Jessica Ashley facebook twitter babble voices pinterest is a single mama in the city, super-savvy editor, writer, video host and shameless shoe whore.
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Monday
Nov262007

Getting My Shit Together Monday: While I am procrastinating posting

When you've barely posted in the last week and it is the livelihood on which you are going to try to rebuild your decimated credit and support not only yourself but your son, then why not make a handy to-do list of other stuff that desperately needs your attention? Why not do that in the form of a resurrected feature originated as a means to DIY some professional organizing around the old apartment and now is more of a life mission? Here's what's on the sticky note tucked into my day planner today:

* Convert Google Reader to Bloglines once and for all, rather than playing the favorite child game every other day or so.

Cancel two of the four events on the books for this weekend. One wedding and one holiday party should cover any attention span and energy level I have remaining by end of week.

Splurge (or at least semi-splurge...see above on credit and cash reserves) on a pair of phenomenal shoes for said wedding. Something clicky that I can dance in with my grrrls (because you never know when Rob Base is going to tear us from the bar).



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Monday
Nov262007

Get your ass in gear, mama. I mean, only if you are so inclined.

How Monday is it of me to post this give-away alert for  a four-week Windy City Adventure Boot Camp Class? I'm not saying any of need this fitness tough love. And I promise not to judge if your 6 AMs are much better spent tending babies, begrudgingly catching the early news or maybe even crawling back into bed. But if you are up and can detach small children, needy husbands and nighties and you feel the need for some yelly wellness, why not get it for free? Save your money to spend on something delicious as a reward for taking care of you, or even just extracting yourself from the morning routine.

Easy peasy: Just go here to sign up for the giveaway on Chicago Moms Blog.

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Sunday
Nov252007

NaBloPoMoNooooooooooooooooooooooo

Let me say this: It has been a hella long week. So long that last week feels like the mid-90s and I'm left with a laundry basket full of Girbauds and a jewelry box full of earrings made out of cascading plastic neon triangles.

Yesterday, when I anticipated feeling the sinking and settling calm of being home (or as much as my parents' house is home to us for this month...or more) from our Thanksgiving road trip to Indiana, I did not. Instead, I put aside the calm I probably really needed by skipping yoga to run errands, cook dinner, unpack suitcases, scrub out gnarly sippy cups and shop for new tall boots. My quiet moment of the day came in ten minutes to quickly post for the day before I was off to the dry cleaner.

I rattled out the most hilarious-yet-poignant of my life (I kid you not), hit publish and then...nothing...nothing...more nothing. I took a breath, hit it again and then...complete lock-up. I couldn't click the bad grrrl closed, I couldn't even power down. Not even a fancy little technological dream move like CTRL+ALT+DELETE would do it. It was a full on battery removal moment and with that, every window disappeared, every halfway-checked site was swept away and of course, my paused and ready to publish post was lost. AH! By the time, the screensaver once again revealed my boy's face smiling innocently up at me like a virtual apology oozing from my laptop, it was time for me to head out again.

Without much effort, I was caught up in laundry and picking up Lil E from Daddy Time and the inevitable time-out frenzy and toysplosion that follow.  The post that now needed to be re-written out of a tangle of thoughts on fast-forward, fell out of my brain. Noooooo! Say it isn't so.

It wasn't until the first sip of a beer in a bar hours and hours later that it occurred to me that my NaBloPoMo streak was stalled. Stalled by a frozen computer, fast-forwarded brain and an energy and attention span that sometimes can't seem to hold one more thing in.

So I'm settling for an A- this November. It's not like me to let that go, but today, on my way to another and needed even more yoga class, I'm going to have to let that skipped post just be.

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