"Bad" Is My Theme Song

See that little box directly to your left, the one that says “2012 Reading Challenge”? And see how it says I have completed my goal of reading 52 books in 2012? That’s right, folks—I read 52 books by December 7th, and I’ve somehow read four more to boot. Can I get a “what what”?

Okay, that was lame. Pretend that didn’t happen.

Anyway, if it sounds like I spent the bulk of 2012 holed up in my bedroom, devouring book after book into the wee hours of the morning, neglecting my boyfriend, bathing, and anything other than eating and snatching a few precious hours of sleep when I could actually be torn away from whatever book I was lost in, you couldn’t be farther from the truth.

I actually did most of my reading while curled up on the couch.

So there.

Unlike some of my other goals for this year (goals like give up pop and Furminate Deuce every day), I was pretty confident that I’d pull this one off. I’ve loved reading since I was a little girl, I'm a pretty fast reader, and I’m a homebody.

I started off strong and quickly got several percentage points ahead (which may or may not have anything to do with the fact that seven of the first ten books I read were The Chronicles of Narnia books).

But I lost some steam in July. Oh yeah…that’s because I went back to working 9-5, five days a week, as opposed to working from home two days a week and getting off at 3:00.

But thanks to some largely antisocial weekends and several chick-lit books, I got back on track and finished ahead of schedule.

Seeing as how I failed at more goals than I succeeded in accomplishing this year, I’m pretty darn proud of myself for having read more than one book a week. I branched out and read several books outside my normal genres (mysteries and rom-com), got to cross lots of books off my Goodreads to-read list, and was able to say on many occasions, “Oh, I just read a book about that…” this year.

Pretty satisfying, indeed.

Here’s the list of books I read, in case you’re wondering/would like to read them for yourself/want to make sure I didn’t cheat and read only books intended for pre-teens.
1. The Horse and His Boy
2. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
3. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
4. The Magician’s Nephew
5. Prince Caspian
6. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
7. The Happiness Project
8. One for the Money
9. The Silver Chair
10. Voyager
11. 11/22/63
12. The Last Battle
13. Two for the Dough
14. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
15. Drums of Autumn
16. The Great Divorce
17. Lincoln on Leadership
18. The Future of Us
19. The Fiery Cross
20. HeartSick
21. Seriously…I’m Kidding
22. Sweetheart
23. Till WeHave Faces
24. Evil atHeart
25. A Breath of Snow and Ashes
26. Cold Sassy Tree
27. Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer
28. It’s Okay to Be the Boss
29. Bitter Is the New Black
30. An Echo in the Bone
31. Three to Get Deadly
32. A Painted House
33. Four toScore
34. I’ve Got Your Number
35. The Lost Years
36. The Shadow of Your Smile
37. Where Are the Children?
38. 48 Days to the Work You Love
39. The Devil in the White City
40. Unbroken
41. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
42. The Fault in Our Stars
43. The Shack
44. Blink
45. Confessions of a Shopaholic
46. No Plot? No Problem!
47. The Night Season
48. Made toStick
49. Life of Pi
50. Imagine: How Creativity Works
51. The Devil Wears Prada
52. The Maze Runner
53. Matched
54. TheTiny Book of Tiny Stories Volume 1
55. The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories Volume 2
56. Into the Flames

P.S. My favorite of all 56 books was 11/22/63. It’s fantastic. So if you haven’t already read it, go do so now.

P.P.S. I will not be participating in a book challenge next year, but I've got a pretty big undertaking in the works. Stay tuned to find out what I'll be spending the bulk of 2013 doing. I may or may not still be on the couch most of the year.

Keepin' It Real

See what I did there? Red + Teal = Real.

Get it?

Okay, moving on.

Honestly, I kinda felt like I should be starring in Seussical the Musical, but I've been smitten with this color combination for a while.

Now, high school Ashley would have been all, "You can't wear that in public! That doesn't even match. Go change into regular jeans and a plain black t-shirt, and let's get to school before we're late."

Clearly, high school Ashley was a goody-two-shoes with zero fashion sense.

But working-world Ashley, who is surrounded by fashion-foward graphic designers every day, loves the Thing-1-and-Thing-2 color scheme.

I've been wanting some colored (not that colored) jeans for quite some time now. Starting out with fire-engine red pants was a bold choice for me, but I may never go back to plain ol' denim again.

And now for the my-house-is-a-mess-so-let's-just-do-this-in-front-of-the-Christmas-tree (not that this) photo shoot outtakes:



Tai chi?

Your guess is as good as mine.

Let's hope this writing thing works out, because modeling is clearly not my calling.

P.S. Big thanks to Randel for being such a good sport with my odd photo request.