Yesterday was my girlfriend Ash’s birthday, and I wanted to take a moment to showcase all of her awesome accomplishments and projects. She is the best thing that has ever happened to me and I am so lucky to have such a beautiful person in my life. She inspires me every day to be a better person. Tonight, we’re taking her out on the town (yesterday we stayed in and celebrated with good home-cooked food and movies), but for now, I want to share with you a few reasons why I love her so very very much.

Her Love For Animals

I Love Rescue Animals was Ash’s brain child. She was the motivation behind it and started it from the ground up as just a facebook page until it grew into the website it is now. Her passion and commitment to animal welfare drew me to her and because of her, I became actively involved in the cause. She has a heart of gold and everything she does for animals is out of the love and respect she feels for her fellow creatures. I admire her so much for taking on this epic campaign to better the lives of homeless animals. She is amazing.

Her Eye For Detail

Ash is a very detailed person, and it’s something one can see easily in her photography. While her deviantart page hasn’t been updated in awhile, I’m going to helping her build her portfolio soon and that place will explode with more awesome pictures. Her specialty is animal portraits and we have several photographs that she took of our dogs that we’ve had blown up for our walls. She is so talented and I can’t wait to help her show the world what she can do with a camera.

Her Way With Words

One of the first things I ever learned about her was her love for writing. She is incredibly gifted when it comes to words and writing stories. For awhile she was blogging very regularly at her blog Mutts n’ More, but when we made our huge cross-country move, it kind of fell to the wayside while we struggled to get things back to normal. Then I Love Rescue Animals happened and she just hasn’t had time. But she is such a stellar storyteller, even if it’s day to day activities, that I still love going back through her blog and reading about our adventures and about our family. We have such a crazy life, it’s good to be able to look back and smile at the fond memories. And we have quite a few.

Her Willingness to Help Others

Ash is the owner and founder of Forpawz Pet Care, a small pet business down here in the Austin area. For all of her clients, Ash goes over the top to make sure that their furry kids have the best treatment while under her care. She has done puppy training, dog walking, pet sitting, and even adoption counseling. Of course, this isn’t the only way she helps others. She is the main tweeter for ILRA’s twitter account RescueAnimals and when she’s not tweeting about animal welfare stories, she’s helping rescues and organizations get their euth lists out to the public. She also tweets anything people ask her to tweet – whether it’s a story about a family that needs money for medical bills for their dog or a cat that desperately needs to find a new forever home, she takes it upon herself to help people and animals without a second thought to herself.

Her Desire For A Better World

Few people know that Ash has another twitter account: Forpawz. This is an account that she uses to tweet about all things eco and earth friendly. She talks about organic products and green news, and posts about petitions to get the government more actively involved in the earth’s welfare. All of our own household ideas for being green have come from her – our compost bin, our energy saver bulbs, our organic milk. She’s extremely conscious of her own environmental footprint and this has led to me being so as well. In turn, we have shared what we’ve learned with family and they’ve shared with their friends and because of her, a lot of lives have been changed for the better.

So to sum up, her passion to be a good person and to create a better world for both animals and people have made me fall in love with her over and over again. I am the luckiest woman in the whole world.

Happy Birthday, Ashley Niels. You are my Heart and Soul. Thank you for being all that you are.