Please Don't Look at Me Differently...

...but I just remembered I’m kinda famous.

I’m not Kid President famous. Or Grumpy Cat famous. Or even Harlem Shake famous (you’re not getting a video of this because I will never get why it’s a thing).

But my voice is floating around the interwebs!

Before I was an underpaid-and-overworked ballin’ conceptual editor, I was a part-time copyeditor who moonlighted as an audio book narrator.

Impressive, eh?

This was actually a pretty natural career move for me, seeing as how I enjoyed a short stint as a radio broadcaster several years back.

Okay, I wasn’t so much a broadcaster as a middle-schooler who could barely report the school news because she and her partner in crime were laughing too hard at everything and nothing.

My dear friend Hannah and I were in the Gifted & Talented program in school (reppin’ for the nerds!), which really just meant that we participated in academic meets (and by participated I mean I stood there and hoped my shaking hands didn’t accidentally push the buzzer), got to work in the Christmas gift shop, and reported riveting school news for a local radio station once a month.

We’d practice our lines on the fifteen-minute drive to the station, but no matter how uneventful the news was (lunch menu, honor roll students, blah blah blah), we always managed to crack up just a few seconds in. A funny name or a single look could keep us doubled over in laughter for a good three minutes.

And this happened no fewer than seven times every time we went.

Somehow we always managed to collect ourselves and get through the should-have-been-a-five-

minute-broadcast-but-always-turned-into-a-half-hour-ordeal. But the station manager (I don’t actually know what his title was) and our sponsor were always highly annoyed by our inability to say three words without uproarious laughter.

Side note: Hannah and I just have the giggles effect on each other. Get us together and say the name “Beverly,” and we’ll laugh for days. It’s an inside joke that will never get old.

So it’s probably for the best that Hannah wasn’t in the booth with me while I was recording the guide to cooking with arthritis and the children’s book about getting a new mommy. I never would have made it through.

I got promoted to full time after just a couple months as a narrator (holler!), so I only lent my vocal talents to eight books.

And lucky for you guys, I’ve got the Audible link with all the books right here. So you can check out some samples of my work and praise the Lord that wonder why I didn’t pursue this as a career.

https://mobile.audible.com/search.htm?type=search&cache=1&narrator=Ashley+Luckett&page=1

Good stuff, huh?

P.S. Check out this completely ridiculous sweet testimonial of my work from the Audio Book Store:

http://www.theaudiobookstore.com/narrators/ashley-luckett/

I especially like the parts about me being one of their “more popular narrators” (uh…yeah, right) and Ashley lending “their considerable talents to literary works” (I’m a girl; the pronoun you’re looking for is “her”).

Life after "Friends"

Didn't know there was such a thing, did ya?

Even so, three months after I met Monica, Chandler, Ross, Rachel, Joey, and Phoebe for the first time, I ended my TV journey with them. It was a sad day. In fact, I put off watching the last two episodes for about two weeks.

But I was more than pleased with the emotional ending to the "Friends" saga.

Now that it's been a couple days since I watched the finale, I've had time to reflect and have come up with some "Friends" observations and general info about my "Friends"-watching experience, late though it was:

1. Every episode, I played this game where I tried to guess when the theme song would start playing. I only lost twice.

2. Every single time I say "I know" (which I've realized happens A LOT), I'm convinced I sound like Monica. Seriously, I can't turn it off. Back me up on this, Kel.

3. I knew that red sweater was Ross's the second Joey brought it out. I mean, it just looked like something that would come out of a paleontologist's closet.

4. I've come to expect grand romantic gestures in airports. So if I ever decide to fly anywhere (yeah, you understood that correctly---I've never been on an airplane), I'll be disappointed if I don't witness a Ross-and-Rachel moment. (P.S. I'll also be sure to inquire about the state of the phalanges.)

5. Incidentally, Regina Phalange will be my go-to made-up name from now on.

6. I think Joey's onto something with the whole "Thanksgiving pants" thing.

7. If I'm ever stuck in leather pants, I will not attempt to extricate myself from them by using lotion and baby powder.

8. Next time I'm moving a couch upstairs, you better believe I will PIVOT!

9. That Janice is a sneaky little somethin'. She popped up everywhere!

10. "JOEY DOESN'T SHARE FOOD!" Duly noted.

Even though it took me almost a decade after the finale to watch this show, I totally get all the hype now. I honestly didn't expect it to be the kind of sitcom I'd get hooked on, but let's face it: I'm addicted.

Feel free to buy me "Friends" paraphernalia for every holiday from now until I say stop

Where Would You Be?

I got this book for Christmas and knew it would be a great source of blog fodder. See, I figured I'd just expand on the prompts when I needed a quick blog post.

I finally got around to writing in it, and here's the prompt I chose to work with:

Where would you be now if you had married your first love?

I’d be living in El Reno.
I’d be in denial.
And I sure wouldn’t be in love.

My first love swept into my tiny hometown of Tipton, Oklahoma, from the big city—that’s right, y'all: OKC.

He represented my need to feel loved, my craving for adventure (apparently I thought having a mysterious out-of-town boyfriend was adventurous), and the independence my seventeen-year-old self thought I wanted.

We started dating during my senior year of high school. He took me on dates to Long John Silver’s (Altus, OK, has limited dining opportunities and he had limited knowledge of what constitutes a date), he took me to my first and only prom, and somewhere along the way he took away my self-esteem and my understanding of what true love should be.

Because in spite of the fact that he controlled who I talked to, what I wore (no skirts—that meant I was trying to impress guys), and was irrationally jealous (the reason I wasn’t on Facebook until 2010), I still thought I was in love with him…and that he was in love with me.

Despite the warning signs, we remained a couple and moved in together after I graduated from college. I thought that would solve everything. He would see that I wasn’t interested in other guys. He would appreciate me, because I would cook dinner every night and do his laundry every weekend. He would get down on one knee and finally ask me to be his wife (this was four years into the relationship).

None of those things happened.

He didn’t believe I wasn’t interested in other guys because who knew who I was talking to at work, at the grocery store, and when I went back to Tipton to visit my mom.

He didn’t appreciate my meal making and clothes washing. He expected it.

And he didn’t ask me to marry him. Quite the opposite. He told me he never wanted to get married or start a family.

So we finally called it quits, after five years (which was five years too late).

I didn’t dramatically swear off men forever, as my mom was afraid would happen. Instead I came up with specific criteria Mr. Right had to have.

And it sounded a lot like Bruno Mars's When I Was Your Man:

"I should have bought you flowers and held your hand
Should have gave you all my hours when I had the chance
Take you to every party cause all you wanted to do was dance."

And guess what? Somehow I found Mr. Right.

And because I did, I know where I’ll be when I marry my true love:

I’ll be living in (or around) Oklahoma City.
I’ll be in a constant state of happiness, because making me happy seems to be Randel’s goal in life. Seriously, he should get paid for it.
And I for sure will be in love.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Even though today started off kinda weird (I woke up on the opposite side of the bed that I fell asleep on, and my blanket was wrong side out and upside down) and I didn’t actually get to see my valentine, it turned out to be a laughter-and-love-filled day after all.

When I got to work, I found these heart-shaped goodies on my desk.

You better believe I had a cookie for breakfast.

Then some friends and I went to Subway for lunch and laughed off all the calories from our Subway Melts. There was something about a shirt-turned-marsupial-pouch filled with sandwich crumbs. It was one of those you-had-to-be-there moments for sure, but trust me when I say it was hilarious. I haven’t laughed so hard in a long time.

When I got back to the office, I found out another coworker’s mom met (and talked to!) Thabo Sefolosha today at a flower shop. Lucky lady!

After work, it was time for a Valentine-themed Zumba party—which really just meant I wore a tank top with lips on it and cranked the music up louder than usual.

Angela and I were Zumba twins!

When I finally made it home for the day, I had 4 cards in my mailbox—one from my good friend Pepper and three from the boyfriend. Excuse me, I mean one from him, one from my dog, and one from his dog.

Then I ate the leftover half of my Februany (dumb name, good deal) $5 footlong for dinner.

Happy Valentine’s Day to me! And to all of you, of course!

January Update

Yeah, I know we're almost two weeks into February. Just go with it.

This year is already shaping up to be just as busy as—if not busier than—last year was. Even so, I did all right with my 2013 goals last month.

Here's a recap:

(If you need a refresher on what my goals for this year are, go to this post.)

Nonfiction Book: Last month I read Is Everyone Hanging Out without Me? by Mindy Kaling, writer for The Office and her new show, The Mindy Project.

Now I wish I had been watching it. But Lord knows I don’t have the time to commit to yet another TV show, what with Downton Abbey, Bones, and The Walking Dead waiting patiently in the wings. But when I finally clear my shows-waiting-for-my-attention queue, I’ll probably check out The Mindy Project.

But back to the book: I found it snort-with-laughter funny. It’s very much in the same vein as Ellen’s Seriously…I’m Kidding and Tina Fey’s Bossypants. So if you didn’t enjoy either of those, this one probably won’t be your cup of tea either. But her essays on chest hair and glimpses into her self-proclaimed chubby childhood gave me some giggles.

Pinterest Project: Cinnamon roll waffles FTW, y’all! I had been wanting to make this delectable-looking breakfast for quite some time, and a weekend my mom was in town was the perfect opportunity. This is a nothing-to-it breakfast that tastes as good as it looks. And it’s as simple as 1, 2, 3:

1)   Open can of Pillsbury (or your preferred brand) cinnamon rolls.

2)   Place rolls on waffle iron and cook 4-5 minutes.

3)   Drizzle with included-in-the-can icing.

That’s it!

Showstoppers, right?

Running: I only got up to running one mile at a time last month, but I ran it several times and felt like I could keep going on a couple occasions. Whether or not I could have remains to be seen since I have yet to run at all this month (what is with February and its darn busyness), but I’ll get back on track this week. Get it? Back on track…the thing I run on? Okay, moving on.

Blog Posts: I regret to inform you that I only posted six times last month, so I’m not quite on track to post 100 times this year (I need about eight posts a month to meet my goal), but the year is still young. Never mind the fact that this is my first post of February.

Movies: Sadly, I’m not doing so great on my 52 films goal either. I watched a whopping two movies on my list last month—Sixteen Candles and 50/50. I don’t have much to say about Sixteen Candles other than: Her sister actually married that guy? I mean, seriously. He was definitely not marriage material. But it was an enjoyable movie, and I didn’t spend the entire hour and a half clock-watching, just waiting for it to be over. So that’s a good sign.

As for 50/50, I really liked it. It does star Joseph Gordon-Levitt, after all. It was funny, it was sad, and it was a good reminder of how crucial love and true friendship are to the healing process.

So there's my January in a nutshell. Check back in a couple weeks (or a month, if March is anything like this month has been) to see how February went.

Slow 'er Down

I'm one of those I-wish-winter-would-hurry-up-and-go-away-so-I-can-enjoy-life-again kinds of people. But even though I've been wanting to fast-forward a couple months lately, I'd really like life to slow down because how is it even possible that I graduated high school almost eight years ago?

And I've been out of college four years already.

And I've been at Hobby Lobby half a year already.

And the weekend is almost over already.

Seriously, where does time go? Into some time-sucking washing machine? You know, cause socks always disappear in the washer.

Or is that just me?

Anyway, I know I'm not the only one who wants to slow time down because I have the whole I-can't-believe-it's-already-2013/how-am-I-26-years-old/did-I-seriously-graduate-eight-years-ago conversations at least three times a week.

And no, not just with myself.

Since I haven't yet figured out how to slow time down (but I keep watching Big Bang Theory in hopes of learning enough science-y stuff to start my experiment), I'm going to do what I can:

Enjoy every day to the fullest.

Cheesy, I know. But I mean it. If we don't take time to appreciate every day we have, suddenly we're eight years out of high school and can barely remember what it was like to live at home with Mom.

My brother and I actually had a conversation the other day in which we both admitted we didn't remember much of what it was like to live together, before any of us graduated and moved away.

That conversation made me sad. And it made me realize how important it is to make and document memories.

That's part of the reason I have this little blog. And a big part of the reason I haven't deactivated my Facebook even though I realize what a huge time-suck it is. (My nosiness selfless desire to keep in touch with every person I've come in contact with since I could talk has nothing to do with my decision.)

And that's also why I started the 2013 Memory Jar. You've probably seen this on Pinterest (and if you're not on Pinterest, what the heck are you waiting for?), but basically, you write down any good/funny/generally memorable things that happen to you throughout the year, put them in a jar, and read them all on New Year's Eve.

I only have a few slips of paper in my jar so far, but I've got high hopes for this year. I'm excited to look back on the year and actually be able to remember all the events (both big and small) that made it memorable.

But not so excited that I want it to be New Year's Eve already. Cause I'm doing that living-life-to-the-fullest thing, remember?

How are you going to make 2013 memorable?

DIY T-Shirt Scarf

I was busy gettin’ my craft on in December. As much as cutting up a t-shirt counts as being crafty.

I've had plans to make a t-shirt scarf for a while and decided to make a few as Christmas gifts.

Here was my inspiration:

Original pin

Mine didn't turn out quite as cute (let's be honest, the braiding intimidated me), but I got several compliments on the one I made for myself, so they must not look too terrible.

These were super simple to make, and I made them while watching “Friends.” Win-win situation. Each scarf took about an episode to make.

Here's how it works:

A t-shirt and scissors are all you really need for this if-Ashley-can-do-it-anyone-can project. The bigger the shirt, the longer the scarf will be, so I recommend using XL shirts. Also, be sure to get the ones without side seams. You don't want the unsightly seam to show when you sport your scarf.

After you've chosen your shirt (mine is red, but these terrible pictures make it look pink...), just do this:

I say square-ish because I can't cut a straight line even with a ruler. So I just cut across and hoped for the best. Luckily, you don't have to be precise with this project.

Next, cut your square-ish piece of fabric into 1 1/2" to 2" strips. I could get about 17 strips from each shirt.

You can't really tell from this picture, but the edges of my strips are just as janky and uneven as the edges from the square-ish piece of fabric.

Good thing that after you do the next step you won't even be able to tell.

And that next step would be stretching each strip (I did two at a time) until you've got a loop as long as you want your scarf to be.

I stretched my strips resistance band style. I did a little behind-the-back action, some side-to-side stuff, and whatever else I could think of to stretch the heck outta the strips.

When you've stretched all the strips, set one aside to tie the rest with. Then just gather the remaining loops into a bundle and wrap the set-aside strip around them.

I did this by tying a knot at one end and then wrapping to cover the knot. You want to wrap snugly, but not so tight that you can't weave the other end of the strip underneath the wrap, which is how you finish the scarf.

Yeah, that was a pretty confusing explanation. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you can pretty much do that step however you want. And if you're brave/talented enough to attempt the braid, go for it.

Here's what the last couple steps look like:

Ta-da!

This is seriously one of the easiest things I've ever made. I'll probably make one in every color, so you'll see me in these a lot.

If you make a ton because they're so simple, cheap, and cute one, let me know how it goes!