About

Hey, y’all!  I’m Ashley and I write Baddest Mother Ever.  Mind you, I’m not the worst mother ever (didn’t even make the Top Ten!), just one bad mutha among many.  I’ve been collecting stories since I was old enough to sit still and listen and I’ve lived through some pretty good ones myself.  This blog is a hodgepodge of stories from across my life.  Most revolve around the theme of getting to know myself and being grateful for whatever comes my way.  If I had to boil down twelve years of therapy into a simple message, it would be “It’s not about you; let it go.”  I drink, I cuss, I cry, I giggle.  I work, I rest, I worry, I listen.

We can swap stories about parenting, grief, divorce, cancer, travel, cooking, family…you name it.  Thanks for stopping by!

Some random things about me:

1. I have jumped out of a plane from 16,000 feet. It was fantastic.
2. I get sentimental every time I smell tea olive blossoms because they remind me of the Wesleyan College campus.
3. I would love to have a good excuse to wear a huge black hat like that one Audrey Hepburn wears to visit Sal E. Tomato in prison.
4. I can’t read trashy books or sit through lame movies, but I can watch a 12-hour marathon of crappy TV shows like “Flava of Love” or “Real Housewives of Orange County.”
5. I’ve gotten so used to farting around my kids that I wonder how old they’ll need to get before I stop that.
6. I had been divorced AND widowed by the time I was 36.
7. I despise the smell of Purell because it takes me right back to the cancer ward at Johns Hopkins.
8. I have celebrated New Year’s Eve in The Netherlands, Bermuda, Germany and France.
9. It makes me crazy when sofa cushions are all sloppy and out of whack, like when the bottom cushion scoots out too far and the top one slides down behind it. Jesus, I get short of breath just thinking about.
10. If I had to pick a favorite country, I’d go with Greece for the weather, history, food, beaches, and people.  I’ve traveled to Canada, Puerto Rico, England, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany, Bermuda, Brasil, Czech Republic, Austria and Greece.  So many places left to see!  An African safari is high on my list, right behind seeing the Northern Lights.
11. My favorite movie of all time is “Out of Africa.” I have to watch it with a dishtowel around my shoulders because I cry so much during Denys’ funeral scene.
12. I have a journal by my bed and every night I write down all the things for which I was grateful that day. I’ve been doing this for over a decade and it is incredibly powerful. I can look back on bad days and see how many good things there are in my life. It’s transformative when you shift life from being about what you don’t have to being about what you do have.
13. I became a mother at 38 and at 42 with no medical machinations.
14. I don’t watch scary movies because they freak me out for weeks. I still have to check in unused closets and look under the bed now and then. I think the last one I watched was “Blair Witch Project.”
15. I do not touch frogs. Ever.
16. I still love watching Sesame Street and sometimes I am late for work just so we can see Elmo.  Remember when Snuffleupagus was invisible?  I do!

18. I don’t drink coffee.

19. I love to fall asleep with a book open on my chest, nap for a while, then wake up to go right back to reading.
20. I never had a speeding ticket until I was 36, and then I got 3 tickets in 3 months.
21. I got busted by the little beagle at the airport for unwittingly smuggling in a banana from Berlin.
22. I always keep two coins in the left pocket of my coat so that I can “worry them” as I walk along. I try to make it a 20ct Euro coin and a 2ct Euro coin.  That way, I have “my two cents” if anyone ever should ask for it!