The Most Important Thing
Attention: I have decided to change the trajectory of this blog. For the two people out there who may have skimmed through part of one of my three posts over the course of the last year or so, you will begin to notice a change in the subject matter of my posts.
You may also notice the added play on words in the title of my blog, ashedesigns {as.he.designs}. Ashe is my last name. I like it; it’s kinda cool. I got the ashedesigns.com domain name way back in 2000/01 when I did some freelancing as a web/logo artist. It seemed fitting to continue to use it when I signed up on WordPress to start my wildly successful blog. To date, the subject matter of my volumes of work (read: three whole posts) has been geared mostly towards food and exercise, which is kinda weird because…well…I hardly do either of those things anymore.
So what is the {as.he.designs} all about?
I am passionate about a lot of different things in my life, and I will continue to write about each of them. I am committed to writing from an honest and real place with the hope of inspiring and/or encouraging others through the sharing of my personal thoughts and experiences. The things that inspire me, my desires, they are important; but they are not the most important.
The most important thing is the unfolding story of adventure following Jesus through my life.
That is what {as.he.designs} is. To live out my life as He designs. It’s what I was made for. My passions, my desires are important; they are written on my heart. They are a big part of what makes me, me. But I would be a fool to focus merely on satisfying those desires. I would then miss out on the very thing those desires are intended to produce. A craftsman doesn’t focus on his tools when he is creating a work. His attention is solely focused on the creation, the product those tools are affording him to produce. So it is with passion and desire. They are not the ends, but the means. They are the means by which I will live out my life as.He.designs.
On a side note – I don’t intend to shove my religion down anyone’s throat, beat anyone over the head with scripture, or debate the intricacies of different theological approaches. My only goal is to share out of my own personal experiences with the hope of producing a little more light in a dimly-lit world.
Thank you for reading.
plastic ponies
My oldest daughter just turned 11. She has been collecting model horses for the last few years. It is, by far, one of her most talked about subjects. And let me tell ya, 11 year old girls have a tendency to talk…a lot! She wants horses for her birthday and for Christmas, she saves her allowance so she can buy horses, and she even makes them halters and lead ropes out of leather. She makes digital videos of her and her friends playing with the horses. And recently she has discovered that she can enter her plastic horses in “shows”!
So I’ve been hanging on for dear life waiting for her interest in these ridiculously over-priced, plastic ponies to fade away into a distant childhood memory. Why would she want to pay upwards of $60 for a plastic horse? It seems like a waste of money to me. Why does she feel she needs so many different horses? It seems to me like a handful would get the job done. I mean, how many horses can you play with at one time?
Up until recently I held a fairly negative opinion of her fixation with her horse hobby. I was fearful that she would develop a materialistic outlook. I was concerned she would become somewhat obsessed with this to the point it might interfere with her healthy development. And to be honest, I personally don’t share her affection for toy horses.
I don’t get it, at all. At least, I didn’t get it until the other day.
I spent over an hour with her in a store where there must have been upwards of 500 horses. I watched her admire all the horses trying to decide on which one to spend her money, and I listened to her talk with the store owner about the details of each horse. That’s when it started to sink in: this is her passion…and I have the precious opportunity to encourage her in her passion!
I realized I need to be careful not to pass her interest off as a childish whim. I remembered how badly I wanted to play drums when I was her age. My parents were not supportive at all. That was one of the first times I felt my parents were rejecting who I was, and I felt they were not interested in encouraging me to be who I was made to be. How could they not see how much it meant to me? Dramatic isn’t it? Don’t worry, I got over it. I’ve been playing drums for over twenty years now and even played professionally for a number of years. Music continues to be one of my biggest passions.
My point is children around the age of 11 begin to make choices about who they are, who they want to be, what they want to do. We get the privilege as parents to partner with and encourage them to explore their passions and invest in developing new skills. One of my daughter’s deepest desires is to have her own real horse someday. Being supportive of her passion is one of the best ways I can show her how much I value who she is. It’s a way to say, “I love who you are!” There’s no better way for me as her dad to build confidence in her.
peanut butter spoons
When I was a kid (<< about that age) I would frequently raid the cupboard for a heaping spoon of peanut butter. I would nurse that salty mound of goodness for as long as possible while watching MTV. Sometimes I would make a second or even a third trip to Skippyland. Fast forward twenty-something years and I find myself doing the same thing for a protein-packed snack.
Day 6 of the Slow Carb diet: I’m hungry and I feel under prepared grocery-wise. It’s been going better than I expected, but I still find myself hungry more often than I should. I need to find ways to increase my calorie intake.
Here’s a quick breakdown of what I’ve discovered so far:
Breakfast – Egg whites, Chopped Spinach, Mushrooms, Salsa, Feta Cheese, and a dash of Sea Salt
Lunch – So far, lunch is my weak link. I dream of chicken and veggies…next week.
Dinner – Steak and veggies or Chipotle minus the tortilla and rice
Snacks – Also a fail this week. I need to get some almonds and maybe some cottage cheese for next week.
On another note, Go Nuts day on Saturday was like Christmas! There were pancakes with powdered sugar, chocolate-peanut butter cups, nacho cheese doritos, pepperoni and sausage pizza, and La Cerveza Mas Finas!!
bachelor in a grocery store
I’m a bachelor, have been for almost three years. I don’t grocery shop. I eat out a lot, way too much. This presents a couple issues: first, the costs add up and second, it can be counter productive to dietary goals. So today I went to the grocery store…
I made a trip to Trader Joe’s, but before we get to that…a quick sidebar for context:
On June 1, I started Tim Ferriss’ Slow Carb diet. Basically you go 6 days eating protein and vegetables and then you can go crazy on the 7th day and devour anything and everything you want.
Now back to Trader Joe’s. In all fairness, I am somewhat familiar with Trader Joe’s because I used to shop there on a somewhat regular basis a few years ago; however, I have never shopped there as a bachelor. I found myself going down the same aisles repeatedly looking for certain items. I had to ask the cashier to send someone to get me sliced mushrooms because I couldn’t find them. I immediately thought of at least three things I forgot as soon as I left the store. There were several times I pulled something off the shelf (a block of feta cheese for instance) and said to myself, “what am I thinking…I’m not gonna grate this cheese” only to put it back on the shelf and grab the closer-to-prepared-albeit-more-expensive version.
To sum it up – my bill was about $61 and I’m hoping it will all last me until Tuesday. On the plus side, I grilled tasty grass-fed filet mignon for dinner and tomorrow is my “Go Nuts” diet day.