BECOMING adult.

So, when I was in college, I was all "OMG, I can't wait to be done with school so that I don't have to do anymore HOOOOOOOOOMEWORK. Life will be all fun and games because all you have to do is work, and the rest of your time is YOURS!!"

Little did Ashley Version 2006 know that college was the closest I would get to a nap, ever again. Once I crossed the stage and manhandled my diploma, GONE were the days of watching 6+ hours of The Hills marathons. GONE were the days of staying up until 2am facebooking, AIM chatting and drinking my face off.

I was under the impression that 1) after I got my diploma magazine editors were going to be kicking in my door to work for them (a la The Devil Wears Prada) 2) I was magically going to have a splendid wardrobe and 3) once I came home from work, I was going to have all the time in the world to do cool adult stuff - like watch rated R movies and eat buckets of ice cream.

It's taken me, what? Like 3 years to realize that - OMG, being an adult takes practice. I've spent many, many hours over these last three years beating myself up becuase I didn't feel adult enough. I felt like everything was falling through the cracks and that I was just BAD at being a grown up.

But lately, and I mean VERY lately, it's dawned on me that, just like every new skill, becoming GOOD at being adult takes practice. And, this realization came because I started to feel comfortable being an adult. Yes, I fall off the wagon and leave dishes all over, and my floor is a little dirty, and sometimes I don't make it to the bank in a timely fashion...but everything, and every DAY is an improvement.

Most days, I am able to get out the door for work, look decent(ish), make it home to make dinner, and make the house presentable. I've gotten comfortable with this routine. So now, I feel like I need to step it up a notch, and part of that will be the goals I outlined a couple of days ago. Mainly, I need to exercise more, watch TV less, and spend a little more time nurturing my creativity and reconnecting with my books.

All this? It starts tomorrow with getting up at 4:50am, so I can be out the door and jogging at 5:00am. Cross your fingers that Sleep Ashley doesn't turn off the alarm until 6:00am.
(She's known to do this in the past. And by "past" I mean this morning)

I am accepting that it takes a little longer to learn to juggle all the responsibilites that I've been putting into practice since I graduated, and because of that, I'm beating myself up less. Life is pretty chill these days, dudes.

Has anyone else had this realization? How are you adjusting to adult life? Has anyone just kind of been like "this is easy" - warning: I might eat your face.

In other news:

* I have set beer traps in my garden to try to stop the damn slugs from eating MONSTROUS holes in my sunflowers, green beans and radishes.
* I did my hair all Rosie the Riveter style on Sunday morning. I spent Saturday night watching Mad Men and pin up hair tutorials - and LOVE IT
* I realized how awkward I am at taking self-portraits. OMG. Makes my skin crawl!
* Mike has given me the go-ahead to get a cat, if I really want one. We've talked about it since before we got Maddie (hell, we went to the shelter with the intention of getting a cat, not a dog...oops), and I waffle back and forth. Worrying about the pee, mainly. But lately, I've been watching videos of Maru, and watching my neighbors fatty orange cat from a distance, and now I'm thinking this is kind of a great idea. I've ALWAYS had cats, and I think they're lovely.
* I need to start working on my 25th year life list! My birthday is coming up, and I need to make sure I do something awesome with the year. Additionally, I think I need another birthday tattoo. Maybe it's time for some Harry Potter love?

That Darn Cat

So Tuesday night, I'm getting ready to go to bed and my mom calls and tells me a story about how there's a little kitten wandering around the neighborhood. My mom, sister and our neighbors were trying to catch the cat, and it jumped into a window well.

My 16 year old sister, was the only one small enough to get into the well, but she was terrified that she wouldn't be able to get out (it was a tall one). Well, she gets in, and the cat freaks and makes terrible noises and my sister leaps out like a piece of toast from the toaster. At this point my mom is laughing her ass off. The cat eventually got out of the window well (by climbing over our neighbors head) and got away.

Wednesday, I come by my parents to pick up Maddie, and my mom comes in to let us know that the kitten is back and eating some cat food we left out for it. So my 16 year old sister (Cailey) and I go outside to see him. When we get there, he's gone, but we can hear him meowing...so we follow the noise and he's under the neighbors deck.

For a good 30 minutes my sister and I are on either side of the deck watching the little cat. He's just a little guy (looks to be 8-9 weeks) and scared as shit. He's not feral because he KNOWs people...he's just scared of them. So we bust 0ut some tuna, put it in a cage and hope that he walks right into our little trap.

Before I proceed, our neighborhood is a well populated suburb, we don't get many strays. One of the other neighbors said there were more kittens and it looks like they were dumped (by assholes), but we haven't seen any others. And it is very obvious that this kitten will not survive if he's outside for much longer. We're looking down the barrel of frosty nights, and this little kitty isn't big enough to stay warm.

Back to the story...eventually the cat starts moving towards the tuna and out from under the deck, but he gets about 4-5feet from a person and won't come any closer. So I start meowing (sometimes one of my mom's cats will respond when I meow) and what do you know? Little Orphan Kitty starts talking to me. For 45 goddamn minutes, I am laying in the grass in 40 degree weather, in my work clothes meowing at a stray cat. He keeps walking towards me, but just as quickly backs up.

After a while, he sees his escape, runs past me and through the fence and bolts down the street. At this point we're like "screw it, lets pack it in", but as we get ready to go in the house, we see kitty coming back towards the house, meowing.

We lure him closer with tuna, and eventually he comes into the garage, and me, Mike and my sister are on the floor trying to keep him in the garage so we can close the door. SUCCESS. Kitty is now trapped in the garage.

At this point, we decide to leave him alone to recover from the course of the evening and let him eat some food, and drink some water. We're all relieved because now we know we won't find a dead orange cat in our front yard.

We have dinner, and strategize about how to get kitty into the cage (we can't let him roam around the garage with the cars in there). To make a long story short, we traumatize the cat further by using push brooms to corner him into the cage.

(I'm sorry this sounds terrible! But this cat is scared and hungry and thinks we're going to eat it - we really couldn't get near it)

As it stands, we have this adorable 8-9ish week old, orange tabby sitting in a cage in our garage. He's already adapting pretty well, yesterday he let me pet him, and went into the little kitty trance when you find just the right spot under his chin. I've contacted a couple of local vets about getting him/her spayed/neutered and basic vaccinations, but haven't heard back from any yet.

Mike and I have talked about keeping him (especially if we throw down beaucoup bucks getting him vetted), but our priority is Maddie. If we can't get kitty to get along with - or at least be ambivalent towards - Maddie, then we can't keep it.

Our master plan for the moment is to call the vet (probably our normal vet, if we don't hear back from anyone), and take him in, get him a clean bill of health and then move him to me/Mike's house so we can keep him in our spare bathroom. Once he's inside it will be a lot easier to socialize him. After that, we'll have either fallen in love with him and become unable to bear the thought of parting with him, or we will find a new home for him.

Any words of wisdom? Any advice?

OH YEAH: I also meant to post a link to a description of Guy Fawkes Day yesterday in the title...that has since been fixed.