Over six years ago, I ventured into the wide world of blogging. The day I started it was snowing and I had been stuck in the house for eight days straight - with a screaming baby, two kids I was babysitting, and a 4 year old with the attitude of a 20 year old. I sat down and the words just flowed.. and flowed.. and flowed. As I wrote, I had people come to me and tell me how their words lifted them up or helped them through a time in need. To say that I have wrote everything from tragedy to triumph would be an understatement. I had to write about my daughter's death, the disconnect between my family including my in laws as well, and even the rumors that can hurt when you live in small town America. I had to tell my readers about the death of my Nana, then of my grandmother, and then for DJ's Granny. But, along the way I felt that I was touching others.
It wasn't until I met a lifelong friend Courtney, all over a blog post, that made me realize just what the blogging world has done for other people - and what it does for your soul to write it all down. I wanted to start this new blog with the new chapter in my life of homeschooling, so I shut my other one down and put my personal writing aside. Since then, almost daily, I am asked why I no longer blog about personal stuff and only share my homeschool life now. The answer is that I felt I was violating other people's rights and feelings or invading their privacy by sharing my stories. Some of the things I said really hurt the people that I wrote about - but unfortunately, it was my story, the truth, and couldn't be edited to fit in the box certain people liked to keep themselves in.
Today, however, I picked up my journal and began to write and somewhere along the way God put it on my heart to share my stories again - the good, the bad, and yes, the ugly but truthful. Ashley's Little Classroom won't just be about my homeschool life anymore, but also about my real life. The real, very unperfect life, that will be featured in the book I plan to release in 2015 titled "Picture Un-Perfect: From Tragedy To Triumph." This book will include a lot of my blog posts that are featured on my old blog beautifullifeofashley.blogspot.com. You are more than welcome to go to that link and read the words for yourself. They are very deep and very personal, but have helped many people sort through their own emotions and for that, I am very grateful. God does a beautiful thing when he gives us a gift and I truly believe that it's a slap in the face to him if we do not use that gift for his glory so I will not let my gift go to waste anymore.
I'm looking forward to this journey and to writing again.. and to meeting and sharing with a lot of you what life is really like behind my closed doors. Hope you will be there to read along the way...
See Ya Soon.
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