Coffee date: a {beautiful} mess

If we had coffee today would tell you…

This was a crazy busy week, but it was the best week in a long time...a week I'll remember always.

On Wednesday:

I got a Distinguished Achievement award from work. I just kept telling myself one thing over and over again that morning before they called me up and read why I was nominated…just don't cry, just don’t cry. I didn't cry, but I wanted to. That call will always stick with me. It goes straight to the heart of a dispatcher and defines in one, long phone call why this job found me so many years ago. After my award, I had lunch with some of my oldest relatives who all are the youngest at heart. I love them all.

On Thursday: I got on my knees and prayed for the first time in a long time.

On Friday: I turned 31 and I was gifted with:

a new perspective

a new tattoo

an answer to prayer

a scarf in the mail

$ome cash

a trip to the ocean

some prayer flags for my backyard

2 cakes (one made by my amazing creative sister)

a bunch of fabulous card

and although I didn’t blow out any candles,  I made wishes…oh did I make wishes.



{my new tattoo, my mantra, my constant reminder, my anchor, my wings}

On Saturday:

I spent the day by the ocean with extended family, I was silly and carefree, I felt the relief of emotional weight lifted off my shoulders, and I was just happy. It was a smiling on the inside & the outside kind of happy.

On Sunday:

it was Father's Day and I went to church with my mom and step dad to stand next to him as he signed a Courageous pledge.

We went to Freebirds pre-grand opening and I felt like I was in Austin again and I was a happy, happy girl…it's soo groovy bay-bay!

Later that night, we had a combo birthday/father's day dinner and somehow, at my own birthday dinner, I ended up giving out 4 presents and paying half of the bill.

Hmm…oh well, it was a party and money is just paper.

Now today, on Monday:



 I'm back to the grind, people are fighting, houses are burning, cars are crashing...my professional and personal to-do list is a mile long and growing.

It feels like Gizmo, my to-do list does...looking at it on the outside, it's got some fuzzy and warm things going on (presents to buy, people to see, massages scheduled), but then there are the other things (paint the house, clean the garage, call the credit card companies, call the doctor back) that remind me that when I get this thing wet, it's gonna go crazy!!!



I didn’t have a laptop with me this weekend and that's all I wanted, everything around me was a story, a tale, a picture to be shared with my little part of the world: so I improvised, I recorded myself, I instagramed everything I could, I worked my iphone camera to the max, got out a notepad and a pen and I got to it. Word after word, line after line. Chicken scratch. Worse than when I was a waitress. I could be a doctor with this handwriting.

I took 337 pictures just with my iphone, alone.  I couldn't stop.  Everywhere I looked was a portrait and an amazing scene that I could not pass up. 



This sunset over the Napa Hills could have been the death of me.  I took this picture over my shoulder, one hand on the wheel, out of the drivers side window, on a 2-lane highway at dusk and it is completely raw.  No edit, no saturation, no filter.  I can only think of this verse to describe it: "The Heaves declare the Glory of God and the skies His handiwork."  Psalm 19:1



Even with all this goodness, there's still so much more that I haven't even touched…this week, I decided to start this new {beautiful} mess blog and yet another one with my friend Mel, I'm going to start a 90-day fitness challenge soon, change my online major to business marketing, and start the process of becoming a dispatch academy instructor. It's time. I have too much experience, too many years of training, and still that small, beating vein of passion for this crazy job of mine, to not share it with those who think they might want to commit themselves to this thing I call my career.

When I got home on Sunday night, I had nothing but writers block. So I sat, staring at the monitor, listening to opera hoping it would inspire me, eating left over cake, drinking coconut milk, staring at my cursor while it blinked back at me. Blink, blink, blink, blink, blink…

Then today, I saw this posting and invite from Alyssa at Rags to Stitches to just sit down and chat, and I realized I am just overwhelmed by all the good things this week and over thinking it all.

I'm not new to blogging,

but I am new to making friends here and marketing my words to share with anyone who will read them. 

It's a new and exciting adventure. 

I hope that you will come back again and visit me soon.

Until then:

　

XO ~ Lauren





{my new favorite dress I had to share with y'all}