A new normal

This is old news by now, but my dear friend Tobi's comment on the last post reminded me that I've yet to share. Perhaps you've noticed a decline in my commenting on your blogs in the past while? Be assured that it has nothing to do with how much I love you. Rather, I've been busy devoting 40+ hours a week to a dream job of mine and figuring out how to balance the rest of my life with its somewhat odd schedule.

Let's skip the suspense, shall we? I'm now a full-time journalist, working as a sports reporter for a Los Angeles County daily newspaper. I cover prep sports in the area and am suddenly fully immersed in every corner of our community. Five days a week, I hang out with an awesome group of coworkers, attend sporting events, talk to people from around the Valley, write about it on tight deadlines, and see it published the next day. To put it simply, I am having the time of my life.

(Matt took this picture of me writing and submitting a story from the football field.
I had exactly 32 minutes after the game ended to whip out an article before deadline.)

It's quite a shift in lifestyle, though. Sporting events don't really conform to the typical 9-5 schedule, so I work a lot of afternoons, nights and weekends. It has definitely taken some getting used to for me, Matt, and my sleeping pattern. The good news is Matt gets to tag along for a lot of the events! We've spent many Friday nights under the lights of high school football this fall.

Of course, we always follow those chilly games with hot cocoa on the couch after midnight.

If you're surprised by the cold weather apparel in Southern California, don't be. Fall is a terribly bipolar season here. It requires shorts in the daytime and wool coats at night. Even the daytime temperatures can be drastically different from day to day, though. For example, two Saturdays ago I covered cross country prelims all day. I was wearing a cardigan but had to take it off because it was NINETY degrees outside. So hot, in fact, that a runner passed out from heat exhaustion a mere fifty yards from the finish line of the 3-mile course.

This past Saturday, I covered the cross country finals at the same course. But this time, I had to don these babies:

That's because it was FIFTY degrees and raining all day, just seven days after the heat exhaustion incident. Today, it's back up to 75. I told you the weather is bipolar here.

Matt and I spent a glorious six hours in the pouring rain on Saturday. Not only was I watching the races, interviewing coaches and athletes, and writing three separate articles that day, but I also took pictures of the event for the front sports page because it was too far away to send a photographer. Matt was a huge lifesaver who diligently held an umbrella over himself, another over me and the camera, and also toted my purse around when necessary. I sure love that man!

Of course, one of those umbrellas decided to break at the end of the day right as we decided to take a couple pictures. Thank goodness it lasted that long.

So there you have it, folks--a real update in the regular life of Matt and Ashley. Lest you be concerned that my work schedule is "cramping our style" too drastically, though, I promise that we still pencil in time for fun! I have a nice, long backlog of activities that must be blogged to prove it. Here's hoping I can get caught up soon!