The First Post

Okay. Just take a deep breath, and let it out slowly... Place my fingers over the keyboard. Look at the screen. And...? Oh, geez. Alright. Just type something. Anything. What's on my mind? Isn't that the whole reason I started this blog - to get my thoughts typed out and share them with The Internet, in case someone, anyone, might be interested in what I'm thinking about?

So, I guess the first step is to introduce myself, explain what the heck I'm doing here?

I can do that.

Hi! My name is Ashleigh, and I decided, on a whim, to start a blog. I've only blogged one other time in my life - does anyone remember Xanga? - and I think it's safe to say that my posts as a teenage girl were pretty predictable. "Oh, so-and-so is super cute, and we made EYE CONTACT today!" "Oh, I love my BFFs and we're so cool and we're going to go to college together and live next door to each other and..." Or, "Oh! My life is so difficult - I go to a great school, have a wonderful family, am surrounded by awesome friends, but my hormones are out of control! WHY DOESN'T ANYONE UNDERSTAND ME??"

You know, the usual teenage angst that plagues us all at some point in our lives.

Thankfully (for my sake, and I like to think yours, too), this is not that blog.

Disclaimer: this blog is still about me. But it's about twenty-seven year old me, instead of fourteen year old me. I like to think that alone will make for a much better reading experience.

A brief introduction: I am married to a wonderful man, and almost two years ago we adopted a black lab-mixed breed rescue from a nearby animal shelter; I often refer to him as my dog-son, and I am his dog-mom. He's covered with a beautiful brindle coat - hence the "Brindle" part of this blog's title. The "Brick" half of the blog's name refers to the purchase of my first house with my husband a few months ago.

My little house ("Brick") and my little family ("Brindle") make up the center of my universe. I am completely in love with my husband and dog-son, and I am really enjoying making this little house of ours a home.

The idea for this blog came to me at 6:45 am this morning, when my dog was lying next to me in bed and hitting me with his paw to wake me up so that I would get out of bed and feed him breakfast. I wasn't quite ready to leave the comfort of our new king-sized bed, so instead I lay there petting him, and thinking about how handsome my dog-son is with his brindle coloring. And then I somehow got to thinking about how much I miss writing, and journaling. (Don't ask me how I got there - I often have a hard time tracing my line of thought, as my mind always feels like it's spinning with new ideas and questions and comments and I can hardly keep up.) And then, suddenly, it just seemed very clear to me - start a blog. Write about the things that I love, the things that are important to me. Write about things that bring joy to my life. I figured it would be a nice way to start focusing on the positive instead of the negative, as I tend to worry and stress a lot. (I'm very thankful for my husband, who helps keep me grounded and can put things into perspective for me when I get a little lost.)

So, here it is. My blog. There's no plan. There's no timeline, or deadline, or any real purpose to this other than to allow myself the opportunity for self-reflection and ramblings without interruption.

Alright, how do I end this post... The End? Bye for now? Cut to commercial?

Ugh, how embarrassing. I'll get this whole blogging-thing figured out eventually... right?