the apple

i guess today i'm seeing things differently. she was only trying to protect herself... i do the exact same thing. we has humans protect ourselves. if a situation is causing us pain and doesn't appear to change, we get out. it's instinct. i can't hold that against her. i now have to get over 15 years of resenting her... which will undoubtably be a challenge. but i like challenges, right? like the challenge of getting to my next class in five minutes, hah. hopefully i'll get to know her and maybe ever bridge the gap of our family again (HIGHLY unlikely, but remember how i like challenges?) No, my only goal in this situation is to maybe get to know my long-lost grandmother and show her the love of Christ, as I know she needs it so desperately.

"I guess I took the easy way out"

bev laskowski said this to me. i have been resenting her lately. i shot her a letter and she responded real quick-- and i guess i didn't like her response. i've been dealing with that a lot i guess.

here and gone

Sometimes I write entire posts and then realize they were completely pointless and the only real reason that I have written them is because I cannot find anything else to do... so then I delete them due to the fact they are full of gibberish.

hard as wound

I have a busy life... it's true. But doesn't everybody to an extent? Some busier than others, yet most think their own life is incredibly busy. So I decided that some people probably have a busier life than I, therefore I can stop thinking my life is busy in account that it is not as busy as it probably could be.... and therefore I must have spare time somewhere in my schedule. All this to say that I am going to read a book this week... I haven't read much this semester because I've felt my schedule is too busy and in my spare time I read text books. But I am going to make it a point to read a book this week... probably in the time that I'd usually be online. Because let's face it, this is not entirely necesary.

b-u to the dish

Tonight the seminar was all about catastrophies with athletes and how to deal with them... and along with that we talked a lot about death in athletics... Going into the seminar I didn't even consider that it would effect me how it did. For a lot of it I could concentrate on nothing but thoughts of Brian.... and how it is still almost surreal to me. Then I realized it's only been 3.5 months-- that's not a lot period of time. They talked about how most people don't deal with death right away but it takes most people a little while to actually grasp onto the fact... but I replay that night over and over in my head.... I was driving home from school and for some reason, still completely unknown to me, God put Brian on my heart to pray for him and his family.... and I was passing through Becker when my mom for some reason called, I cannot remember why... I remember her words so vividly... the sound, how she said it..... "ashley, brian died this morining..." I instantly felt more anger than I've ever felt. I almost instantly also burst into tears, and hung up the phone without saying a word... the second the phone closed I sobbed for the remainder of the trip home. My first thought was, 'it's my fault' --I'm not sure how it could have been my fault-- I thought that because I hadn't prayed for him the past couple days... that for some reason those few prayers that I missed were God's reason for allowing him to die... that if I had just remembered to pray for him constantly, that God would have spared his life. But the guilt that I felt-- and why? Am I so prideful to think that it was my lack of prayer that allowed him to die? ...but I think it was less pride and more pain... trying to reason and understand his death, needing to put blame somewhere, and knowing it should never be placed on God.

On the way home that night my tears nearly blinded me, but I wouldn't stop driving... I almost wanted to crash so I wouldn't have to deal with the pain. I still keep the bulletin from the funeral right by my bed with my bible.

I guess all this to say that I did experience immediate horrific pain... but then I think I tried to shove it away... pretend that I'm up at school and because I wouldn't see him everyday up here that life still went on as usual back home. But that seminar was really hard for me.


tonight i cry... tonight i continue to mourn... whatever mourn means. i miss him. i wish when i go home i can see him... i wish when i see his family everything can be okay... i wish that its not different... but how can i be so selfish? how can i wish he was back here? how can i wish him away from his perfect body? how can i wish him away from true and complete communion with God? ...he doesn't suffer anymore. no more treatments. no more pain. no more worries. i need to find my joy in that.


i just needed to get all my emotions out tonight-- i don't think i've ever expressed how this has made me feel... this is just a glimpse.




"i come to you in pieces, so you can make me whole..."

spring is in the now

So as I was about to walk home from school tonight - which was abnormally late due to an NATA seminar that I had - I was about to call a roommate to come get me because it was so late, but then I stepped outside and realized that I wanted to walk home... it is so gorgeous outside- I could even see stars! The cool night air was delightful to breathe in, the temperature was perfect, and I was listening to some amazing music, and I'm not sure how the night could have been better... my life is good... God, is good.

Mid-Day Hoopla

So I just have athletic training for four hours a day this week, because it's spring break... So what on earth is there to do in college town when every college kid is out of the town? Buy a pizza and watch movies... so that's what i did... and it was joyous. I watched two movies, and have two reviews:



Into the Wild: The soundtrack was much like that of Garden State, so right away I enjoyed the music, and there was a lot of it, so the movie had that going for it. I thought the movie was put together well and it wasn't boring, although it potentially had that effect being as it just followed a guy being a hippie/nomad. Going into this movie I had no idea that it was based on a true story... and had I, I probably wouldn't have watched it. Because when its a true story, that means it probably won't have a happy ending, call me a critic, but most times real live stories don't have the fairy-tale endings. I enjoyed the movie, I really did... all the way up until the last five minutes.... when the man died. It was so close (in my mind) to being a heart-warming, feel-good ending, and then it didn't. I almost sat in disbelief... thinking "i can't believe i just wasted my life watching that movie" ...all the while five minutes prior i would have recommended the movie to all. Not anymore -- no siree.

Gone Baby, Gone: I came into this movie not knowing much about it... except that it wasn't based on a true story-- i checked. Now, on the back cover where it describes the movie, it said there were many twists to the movie... never could a description been more correct. I thought the movie was over 1/2 way into it. So in this sense, I thought the movie did drag on for far too long. And although twists in movies are good for the suspense factor, I think this movie had one too many* twists to it... I didn't even catch everything there were so many twists-- and I'm pretty sure you were supposed to at least track with them. So I would recommend Man on Fire if you wanted to see a movie about a kidnapping-- it is at least ten times better than this movie. Although, I did like Casey Affleck-- who, I can only assume is Ben Afflecks brother. I'm not really into the whole celebrety thing, but I thought he was a very talented actor.




*i say one too many as a figure of speech, because i think it had way too many

Soli Deo Gloria

Saturday, the 1st of March I went to Forever Yours Tattoo in Anoka and got a tattoo. At the same time Matt got two on his feet. As each day passes, I enjoy it more and more.... if nothing else but the pure significance of what it means.