is. Maybe it's lost in my apartment, or maybe while I was at Liberty, it got swept up with someone else's belongings when we were dividing everything up as we moved. Who knows.

     Anyway. I dropped everything an hour ago to count my silverware and then write about it, aaand now I've been blogging and haven't finished the dishes. I can put away the ones that have dried, though, and I won't have to dry them with a towel. 😀I would always rather let them drip-dry than have to dry them off. It's because I'm lazy. But anyway.
     I'm going to get back to doing the dishes and cleaning the kitchen and throwing away expired food from the fridge and taking out the trash. I'll see you the next time I get excited about a memory, or how my day is turning out, and just have to share it.

—ACS, August 8, 2018

I'm in a coffee shop

(My email to Neila after she recommended that I walk in and talk to Jim or Jill about applying to this little coffee shop down the road from her counseling office:)

Hey!! I’m in my happy place :)

And Jill gave me a card with their website so that I could send in a resume. She said that they’re having open interviews in a couple Sundays, so I’ll be coming in for that. I ordered a decaf Purple Rain latte (the lavender and vanilla flavor! so good!) and I’m hoping that I can update my resume here and then send it. 

I think I need to upload it to Google Docs so that I can email them a link, since the “Contact Us” page on their website doesn’t have an option for directly uploading files.

Thank you for recommending them to me! It turns out that they’re only hiring 21 and up, so that’s perfect for me. I am very excited and I really hope it works out. I might just hang out in this coffee shop anyway, it has a hipster Christian radio coming through the speakers right above my table and it’s so pleasant and familiar to me. 

Sipping coffee (very, very delicious coffee), listening to the sounds of the regulars chatting and laughing with the baristas…it’s such a nice little spot right now. And I was carrying my Lord of the Rings hoodie, and when I sat down and took out my laptop, it was just a bit chilly so I was able to put it on.

Can I express just how relaxing, invigorating, calming, enthusing, and lovely this is right now? 

Ashley Spence

"The Main Cup in Milford grinds their own their own beans", photo from Yelp!

Photo Prompts: The top 20 moments of the past 6 years, told by my camera roll, Photo #1

~As I write today, I'm listening to the "Stranger Things" soundtrack (I found it here on YouTube). Thought you might want to listen along. 😊

First off, here's some definitions (Wikipedia):

Freewriting: 

"...a prewriting technique in which a person writes continuously for a set period of time without regard to spelling, grammar, or topic....Some writers use the technique to collect initial thoughts and ideas on a topic."

Freeblogging: 

"A technique known as Freeblogging combines blogging with free-writing with the rules changed so that the writer does not stop typing for long periods of time."

     Hey! So, what were those pictures I posted last time? I didn't give them any explanation, and the only captions were the years they were taken. Are they just random pictures? Actually, no—all of them held special significance for me, and, while I did want to convey what each picture meant to me, I ran out of time. 

     Today, I thought of freewrites. I used to do a whole lot of those back in high school, especially in my Creative Writing class. Good writing prompts are just too hard to pass up, and these pictures have to potential to make some really good journal entries. "A picture's worth a thousand words," and I have tens of thousands of words just burning a hole in my pocket. I've got to spend them before they're all blown away. And, who knows? Someday, I might polish these freewrites up, connect them with some narrative, and publish another book. :) Mom would like that, haha. 

~For all freewriting-based blog posts, see the tag #Wells Of Thought: Notions and Expositions. 

Here's prompt #1: 2013-A

2013

     As I sit and think about this photo, I can close my eyes and travel back in time to that very day. 
     When I flew with my family back to the States, we had a 4-hour layover in Tokyo, Japan, and I took a lot of photos there: pictures of some cha-cha's (off-brand M&M's) in my hand, held against the bright airport windows, showing the silhouettes of other passengers; some pictures of my suitcase, also taken artistically with my cheap camera; and just some goofy ones with my brothers. 
     In the picture there's a little bit of my personal item, the bag I used as a purse back then in 2013. I think I got that from my 14th or 15th birthday before we moved away from the town I'd lived in for 6 years. It was only 8 months after that move that we were on this trip. I remember pencils making holes in the lining of that purse and coming through the netting of the outer design, and I would always catch them when I heard the twing-twankle of the pencil falling on the tile floor behind me. I'm pretty sure I put my pencils in a pencil case before flying, so that I didn't lose any of my precious Ticonderoga brand pencils. I mean, we were coming back to the country where you could buy those at any store, but they were still valuable and I didn't want to lose them, haha. 
     This ticket was for the domestic flight from DFW up to Kansas City, where Dad and I were stopping to pick up a minivan that we were going to be borrowing for the year. I remember that, when we drove to pick it up at the person's house, we parked in the driveway, which cut through a hay field. I thought it was really pretty being out in nature, especially on a farm, as it reminded me of my grandparents' house back in Texas that my mom and brothers were getting to enjoy while I was on this extra trip. As it was the beginning of June, however, the pollen from that field just hit my dad like a brick wall the moment he opened the rental car door. His eyes teared up immediately, he started rubbing a red itchy nose, and his voice got hoarse and strained from his throat starting to constrict. That was pretty awful. We did the paperwork as quickly as we could and left with the new minivan, but Dad was still having an awful attack of allergies. We stopped at the first pharmacy we could find along the interstate on our way down to Texas. 
     The reason I went on that trip with my dad was that I wanted to stop in a town in northeastern TX to meet a boy. Yeah, he was my boyfriend, but the young-love relationship ended that next February, and I don't even think about the kid anymore.  
     (Am I at 1,000 words for this picture yet, or do I have to keep with this topic and talk about my ex from 10th grade? Nope...not even 500 words yet. Oh well, I guess it would be good for me to at least write a summary.) 
     We met online through a mutual friend. He was another MK, and he was also interested in writing, which was how we started talking. Looking back, I can only see how blind I was—I thought it was a selfless, mature relationship that we had started, but as it was my first actual relationship, I had only my good intentions and my optimism with which to form a bias. Later, I had negative experiences, trauma, and pessimism with which to judge my interactions with guys. That didn't do me any favors, either. 
     And nothing really changed until I decided this: that I was going to stop making swift judgments of a man's character that were based solely on my biased interpretation of his attitude, and that I would no longer use this judgment to sour my words and attentions toward him in an attempt to protect my heart. I was doing this both by shutting down any flirtations he might be thinking to show, and by putting to death any attention I might be tempted to give. 
     I was afraid of being loved and of loving, because both appeared to be one slip-up away from a web of self-pity, blame, and resentment that I would be stuck in for the next year. 
     But I changed. I called it my 'foreign policy', and I absolutely threw it out the window. That's no way to treat other guys! 
     Just because a guy comes off "cocky" the first time he meets the group doesn't mean that any confidence he exhibits is truly coming from a heart of self-centered arrogance. 
     Just because a guy appears "soft-spoken" and seems to avoid conflict doesn't mean that any kindness he shows you is truly a sign of a pedestal that he's put you on. 
     Just because a guy is good at guitar and gives off a "pastor's-kid" vibe doesn't mean that he's compensating for a troubled relationship with his heavenly Father by looking churchy.
     People are complicated, and first impressions from strongly biased positions are often very wrong. I used to give everyone a chance, and to see the potential good news in every negative situation....And when I let one thing change that, it was hard to reverse some of its effects.

     But as soon as I let go of those shields of defense, I could finally open my eyes to see people more clearly. And, of the couple of guys I met on the day I made that change, I saw the heart of one whose confidence was contagious, whose kindness was genuine, and whose faith was honest. 

     Alex is the one who encourages me, and he's the one God's used to push me closer every day toward the person I am meant to be.

—ACS, July 13th, 2018