one {step} at a time

“Run when you can, walk if you have to, crawl if you must; 

just never give up."― Dean Karnazes

Exactly a year ago tonight, I was preparing for my first ever 5K.
Fitness, on most levels, has never really been my strong suit.  In fact, I went to see a military recruiter just out of high school  and after they told me that I needed to loose 20 lbs and start running,  I decided I was out.  Just like that.  Done-zo.  No military career for this gal cause she was too attached to her baby fat.
I always had an excuse:  "I'll do a 5k when I lose 10 lbs" "I don't have the lung capacity"  "I don't want my junk jiggling all over the place in public" #drama #liesItoldmyself
Then one day last year, my BFF from work and I decided we'd enter a group mud run and we'd train with a local 5K in a regional park a few weeks before. 
Our "easy" run, our first 5k, the "training run" on the trials we thought we knew  was the slipperiest, slidiest, messiest, muddiest adventure I had to date. When the torrential downpour would let up a few minutes at at time, we'd look at each other and just laugh and shake our heads. We paid to do this?!
It seemed like a cold rain soaked, wind blown, mud slung forever to the finish line but when I got there, to the end, more rewarding than the water or the bagels or the shelter or even the cool finishers medal,   was my sense of accomplishment, my long sought after to-do checked of my fitness bucket list .
A 5K a couple of years ago might as well have been climbing Mount Everest.  Today, it is quite literally a walk in the park.


Yeah, I still can't run the entire thing without having to stop and walk for a while. My thighs are still chubby and they still rub together. I still feel like hell for about a week after the long runs.  But ya know, I earned my right to call myself a runner.

Tomorrow, I will do my 10th organized run in a year. In the last year, I've run down 10Ks, 8 mile trail runs through the mountains,  and now I've got my eye set on a half-marathon and Tough Mudder.  Things I thought I'd never do. 
I just had to go back to basics and do like Nike is always saying. I just had to put one foot in front of the other.  Even if I had to say it in my head with each one,  I just had to take it one step at a time. Mind over matter over mud,  I just had to do it. 
Running & small goals like a 5K a month at a time remind me that anything is possible if you put your mind to it.

every day is a {new} blank page

My last day of work in this long work week.

A venti latte with an extra shot.

A mind full of ideas.

A heart full of desires.

Feeling nostalgic yet resolute,

void of deadlines or numbers,

with my pen to the paper and no chances to second guess

I made a list.

Be good to my body.

Be kind to my heart.

Pray (daily)

Write (often & honestly)

Smile (more)

Create (beauty)

Be thankful

&

Remember that every day is a new blank page in the story that is my life.

Each new page cannot exist without the one before it.

to me

to you

to a new year

Spread {your} wings

Creativity has finally bled out of my hands. 

It's been bottled up inside by something, I can't say what, 

but it refused to be grounded tonight.

I love this piece!

1. Spread your wings

2. Fly

(Ledge optional)

~ Lauren 

a {rebel} without a blog

Hi.
I'm back.
I went away for a little while.   (like 6 weeks awhile) I do this sometimes. 
I'm OK.  Really. I am.   I just got a little behind with the self-imposed writing deadlines and weeklies, and then I got busy, and then I went on vacation, and, and, and... I can't lie, I felt an uncomfortable amount pressure to keep this blog up and I didn't like it.  I love to write.   I do.   I love to converse, text, talk, read, watch, listen...share. Right now though...I'm kind of (fill in the blank)  pensive.   Yeah, that's the word.   I'm in such a different place in my life and in my head than I was last time this year. But, there are so many things on my plate, so many pressures that have to be met:  work, bills, fitness, family obligations, speed limits when there's a really damn good fast song on! I just can't get out of some of those, so I went and got out of the one that I could control.    I could stop writing.  I have power over that.   Yeah, I think not writing has been my rebellion.  Does that make sense at all?  I became a rebel without a blog.   All the while, the that tiny small voice was telling me: Why are you giving up the one thing you really love? It's your outlet. You know how you get when you bottle it all up inside.
 

{my kitchen blackboard and love notes to myself}

 

Getting back here hasn't been as easy as I thought. 

It should be like riding a bike, just get back on, right? That's what they say at least. I had to do a little bit of convincing. I had to romance myself with little sweet notes and reminders. I had to imagine that I needed inspiration to post something again. But really...I didn't have to do anything. I just had to sit down and start again.   So right now I'm liking the creative fury of my fingers dancing on this keyboard.
It's a familiar melody that needs to be played more often.   Getting back on the writing saddle is like anything else.  Showing up is half the battle but look, I'm already winning that one. I'm here.  I showed up.  I just gotta set some new rules so I don't find my way back to blank again. Or maybe I don't need rules, I just need some Hemingway:   There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed. Ernest Hemingway <3

{Hi, I'm back.}

paint {fumes} & Pandora

I searched for moments of peace this weekend. 

I searched with intention.

I sought them out like it was a treasure hunt and I had the map with the X that marked the spot.

I found a few moments in likely and unlikely places.

I found one at the gym, both headphones tightly tucked in, drowning out the world around me. I stared across the street, across the 20-lanes of traffic merging in the intersection outside of my fishbowl of a gym.  I locked my gaze in on a flag waving in the early morning breeze, and then I turned up the pace to 9.5 miles per minute (a huge feat for me).  I am not a runner by any means, so I had to let all thoughts but "keep going" and "don't stop you're almost there" take the lead.  There was no room left for stray thoughts, for anything other than focus, and just those two simple thoughts to fill my head.  One quick step and one relentless drop of sweat at at time, I chased down  3.21 miles of simplicity. 

Walk.run.walk.run.walk.run...just don't give up.

I didn't give up, so I rewarded my sore back and body with a massage.  A very likely place to find some peace, but surprisingly, sometimes this is the hardest place to not let my mind wander.  The music helps, and this Bach track especially, which I have yet to hear too many times.

1. push play
2. close your eyes
3. listen

 I found another long and extended one in this paint bucket which I have yet to part with, for my room is big, the walls are thirsty, and the interruptions were not kind, but I got a good start and the transformation has begun.  This chore has been on my to-do list for years now.  Years. It'll just be a few more days of Paint Fumes & Pandora, and Al Green Radio will keep me company again, but in the end, the walls will have a new life and the room will have a new intention.

{I always paint barefoot 'cause I can always feel it on the bottom of my foot before I manage to track it all across the floor one wet footstep at a time.}

Interior semi-gloss paint not to hold the sole title for peaceful transformations for the weekend, I took my Summer sandaled feet  in for some TLC.  As I sat there in the massage chair, I set my phone in the bottom of my purse {after my picture proof of course} and picked up a book.  Even if only 30 minutes at a time, it's 30 minutes in the positive.

Finally, the prompt to write this post, because I fell in love with a new site, with a collection of words, and a poet. I fell hard. I fell in love and lust. Again. When it comes to these kinds of inspirations, I am not a selfish lover. I knew I had to share, and so I will:

Tyler Knott

{link}

A wordsmith after my very own beating heart.
Oh, to write love letters like he does.
Oh, to receive love letters like the ones he pens.
I wondered who is the lucky someone who is his muse?
I read. I thought. I reminisced. I wondered. I read some more.


And now I have sat here, speechless, but only to read out loud the words my eyes were soaking in like the walls that drank in paint this weekend.

{link}

Next week, I may find my moments of peace and calm in a sunset or a glass of wine or a rock song, for I have come to find that solitude is what we make it.  It's not a zip code, it's a state of mind.

simply me,
~ Lauren

confessions {lies} & sweat stains

I have a confession.

I'm putting myself on notice...I have 18 (count em!!) eight-teen 30- minute personal training sessions that have been sitting on the books at Fitness 19 for like 3 years. I'm a card carrying member of not 1 but 2 local gyms and the downtown yoga studio.  I have 3 expired sessions at the pilates studio on Main St.  Four years ago (wtf?!), I won a Crossfit package for a month of membership and free training sessions,and NEVER cashed it in.  I have 4 brand new racquetballs still airtight fresh sitting in my passenger's seat and a racquet sharing the back seat of my car with a set of 5lb hand weights, a fitness mat, a yoga mat, and a pair of Brooks running shoes. 

I've been posing like someone who gives a rat's ass about being a gym rat.  I'm a poser.

3 years...that's 36 months...1,095 days...26, 280 hours...

I"m 31, that's almost 10% of my life 

{Father, it has been 36 months, 1,095 days, and 26, 280 hours since my last confession}

I haven't cancelled my membership because even burning that fee every month is still like 1/6 of the cost of those session I bought with a tax return a few years back when I declared it the Year of Lauren.  It was the year of Bullshit and Lies I told my body.  The lies were intoxicating, they took over my mind and my will power too. 



I have THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY FIVE PINS labeled "Get Fit" on just one Pinterest board.  Go ahead, take a look.  That's just another thing I'm hoarding.  Good Lawd, someone call the Procrastination & Full of BS Police and tell them I need to assume the position.  

So, I am writing you, whoever you are reading this blog,  along with the the inner circle of folks  who I already sent this to on Facebook, the ones I know will ride my ass and my case about it...go ahead, feel free to remind me constantly 'bout this confessional. 

I.have.no.more.excuses.

Even the guy on the phone at the gym scoffed when he looked up my account. Wow you have a lot of sessions he said... That shit ain't cheap...it's like an entire monthly mortgage payment full of sessions. If I could cash them out I would, but I can't so I'm gonna invest in some serious sweat equity. 

Martha Focker...don't let me get away with this shit again. I'm going in this Thursday at 12:30 to meet up with Dulon, his muscle shirt, the red clipboard, and that unwavering trainer's stare that makes my little excuses pee in their little pants.  He'll remember me and kick my ass again until I'm about damn ready to pass out. He'll have me running stairs and doing squats like I'm training for the Porta-potty squat Olympics. 

Skinny and flawless be damned...I'm not totally comfortable in my skin, I'm a chick with insecurities. I suck it when I take pictures, and I feel all the jigggly bits jiggling when I'd rather they not, but you better believe I've never been that girl who hides in her house cause she's afraid of a little muffin top.

  Confident is sexy.

I  know this.  I don't lack confidence, but I can always be a better, stronger, happier, healthier version of me.

We all can.  

Now, this isn't the first time I've written about this health & fitness struggle in a blog.  In fact, writing about my fitness battle has been one of the ligaments in the body of work that's been my private, personal blog for the last four years.  

But this is about accountability right?  

Ok, so here's to accountablity.  

Here they are, in all their self-deprecating, hopeful, full of sweat stains and self-loathing, spandex pants and sports bras glory. 

weight loss? boom!

yoga? bam!

Part of the glory of blogging is having it accessible at the refreshing of a web browser for some insta-motivation.  I joined a fitness bootcamp last September and I still have kept that weight off.  It was slow and oh so sweaty, but it worked. My inner Scarlet O'Hara took over and drove me to camp in the far too early morning hours before my brain was awake and then she grimaced through gritted teeth and blinked through salty sweat stained lashes one torturous squat and one breathless lap at at time.  

Bootcamp, those are the blogs I go back to when the voices in my head grow from a whisper to the thundering chants of a stadium roar telling me that I'm too tired, I have to much else to do, I can do it tomorrow, my feet hurt, my boobs hurt, I think I'm getting a cold, I have to be up early, snivel, whine, cry, pout...

That blog, it's unapologetic, guileless, and raw.  It is the sweat stain in my sports bra, the stretch in my workout pants, and the grimmace on my face everytime my muscles got ripped apart and grew back even stronger.  It's the aching, the pains, the frustration, and the gasping of my stagnant lungs.

outdoor adventure bootcamp sessions? Pow!  

and then in anthology form: 

Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7, Day 8, Day 9, the last week

Even if you just read day 1 and then the last week, you'll see the change. 

Bootcamp, now that was a big pick me up moment, or actually it was a series of weekly pick me ups.  One of the better decisions I made for myself in recent years.  The blogs I kept about them, I just read through some of them,and damn this girl can find a way to turn a phrase.  

You know what else? 

You better believe she can find herself again in the reflection in her own puddle of sweat as she eeeks out a few more laps and drops to her knees for a few more push-ups.

You see, I can make some great decisions for myself, it's just the consistency that's the issue.  

What finally spurred this after all the years of self-sabotage?

Today's themed picture of the day from my July Photo a Day Challenge: "Mirror" 

Well this is my mirror, the 3-year old reflection of lazy procrastination on my to-do list staring me down until I finally said ENOUGH!  

I loose sight of myself now and then.

We all do.  

But I just can't close my eyes and turn away from my own reflection any more. 

I know better.

You see this isn't about body image, sex appeal, the note's in my doctor's charts, this is all about me.

It's to me, for me, about me, from me.  

It's just about me.  

This is my time and it's about damn time.

Just for good measure and to expand my circle of accountability, I'm linking this little confessional of mine to the arena of the ladies (and gentlemen) of the GFC Blog Hop. Welcome strangers and new friends. Feel free to remind me that I have set a goal and I have nothing holding me back.

a lil' sweet, a lil' {spicy}

Inspiration from musical places, one of my a-few-favorite-things, and wordy little contests, oh my!

I entered a tea-tag contest for my favorite Sweet & Spicy Tea from Good Earth

{source}

Read about my entry and my sweet lil' quote {here} on my health & cooking blog with my good friend Mellissa:
Mel & Lo Lose It!!

I promise you, it's a good read and we {Me & Mel} are just like my fave tea:

a lil' bit sweet & a lil' bit spicy

~ Lauren

Snippets & Soundbytes: {The Crazy Ones}

I'm on a roll.

I'm on a rock & roll with these Snippets & Soundbytes

I just keep hearing greatness that is fitting so well into my life these days.

{pin}

Today's musical nugget is courtesy of a YouTube recommendation

&

it's what I have to imagine is the love child of a Steve Job's inspiration

but packaged up after a night of jagerbombs, tattoos, electric guitars, and amps.

I present: Stellar Revival "The Crazy Ones"

Yes, here's to the Crazy Ones, in quote, in song, in lyrics, and in Manifesto

Put your rock horns up and open your ears to the lyrics!

we are the heart breakers, risk takers
anything but boring
cause we are the crazy ones
the mavericks, the dreamers
the forgotten sons
we color outside the lines for fun
we are the crazy ones

When my mom, my aunt, the neighbor, or society tells me to turn this racket down,

I'll say this to them:

This is Janis Joplin, Big Mama Thornton, Hank Williams, and Count Basie.

There have always been rebels;

they just have a different sound, a different look and a different beat these days.

And....well, if that's not enough,

I'll tell them this:

I know crazy, it's runs through my veins, we cannot escape it.

Crazy is 2.5 years younger than me, bearded, and leathered by the sun:

{Ocean Springs, MS}

Crazy on this very day last year, one year ago exactly, after more than four months of walking, running, and crawling along this entire nation, ran directly into the Atlantic Ocean in Florida and put a loud exclamat!on point on the end of his Declaration of Crazy, his Batten Journey. 

Here's the to Crazies, to the Steve Jobs, to the Noah Coughlans, to all the dreamers who refuse to hear doubt, give up their bus seat, to step back from the ledge, or put down their guitars.

Crazy...it makes this world go 'round.

~ Lauren

Stand {UP}: a Declaration of Independence

I have to.
I have to write.
I've gotta say it now before my mind remembers something else in it's place.

A constant stream of Furious thoughts in my head right now like, they're like…fireworks.

Fireworks.

That's exactly what they're like! 

On this early morning Fourth of July, my mind is alive with thoughts like fireworks in the night sky.

They hit me with a loud BOOM {hey, listen up!!!}

I see their light, their beauty, their sparkle...

I stare up with awe and wonder as I'm trying desperately to capture them fast enough and inscribe them here before they burn out and fall to the Earth.

I'm committed to this 30-day photo challenge on instagram…so far so good, just on day 3. 

 I did pretty good a couple of years ago on the 365 picture a year challenge…I only fizzled out towards the end of the year.  30 days?  Pussshaww. Done.

I'll do it.  I can't not do it.  It's what I do.  I see the details, the light, the shadows, the irony, the hidden messages waiting to be seen, the symbiosis, the answers to prayer, the sorrow, the beauty…

I see it all, I can't shut my eyes to it, close my ears, or turn off my mind.

I have friends and family that get annoyed with it..with the constant picture taking, 

 the recording of the saying and the notes into my iphone or scratching them out onto whatever piece of paper I can get my hands on.
Blogging.  Huh? What's that? 
I've kept it to myself until now.

Why do I do it?
Well, I do these things for me & for all of us;

for now & for the point in the future when we'll want to look back because memory failed us or someone was gone but then in the words, in the lines, in the images, we find them and ourselves again.

  We find our roadmap to how we arrived at our present, find a dream that lost its wings and needs to be revived, we remind ourselves of who we used to be and who we are still.

I am the keeper of my dreams, the recorder of my memories, the chronicler of my adventures

My life is a novel, these are my chapters - it’s a storybook, a thesis, a photo spread.

I had this conversation with my dear, sweet friend last night - her and I, an ocean apart, never having "met" IRL, but finding we share the same ideas & feelings simultaneously:

I want to tune out, but I can't.  It's not who I am. 

My to do list.  I can't even show you. 

You might break out in hives or get sweaty like I do when I look at it.

I have a hard time saying no.

Despite that...I can't stop writing, I can't stop taking like a million pictures with my iphone at every turn. Literally, at.every.turn. 

I could fill an entire album of pictures with the photos I've taken with my phone in one hand
& the steering wheel in the other.

I keep saying that it's my struggle to live in this day, in this moment and just when I think I have a handle on it, BAM!, I feel kind of overwhelmed. 

but I'm not sinking, I'm not.

I'm kind of floundering some days, but I'm always afloat

 all this struggle, it is making me stronger.  

I refuse to sink. 

 I refuse.

In the midst of this ramble I had been writing, I had this: The Crazies' Manifesto {written exquisitely by Andrea Balt, she's brilliant} delivered to me by my friend and fellow blogger Lynn; someone who gets me, she knows me well, she understands my words and just said this to me today:

"One of the things I think you've managed to do (well, there are so many but speaking to this point) is become more aware of each moment as it is occurring. Living in the moment, being more present."

STOP. Stop here and read the Manifesto before you go any further. 

Call it a commandment, a requirement, a prescription. 
You have to read this, you have to listen to the song embedded in the text…you have to before you go any further. Step into it and maybe you'll understand what I'm about to say.

These words, beautiful, fluid…they were love at first sight.  It's like sunshine for my soul. 

This Manifesto..it's a life raft, a parachute, an AED. 

Its like......nitroglycerine.

Do you know how nitroglycerine works?

Absorbed rapidly, improving blood flow, stopping the heart ache, lowering the blood pressure,

halting the oxygen-deprived destruction before it's too late. 
Life.saving.

I read the manifesto…I couldn’t read it fast enough. 
I was reading like I had just finished a race and I was at the end, hunched over, hands on my knees, sweat pouring off my brow, my lungs sucking in oxygen, but instead of air, it was words, I was reading the words like I couldn’t get enough air, I couldn’t pull them in fast enough.
 {breathe damn it!!!}

{yes, this picture again, but guess what?  this is my blog and this is my tattoo and I love it}

These words from, The Manifeto - they just woke me up.

"And if, say you’re somewhat lonely—though not alone, somewhat sad—though not broken, and somewhat tired—though wide awake and restless, please stand up.
Take a deep breath. Clear your throat. Look your Self in the eyes. Place your hand over your beaten heart. And let’s declare our independence from the norm."


I am standing up. 
I'm standing up every time I open my eyes after I sleep. 

I'm standing up with every deliberate keystroke of my furious fingers.

I'm very much standing up every time I am down on my knees asking, begging, praying for comfort, for peace, for forgiveness, for understanding. 

I am standing up every.single.time. I tie my laces or put on my game face for my health.

Every tear, I'm standing up. 

Every deep breath and bead of sweat, be it hot yoga, a hike in the hills, or a spin around the dancefloor.

I sat in a chair on my birthday, but I was really standing up…

I had a message emblazoned on my arm for me and me alone. 

I know that I'll never stop standing up even if I need a reminder to keep breathing.

I know me.  I know that I am that woman who stands up. 

I was that girl that stood up to get where I am today.

Damn it, I am standing up like Norma Rea.

{source}

As I read, my mind said these things in response:

1. Curious…it's the definition of childhood, it's what we loose when we get "old".  I refuse.  I refuse to stop wondering. I refuse to stop wandering.  

2.  My heartache…I pray for him even with our words silent and gone -  the others I forgive too…my heart is too big, it beats too strong to shrivel up and turn black

3. I always wish on shooting stars. "Why not?" a friend used to call me that..not by my name but she referred to me as "Why not?, what shall we do today?"

4. My words, I know their worth, their comfort, their torment, their pricelesness

5. Have no regrets, even if saying "I love you" is not met with "..and I love you too"

I will not waste my heart on those who don't deserve it, but I will not be afraid to set my feelings free, to breathe life into them and let them live outside of my heart

6. yes, yes, and yes…I will be present in it all

7. The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

8. I see this whole world in word and in pictures - I can create art from trash and treasures from scraps…

I was born with creativity in my veins.

9. "Your Word, it is a lamp unto my feet and a light for my path." Pslam 119:105

10. I will stand behind and next to crazy, I will look back at it when it stares at me in the mirror

My brother…he RAN ACROSS THE UNITED STATES! 

Why?  "Why not?!"  He did.  I saw it with my own two eyes, the start line, the finish, the in-between…

he said "I am going to run across the US"  Then he did it. 

This time last year, he was at the end of it, making his dream his reality.

11.  This is what I leave you, this is what I leave behind, my pictures, my words, my feelings in prose, the lyrics to the soundtrack that is my life

{pin}

Aaahh, yes, it's crazy - but crazy makes my world go round. 

It's a mess. 

But (ah-ha! that's what it's all about), its my mess, and in the piles of clean laundry that never get in the drawers or on the hangers, in the stacks of dishes that are starting to get a little "fragrant", in the clutter that shifts side to side in my car as I turn corners racing from one event to the next, and in the constantly turning hamster wheel that is my brain, it is MY mess. 

It is MY beautifully messy mess. 

I just gave this piece of advice to my friend, moments after reading The Manifesto, my new creedo.

 Telling me that she was nervous for an art showing, so full of talent yet so full of self-doubt, I told her this:

Don't ever stop being nervous when you're sharing a part of you, what defines you, what makes your life your own...but be comfortable with nervous.

Expect nervous like it's a the one you love that still gives you butterflies everytime you see him or look into his eyes…the one who not only leaves you breathless but is the only one you can breathe easy with.

Treat it like the one that you want to write love letters to, the one whose arms you don’t want to leave, the one who your thoughts wander to throughout the day.

Be nervous to lose him, just don't wait until it's too late

and he's gone before you realize what you had.

 This is it.

This is my one {our} chance at this thing we call life. 

I believe in eternal life, but for this one on Earth, right now,

I gotta take it both hands on the wheel {and camera} and foot on the gas and goooo!!!

I will not have it any other way.

So call me crazy, but:

I. Am. Standing. Up.

Will you too? 

On this very Independence Day will you put one hand on your heart and raise the other?  

Will you Stand.UP with me?

Will you take the Unapologetic Declaration of Crazy with me?

I dare you.  I dare you to move.  I dare you to breathe.  I dare you to Stand UP.