and now for something completely different

I'm starting a new chapter in the book of Ashley; after three and a half years I'm leaving Google to do my own thing. I know! I can hardly believe it myself, but I've heard the call of the wild, and I can no longer ignore it; the time has come for me to move on. This was an incredibly difficult decision to make; I am extremely lucky (and humbled) to have worked with such amazingly talented and smart people. I mean, seriously big brains on these folks! And they're incredibly nice and fun to boot! Some of them have become my very closest friends. What a challenging and rewarding journey this time has been.

What's next? you might ask...

• First, I'm taking some time off. I'm going to spend some lazy days rubbing Winston's belly in the backyard and making some headway on the stack of books (and guilty indulgence mags) by my bed that I've been meaning to get to.
• I'll be recharging my (neglected) creative side. You might not know it, and sometimes even I forget, but I'm a pretty damn good potter, so I'll be picking that up where I left off.
• I'll be getting it on again with my camera - we had a hot and heavy affair there for a while, and I've missed it, so keep an eye on my flickr.
• In the process of planning the wedding, I've discovered I'm all kinds of crafty, so I have a new love there to explore as well; we're working on having a mostly handmade wedding, and April 24, 2010 is coming up sooner than you might think!
• I'll be doing some traveling; it's become really important to me to spend some extended time with the families in Texas, including seeing my grandparents, my adorably pregnant future-sis-in-law and sucking the Forsythe & Veselka ladies into my craft circle (of darkness). Mwahahaha! :)
• I'm going to learn how to cook if it kills me. It's absurd that I'm thirty-six and I still don't have a clue what I'm doing, because I love to cook! I'm just not good at it. So I'll be taking some cooking classes - if you're in SF and want to join me, let me know.

After that, I'm just going to see what the universe has in store. Like I've told some of you, I'm just going to be open to the possibilities and let the next step present itself to me. (Shut up!)

If this blog is just not enough Ashley for you, follow me on:
twitter.com/ashleyv
facebook: Ashley Veselka
flickr/photos/ashleyv

For the gazillion other ways to lovingly stalk me, you can find them here:
http://www.google.com/profiles/ashleyv

a beautiful wedding or rehearsal dress

Since I haven't started my wedding blog yet, I thought I'd post a link to a dress that would work beautifully as a rehearsal dinner dress, getaway dress, or even a wedding dress for a more fun, casual wedding:

Roses in Wonderland Dress (modcloth.com)

the amazing shrinking woman

(That's me.) Apparently. This morning, another co-worker saw me and said, "Ashley! You're shrinking every time I see you!" I think that makes six people who have referred to me as "shrinking" when they haven't seen me in person (as in not over video conference) in a week or more. It's bizarre. I guess all I can say is thank you. One can't exactly say, "Yeah! I am literally working my ass off to look like this!" Technically, being a Veselka, I suffer from Negative Ass Syndrome. Line up the Veselkas, and pretty much down the line the silhouette goes in or stays flat at the ass. So I'm actually having to work on losing weight everywhere *but* my ass; doing exercise that builds ass muscle. ("I must, I must, I must increase my ass!")

The best part is all the new clothes I can wear (and finally feel like I look good in them!) It's *way* better than being stuffed painfully into something that I feel I could burst the seams of if I breathe too deeply. I might have to do a little fashion shoot to show off my new clothes and the 30lbs lighter me.

Operation Lose Weight

Okay - this is a delicate situation... a person's weight is something personal. Generally, unless you're slim & trim (or a man), you don't go around spouting off how much you weigh. So that makes it difficult to discuss Operation: Lose Weight for the Wedding. JR and I are in this together, which makes it SO much easier.

When we got engaged, we both agreed we wanted to be slim & trim in time for the wedding. With the busy schedules, drinking and great food here, we've gained a lot of weight. I wasn't at my highest weight (luckily!), but let's say this:

Feb 18, 2009: Xlbs (I'd gained 11lbs since Jun 2008!) Goal: X-40lbs.
Apr 14, 2009: 10lbs lost
Jun 15, 2009: 13lbs lost (we joined WeightWatchers)
Aug 19, 2009: 26lbs lost!!!

That means I'm over halfway there! I've dropped several clothes sizes, and continue to see the body changes. With 8 months and change til the wedding, that's not bad. But it's pretty much been lifestyle & diet changes so far; now's when it gets harder. Gotta kick the exercise into high gear (not one of my favorite things.) Things are only gonna get busier, and I've gotta build in the time for it right now.

the trouble with tribbles

You know what the trouble with tribbles is? The trouble with tribbles is that they're friggin' tribbles, people! You look away for a second, and next thing you know you have a storage compartment storage compartment (ha HA!*) full of them! And every item on my to-do lists (work, home, wedding) is a tribble.

And when you've got that kind of thing going on with your to-do lists, you wake up at 4am and can't get back to sleep. I feel like Lewis Black, all twitchy and finger-jabby in my own head.

Just wanted to share, you know, since I've been up for hours, and lord knows I ain't got nuthin' better to do... ('cept tribble THIS, and tribble THAT, and OH! tribble-point-twitch!)

*If you know why this is so freaking hilarious, I adore you and you should comment so I can heap some luvin' on ya.

god do i need to redesign this site

I think maybe I would post more if I wasn't SO over this design. I was all set (like, last year???) on putting up a new header with one of my new photos every month, but I wasn't doing my photography for so long that I felt like all my favorite photos that would work were 2 years old. Gah!

Plus, Blogger may be reaching it's limits for me. I put so much work into customizing my site design that I still haven't upgraded to the new version because I'm afraid it'll totally mess the site up (and I don't have time to troubleshoot it.) I also wonder if it's not time to look into a different blogging platform. Right now, I don't have the time to do any of those things.

Add to that the fact that I'm so wedding-crazy right now that I fear that's all I may have to blog about, and I don't want to bore everyone to death.

santa fe in august

Hooray! We finally locked down our reservations for vacationing with Chris & Claudia (& hopefully a couple others - you know who you are!) in August. They've kindly invited us on their annual New Mexico/Colorado trip, which they rave about every damn year, so we just had to give in and go. Unfortunately, we can't make the whole luxurious trip, (we're hoarding vacation days for a loooooong honeymoon), but we can swing a long weekend to join up with everyone in Santa Fe.

We fly into Albuquerque and take The New Mexico Railrunner Express (a train!) from Albuquerque to Santa Fe, where we'll be staying at the Don Gaspar Inn, which looks beautiful and is highly recommended.

While we're there, we'll take some time to visit the Peña Gallery to meet Amado Peña, an artist my dad went to college with. Other than that, the plan is just to eat good food and drink good drinks while we enjoy the company of good friends.

Sounds good, right?

the wedding date is...

We've got some of the details nailed down! But figuring out how much to share with you so the big day is actually the glorious surprise we want it to be puts me in quite a pickle... I've had this quandary in the back of my mind for two months now, and I'm still not sure where that line is.

Because here's the thing: IT'S GONNA BE AMAZING!!! And I don't want to spoil it. Because I totally could - I am that wedding crazy right now. We're finding so much incredible wedding stuff that it's hard to keep to ourselves.

So how do I show you the dresses I'm looking at without giving away THE dress? How do I share the excitement of it all without having you feel like "been there, done that" when it actually happens?

I'll tell you this much: it'll be April 24, 2010, and it'll be at a great little place outside Austin. It's gonna be an idyllic hill country wedding, and we can hardly wait to share it with you.

:D

my blargh

I'm going to start referring to this as my blargh, because that's how I feel every time I think about posting. Not that I don't have anything to talk about, but there's so much going on (in a good way) that I don't even know where to start.

That is all.

Blaaaaaarrrggghhh...