Well, I'm back, totally fat and happy. Well... at least just fat. Hitting the gym first thing in the morning. Seriously, I haven't been this fat in my whole entire life. So the future holds nothing for me except water and Lean Cuisine meals. Yum. Anyway, I only took a few pictures of my Thanksgiving experience, but all in all, I would say it was successful, but I'm glad I'm home!


This is my mom and mimi preparing Thanksgiving dinner the night before. As you can tell, I was a big help. I stood around and took pictures.



This is mimi in some kind of deep discussion with me. We often have those... usually about politics.



I know it doesn't look that scrumptious, but believe you me, this turned into a delectable feast on Thursday afternoon!




This is my beautiful mother. I made her pose for the picture.

Happy Thanksgiving everbody! Wednesday at noon I'm off with mom and Dani to visit the grandparents in NW Arkansas. Will be back Friday or Saturday! Everybody have fun, relax and eat much turkey!

Yea! My beautiful little sister, Dani, is in town. We are going to dinner tonight. I will try to take pictures so everyone in cyberspace can see how pretty she is and how much fun we have together :)

Ahh the joys of being a poor college student who has aspirations of changing the world... I sit here in my cute and cozy (another word for tiny) garage apartment close to downtown typing on my pieced-together computer as my fingers freeze because the wind is whistling in through the cracks in the window pane behind my desk. This is the stuff greatness is made of.

Speaking of greatness, I had to go to bat for my girl, Whitney, tonight. She called me right before class to tell me that Phil and Drew were having a rousing conversation over the airways about a situation that involved Whitney, a cell phone and a few martini's last weekend. So I quickly dialed up 460-9899 and set the situation right. Several hours and a few dramatic phone calls later, everything was ok. I guess the lesson to be learned is, when in the company of those who have free reign of the airwaves, never do anything that could potentially be newsworthy... or gossip worthy. If Phil really needs something to talk about, tell him to call me! I'm full of juicy stories :)

So the new website is only a product of finding anything else I could possibly do besides work on my senior project. A nobel effort, I'd say.

How cute is this? Christopher, my five year old Kindergarten kiddo drew this picture of me, my cat and him today.

Jager Bombs Away!

Good Lord! Major props to Julie, who truly embodies the meaning of rock star! Not only does girl know how to party, she makes sure everyone around her is partying. I have a feeling it's never a dull moment around her, and I'm sorry we have to lose her to Colorado.

Ragan and I had some good conversation tonight. Melisa and Matt also had some rousing conversations... uhh... maybe more like arguments. Anywho, it was freakin fabulous to finally get to shoot the sh%$ with Matt. Putting a face with the font is always better. Very cool.

Anyway, the All Stars rocked (as usual)! And I would just like to say one thing. I've never really had a conversation with Chad, but tonight I realized he's just about the most awesome guy I've ever met. Chad Dorman rocks. And while I'm on my trip about people rocking... so do Kevmo, Jake and Robert.

So I guess you could say, if you missed out on the All Stars tonight at the WD, you just plain missed out.

Rock on boys and girls. Have a safe and happy weekend! Watch out for the snow!!!

What a day. I've got to spend this afternoon writing a five page paper contrasting early Renaissance poetry with Metaphysical poetry. Doesn't that sound exciting? So, as usual, I'm putting it off as long as I can. Hence, the blog.

I have one little sentimental thing to say. I would like to say that I am unbelievably grateful and thankful to have someone in my life that I completely and totally trust with my greatest accomplishments and my deepest, darkest secrets. Not many people have a friend like that in their lives. But what's even better is the fact that this person trusts me back. It's like this deep, interwoven give and take. We plow through the darkness with each other and walk hand in hand through the sunny days. It's an incredible feeling to have a safe place, a place to fall.

That's what I'm thankful for today.

I'm kinda out of it today because I'm drugged up on sinus headache pills. And they're still not puttin a dent in the pain. Oh well, it's fun to be loopy.

Been doing some work on the All Stars Fan Club site. Don't know how functional it is though. My computer here at work is kinda retarded. So I won't really know til I get home and look at it there. If you check it out sign the guest book! Can't wait til tomorrow night to see my boys!

May come out for South Park tonight? Is anybody else? Don't wanna be sitting there laughing my you-know-what off by myself!

Luncheon at Outback.... yummmm!

Kevin left his keys on my desk :)~

Coming soon... wormydogallstars.com, the official fan club site!

Happy sunny Monday! I heard we are under a tornado watch. What the... this is November people!

So, saw Ragan and Melisa last night. Very cool to see them in a non-bar setting. Light the Campus was good fun for the whole family, but next year I have a feeling it's going to be a whole lot better. It's going to have the whole New Year's Eve in Bricktown feel, a major production.

Anyway, Whitney and I need to get together on this Will Ragan Eat it Friday thing. I'm dying to take a road trip up to STW to make him eat something gross. (Upon reading this last paragraph, I'm wondering if I have a life.)

Anyway, I'm ready to make a comeback at the Dog. I feel like I haven't really partied in a while. So maybe this Thursday at the All Stars will be my night. Also, do I need to start work on an All Stars Fan Club site??? No one else is doing it, why not?

Here's a story:

My dad sold a Daisy Rock Purple Heart guitar to Britney Spears' manager this week. I guess while Britney was shakin her money maker at a rehearsal she hurt herself. He told her he was gonna give her a purple heart. So he bought her a Daisy Rock. Umm, does Britney play the guitar?? Apparently so. Or maybe she's gonna learn. That would be an anomaly. Britney Spears playing a guitar. Anyway, just thought it was kinda weird and thought I'd share.

Also, word is that Garth may be having a private guitar signing at dad's store some time in the near future. I'll keep you posted and any of you guys who wanna go, I'll get ya in :)

TGIF everybody!

Oh the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful! And since we've no place to go, Cabo Wabo, Cabo Wabo, Cabo Wabo!

There's my song for the day. I'm feeling kinda nutty. Lately things have been really crazy for me and all the people in my life. I'm wondering if the planets are realigning or if Mercury is in retrograde or what's going on! Something weird for sure! I had a rather risque dream last night about someone most of the people reading this blog know... he's no longer present with us... but he'll be back, I'm confident in this. The strangeness of this dream is... I've never in my LIFE had one thought about this person "in that way." So, it kinda freaked me out. I woke up going, "What tha f...." Anyway, I've heard that you project your thoughts and emotions onto random people in your dreams... so you're not necessarily feeling a certain way about the person you're dreaming about, but you're probably feeling it about someone else and it was projected onto another person in your dream. So, the question is... who am I feeling freaky deaky about?? :) Who knows. That tends to be a constant state with me. I love being 24!

Anyway, I received the phone call last night. Yes, THE phone call. You know the one- your first love who you swore you'd die for at one point in time, who ended up totally screwing you over and getting married to someone else... you said all along it would never last. And whatdayaknow. So now it's all, "Ashly I love you. You are the best thing that ever happened to me and I wouldn't be who I am if it wasn't for you. I love you more than life itself and I always have. I knew you were right and I shouldn't have gotten married, I just thought it was the right thing to do. I just want you to know that whatever happens, no matter what, I will love you until the day I die."

Well, there's a tear in my freakin beer. But maybe he'll at least be good for a good time :) I'm so bad.

What a dreary day :( It's rainy and freeeeezing and the perfect day to bundle up underneath the covers... which is exactly what I'm going to do. However, with the day off work, I've got to at least spend a couple of hours working on my capstone research project. I've got to have my first 20 page draft done in 2 weeks. I have no clue where to start. Oh well... nothing a good nap can't fix :)

Hope everyone else is having a good day at work SUCKAS!!! :)

I've decided to make my who's who list of bars/clubs in the OKC area. Granted, I'm not a barfly so I don't have unlimited knowledge, but I do have a certain amount of expertise on the club scene having done it for... let see... about six years now. (Throw back to the days of Studio 310 in Bricktown... anybody remember that one???) So here's my list of Hot's and Maybe Not's:

HOT

Bricktown Wormy Dog (of course)

Lit (for atmosphere)

Club Rodeo (for dancing)

Tapwerks (on a good night)

Hawaiian Don's (for drinks & karaokee)

Flip's (for good wine)

Hudson's(good place to sit and have a drink w/ friends)

Classic's(also good place to go w/friends)

Mike's (for the whole college sports bar/pool hall atmosphere thing)

MAYBE NOT

Grahams (southside WT, but cheap drinks)

Rain(highly overrated-water on the walls-big deal)

Friends (won't be cool til I'm about 40)

Breakaway on NW 23rd(OMG, people missing teeth.)

City Walk(7 clubs my butt. 7 tiny rooms filled with prissy little white girls)

Blue Bayou(Yikes all the way around)

South Side Rock Club(wouldn't recommend it unless you're packin)

WTF...

Working out always makes me feel better. Hip hip hooray for the gym! Anyway, I was counseling a couple at work who were considering getting married and I was looking on the www for some good questions to ask before you get married. Well, somehow I got signed up for "33 Questions to Ask Someone Before you Marry." I get 3 a day via email. Today I got a good one and I think I want to answer it :)

"If you were to suddenly go blind, how would your description of the perfect partner change?"

He would have to have sooooft hands and a soft voice. I think I would still want him to be big enough to totally wrap me up in him. He would have to be very patient, because I would imagine I would be a total pain if I just suddenly went blind. (I know a guy this happened to. He's 27.) I think all of my "wants" as far as my perfect guy goes would pretty much stay the same. I would want him to be compassionate, intelligent, intense when he needs to be and totally mellow when he needs to be. And every girl loves the romance. So far my luck in that area for all of my dating years (which would be about 9) has been NILL. I seem to attract the goobers whose idea of romance is a drunk phone call at 3 a.m.

Anyway, I just thought it was an interesting question. Something to ponder.

Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse...

Let me preface this story with the fact that my stress level before today was at a complete 100%. It's crunch time at school and I've got research papers coming out of my you-know-what and I'm working pretty much full time.

1:30 p.m. Shawna (the only other person on staff at the center and is also my boss) leaves to go to a conference for a couple of hours. I'm at the center by myself.

2:00p.m. I have a counseling appointment with a client.

2:15p.m. She's getting really deep into some questions she has about what she's dealing with in her life right now.

2:16 p.m. This REALLLY rude old woman walks in the door. I step out of the counseling room to see what she wants and she proceeds to tell me that I am going to unload her trunk full of maternity clothes for her and put all 200 pairs of pants on new hangers.

2:17 p.m. I tell her I'm counseling with a client right now and she's going to have to wait.

2:35 p.m. Client leaves. I go to the back to open the garage door to let the cratchety old woman unload her clothes. The alarm goes off. I don't have the code. Shawna's gone. I can do nothing but stand there helplessly for twenty minutes while the alarm goes off.

2:55 p.m. Cops show up. They make out a report and say they won't give me a ticket this time. (Apparently they're cracking down on false alarms.)

3:05 p.m. One of our last two remaining volunteers calls to say she's quitting. 1300 clients and one volunteer. This is a bad deal.

My day has officially been shot to hell.

Today's not such a great day. Just trying to keep my head above water. Won't write much now, it would not be very encouraging :) Hope everyone elses day is going better than mine.

Just got caught up reading everybody's blogs from the weekend. Good stuff! And I'm with Whitney wondering if Ryin really exists. Or is he just a cyberkinetic figment of our imaginations? We shall see.

I had the wedding aaallll weekend and now I'm exhausted. But it went really well. The ceremony was beautiful. I was very impressed. I balled through the whole thing, and I mean it was an ugly cry. All the bridesmaids, the mother of the bride and the groom were all in tears before Dana even walked down the isle. The dad comes in to give her away and Butterfly Kisses is sung. I know how trite that is, but still, it gets me every time... especially when my dad is on stage winking at me during the song (he performed the ceremony.)

So anyway, finally the tears came to an end and it was time to par-tay. We got to the Elk's lodge about 6 p.m. and partied til about 10:30. I danced so hard that my feet were bruised the next morning. I can't wait to see the video. I met a nice boy named Dean from Iowa... cousin of the groom. I think Dean dug me a little bit :) He asked me to go out after the reception, but I was dead tired from all the wedding planning so I respectfully declined and went home to chill w/ my lil' sis who was in from Texas.

This was the first weekend in months I didn't hit the Bricktown Dog at least once! It felt kinda weird. And Whitney called me Saturday night with a hankering for the ambiance of Club Rodeo. So I assume we'll be making an appearance there, maybe this weekend. Gotta get our cowgirl groove on! Yea for the boys who like to two step! Ok, this is long enough for now... just wanted to catch everybody up! Hope everybody's doing well on this dreary but wonderful Monday!

Oye. Who has the strength to take pictures after dealing with cranky Catholic grandparents for two and a half hours? Not me.

Hometown Buffet was everything I expected and more. And the dinner was very informal (obviously.) Kids at one table, adults at the other. It was very reminiscent of the holidays of yesteryear. There were no toasts or well-wishes, everybody just go get your food off the buffet, eat and go home and get some rest.

I cried most of the way through rehearsal though. Who knew? When they started playing the wedding march and having Dana's stand-in walk down the isle, I couldn't keep it in. I guess it's just because I feel like we're finally growing up now. It seems just like yesterday we were passing boxes of Famous Amos cookies back and forth between our bunks at camp. Now she's getting ready to commit the rest of her life to another person. I really hope it works out for her. I'm always skeptical these days. I know enough not to take stock in fairy tale weddings or happily ever afters, but I truly hope that she and Mike can tough the hard times out and make it work. I guess only time will tell. But for now, everyone's happy but extremely tired. And I gotta go paint my toenails for my ghetto-fabulous pair of Wanda Jackson shoes I will be donning tomorrow.

I plan to get pictures at the reception at the Elk's Lodge.

Bachelorette Party Pics are up! (Don't want to offend anybody's Christian sensiblilties... don't look at the pictures if you don't wanna see a HOT male stripper.)

Next up, Rehersal Dinner at Hometown Buffet!

Dramatic Monologue #1

It's late and I'm having some pretty deep thoughts tonight. I've been pondering the state of relationships and attractions lately for some reason...probably because I'm a female who is overly-emotionally inclined.

I've been wondering lately why so many guys are so drawn to girls with blatant insecurities. I mean, I know we all have things that we are self-conscious about and we all have the need to be special to someone, but I've been noticing more and more lately that guys are drawn to girls with a desperate need to be complete (or to be completed by someone.) The only rationale I can come up with is that we as humans need to feel needed, maybe guys feel this more than girls. I can totally understand this feeling. But my thought is, I'd rather be wanted than needed. And on my end, I know that I want someone who is independent and knows what he wants out of life and has the tools to get there... he doesn't need me to get to where he's going per say, but more than anything he wants me to be there every step of the way.

I'm wondering if there are any guys who feel the same way about the girl they want to be with. It makes me sad sometimes. I feel like I know exactly where I'm going in life. I'm passionate about it, but I'm wondering if that will ever be valuable to anyone.

I blame this all on hormones. :)

All's well that ends well :)

A note to all the males out there...

Today be thankful that you don't have to endure a little thing called a pelvic exam... And your sympathy would be greatly appreciated toward those who do (namely, me.)

The day can ONLY get better from here.

Days like today make me think of Winney the Pooh and the Blustery Day. Speaking of... there's a rumbly in my tumbly. What's for lunch?

Anyway, today at 2:30 I'm meeting my mom in Edmond to look at her new house. You guys don't know the story, but someday when you see me (starring as myself) in the Lifetime Movie you will. I'm so proud of my mother. She represents to me everything a woman should be... strong, beautiful, intelligent, motivated, successful and a whole host of other things. Unfortunately, it was a long hard road that got her where she is today. And there were some times when we weren't sure any of us were going to make it through. But I'm excited for her and where she is in her life now. She is Director of Admissions at OCU and just got a $7,000 raise for increasing enrollment this year. Her new house in Edmond is, in my opinion, the most beautiful house she's ever lived in. Even better than the 4,000 square foot house my parents designed and built together. So needless to say, I'm excited for her.

Anyway, I've got a few counseling appointments today that should be interesting... It seems like the crazies are coming out of the woodwork lately. Well, I guess I should be grateful cause that's my job! I LOVE IT and wouldn't trade it for the world!

Alright boys and girls, in about an hour I will be venturing to Del City with my fellow bridesmaids to try on our dresses that are being altered. And at Whitney's suggestion, I will be doing a photo essay on the White Trash Wedding of the Century, complete with bachelorette party at the Penn 44 Bowling Lanes bar, rehersal dinner at Hometown Buffet, reception at the Mason's Lodge and removable heels on the bridemaid's shoes that can be filled with the substance of your choosing (I may be experimenting with a gold fish.) So check back throughout the weekend for updates!

Hey does anybody know if the Ellis Paul thing is still on for tomorrow night? And is anybody going??

Cutie Patootie!

I have something I would like to contribute to the world today.

I spent most of my day yesterday working on a project for my Senior Seminar. I called it, "The Making of a Star: My Academic Journey" (For those of you who don't know, OCU's mascot is the "stars.") It is a story of how someone can wallow in dismal failure for a time and still come out on top given help and encouragement by close family and friends. It is a story about how we as humans possess the innate ability to inspire change in others and in the world around us. (Basically it's a big UP YOURS to a snooty dean at OU who once told me I was an academic failure. Whitney suggested I send her a Chili's gift card along with my project which includes a list of accomplishments such as membership on the Dean's Honor Roll, member of Sigma Tau Delta, the National English Honor Society, and a 4.0GPA and say, "Here's to academic failures! Dinner's on me.")

In the process of creating my memoirs of my academic journey, I got the brilliant idea to cut out pieces of my transcripts and paste them to the pages of my story. So I took those oh-so-official documents and started cutting and pasting away. There was something very innocent and youthful about it. It was like I was making an art project out of the documents that are supposed to define who we are intellectually as people.

I have learned something in life... I will never let an official-looking piece of paper or an overpaid, stale, frigid woman define who I am as a person. I know who Ashly is. She is a beautiful, intelligent, creative, caring, sensitive gifted young woman with big plans to change her world.

By the way, the boob pictures should be up tonight or tomorrow. Ragan's server has become demon possessed. HOWEVER, you can click on the little empty boxes and a picture will show up! (At least on some of them!)

Happy morning after everybody! I'm a bit dazed and slightly confused about all the hubbub surrounding the events at the Wormy Dog Saturday night and the supposed sale of 96.9 The Bull. Can someone tell me what's going on please?

I heard about the run in w/ 5-0 on Saturday night and I think it's TOTAL BS. That's the bad part about going to Bricktown. It's crawling with cops who are out to prove that they are as bad ass as they think they are. And what is it with cops getting more and more aggressive these days. A couple of weeks ago, Whitney and I were sitting in line at Taco Bell on NW 23rd at 2 a.m. just trying to get our grub on and there were four cops walking up to people's cars to see if they were intoxicated! Don't they have to have some kind of probable cause? Can they just walk up to a parked car in a fast food drive through line and start asking questions??

Anyway, the air is weird and you know crazy wacked out things are going to happen when it's 80 degrees on freaking November 3rd. Anyway, I hope everybody's doing well today and enjoying life. Always remember even if you think it's bad now, it's more than likely going to get worse, so count your blessings. How's that for optimism!

Ok, I know it's late, but I need to recap for my girl Whitney who left early and missed a heck of a night that will forever go down in the history books as the night Kevin, Ragan & Ashly made history at the Bricktown Wormy Dog.

I got to the Dog around 12 a.m. after hearing Boland at the Brewery. (It's late and I'm not linking anything.) I showed up to find the future Mr. & Mrs. Ragan Parkerson plastered out of their minds and in their cute Hawaiian costumes, complete with yukalalee. Soon after that, we all started jammin to Texas Jack and they COMPLETELY ROCKED OUT some 80's tunes. And then it happened. Ragan finally got his rock star moment. He took the stage with the Texas Jack Band as lead singer. I felt like I was watching history being made that very moment. I could think of nothing else but, "Hey, I know him!!"

So after the glare of Ragan's five minutes of fame faded from my eyes, Kevin shows up with a green Sharpie. All I know is a few minutes later my boobs are covered in people's signatures (but not all of them, just the appropriate parts, if there is such a thing.) Tonight will be forever remembered as the night Ashly officially became a groupie. I just remember Kevin looking at me and saying, "You know this is a Sharpie, right? It'll be there for a few days." Uh oh. Oh well. It's the price you pay for glory. I'm also privileged to be the first boob signing for the infamous Kevmo. I was his first, boys and girls. ROCK ON. I de-flowered him. SWEET!

Anyway, about 7 margaritas later, I wished Whitney had stayed a little longer. But I'm sure she'll make up for it as the official president of the Wormy Dog All Stars Fan Club. I have a feeling there are many more crazy rock star nights to come.