#WYA Day 1: {Hey Kiddo}

#WYA
Hey Kiddo, 
You know every time you hear someone your age calling you that, you raise your brow and get defensive but when someone older uses it, you grin a little. So here goes, kiddo, 23-year old me, a few things you don't want really want to hear from the 33-year old me. 
Learn the art of NO in it's most simple, elegant, non-explanatory existence. It's not about letting someone else down or feeling like it won't get done if you're not there to slave over it, it's about you. It's about listening to your heart and your body and giving yourself a little bit of that time you're so willing to always give to someone else. One day when you grimace through exhausted eyes and a weary soul at the "selfish" people, you'll come to recognize that they aren't selfish, they're self-aware and they know how to practice the art of NO with grace and confidence. Say no, my dear, and say yes to yourself. 
Stop working so much. Although your genuine passion for work far exceeds your good sense right now, one day you'll wonder what happened to a decade of weekends and dates gone by. There will be a handful of occasions you'll wish you didn't work your life through and there won't be enough money or rooms full of possessions that will make up for that time.
Speaking of passion, remember what makes your young heart beat. Music, words, writing, photography, powerful movies that highlight the beautiful parts of life. Don't get trapped in the mires of your everyday. Don't let the tragedy of this thing we call life paint a picture that is full of shadows. Let it go. Take off your headset and drown it out with words and life and sunlight and music and great food and lots of laughs. You're going to get off course, maybe not all the time, but sometimes you'll forget to come back to the middle. You won't get it now, but you'll get it after this great man is gone from the earth and you watch his work to understand why he will be so missed. This is how you come back to the middle, young lady. 
Let love in. Just do it. Let someone love you, and not just from a distance. Don't be afraid to get your heart broken. Put out of your mind that you could never date that kind of guy, or be that sort of girlfriend, or survive that kind of love. You'll box yourself in, you'll blind yourself to the perfect imperfections of the ones who might be the exact mirror you've been looking for. Don't forget to love yourself a little too. 
Move your body. Dance, do yoga, run, sweat, bend, shift, gyrate, just shake it off. Someday in the future you'll find yourself shaking and sweating and wondering why you never thought you were strong enough to run in a relay or hold a pose or climb a steep hill, and you'll love it. Then you'll lose it and wonder if you'll ever recover from pushing your body too far and you'll realize that you forgot to say no and your body said it for you. It's a hard lesson, it's painful and it will drop you to your knees and keep you up at night, but the beauty of it all is that you can still move. And all it takes is to move little and then you can move big, but you'll never lose as long as you're still moving. Move yourself, Love.
Find your sexy. Not your slutty. Not your sleazy. Not your trying too hard. Find your own version of sexy. It's not what you think it is. It's confidence. It's subtle. It's comfortable in your own skin. It's genuine. It's your shoulder peeping out your shirt. It's the way you bite your lip when you don't even know you're doing it. It's the way you grin and tilt your head with that telling stare. It's when something surprises you and you let that ever present guard down and that little squeak of surprise or fright comes out of the girl who is always prepped for the worst. Get comfortable with yourself. Get  comfortable with the one body and face you were given in this lifetime.  You are more beautiful than you realize. Don't forget that. 
PS - my dear sweet, you're 6 days late into this journey, but you're here. Welcome home. Welcome back to your keyboard and your 3am. 

{bold}: a bio

I don't know where to start.  My brain is on total overload.  I spent this weekend in a space overflowing with inspiration.  A Writing Workshop with by writing crush, Alexandra Franzen.
I can't go into how the dots are connecting for me right now.  I don't think I even fully undertand it yet. 
But what I can share and what I did complete for the weekend is this: An updated definition of who I am.  This is me,  Mad Libs style: 
Make no mistakes, she's got some mojo a-workin', this girl. Just like her tattoos, she wears her heart on her sleeve.
Lauren Coughlan believes:  that conversations should be fearless and questions should be bold.  As a 911 operator, she's a full time chaos wrangler, but what you really should know... is that she's a writer who speaks from her heart and a photographer who believes in the beauty of a timeless image. Her work has been called honest and authentic.
In her spare time, she can be found travelling the globe trying to quench her wanderlust, inhaling calm on her yoga mat, or wrestling with her adopted German Shepherd who every day makes her wonder who really rescued who?   She invites you to be part of her crazy, beautiful life,  so Go! Quick! Now! Find her at: me & my beautifulmess.blogspot.com 

I'll.{be}.there.for.you.

I have decided on a new bucket item list. 
I want to be serenaded with emphasis. I don't know when or where,  but my life will not be complete  until I am the spotlight center of such an act.
1) without reservation 2) both shame and pride checked at the door
I want to be wooed in song  melodically, audibly intoxicated with lyrics {performer's blood alcohol content will not be questioned}
and I want it to be......an epic ballad not just some run-of-the-mill love song No. if it doesn't have the potential for vocal strain  and possible hamstring pulling theatrical song animation = no I'm talking about hair band style singing that makes you sweat  air guitar theatrics raspy-throat-the-next-day-performing Adam Sandler Wedding Singer-esque John-Cusack-style hold the speaker box of love up to the window sanging!!!!
let's start with: 

wait for it, wait for it...

roll your windows up  beat the steering wheel like it's a drum set pound.it.out and saaaaang!

guitar smashing mic stand tossing build to a crashing crescendo drum beat  kick the wind kind of song  shake the sweat out yo hair ball your fists up and battle back the emotions
THIS is my MacDaddy of favorite love ballads oh, Richie... oh, Jon...
fist pump chest bump heart thump 
sing it to me baby and put your back into it!!
"I'll be there for you! These five words I swear to you! When you breath, I wanna be the air for you! I'll. Be. There. For. You. whooooooooooooooooooa oooooooooooooooooa oooa whooooooooooooa oooooooo oooooo  oooooooooooooooooo"
when I find my Mister, I'll make sure he knows about this this may be part of a future nuptial agreement this kind of performance at least once a year for all the years were together... cause who can split apart when you have an epic love ballad karaoke promise?
no one. that's who.
<3

{10} things that make me happy

Day 14: 10 things that make you really {Happy}   1. gummy bears

2. people watching in the airport 3. country music 4. THIS dog! I love her!!!  

5. Summer nights 6. the {warm} sun on my skin 7. pleasant surprises 8. travelling 9. babies/kids laughing 10. roadtrips  

 

it's just {stuff}

It's all just stuff. I found myself having a pity party this weekend. Listening to my dog's look-at-me-Ma barks and my footsteps echo of the walls in the empty room. Looking around wondering how I accumulated all the stuff that fills up my house. My house. Wondering why it matters that I continue to work to maintain a house that I keep just for me. Trying to figure out what to do next and how I get to my Dreamland that seems so far away. And then Oklahoma happens and I see it all in it's turbulence, strewn all around in heaps and unrecognizable piles on the street, places that used to be homes and havents. And then I realize that it's all just stuff. A bunch of stuff. And it's not that important. It really isn't. So the people and the relationships...yeah those: That's what's going to get me to my Dreamland.  A harsh reminder that we're all we've got and we're in this together.   God be with Oklahoma.  

throw off the {bowlines}

Blog everyday, blog everyday in Maaaaaaay!

Ok, here's the deal. I'm starting on Day 4.

Why? Cause that's where' I'm jumping in.

Life has me busy, yo!

I'll catch up. Promise {pinky swear}.

One of my favorite quotes {and oh how I love quotes!!!} is this one:

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do

an by the ones you did do.

So throw off the bowlines.

Sail away from the safe harbor.

Catch the trade winds in your sails.

Explore.

Dream.

Discover.

~ Mark Twain

Keep dreaming my friends!!!

#Relentless

I signed up.  Enough thinking. Time to train. 
The agreement: We go as slow as the slowest team member. We work as a team. Even if it takes us 9 hours, we will all finish.  We will be relentless. 

This thing was created by the British Forces, huh?  Well, I've spent enough time telling cops where to go for a living. Time to pony up, show up, and shut up. 
I'll be the girl covered in water and mud, sucking down air and dust determined look in her eye and a smile that says "it hurts, but it's not the boss of me."
Through ice,  fire, mud, water, electric shock... look for #TeamRelentless this September in Tahoe.

I {need} to

SuperHero name tags stuck to my fingers the room smells like glue YouTube play lists fill the room with melodies  and...memories that are still sharp as a knife too many weeks of silence  A pile of scraps keeps gathering at my feet a mess a {beautiful} mess...gathering on the floor beneath me this humming gets a little louder with every.single.song

It's almost 2am and I'm safe, here in my cocoon safe in the walls that I call home the same walls where I grew up gloriously alone has been exactly what I needed this last year and a half 

I need to create I need to hear I need to feel

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.

Do the {brave} thing

Do the scary thing.

The one that seems impossible.

Be brave.

Start over.

I'm In traffic south bound I-59, downtown Houston on my left & the exit for Galveston in my right.

Home? No.

It never pulls me back when I'm here in this part of the country.

The run-away beat is always a little louder in this humid air.

Spread your wings & fly.

{goats}

It's been like years since I've linked up to anything. Ok..maybe just months. Heck, I can't even get to blogging regularly anymore but... I had to share the joy of my day. The absolute joy of my day. My week really.   Goats.screaming.like.humans.       and then...this happened.     and then...this happened.     and then I cried tears.     My work here is done.   Happy Tuesday!!!  

     

Post-edit, I have to add one more.

I have now nearly pissed myself.

There is no end.

dream a {new} dream

Why am I battling with myself to post something already? Where did these lame self-imposed restrictions come from that I have to be planned, polished, spell-checked, or scheduled before I can write about my life? What is going on?   Well, I'll tell you real quick like.   I'm sitting here bored with my life (I know, how ungrateful!) planning my something/anything months in advance but equally despising that it's already nearly the end of January and the year is ticking away. Tick-tock, tick-tock. {I might also be despising that I'll be 32 in a few short months.}  

Source: colorflystudio.blogspot.com via Lauren on Pinterest

    I'm currently surrounded by paperwork...a mass of paperwork.   ~ Enrollment for an Dispatch Academy Instructor Course which...yes, I want to become an instructor - I have years of experience, I have stories to tell, I still have passion for what I do. ~ Education reimbursement forms to get paid (yes, paid!) to complete my BS in Business/Marketing (do you suppose I've completed any homework that I can get handsomely paid to complete? No.) ~ Tax paperwork (show me the monay!) ~ Customer Service homework   & the humdinger: The Authentic Dreaming Worksheet An excerpt or two: "...but what if your dreams are to live simply?" "You cannot stop dreaming. You must, you must, you simply must dream a new dream."   My computer has a slew of open tabs, I can't decide if I want to cook or travel or create or go to yoga... I want to do them all.   I just know that I'm again in this spot where I feel like I am:   1) on the verge of tears 2) on the verge of a breakthrough 3) on the verge of a genius/epiphany 4) on the verge of a long nap   This is comfortable and unfamiliar at the same time.   This {tune} has been humming in my head all day long & then, just on cue, a good friend sent me this:  

  & what, in the hell, Lauren, do cowboy tunes have to do with anything?   Well...everything.  Every damn thing, because the slew of paperwork, the maxed calendar of events, the travel miles, and the A.D.D. brain are just a cover up for that {simple} that I dream of.   My dreams are not outlandish. They're way more country than rock and roll. They're simple.   I'd "settle" for a cowboy, a little piece or land, some plants to water, some animals to feed, some little ones to plan my week around, an little studio to get lost in where creatvity bursts all over the walls onto cards and canvas and into journals.   I would. I could. I want to.   I can plan and stack and sort through the paperwork of my reality all I want to, but when it all boils down, my dreams are my dreams and there's no escaping that they're not going anywhere, anytime soon.   {*sigh*}

{400} Oak Trees: what my dreams are made of

Well, it is really no secret that I've had quite the long standing love affair with the South. Say...since I was 12 years old and read through Gone with the Wind one Summer like it was a nursery rhyme. A really long, petulent nursery rhyme.   Fast forward to Nicholas Sparks and every novel he's ever written and every movie that's ever been translated to a screenplay and well there you have it. This place {collective deep sigh}:   

Source: Uploaded by user via Jessica on Pinterest

   The Wormsloe Plantation in Savannah, GA. It was on my travel bucket list when I went to visit, oh a year and  half ago, but...I never made it. I half suspect that I had to keep something still on the list so that I'd have a good reason to go back again. I think that in this year that I've declared to be one where I get back to what makes me think and dream and feel free again - the one that feels authentically me again, travel is a must.  I must go see this beautiful place that haunts my happy thoughts.   You see, in the movie version of my life, I live in a place like this. My driveway has 400 sentinel oak trees that welcome me home every day and an army of 400,000 crickets that lull me to sleep every night.    The only thing that could make this better is if I was at home watching these movies  next to my fireplace while listening to the rain beat down on my tin roof.   Be still my mossy oak tree driveway lined, balmy weather, accent lovin' heart. Be still. It's coming all in due time.   <3   This blog post was brought you you courtesty of: the ABC Family channel and their full night of Nicholas Sparks-esq movies.

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 

Dear {me}

Dear Friday, I have about 3 minutes to write this before I have to get ready for dinner in Downtown Disney, catered by our law firm, the annual appreciation dinner for the conference of the largest employee union in the United States.  This is not to tout my privileged  but to mark the occasion.  Good, bad, or indifferent, this is my reality. Right now, today, this night, and this weekend. This is my life and I swear, I am trying my hardest to live IN it and not in the what-ifs of the past or the fears and question marks of the future. It's not as glamorous as it sounds but I'm here for a reason. Dear Cinderella, Pluto, Sully, Mater, Jessie, and a few other friends, thanks for taking pictures with me. I am just a big kid at heart. Characters are meant to be in pictures often and always. Dear Southwest Airlines, thanks for the incredible sale and for getting me to Salt Lake City in January.  Just so you know, I titled the itinerary The World Is Your Stage.  Dear Jake Owen, keep playin', you have a permanent spot on the soundtrack of my dreams. Dear Me, stop thinking about everything so hard. 
Dear Lord, just keep listening cause I need to keep talking to you. I have a lot of questions and a lot of worry that I just can't seem to get rid of.  

Dear Friday {Life Goes On}

Dear Friday, 

Where do I start?  

(sigh)

I don't know what's wrong with me, I hear this blog calling me and I have things to say but there's some defiant little self-sabotaging brat that keeps coming along and kicking me in the literary shins. 

I'm not any closer to choosing a new direction.  

I have this tick-tock calling of something (what?!)

something new that keeps nagging at me. 

I wake up dreaming of a life other than the one I'm living in...

But I'm in the life that I'm in right now, 

in the time that I'm in right now, 

in the place that I'm in right now

for a reason right now. 

Trust the journey. Isn't that what they say? 

(Who the heck are they anyways?)

Earlier this week, I googled "the best decision I've ever made"  and it gave me this answer.  A literary spunkarella that drew me in with her creative prowess.  Hooked.  I emailed her. I know she's part of my journey somehow. 
What did I tell her?  That I feel like I'm not even at a fork in the road.  I'm at a 20-lane intersection, clear of traffic, and green lights in all directions.  Standing there, directionless, the world at my feet but with an uncalibrated compass in one hand  and the map from the glove box of the Griswold family station wagon in the other. 
I feel like there's no cohesion, no lines, no boundaries,  and the expectations are blurry.  Yeah. Blurry.  I'm having a hard time focusing. 
Even now, it's not even Friday still in some parts of the country.  Hell for that matter, in some parts of the country there aren't even lights or heat or comfort.  I can't even get the Dear Friday letter in on time. 
Those are my thoughts, but what's happening in my life?  Well, one thing that is most than and more than worthy of mentioning. I've written about it before, but I thought I'd have more time to prepare my thoughts. 


LAST Friday, when I was going to reintroduce myself to this weekly,  a text message pulled/ripped/yanked me out of bed after just one hour of sleep.
Uncle Mickey passed away at 827 this morning. 
Whaaat?!  They said 3-6 months. We had what? 8 weeks?  He was just at lunch yesterday. I didn't go.  I thought I could just see him the coming weekend.  I called him the afternoon before to tell him that I'd see him soon.  He didn't answer.  The events of that day are imprinted on my mind and in my heart.  The scene that replayed itself every time another family member arrived to say their goodbye.  That's a blog with a it's very own blood shot, tear stained, big & beating emotional heart. 

In my family, we have a strong Christian faith.   We believe in the Lord God and in eternal life.  We mourn for our missing of one of the best  brothers, uncles, fathers, friends you could imagine  but we don't fall into sorrow worrying about his soul.  We prayed he would go before the pain set in and made his last days agonizing. Our prayers were answered.  It was quick and merciful. 
So...death is a part of life.  And life goes on. 
My week went on this week. Uncle Mick was one of my biggest cheerleaders,  so I didn't let him down. I did my monthly run, a 5K at Folsom Lake.  My first significant activity on my bum knee.  I made it - wet, sandy, muddy, slow, and lopsided, but I made it  and earned my favorite finisher's medal to date.

Wednesday was Halloween, I busted out a creative makeup muscle ...and I handed out 1,000 coloring books, 1,400 balloons,  and buckets of candy downtown.

Then I got a pretty rad, awesome, compliment yesterday.  Yeah, I said rad and I said awesome! Psyche!

Next Friday is the service. Next Friday may or may not be an entirely different blog.  However, next Friday will be further proof that life just goes on. 
Til then...

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.}

coffee date: {grateful}

It's been a while since I've linked up with  Alissa @ Rags to Stiches for a coffee date,  but I'm totally in a fall coffee kind of mood and I want to share today. Over a venti Pumpkin Spice Latte  (my favorite coffee ever! oh my be still my beating heart!!!) I'd tell you: 
I did the math last night and realized that I am working a 70-hour work week this week.   It's kind of a hazy blur, and yeah it's a lot of crazy hours, but I'm managing OK.
It'll make my weekend that much sweeter when it finally gets here.
I'd tell you that in what down time I had this week:
I've caught up with old friends in email and text,  checked a few things off my to-do list (like renting a textbook for my new major in Business Marketing:  back to school after 10 years of this full time+ career and I'm excited!) read some great new blogs, made myself a blog button,  and finally caught up on my She Reads Truth Proverbs Daily. 

I'd share that today was Proverbs 27 and verse17 has been finding me all yearlong.
"As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."  
A constant reminder that the people who are falling in & out of my life  in person & here in the blogger world are all there for a purpose. I'm starting to see how some of the dots of sadness and disappointment are connecting  into a bigger picture kind of woven story that's all my own.

I'd tell you that despite these long days:  I had a great dinner with my friends Carrie, Jacob, and their baby Olivia.  I woke up to a picture of cute baby Owen the other day.  The clouds and sky all this week have captivated me. I made it to the gym to run twice early in the AM after my shift. I saw my childhood friend who was having her first kind of great day after the last couple of months of chemo/radiation. I spent time with my Uncle.  Time with him will be gone sooner rather than later.  It's bittersweet.  We have peace in knowing he'll go to a better place, but we will miss him.  Our law enforcement community lost another patrol officer due to a senseless gunman.  It is happening to often and a loss of one is a loss to us all.  It makes my heart heavy. I held back tears when a friend told me nonchalantly that she prays for me everyday.  I didn't hold back tears when another friend thanked me for loving her and her family unconditionally and that a quick email to check in on her early at 5am was a major comfort to her when she really needed it.  Timing. My other lesson this year.
Finally, I'd tell you that this has been a busy week but when I sat down to write this coffee blog,  I realized how grateful I really am and should be. 
I have a good, reliable job, a house of my own to live in,  precious friends & family that love me, and I have a lot of: goals, ambition, dreams, and opportunities that have yet to come to light. 
I hope you all have had a great week and good weekend that is still yet to come.  <3