I’d tell you how many times I’ve listened to this song over the past month, but that would be embarrassing. Do yourself a favor and take a little bit to soak it in. If you’re anything like me, today you need the reminder that Jesus is always good, always enough, and is intimately involved in every little piece of our lives.

It became impossible to deny the blatantly obvious when at approximately 8:20 AM on Monday morning, I discovered that I had walked out of my house, driven to work and sat down at my desk wearing two entirely different shoes. Justin Timberlake and I are in the business of bringing sexy back, and we’d appreciate it if you would simply leave us to it.

I felt very “ladies who lunch” sitting in my skirt and mismatched footwear. They added a certain “Je ne sais quoi” to my outfit-and technically, I AM a lady, and I DID eat lunch on Monday. Even if lunch consisted of a rather suspect stalk of celery, four limp grapes and a cube of Munster cheese. It might have been alone under fluorescent lighting, and it might not have been white wine and a strawberry salad, but there is no shame in lunches comprised out of the dregs of my refrigerator! Or in eating Nutella straight out of the jar with a spoon. Or taking purple Flintstone vitamins for adults.

There is no shame in that.

My fading mind is frazzled. Which is unfortunate, because I used to be able to remember an impressive variety of things and have now reached a point where the only thing I can recall with total clarity are the words to approximately every. single. Rascal Flatts song. Which is a handy life skill.

Sadly, I’m not even sure that Sudoku can help me now. …especially because I’m not entirely positive that I correctly understand how to do Sudoku.

Give it to me straight: is everything just downhill after twenty five? At this rate by the time I’m thirty, you’ll find me wandering your local Walmart parking lot and rummaging through their recyclables.

…while eating a strawberry salad.

I trust that the past several weeks have worked out beautifully for you and humbly apologize for my propensity to get sidetracked and forget that just because I’m not thinking about my blog does not mean it doesn’t exist. It’s very reminiscent of my sophomore year of high school, during which I temporarily forgot I was taking Algebra II because it was Spring and the sun was shining and I needed to be tan by Spring Break.

Speaking of Spring Break, why is it that adults don’t get one? The florescent lights atop my cubicle at the frat house are slowly frying my retinas and driving me to drink.

Which is unfortunate, given that keeping a bottle of Jack under your desk at a Baptist church is generally frowned upon.

And while we’re talking about food, if I weren’t too cheap to quit I’d be just about ready to give up on the whole “bagged lunches” idea. Don’t get me wrong, I love to cook-…just not at six thirty AM. I know, I know. PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER, ASHLEY. IT’S A BAGGED LUNCH-NOT VIETNAM. But you’ve got to understand that at six thirty AM, you’re more likely to find me rummaging through the neighborhood recyclables than you are to engage me in any form of intelligent conversation, much less find me being creative with healthy foods.

Though actually, I suppose that hinges on what your definition of “healthy” is. My definition includes Nutella.

Every morning in a dazed stupor, I stumble into the kitchen to make my lunch-which given the fact that I routinely forget to go to the grocery store looks something akin to one of those bizarre Quick Fire Challenges on Top Chef. Except this doesn’t so much involve making a canapé in forty seconds using Brie and chilled lobster tail so much as it involves what kind of sandwich I can make using no bread or lunch meat or cheese. If not for a few rather questionable lettuce leaves and single triangle of Laughing Cow cheese I discovered on happenstance at the eleventh hour, all would have been lost last Wednesday morning.

Though caffeinated, pencil-skirted, hungry Ashley didn’t find anything humorous about the aforementioned cheese triangle six hours later at lunchtime that day. “Maniacally Taunting Cow” might have been more appropriate.

A wise woman might wander downstairs right now to pre-pack a healthy, creative lunch before drifting off to sleep. But like Scarlett O’Hara, I’ll think about that tomorrow.

For the record, it is not in fact spring.

I loathe, despise and abominate springing forward. Nothing good can come from this madness! Anyone who claims otherwise is a liar and a socialist.

Speaking of madness, I’m also not wild about my Heels losing to FSU-but then, we’ve got bigger fish to fry now haven’t we?

John Henson, any time you want to get over that wrist thing is good with me. You know. So I don’t stroke out.

Go Heels, go America!

Kellan and I had only been dating for a matter of days when he extended an invitation to dine with him after church. I was to come over at 1:00, and he was cooking.

I didn’t know it at the time, but that was big. Huge! Like, landing on the moon huge.

At that point in our fledgling “no YOU hang up” relationship, there were things that I knew about the arm candy that I’d begun to introduce as “boyfriend”. I knew he’d spontaneously drive to the beach at 2:00 AM if given half an inkling that I’d go with him. I knew never to play poker with him. [So, let’s be serious: never to learn how to play poker.] I knew that his his iPhone functioned as an extension to his arm, he was a dazzling conversationalist, and his eyes were just dreamy…

…I’m sorry, where were we?

Like I was saying, there were things that I knew-but nobody had yet bothered to clue me into this little gem: Kellan Dickens does. not. cook.

Period. I mean, we’re talking about a man whose fridge functions more as a cupboard for bagel bites and beer.
I walked into his bachelor pad that sunny Sunday afternoon, and my heart melted a little bit. There were flickering white candles. There were roses. There was a table cloth, a bowl full of meticulously placed berries, and a bottle of the white wine he was slowly beginning to learn that I loved.

Hello, sailor.

With all of the excited gusto of five year old Squanto in his school’s Thanksgiving play, he seated me and then ran over to the oven.

Carefully, with the distinct air of one that had entirely no idea what he was doing, he placed two potholders onto his hands and, looking for all the world like a chemist handling enriched plutonium, slowly opened the oven. To my unabashed delight, out came…

…two cheery yellow lunchable boxes.

It was between gasps of laughter and bites of over-processed turkey and cheese that I figured out that I might want to keep him.

We thoroughly enjoyed our lunchables and wine, and that was that. He never cooked again. And we all lived happily ever after!

Until Valentine’s day.

Several weeks ago, I walked into Kellan’s apartment for our date and was greeted by candlelight, the unmistakable aroma of molten chocolate floating through the air and the strains of “My Funny Valentine” crooning softly in the background.

If I had been wearing pearls, I would have been clutching them.

Molten lava fudge cake. Yes, and amen.

Be still my wildly beating heart, he’d cooked! Y’ALL. I’m talking sangria [oh just pour it into a big gulp], salad, “smothered chicken” [bless his heart, he made it up and it was to die for], and [drumroll please]: molten lava fudge cake.

Oh hello, fudge cake. Let’s fall in love. And have kids and drive them to soccer practice.

He’d used the google to learn everything from how to cut and caramelize an onion to how to defrost chicken [a necessary evil after attempting to cook a frozen block of chicken in the oven]-and let me tell you, nothing says “romantic” like “I googled for you”.

Once I woke up from my fudge cake coma, I decided I was never cooking again.

Unfortunately, Kellan vehemently responded that he was never going to either, which left me at quite a loss as to what on earth we’d do.

Whatever it is, it will probably have something to do with the aforementioned bagel bites.

The End.

I grew up in a youth group that just loved to separate the guys and the girls to talk about gender-specific issues. Now, if you want my unsolicited opinion, there are few things in life that are more distracting to a teenaged girl than sitting in a room wondering what all the boys are talking about across the hall.

Especially when the girls were being told the same thing over and over and over again. Inevitably, a slightly awkward older woman in a pajama-esque pant suit would spend approximately forty-five minutes attempting to charm the uninterested as she prattled on about what was apparently the weightiest issue facing our walks with Christ: the way that we dressed.

A group of impressionable young women in jeans would listen as she warned us not to dress like five-dollar hookers, because the animals masquerading as young men across the hall only wanted one thing. Now if we were really lucky, she might admonish us all to view ourselves like Jesus did—as delicate tea cups instead of paper Starbucks cups [can I get an amen? Anybody?]– but the bottom line always seemed to be what not to wear.

Interestingly, no one ever pulled her aside to tell her to leave her pant suit in 1978.

Across the hall, the boys were talking about sex. They were talking about the dangerous allure of pornography, of just how tempting it was to have sex before marriage, the sinful nature of masturbation…these boys were being equipped to fight the battle like the men that God had created them to be.

But no one ever talked with my friends and I about any of that. Delicate tea cups can’t handle those sorts of things, I suppose. Unfortunately, a generation of tea cups grew up steeped in the subliminal message that sexual sin is something that only men struggle with—but never women.

If you’re a woman reading this, you just rolled your eyes. You know all too well the battle being fought in the hearts, minds and bedrooms of the women that fill the sanctuary every Sunday morning. I’ve struggled with it, my friends have struggled with it, the women in my small group struggle with it…ladies, shall we let the boys in on our secret? Hold onto your hats, gentlemen: we have sex drives too.

The problem is, we don’t talk about that in church. While the men are being warned and equipped, we are quietly sitting on the sidelines, pretending to be unaffected and unconcerned as the battle rages on.

As a church, it is imperative that we debunk the dangerous myth that sexual sin is an exclusively male problem. Women struggle with masturbation. They struggle with pornography. They wrestle with the desire to have sex before marriage, and so many of us live with the crushing weight of guilt that comes from losing a battle that we were never equipped to fight. And it’s not the pant-suited lady’s fault; the responsibility for our sin is our own.

Ladies: you are not alone. It’s time for us to recognize the severity of the problem, and to combat our sin like the women God created us to be. Let us be the generation that acknowledges the battle, and fights it well.

To that end, I’d like to invite you to join me to be equipped to fight. On February 12^th, from 5:00-8:00 at the Brier Creek South Venue, Brad Hambrick [counselor extraordinaire] is going to be giving a training seminar on how to combat and deal with the ramifications of sexual sin – False Love: Overcoming Sexual Sin from Lust to Adultery.

Ladies, you need to be there regardless of whether or not this is a current struggle for you. You may not be actively engaged in the battle right now, but it’s a guarantee that you know someone who is. Your sister, your best friend, the girl in your small group, your husband-this is a battle being waged across our church.

Join me on February 12^th, and let’s fight it together. A tea cup can’t fight, but a godly woman can!

I’m not kidding-it really did.

My Father and very-pregnant-with-me-Mother were at a pinkies-out cocktail party. Let’s give my Mother the benefit of the doubt and assume she was toasting with apple juice, shall we?

It was an extravagant affair, punctuated by the delicate ringing of crystal, bow-ties and the swish of elegant dresses as women that hadn’t the faintest idea how to wear them milled awkwardly about the room with all of the grace of Nazi Storm troopers.

Ladies by right of nature and little else, these missing links women made such an unfortunate impression on my parents, that they immediately decided that they would raise their daughter [read: me] to be a lady that Emily Post herself would be proud of. One that was well-versed in social etiquette. One that that understood not to apply her makeup with a trowel, how to wear a cocktail dress, walk in heels, and ascertain the crucial difference between shrimp and relish forks.

So you see, I really never had a say in the matter. Some of my earliest memories are of being taught how to sit up straight like a lady, how a lady shakes hands [they made me practice on a door knob], the graceful way in which a lady ought to walk [book on the head? I’m a pro.], how a lady ought to answer the phone [Yes, this is she.], politely decline an invitation [“H-no!” is never an option], eat a burrito [Just. Don’t.]…

And don’t get me started on the “do-nots”. A lady does not shout. A lady does not get a mullet. A lady does not eat anything that ends in “doodle”, “puff” or “whiz”. A lady does not buy underwear at Walmart, take relationship advice from Oprah, or agree to be on a reality show with the words, “Real Housewives”, “Bachelor,” or “Bret Michaels” in the title.

…interestingly, many of these lessons were set to the soothing backdrop of me softly humming the dungeon music from Super Mario for Nintendo. Which I loved to play with my brothers when we were not playing Duck Hunt.

You know, back before I learned that a lady does not shoot ducks. Or anything that’s not a cat.

According to my Father, one of the things a lady most certainly did not do was participate in pajama day at school. Growing up, it was the bane of my existence to be the only jean-clad high schooler in a sea of flannel and sweatshirts.

How. Humiliating.

It was with unabashed delight that I called my Dad on my second day of college. I remember it like it was yesterday. It was seven thirty AM, and my hair looked like it had been purchased at a thrift store, after all of the real hair was gone. Dark circles of leftover mascara left me with a face only a mother could love, and my pink flannel pajama pants trotting their way down the sidewalk left me an outfit a father certainly could not.

Dad picked up the phone, and with eighteen years of ill-suppressed glee, I impishly heralded the news that I was, at long last, wearing my pj’s in public-and there wasn’t a darn thing he could do about it.

Ever level-headed, Dad simply commented on how inspiring it was that I’d finally figured out how to use my cell phone, and hung up.

And my pajamas and I lived happily ever after-shrimp forks and all.

It’s odd that there’s something comforting about doing what has become so familiar to me.

I’m moving to Chapel Hill! I’m a happy kid-someone needs to teach me how to do a cartwheel right this very minute. But it’s true-after months of my parents graciously allowing me to use up all of their hot water and breathe up all of their oxygen, I am, through a series of wildly unexpected and inexplicable events, moving into a house with two girls that I just adore.

In a concerted effort not to end up on TLC’s “Hoarders” [terrif. fying. Every time I watch that show, my eyes start to water and my mouth begins to taste like bad gas station coffee.], I’m throwing away a lot of the things I simply couldn’t bear to part with in July when I get home from Senegal. Strands of dirty wooden beads that I thought would make just phenomenal gifts [if you received one of those alleged gifts, you have my heartfelt apology. At the time I was under the delusion that everyone wanted tackily rainbow-colored Senegalese beads.], half used bottles of shampoo and conditioner [and on that note, I really don’t think I’ll need to buy deodorant for at least another year thanks to my Senegal stash. Cheers to that!], filthy biohazard excuses for books…

The list goes on.

It’s all hitting the trash-joined by other treasures I’ve accumulated and kept over the years for some inexplicable reason. Really, I’m honestly rather concerned about myself. I think I go through life believing that everything that becomes mine, I will one day need and therefore can never get rid of. That, coupled with my marvelous habit of breaking anything with a plug can lead to a lot of ubiquitous stuff! You see, “defective” is a big word for me. Many things in my life are labeled “defective” only to miraculously turn functional again once the directions have been read more thoroughly. If the directions are ever read at all.

The aforementioned elephant graveyard of electronics is stressing me out. Along with North Carolina’s bipolar weather, automatic toilets and Newt Gingrich.

In no particular order.

In honor of my impending move and Duke’s impending spanking, I’ll  leave you with this little gem:

If I ever have children, you’ll see them on youtube doing exactly this.

I’ll buy them ponies if I have to!

Go Heels, go America.

Right outside of the botique where we found her wedding dress!

Ladies and gentlemen: without further ado-I give you: the smitten list.

1. 1. Christy is engaged. Christy! Is! Engaged! That boy of hers finally popped the question on a frosty December night under a thousand twinkle lights.  She was positively swooning when she called me at 2:00 AM, and I was so over-the-moon that I sat bug-eyed and upright in my bed until my alarm jolted me back to reality at 6:00! Two weeks later when she flew home, I was temporarily blinded by her ring in the Charlotte airport-an unfortunate inevitability that subsided in enough time for me to help her say yes to the dress. She was so breathtaking that I cried like a small, emotionally disturbed child-it was one of those moments that will spring to her mind later when they ask if there were any signs. Also, given that wedding planning doesn’t necessarily make her heart go pitter-patter, her impending nuptials have given me a fantastic excuse to implement creative ideas like this one:

I promise you that his bride fell in love with him all over again.

On July 7^th, Christy Seamon and David Noyd will become Mr. and Mrs-and a crowd of overjoyed former STINTers will reunite. …I just hope we’re a bit cleaner than the last time that we were all together.

2. Have I told you I’m co-leading a women’s Bible study? Probably not, given that the alleged date of my last blog was in November. But now that I AM telling you about them, you should know that they’re the bomb dot com. I am completely smitten with them. Every Thursday night, I sit down over copious amounts of baked goods [diabetics would be well-served to find a different small group] with a group of women who previously didn’t know each other. And we talk about everything. From what color our undies are [okay, maybe not the best first icebreaker question ever] to the pieces of our hearts that God is softening and making more like Himself. They make me want to be a better man.

3. The Fratties. I love them. Even if they do mock me mercilessly every time I wear heels or the color pink. They’ve been systematically trying to shame the estrogen out of me-if you ever pop in for lunch at the office, don’t ask for “Ashley” at the front desk. In an effort to butch me up, they’ve all taken to calling me “Peterson”.

4. I was home for Christmas. There is much to say, but I’ll leave you with this:

http://sermons.summitrdu.com/sermons/?sermon_id=235

It was one of my very favorite parts.  “A thrill of hope-a weary world rejoices!” I think I love Christmas because I love the idea of hope. A reason for a broken, tired world to REJOICE. Praise Jesus for hope.

An early morning in Utah-we were on a ski lift going up a mountain about ten minutes after this was taken. Bliss.

5. I just spent one glorious week snowboarding in Utah with Kellan and his family. There was snow. There was a hot tub. There was the most divine caramel latte I’ve had since August. And there was, as it so happens, one mildly embarrassed, over-caffeinated brunette dragging her bruised hiney around Park City, wondering at what point over the past six years she lost the ability to snowboard.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

It’s time, kids.

Christmas! I’m in love. I’m in love, and I don’t care who knows it! Starbucks cups herald the commencement of the Christmas season- and if Starbucks says it’s Christmas, then Christmas it shall be. Starbucks does, after all, dictate how I ought to feel and act and think. If Starbucks told me to take up residence with a two eskimos and a yak in an Alaskan igloo, I’d be on a flight to Anchorage within the hour.

I digress.

The entrance of my dearly beloved red holiday cups into a chilly world that could use a little Christmas [right this very minute!] was an auspicious event I’d been anxiously awaiting for two long years. They’re a big deal-my first year in Africa my sweet Mom sent me a package of those cheery Christmas cups, a casual extravagance that I proudly displayed both years.

…I don’t want to talk about how dirty they were by the time I moved. I don’t want to talk about how dirty I was by the time I moved. And while we’re on the subject, let’s all try not to think about how redneck my decorating scheme was.

I’d been longingly waiting for the chance to go get a holiday cup in person-a holiday cup full of fancy-pants coffee, no less! Ben made all of my Christmas cup hopes and dreams come true last week when he surprised me by showing up at my house and taking me to Starbucks. I walked into the world’s most renowned coffee shop, and lit up like Christmas itself.

Ben, on the other hand, doubled over in insuppressible peals of uninhibited laughter at the discovery that the “holiday cups” I’d been gushing over for two years are just that: cups. Not a special drink. Ben is such a man. Bless him. Though Ben and I have had a ball living in the same[ish] place and getting to hang out, we regularly lament the fact that some of our favorite people [read: the dream team] are scattered here, there and everywhere.

I have abandonment issues. I can’t even help it. Thus, it’s time for everybody’s favorite game: “Where are they now?” Given that our team is nowhere to be found, Ben and I decided to settle for the next best thing and take a series of horribly offensive pictures that depict the stereotypes we thrust upon them over the course of our time in Africa.

Christy moved to Oregon for love. We’ve been over this. She’s saving babies, volunteering at a homeless shelter, and going on regular date nights with the boy that stole her far, far away from me.

While Christy is not actually a redneck, we often joke that she is. Mostly because she lives within spitting distance of a Nascar racetrack. I believe we were trying to channel a barn dance here...

Dayton is still working for Cru part time in Kentucky-with [who else?] international students. We text or call each other every time we’re listening to Christmas music, since we’re no-judgement friends. He also directs music at a church part time, and is getting ready to go to grad school.

Dayton was our team piano man and prayer warrior.

Ted is working outside of Charlotte. He volunteers with Big Brother, Big Sister-and just adopted the cuh-UTEST puppy named Charlie.

Playing basketball. Clearly, I knew exactly what I was doing. Ted was our team jock.

Ben is going to seminary, working for Cru part time at Duke, and looking for a wife full-time.

We forgot to take a picture depicting this, but Ben was definitely the team nerd.

And Michelle. Michelle is still in Senegal-adjusting to life with a new [sob!] team, and patiently answering way too many skype calls from me. Follow her adventures HERE.

...I know, I know. Not okay. Except if you're on our team, it is. :)

What’s that you say? What was MY stereotype?

I’ll never tell. ;)

Team-you are dearly missed.