A Day in the Life of.. Ash from Smash Attack Reads

 

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A Day in the Life of.....

This is where us bloggers & fans get a glimpse inside the days of our favorite authors BLOGGERS!

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Ash is a 30-something avid reader and book blogger who lives with her husband and their three children cats. Ash relocated to Atlanta with her menagerie in June so that her husband can complete his Psychiatry residency at Emory University. Ashley, a social worker new to the field, so she is full of passion and energy and not yet jaded and fed-up with it all, is currently looking for a position helping children or homeless youth or domestic violence victims…or someone! Aside from reading, Ash loves owls (duh), scrapbooking, social media, board games, dancing and organizing stuff.

Since I currently don’t have a job, my life is a little bit of everything. My days kinda touch all these areas:

Coffee: Café con leche is morning ritual. I use 1% milk and Splenda, which is not as tasty as the good ole fattening sweet kind I used to get in Miami, but I need to cut calories. I use a cafetera that I bought when I lived in Miami

  

and a really handy milk steamer/frother that I found at Tuesday Morning. Both were considerably less than a snazzy cappuccino machine, and work beautifully. Sometimes I make regular ole coffee with my French press, which is one of the best ways to make coffee, in my opinion. Either way is fine, but coffee must be had.

Job Search: I job search for a good part of the morning. The job market in Georgia is one of the worst in the country. And another issue I’m encountering is the need for certification or licensure. I get that it’s important, but literally every freakin human services job needs something other than the Master’s degree I worked my ass off to get, not to mention will pay for forever on a social worker’s salary…

Study: This leads to the other thing I do, which is study for my licensure exam. Boo. Hiss. Spat. There are 2 levels of licensure in Georgia. The LMSW and the LCSW. The LCSW is the clinical that I want and need to have better pay. It’s the equivalent of a doctor in the social work arena, methinks. LCSWs are able to prescribe meds, should they be in a job that calls for it. I have to take the exam for the LMSW first, then do clinical hours and supervision and another test for the LCSW.*sigh* Long term, I think I want to become a specialist in Play Therapy, and help kids who have experienced trauma and abuse.

I love to study at this Starbucks. It’s huge and full of atmosphere…

Scrapbooking: I’ve been scrapbooking for a long time and recently got back into it. I was dedicating 100% of my free time to the blog, and decided to back off a bit and enjoy my other beloved hobby. I am met Mandee from Books & Bling in Atlanta and she got me interested in Project Life, which is a new way to document your everyday life in a scrabooky-way. Instagram has made this initiative hella easy and I’m pretty addicted. So if any of you are annoyed by constant Insta-gramming, blame Mandee! J

Here are some of my recent creations…

Cats: Hubs and I have been trying for 1.5 years to get pregnant. Now that we have health insurance, we are going to pursue professional help. Honestly, I have no clue what we’re doing wrong. I mean, I read enough romance to get the gist of it all...Heh. I know that is way too much TMI for all of you, but I can’t take it back now! Anywho, I have my furbabies to keep me fulfilled and motherly. And they all have distinct personalities, wake me up at 5 AM with their antics and have no qualms about letting me know when they are hungry or need affection, so I think I’m pretty prepared for motherhood! ;)

This is Pokey. He’s my favorite. I adore him something fierce. I think he was a Don Juan in a former life. The cat lives for attention, gives you kisses, caresses your face and lets you hold him like a baby. His middle name is Attention Whore.

This is Lucky. Not the smartest guy on the block, but definitely the sweetest. He likes to wake me up at 5 AM for breakfast. He sounds like a dying cow when he meows too, so it really adds to the moment…

 
And this is Kyo. He was T’s before we met. I call him my red-headed step-child. He hated me for a long time and is still reserved around me. I think he would be 100% ok if I took a long walk off a short cliff.

Hubs: Did you notice how I put the cats before Hubs? It’s a sad thing, but I’m honest. Always. J T is working his ass off in his residency so anytime we get together is wonderful and appreciated. I’m ridiculously excited to explore Atlanta with him. We celebrated our 4^th wedding anniversary in May!

I promise, I am not nekkid!

Book club: Ok, this is only monthly but I cannot tell you how happy I am to have found a book club in Atlanta. The Not So YA Book Club is full of rockstars. I adore them all and look forward to forming friendships.

Welp, that is my boring life in a nutshell! Thanks for sticking around until the end. You deserve a cupcake.

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