Life
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Unlearning Racism
This blog is meant for my non-Black friends and readers, as my intention is not to make the current devastating events about white people in general or me in particular. I am racist. How can I say that, you ask? Those of you that know me know that I’m generally kind and often overly-compassionate, that I love people enthusiastically and wholeheartedly. But the truth is, like many things, racism exists on a large spectrum. The word itself brings up images of hooded men and burning crosses, but that is one far end of the spectrum, and the truth is that there are as many shades of racism as there are…
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Pandemic & Mental Pandemonium
Well, I was going to title this blog, “What in the Actual F**k?” but I didn’t want to scandalize my readers. Honestly though, that’s what it should be titled. I know that’s how most of us are feeling. What started with a sense of awe at escalating world events, and “Whoa, this is really happening” has slowly morphed over the last (quarantined) weeks into alternating waves of lows (disbelief, anxiety, and fear) and relative highs (optimism, sense of well-being, “this could be much worse/we’re going to be fine.”) For me personally, the last 6 or 7 weeks have been tough. I recently re-read my post from early March and laughed…
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Unlearning Racism
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Where the heck have I been?
WHOA. It’s been a year and a half since I last updated this thing, and that feels like a definite failure on my part. I started this blog with such high hopes of fanning my creative fire and sharing my point of view. And then, ya know… life happened. A quick caveat: I don’t want this blog to turn into a journaling exercise – I want to share special moments and trips and interesting perspectives without this reading as a timeline of life events. However, with such a long time between posts, I feel like a bit of a catchup is necessary: My very last post was on the heels…
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Unlearning Racism
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When Your Ducks are NOT in a Row
Well, as you may or may not have noticed… I went AWOL from the blog this summer. When I started this thing, I was in a really good head space: positive, forward looking, excited about the future. And then life put me in my place and said, “ha ha ha NOPE.” Life kinda does that sometimes, doesn’t it? Or at least that’s what I had heard before this summer. The truth is, I haven’t suffered a lot of hardship in my life. I say that with absolute gratitude and a small bit of shame, as if my lack of suffering is something that I had control over. It wasn’t.…
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Unlearning Racism
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The Secret to Happiness
Happiness is a funny thing. It is often fleeting. It is sometimes exists quietly and goes unnoticed. And it almost always seems just out of reach. But a large portion of the human population would say that it is the goal they are most trying to achieve in their lives. And I think I figured out the key to getting it. For the bargain price of $1,999.99 I will share it with you! HA. Juuuust kidding. Let me clarify this quickly and from the beginning – I’m not claiming to know the secret to happiness for everyone on earth, especially as we all are dealing with different situations and struggles.…
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Unlearning Racism
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When an Empowered Woman Feels Powerless
I was always planning to write about the following experience, but with today being International Women’s Day, it felt like today needed to be the day! To give the story some context: I recently switched careers (proof you’re never too old to follow a dream!) and got a job working in marketing at a startup/small business. The CEO is a an older white guy, and my other boss, the VP of Marketing, is a woman just a few years older than me who happened to get her sh*t together a lot quicker than I did. She is strong and sweet, beautiful, and more importantly, extremely smart and knowledgeable – my…
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Unlearning Racism
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Welcome to a Sweet Piece of Ash!
Welcome to all (3 of) you reading this right now! I’m the Ash(ley) in the aforementioned title. I’ve been wanting to start a blog for the long time, but didn’t know what kind of voice I’d have since I’m not a mom or a fashionista or a fit chick. And then I realized that that’s maybe exactly why I should start one…because there are endless great mom blogs and fashion blogs and fitness blogs, but only 1 me. Now, that’s not to promise I have a particularly interesting or different take on things, but I promise to always switch it up, be real with ya, and do my best to make…
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Unlearning Racism
