Ten years of you, my dear boy. Ten glorious, beautiful, BLESSED, years with you. I am so thankful the Lord trusted us to be YOURS. At 11:11am on 6/15/12, you were born into this big, scary, ever changing world.

I was thinking, what have I learned in these ten years of being your mama? Well, the first is that time is fragile. You can’t stop it, or catch it, or hold it with your fingers. It slips through our fingers and truthfully, the cliche saying, “The days are long but the years are so fast,” couldn’t be more true for how I feel.

Double digits. Wow, that is YOU, today. You are tall. Your long legs are so lean and strong. You love to play sports and have a new interest in soccer, which has been fun to watch. You are incredibly smart, and I can so see you being a savvy engineer one day. Maybe not. Maybe you’ll be a teacher. Or a doctor. Or a scientist. Maybe you’ll be a college athlete. Time will tell. And as I said, we already know that will feel like all too soon.

The world needs you, Pierson Clive. You are a wonderful, brave, adventurous little boy that is going to change so many lives. You’ve changed mine, sweet boy. Oh how you have changed mine.

In just ten more years, you will be twenty. Will you still be at home? Living with me and Dad? Going to a local college, maybe U of L? Again, time will tell. I can’t think about how there may be only “eight more summers” that you spend with me at home. My mind will explode and my heart will surely shatter. Instead I will be so thankful for what I do have with you—the time, the laughter, the memories, the hugs, the still nightly back tickles and you asking me to sing a bedtime song.

The world is work, Pierson. There may be an easy route, a simpler path, but that doesn’t always make it right. I pray that you have work ethic, and grit. That you realize how sweet success is when you have put a little sweat into it. But beyond the physical work, my son, the world is full of emotional work as well. I pray that you will love dearly every version of you. I also pray that you will know and love and cling to Jesus. In every part of your life. That you will trust Him with the answers, and you will always seek Him first. In the good times and the bad, happy and sad…I promise He is walking with you.

Oh how you will change these next few months, these next years. Be quirky, goofy, curious, and believe in yourself even when others do not. And know this, whatever phase and stage you are in, your dad and I and SO MANY PEOPLE, believe in you.

We love you. All ten years of you. The ups and downs, the funny and everything in between. I hope you look back on these ten years and smile. Knowing that we have loved every single second with YOU.

Happy 10th birthday, Pierson. Mama loves you so dang much.

This is 33.

12:30a.m. writing this post. When I’m supposed to be long asleep (as my husband is….) Six a.m. will come too quickly, and it’ll be the first time in a little over a YEAR, for me to work IN person, WITH actual people. Tomorrow I go back, and the thought is incredibly surreal. March 13, 2020 I walked out of my classroom, as did most of the world (Kentucky at the very least) and I had no idea what was coming.

For my 32nd birthday we booked a cabin in the woods and thought we would have just a ‘few weeks’ at home. Little did we know, right? We celebrated with lots of hiking, confetti cinnamon rolls, and Asa zoomed his family through his laptop to wish me a happy birthday. I remember being SO weirded out at that, a zoom call?! HA HA!!! It’s been the literal story of my life for a YEAR. Yours too, probably…

“How old do you feel?” I’ve been asked. And you know what… I have NO idea!! Is there actually an age that you feel right now? I’m super curious. I guess if I had to really dwell on it, I still feel like I’m in my twenties, but in a much BETTER way. While I still have insecurities and anxieties, they don’t compare to what twenty-something Ashley used to feel. I have been brushing things off a lot better these days, not hyper-focusing on things that just do not matter. Birthdays are always contemplative for me, so I wanted to share just a few things that I believe I’ve learned and become:

-My time is valuable. I work a full time job and a lot of ‘side’ jobs. I have several businesses and I spend a lot of time WORKING. But the days are fleeting, my kids are growing up SO fast, and I believe with each year that passes, I am reminded that we aren’t guaranteed a set number of days here on Earth. Therefore? I want my yes’s to count, and my no’s to count too. Time is valuable, and I want to make sure that I don’t waste mine.

-It’s OKAY to work and it’s okay to want to make extra income. I have a very big dream (yes, still!) of owning land and being in our forever home surrounded by open spaces. Getting there on two teacher salaries probably isn’t super feasible, so I enjoy being a multi-passionate entrepreneur and working hard to TRY to win a shot at my big dreams. I’m also incredibly grateful to have a husband who is willing to dream alongside me, even though many days I drive him up a wall ;)

-Taking medication for mental wellness is OKAY. I’m sorry, but how many people dealt with more stress and worries and anxiety the last YEAR then quite possibly ever before?! Sometime last summer (I think summer??) my favorite cat was diagnosed with diabetes. That’s a LONG story, but it was the straw that broke my back for a while. We lost our senior dogs back to back, and then we legitimately thought we were losing Manny. I spoke with my doctor and told her I felt my head was spinning constantly, I was having such obsessive and neurotic thoughts and I couldn’t even enjoy LIFE because I was stressing over him ALL THE TIME. Really, Ashley, over a damn cat you got put on anxiety meds? Yup. SHO DID. A baby dose at that, (a friend jokes with me that it was a placebo) and I stopped taking it within a few months (after his diabetes went into remission, like WHAT?!) but I LEARNED that it was OKAY. And if I ever feel I need to be back on it? That’s okay too.

-I’m not for everyone. And that is OKAY. I have been told by more people than I can count now that they are going to ‘unfollow me.’ I have been deleted and blocked on Facebook by family members and I’m sure on Instagram as well and you know what…? That’s okay!! While I may not understand it (I’m a huge advocate for two ways conversations, not one sided judgements) I absolutely encourage everyone to make the decisions that are best for THEM. Okay what I REALLY want to say and I’m going to because it’s my birthday: “No need to announce your exit but regardless, don’t let the door hit you on your way out!” ;)

-Patience. The past year especially has taught me this fruit of the spirit immensely. We couldn’t DO anything the last twelve months. We couldn’t go anywhere. We couldn’t change the circumstances. All we could do was figure out the best way to make our life a happy one and to try our best to love one another, EVERY single day. Teaching from home, our kids learning from home, trying to run my other businesses from home and not being able to GO OUT and take photos (a big part of my living)….PATIENCE.

-Still a night owl. I would rather work until three o’clock in the morning than go to bed at a decent hour and wake up earlier. Nope, nope, nope. I am obviously still a night owl (almost 1 a.m. and my alarm will be going off in five hours. Ouch.)

-I’m a decent runner. Last June I started running more consistently again, and as I began to increase my miles, I decided I wanted to run a mini marathon of my own. The one I ran in 2017 was a horrendous experience for me (the aftermath especially), and I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to do it again…but sure enough, January 30th, when my sweet sister in law was laboring with my nephew in Nashville, I ran 13.2 miles all on my own in the very freezing cold. THIS time I had trained more appropriately, and while I ran I kept thinking, “If she can have a baby, I can keep running.” HA, same thing, right, Beth?? (Lord bless my sister in law, y’all; that’s also another story for another time but she is SUCH a fricken warrior and we are so glad Johnny is here!)

-Jesus > me. The hurt in the world is too vast for me to try to make sense of, but if there’s one thing I have learned over the past year especially, it is that Jesus is bigger than ME. And guess what, He is bigger than YOU too. I do not care what church you attend or that you were a part of, if they are not actively seeking and representing JESUS. Not religion, not rules, not traditions or customs, I want JESUS. And because currently my Asian friends and family and my African American friends and family STILL are questioning whether or not they are worthy and loved!? I am begging for JESUS to be bigger than the noise and hurt. I am praying so hard for Light to overcome the Darkness and that for me personally, I will show light and love to all.

I’m sure there’s more that I could write and expand on, but really this is a pretty good picture of what I look like at 33. Not physically as in the photo above, just who I am. Thirty-two was a good year; a weird one, but good. I was able to stay home with my family every single day…for a year. I pray my kids look back on our time together fondly. That I didn’t yell too much or seem too busy. I hope that they look back and remember our time around the table, the card games, the meals, the walks in the woods and fields with our dogs, the movie nights in our family room, the laughter and the cuddling.

Being a wife and mom is an incredible honor for me and I don’t take it lightly. Here’s to another year around the sun, friends. Let’s see what this one brings…!

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