Focusing on Fun, Fall and Frivolity  

Posted by Heidi Ashworth in

Favorite Frugal Find

I waited forever for this Victorian bed to go down to next to nothing at the thrift store


Favorite Fall Foto (so far)
fall comes late to the state that's great (so better photo opps are in the footing)



Favorite Festive Foto
I have a thing for witches
I guess I just feel comfy around them
can't imagine why




Favorite Frightening Freak
even better than Heath Ledger



Favorite Fete Food
best tasting and easiest



Favorite Fearsome Foreigner
he claimed to be an alien executioner





Favorite Festooned-by-cobwebs
one does run out of "f" words
--or not--
depending. . .



Favorite Fearsome Face
honestly--fave face ever but don't tell the Middle Child or the Big Guy I said so--
also, here's hoping you'll be so distracted by his face, you won't notice the
utter chaos it floats in



Favorite Fiendish Fellowship
this was much better in person--trust me
(oh, how they glitter!)




Favorite Fireplace Frippery
too bad none of my photos of the actual fireplace really turned out
but as we all know, there are worse things in life

Where, Oh Where, Has My Humor Blog Gone?  

Posted by Heidi Ashworth in


Today I noticed someone stumbled upon my blog by googling "messy house and stressed mom". Doubtless, my blog was the first thing that popped up (as it should be!). It led me to some interesting thoughts, such as, Why is it when someone sees that a part of (or many parts of) your life are out of control, they feel it gives them permission to rescue you with their advice? I'm not talking about the well-intentioned and comforting exchange of supportive ideas that many women indulge in. I'm talking about the uninformed, judgmental and ignorant things people say in the effort to be "helpful".
I've had some doozies of unsolicited advice over the years (I think I must have a sign on my forehead that reads: too dumb to live). Below is a list of some of those that pop immediately to mind.
"You just have to walk away and leave her no matter how much she cries! If you don't, she'll never be independent of you." This from a friend who felt that I should do the cold turkey thing with my clingy five year old the first day of kindergarten. A few days of being sensitive to my child's feelings did the trick and she is now a very independent 14 year old, thank you very much!
"Why don't you just toss the kids into the car and go for a drive so you can talk in peace?" Said by a much loved and, more to the point, childless therapist. Fifteen years and five kids later, she knows better.
"Why don't you hire a babysitter so you can go?" There are no words--except for these. Don't you think we would have done that in half a heartbeat if there weren't dozens of reasons why that wouldn't work?
And later: "Aren't the kids old enough for you to leave them alone by now?" Not for longer than it takes to run a few errands and never at night and not if we are somewhere we can't be contacted in an emergency--not if we don't want to come home to blood on the floor. (Some people think I'm exaggerating about this but it could happen. It COULD!) (Okay, it's not incredibly likely these days but when you spend two long months waiting for an opening at the psychiatrist's office and meds to kick in while trying to prevent your suicidal/homicidal son from harming anyone, you never forget. So, call me over-anxious--I can take it.)
"You just have to tell him to go on the potty, and he'll go!" This helpful person took it a step further and did it himself by whispering in the ear of my five year old developmentally delayed, cerebral palsied, overly anxious and chronically dizzy son. Now, why didn't I think of that?!?!?!? (And, um, it didn't work. Having a baby sister come into his life, did.)
"Here's a list of ideas I came up with to help you because people in your difficult circumstances have a hard time thinking of solutions." Umm . . . that's pretty much ALL we do because the matters at hand are URGENT. STAT. On fire as we speak! (Sheez!)
"The way to avoid getting sick is to eat right and to stay away from people who are sick." So . .. that means I can come and stay at your house when the people at my house are sick, right? (And please serve nutritious meals while I'm there.)
"You can't let her quit! It will damage her for life!" From the mother of another student in my daughter's ballet class. In fact, letting her quit delayed her perfectionism/depression/anxiety-driven nervous breakdown by about two years which was, sadly, still two years sooner than her psychiatrist was willing to address it with meds due to her extreme youth.
"Be brave and accept the {anonymous} criticism from others so that you know how to help your boy!" The epitome of gall. Unless it's this one--"You have to have more faith!" If I had a nickle . . . or even a penny! But, hey, if you have a chronic illness that involves a lot of pain and fatigue and lack of sleep and causes you to be intolerant to exercise and many healthy foods and if your husband suffers from depression and anxiety and your daughter does too and so does your son only you will need to add bipolar disorder, cerebral palsy, brain damage and learning disablities to his list, and your kids are highly intelligent (a challenge all its own!) and super sensitive and you have spent inordinate amounts of time consulting with doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, therapists, teachers, school administrators, and behavioral therapists, and have had to endure having your children damaged by some of these professionals, not once, but numerous times, and deal with issues such as poverty, unemployment, infertility and isolation AND your cupboards look like a pharmacy, then CALL ME! You just might have learned something that applies to my personal situation that I have not.
I sound bitter, don't I? But that's only because I am (at times). Years of this kind of thing has made holes in my heart because, as you can imagine, when your challenges are not typical, the ignorance and unsolicited advice multiplies. By the same token, the support and acts of kindness shrink because the challenges are mostly invisible, non-relatable and scary. Some even convince themselves that you are not deserving of their kind words or acts of support because you must have somehow brought this clutch of challenges on yourself and therefore deserve them (thereby disqualifying their virtuous selves from ever having to endure such a load of trials).
However, I am far from being the only one on the receiving end of this kind of unwanted guidance. (In fact, I have often been on the giving end of this scenario, much to my chagrin.) What is the most galling bit of unsolicited advice YOU ever received?

At The End Of The Day . . .  

Posted by Heidi Ashworth in



When there are those who insist on seeing bad in the good you do, who interpret your honest efforts as a pack of lies, whose pride leads them to misjudge you, preventing them from treating you with fairness, there is One and only One, who understands with perfect clarity. Challenges and trials are part of the human condition and He who is perfect has endured them all including the greatest of prideful, judgmental injustices. It was necessary for Him to endure all things so He could experience what it is we go through and thereby pay the price for our sins. It is necessary that we go through trials and hardship in order to be more like Him. That is why, at the end of the day, it is His criticisms of me, His guidance, His promptings, that I embrace.
What a comfort it is to know that in a world full of dissenting voices, He has every answer! (plus, unlike mere mortals, He never gets His facts wrong) more here . (just click it--you won't be sorry!)

Blogging: The Dim Light of the Unspoken Rule  

Posted by Heidi Ashworth


If you were wondering, yes, I took down my post about the Little Guy and the drama we went through with his teacher and the principal. Aside from the fact that I felt as if I was being unfairly attacked (I was grateful for all of you who flew to my defense--you guys rock!) I wasn’t comfortable with the whole controversial aspect of it. In fact, as time has gone by, I have started to feel some pains of empathy for my anonymous commentor(s). (I think there were two but by then I was pulling stuff down so fast I didn’t really even read everything thoroughly so I’m not sure.)

The truth is, those who left anonymous comments on that post clearly weren’t familiar with the unspoken rules of blogging and did not, I believe, have any idea how hostile their comments came across to others. Therefore, in hopes that she/they/he? (surely not!) were to drop by again, I am posting some of the unspoken rules that were inadvertently broken. (Just know that I wanted to write these in a fun, snappy way but figured my anonymous commentor might take it as sarcasm.)
Do not post a comment as anonymous unless you want people to immediately assume you have nothing good to say. Bloggists know that flat words on a screen with no known voice or personality to go with it can be interpreted as negative even if they are meant to be neutral or even positive. Identifying yourself says that you have no reason to fear retribution, that you mean no harm and are full of good will which will allow the reader to put your comments in the context of everything else they know about you. (In other words, Dear Anonymous(s), if I had known who you are, I would have been prepared to take your words as they were meant instead of being hurt by them.) (Then again, perhaps not.)

Know the culture of the blog you are reading. Blogdania, bloglandia, the blog o’ sphere, call it what you will, is an inherently positive place where people go to support and encourage one another. In other words, you would never go to someone’s party to which you have been invited and say, “I hate what you’ve done with the place, you chose the wrong color for the walls and this carpet is old and needs to be replaced.” A blog post is a “set piece”, something someone wants to share with others, true, but that is not the same as wishing to invite criticism. Unless a blog is political or controversial in nature, or clearly says “What do you think?” somewhere in the post, they aren’t looking for comments correcting them on the choices they are making. Rather they are looking for validation. If you don’t have it to give, comment on something you can be positive about or just skip it. (This is particularly true of the Mommy Blog culture.)

A blog post is not 100% accurate. A bloggist understands that it is impossible to know the whole story from a blog post. If I were to detail every bit of information that had a bearing on this situation with my son, my post would have taken hours to read. That’s not what blogging is about. This particular blog post was focusing mostly on the aspect of how crazy the world is that a second grader would be perceived as someone who attacks someone with a weapon. Of course there is another side to the story but that doesn’t mean you, dear reader, are in the position to accurately deliver it.

People’s Children Are Off Limits. Certainly you would never walk up to a person and start commenting on how they are performing as a parent. This is especially true online where people are very protective of their kids. Many do not name their children (so naming them in a comment is also a no-no) and some do not blog about their children at all or refrain from posting pictures that show their faces. The fact that I did blog in such detail about my Little Guy shows that I was very upset and was therefore even less open to the detracting comments from an unidentified person.

Know when to stop. If other commentors are having a hard time with what you are saying, it would be wise to simply slink back into the shadows. There were some comments being posted in my defense which, though I agreed with them, might have been too hurtful for someone who had no idea what she was getting into. Like I said, blogdania is a very supportive environment and people get upset when someone they know is getting a dressing-down in public.

All that being said, it is my hope that if you are truly my friend, we can simply forget about it and put it behind us, no questions asked.

In other news: I had my follow up mammogram yesterday which was digital and so a bit different and faster. Just as I was breathing a sigh of relief, the technician informed me that I needed to have an ultrasound and that they were going to fit me in. (Urgent much?) When that was done and I was breathing a sigh of relief, I was informed that the head of the department was going to do another ultrasound (Wha!?!?) which she did and then informed me that the area of concern is a cluster of cysts and no longer a cause of concern. Phew!

Then I walked out into the waiting area to see that my Little Guy was bleeding from a fall he had taken when he and The Spouse were running around outside (they had to wait much longer than expected poor things!) and so we bundled him into the car whereupon my cell rang with the message that my daughter was locked out of the house and the Big Guy would not open the door for her b/c he was stuck in the bathroom without any toilet paper and us still twenty minutes away from home. (You do not want to hear how that story ended).

(Trying to figure out how to home school and boost our income and stay healthy AND blog, my friends . . .please forgive if it takes me a while to figure it all out . . .)

Super Duper Awesome Terrific News!!  

Posted by Heidi Ashworth in


All the clues you need are in the picture . . .(and there's a clue in the sidebar, too!)
(Thanks everyone for your support with this school situation with my Little Guy. Please know that there is way more to this situation than I have posted--this was just the straw that broke the camel's back. Because of things that did and did not happen this past week, not the least of which is the Little Guy's deteriorating self image and bewilderment at his teacher's refusal to believe his side of the story, we will be home schooling him for the remainder of the school year. Between the happy resolution of these two things, I have decided to celebrate via my favorite vice--chocolate enrobed wheat--woo hoo!)
Okay, so some of you are guessing right and some of you need some help. Two Miss D's equals Miss D Two--as in, it's going to happen. As in, I got the call today, as in, Miss D is going to have a sister. As in, I'm going to have two books in print, two totally different books even though they'll both be about Miss D. She's such a keeper.

Hell Hath No Fury Like A Kitchen Scorned  

Posted by Heidi Ashworth in



I'd really rather be blogging but . . . aHEM!




Yeah, that. PLUS I'm having unexpected company coming from out of town . . .



and I had best get busy so we'll have a place to sit and eat.


(Note the prominent displayage of the remote controls . . .)

Maybe we should just go out to eat instead.

The inside scoop: Yesterday, I asked my daughter (the so recently suicidal one) how she felt now that I'm not sitting at the computer every time she looks at me (clearly I'm not cleaning, either, so what gives?) and she said: "I feel more loved."
What's an addicted bloggist to do?
P.S. I miss you guys SO much!!!
P.S.S. Remember when I wrote a blog post almost every day and read 100 blogs (almost) every day and wrote a book at the same time? How did I do that?
P.S.S.S. I have tried FOUR times to fix the font size and spacing in this post to no avail. mea culpa.

IT'S BREAST CANCER (awareness month)  

Posted by Heidi Ashworth in


Saturday afternoon the phone rang. This is rare on any saturday but especially so the weekend of General Conference. Even before I checked the caller I.D I had a premonition it would be a request for a do-over of the mammogram I had had the previous Tuesday. It turns out that it was my healthcare provider calling but it was just a recording informing me that “a prescription that you have ordered has been mailed per your request”.
I had post-traumatic-stress flashbacks from three years ago anyway.

The Flashback: Three years ago I had my very first mammogram. Ever. I was almost 42. The fact that my grandmother, mother and sister have all had (and survived) breast cancer makes my (late) (ish) timing a bit foolish. But I wasn’t worried. When all the “pictures” had been taken and the technician returned to say she needed a retake of the right breast (she claimed I must have moved) (I didn’t) “just in case”, I still wasn’t worried. She was quite pleased with her retake so I was very surprised when she called back a few days later explaining that I needed to come back in for a more thorough mammogram. I was annoyed, but still not worried.

I didn’t worry until a doctor (he didn’t say but I suspect he was an oncologist) called to say (in sepulchral tones) that I needed a biopsy on my right breast and that further information would be coming in the mail. Since I was more than familiar with the fact that I have always (that’s ALWAYS) had a non-malignant mass (or so I’ve been told) in my right breast, I was even more annoyed than worried. However, when I received the glossy photos of women lying face down on an ironing-board style table with a lovely breast-sized hole in it that allowed the doctor to do who-knows-what to your breast while the biopsee (not a real word for those who assume I only use real ones) (I don’t) was blind to the proceedings, I started to consider the possibility that I had breast cancer.

One painful biopsy later (the doctor gave me a shot to kill the pain but he missed the nerve. Yeah. Lovely. Especially since they removed a square half inch of tissue from my breast which is not the least missed considering that dense mass amassed in that same general area) and another mammogram immediately following, there was no cancer at all whatsoever. Each of my annual mammograms I have had since (two) have gone off without a hitch (I try to ignore the gasps of dismay from the technician when she reads my breast-cancer-ridden family history) until Tuesday when the technician cheerily informed me that she had to re-do the right breast. “You must have been breathing or moved when I took the first one.” (I didn’t.)

Speed forward to Monday morning. The phone rang and this time it was my premonition realized—it was Kaiser with the request that I come back in for a more thorough mammogram of the right breast. She softened the blow with the old standby piece of propaganda “You must have moved or something.”

(Ladies, if it has been more than a year since your last mammogram, go and get one and make it sooner than later. You won't be sorry. Okay, maybe you will be but not as sorry as you could be or might be IF . . . )

(For those who think they see symbolism in my photo, doubt not.)