moving

I've posted this before I think...perhaps on my Spain blog...

at any rate, appropriate for today.

{Photo from Hyperbole and a Half}

new years resolution #4

Do a pull-up.

I don't think I will ever have the upper body strength to do a pull-up, but Blake says I can so I'm going to try...

To everyone at home...

Although I am actually really really thankful for the Internet and the way I can instantly connect with friends and family at home... its just not the same.

new years resolution #3

Try oysters. Because I can.

new years resolution #1

Learn the 'Single Ladies' dance. :)

new years resolution #2

be a girl who wears heels

and without further ado...

POLAROIDS!

This is my very first picture..

Jill and I at our favorite table at the Mill

Nikki found me this picture! Yes!

I want this to me me... :)

someday I will have a library :)

Happy 26th Birthday to me

i {heart} avocados

boom boom ain't it great to be crazy

My mom emailed me this video of Hudson today...

so this just happened...

Bethany: also. side. note.

chach just knocked on my door and without hesitation i said "no"

me: hahahaha

Bethany: and she just started laughing outside my door

me: yessssssssss

the legacy lives on!!!

Bethany: and now she wants to know if a normal lightbulb size will fit in the fridge

me: WHAT IF THEY DON'T LAUGH AT MY JOKES?

hahahahahahahah charity........

what?

no....

come on tom junior!

even i know that!

Bethany: LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

me: fridge lightbulbs are small!

Bethany: yeah but the "socket" is the same size as normal ones

and wait wait

she knows this because she STUCK HER FINGER IN THE SOCKET

I AM DYING

me: WHAT THE H-E-DOUBLE-ELL?? oh mini-tom... GOOD THING SHE STILL HAS FINGERS

Bethany: MINI TOM

YES.

me: good grief

i talk in caps lock to you more than anyone else, just fyi

Bethany: i will take that as a compliment

me: you should

because you understand my hilarity

which really is a short list of people...

Bethany: also, i think chach should just try a litghtbulb. see what happens.

oh yes i do.

many years of laughter at my expense via the witty brain of one miss ashley clark

me: i'm imagining this glowing fridge with a 100 watt bulb in it...

i know. i really should write this stuff down.

Bethany: RIGHT?! that's what we were laughing at!!!!

cause i just put a new one in outside and it's SO bright, and we started laughing so hard at that thought

me: LIKE THE ANGEL LIGHTBULB THAT WAS IN MY ROOM SLASH THAT LAMP SLASH THE FRONT PORCH!!

Bethany: THE ANGEL HAS MIGRATED!

me: ....weirdest sentence of the day...

Bethany: usually happens when we're together.

i. miss. this. so. much.

gotta love a man in a well-taylored suit...

errands

I had this whole long post written up about my funny day of running errands with my sister on Monday and then realized, no one wants to read about how we went to the dollar store and Origins and Target, etc etc...because it's not actually that funny when I type it out. However it was an amazing and funny... especially because if I had done them myself it would have been tedious and would probably have made me sad. Instead we laughed a lot at things that only sisters think are funny {also laughed at Bobbi spilling things on herself...} and had pop and popcorn at Target and things like that. So thankful for her.

"Umbrella/Singin' In the Rain"

purse

At some point in the recent past, I've kind of fallen in love with Betsey Johnson. Some of her stuff is a little odd but for the most part, is adorable and unique and fabulous. Mostly I just like to look because her stuff is perhaps outside my missionary budget :)

I've also been on a hunt for "the purse" to take to Spain.

Jayme gave me a visa gift card for my birthday and said,

"I had a hard enough time picking out your Christmas present so you can pick out your own birthday present."

So today I found this not-so-little beauty on a really really good sale.

Happy Birthday to MEEEEE!

kindle

This. is. a.mazing.

LOTR

Jill has been reading the Lord of the Rings and here she is at The Mill today REAAAAALLY excited about the fold-out map in the back of The Fellowship of the Ring.

obligatory

It's really cold here.

Which makes me want to be in this photo.

I {heart} pink

I want this house.

Every door, window, chimney, porch and pointy roof.

All of it.

Betsey Johnson

Christmas 2010

We are a family of traditions. Christmas has always been more-or-less the same and it's wonderful. This year, since Christmas fell on a Saturday, it was a little a-typical for the Clark family. We did our normal Christmas Eve things....

{....and yes.... this is normal....at least for Bobbi....}

And then Christmas morning we had breakfast and stockings!

Jayme got some Harry Potter Legos...might be the cutest things I have ever seen...

The grandparents, Jill and Lindsey all came out for lunch and the day!! {and poor Reverend Clark had to go to work}

as I've mentioned before...Linds likes cats.

Playing Quelf

reading The Divine Conspiracy...a girl after my own heart.

THEN on Sunday afternoon {after the Rev took his nap} we had our Christmas.

My dad looks the same in every picture...

and just in case you forgot about my camera :)

Polariod pictures: coming soon...

2011

I have a good feeling about 2011. Which also will be the year in which I am 26 and I have good feelings about that too. :) This is the year I move to Madrid (the MONTH I move to Madrid actually...) and that will be the start of a whole new life, which will be difficult to be sure, but also amazing. I have a feeling that a year from now I will look back (once the smoke has cleared from the world ending in 2012 and the zombie attacks etc, etc.) and realize I'm a very different person than the 2011 me.

This 2010 year has been one of the best and one of the hardest years of my life. It was a year of perpetual transition, life as I knew it, constantly changing. Good things started and good things ended, I grew a garden, I spent time with people I love, made memories with the kids, started blogging (!), I dealt with some very private kinds of loss, and God stretched me to to a breaking point. I'm thankful for a God who interferes. A God who gets His hands dirty in the messes of our lives, who cares about my holiness and the choices I make.

My dearest best friend emailed me these thoughts a few weeks ago, which are actually born out of a year of processing through some very difficult things together:

"Most times I don't even know what to pray anymore but when I get on my face like this, the only thing that comes to mind is "You are God and I am not." I guess maybe that's the point. But I think that's maybe why I cried for you and for me. I know ultimately that that is the struggle He is working out in us--trying to rid us of those urges to be our own god--urges I don't even know are there half the time. He wants us to be better than what we are, glorify Him more than we are. But at the same time, [it] reminded me that He is watching us struggle and He longs for us to be more than what we've set out for and that requires struggle and pain and that pains Him too. Quite simply: He cares about our pain. So even though I know He knows it's good for us, I also feel very assured that He can't wait for the day to make us jump up and down after this winter season. I believe He wants that. He just wants other things along with that."

why yes, i AM celebrating my 26th by going dancing on a Wednesday night