January 2013 Snippets

My past few posts have been book reviews, so I thought I'd share some snippets of what's going on in Ashley Land lately!

Speaking of books, I'm making great progress on my 50-book challenge, so far I've finished 7 books! Yessss. I think having a Kindle has helped a lot with this. Love my Kindle even more than I thought I would (thanks mom and dad)! But don't worry, I still like having real books. I've bought some of those, too. I just joined the Launch Team for Ken Wytsma's new book Pursuing Justice and I'm so excited to get started with it! Look for that review mid-February.

I had another traumatizing incident with a fish this week. On Sunday, I was with my friends in my living room watching TV when I noticed there were fish in my tank! My dad had cleaned my tank (that only had a lobster [crayfish]) and gave me two pretty fish! As soon as I noticed them, I also noticed that one was dead :( We continued our television watching but after a little while, I looked over and saw the remaining fish (a pretty little pink one) GET ATTACKED BY THE LOBSTER. I watched it happen! With tears in my eyes, my friends and I tried to cheer on this little pink fish as it would escape, then tip upside down and float to the bottom...only to be attacked again. It went on for a few minutes before the pink fish finally passed away and was sucked towards the filter. It was so sad! I'm getting teary just thinking about it. I may have a phobia of those evil little black fish, but pink ones are pretty and kind and loving. (Yeah, I know, I'm like, six. It makes life fun.)

Enough sad talk. Let's talk about fun stuff! Our VBS Kit came in today! It's so much fun! This year is going to EPIC, guys! Seriously, they even use the phrase "Epic Adventure" in their marketing, and it's not exaggerating! I can't wait for VBS!

The other day I had a weird dream that we moved into the church and my bedroom was the sound booth in the sanctuary. But it still had to be a sound booth, too, so I basically just had a bed and lamp and we shuffled things around so it all fit. In my dream I walked in to go to bed and the men's group was there for prayer, and I was upset because I needed to sleep for work in the morning! Guess that's what happens when you read about constructing the tabernacle before going to bed!

My best friend and I decided to make this year EPIC (so the VBS theme is a perfect fit!). One of the things we've planned is to do one awesome, new, possibly scary, thing each month. Some of the things we've talked about are rock climbing (in the works!), zip lining, see the Northern Lights, and other top-secret ideas. Groupon is a very handy tool to help us accomplish this :) Of course, I will document our adventures here when they happen!

So far, I am very much enjoying this year and greatly looking forward to the rest of it! The only goal I'm really lagging on so far is my very-quickly-approaching need for health insurance. Things keep coming up to keep me from sitting down and getting it done! So tomorrow, that is the main activity before I go to work. Get myself health insurance. Everything else I've set as goals are in the works and going well, so I am very happy with life right now.

How about you, how's your 2013 going? Any big plans/goals in the works?