Today I was cleaning my office. There were piles and piles of paper on my desk. Old bills – that probably got paid, several children’s drawings that you know are shit but feel terrible about throwing away, so many sympathy cards that I both love and loathe, books, more insurance notices than I could ever possibly need (hello insurance company, I’m aware my husband died, I’m the one that informed you, could you please leave me alone now?), photo books that we made over the years. You get the picture, my office is a mess, still is, because underneath all the piles I was searching through, I found a notebook.

Ash was big on notebooks. He loved to write things down and then forget he wrote the things down, ask what he did with the notebook where he wrote the things down and get mad at everyone for misplacing the aforementioned notebook. It was a thing. It happened a lot. We got used to it. I’m not sure he did, though.

Anyway, at the bottom of one of the excessive piles on my desk I found one of Ash’s notebooks. In it, there was a letter that he wrote to me on my birthday this year. I won’t share that with you because that’s just for him and me. But I also found just some things he wrote down that I think can help us all and I’d like to share them with you.

His Advice to Jack, Colt and me (and everyone else too):

You can do anything you put your mind to. Seriously. Write down your goals.

Choose your friends carefully. Good friends care about you. They hold you accountable. They support you. They do not try to get you do do bad things. They have your back.

The most successful people are also the most focused and hardest workers.

Surround yourself with happy, positive people. Life is too hard to be negative. Life is too good to be negative. Life is too short to be negative.

See the good in life and in people.

Live by the golden rule. Know the difference between right and wrong, between good and bad.

Make the right choices.

Live with a clean conscience.

And lastly, Kellie, Colt and Jack go play golf! Top Golf counts, but not every time. You must play family golf at least once a year.

Ash lived in his 37 years. He lived more than most do in a whole lifetime. And he loved to give advice, solicited or not. I am extremely grateful to have found this today. I am extremely grateful that he chose me to spend his life with. I am extremely grateful.

I will heed his advice every day. I will also mess up every day, but that’s ok, too.

And I can’t wait to find more notebooks.