#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.

{10} Secrets

I'm always up for a good challenge and this one caught my eye.

Linking up with another Lauren over at:

Life. Love. Lauren 

Ten secrets you say...

For a girl who's fond of full-disclosure and wearing her heart on her sleeve, 

finding something that's secretive is going to be a minor challenge.

If you're reading this and you know me, 
you're probably laughing because you know:

1. I am rather outspoken  
and/or 

2. you know I still have a little bit of shame left. 

so you say secrets and then I search deeply for answers

let's see what I can dust off out of the closet:

...here goes...

1. When I was a kid, I used to bite my toenails.  

(yes, gross.  really gross. yes, I just admitted that.  

yes, I'm shaking my head at my younger self.)

2. I graduated high school with Honors and as the Valedictorian
and started my career at 20...
but somehow: 
I failed college geology...twice
and college algebra...twice
&
Cardio kickboxing...once
attendance was an issue for me you see...
(yes, you can fail cardio kickboxing)

3.  The National Anthem makes me tear up.  
Every.time.

4.  I have a fear of bodies of water I can't see to the bottom of:
yes, the ocean, lakes, deep rivers...you name it, it freaks me out

5. I'm also fearful of being the lady with the smelly house

6. Somewhere in a journal, I have written down a list of baby girl names that I love.  

7. I fear that I may never actually use that list 
& then...  

this comes to mind: 

(...but listen, this isn't a pity party, so if you're not laughing after that,  well then, we might need to have a little talk.)

8. My favorite number is 17 and it's from BackDraft's Fire Engine 17 

I love that movie and I loved firemen.  (past tense)

(also, this is the first time I've admitted this publically, 

now let's just forget about this silliness all together!)

9. I've come to conclude recently that I  stay busy 

because I get depressed sometimes when my mind has too much free time.  

People think I'm single and free and happy all the time, but I'm not. 

My life is like hair color...high-lights and low-lights.

Depending on how the sun is shining, you might notice one more than the other. 

10.  One morning a few years ago when I was in a deep, deep sleep after working 

a long, long graveyard shift, I had to pee.  

Bad.  Real bad.

But I was so tired and out of it, 

I actually dreamed that I had gotten up and gone into the bathroom. 

It wasn't until I peed

 {on myself - in my sleep - in my bed}

 that I woke up and shot out of bed and ran to the bathroom.

Yes, I was 27 years old and I peed in my bed.

*sigh*

#tootiredfail

There...see, I didn't do so bad, huh?

{overload}

I'm going to try and keep this as simple as I can. 

Wish me luck.

I'm usually pretty positive here in this blog about my life full of "hopes, dreams, and dresses", and yes, I do try and make adventures out of my weekends whenever I can if for nothing but nostalgia's sake

...but...

I'm not that cut and dry. 

(and if you know me at all, you know that I am anything but simple)

It's not all Instagrammy goodness and chevron striped dresses.

{abeautifulmessinside.com}

I'm tired. {graveyard shift work is not friendly}

I'm on overload. {mostly self imposed a because "no" isn't in my vocabulary as much as it should be}

I don't feel particularly enlightened lately. {but I don't feel like completely giving up either}

What's gnawing at me?

Well a few things...

 I'm the queen of multi-tasking but even I get overwhelmed from time to time. 

First off...

I am not new to blogging or writing at all, but it was always just a solo-singularity catharsis for me.

The social circus that come along with this new round of blogging has proved to be a bit daunting for me - both for being new to it and trying to jump in with both feet.

Before I get ahead of myself, by circus, I don't mean that with one bit of insult. 

 Heck the circus is pretty damn entertaining, but imagine being a kid there for the first time not knowing what to expect...lions roaring, clowns, dancing bears, acrobats, majestic elephants, dancing ponies, cotton candy and bags full of popcorn. 

Sensory.Overload.

If you're in the Blogger world, you should totally get what I'm talking about.

There's so much incredible content out there, so many bloggers doing amazing things, 

so many niches, photography, DIY, how-to, link ups, coffee dates, Wordless Wednesdays, Meatless Mondays, Thoughtful Thursdays, Instagram Fridays. 

 I look at all these incredible blogs and I don't get green with envy,

but I get a little bit yellow with wonder. 

 How do you do it all?  How do you ladies (and gentlemen) manage to work, take care of your families, your spouses, your charities, your hobbies, go to church, exercise, run marathons, bake cookies, and write about it nearly every day. 

How do you, how do you...???


The bills...
because they're totally piled up, I'm just trying to keep afloat, and as much as I love (can I say LOVE) having my space all to myself and now that "my place" so much more of a reflection of me than it ever has been before, I think I'm going to have to take on a roommate to get things straightened out for awhile.

My heart is...
well, I'm not gonna keep going all Taylor Swift with that thing
 1) that's just not me and 2)  I've {mostly} resolved that I am not the keeper of my destiny, there's a plan out there, and like Steve Job's says, you cannot see the dots connecting in the future, only when you look back, but you have to believe in it, in the plan, in whatever you choose to call it.
 I call it my Faith in God.

In the meantime, I do what I can do.
I set new boundaries.
&

I pray. 

{this is a force of calm in my chaotic everyday}

My body is tired exhausted.
I put myself on blast last week about my lack of fitness goals and regimen, and while I've had the most amazing support from my friends, my body is in that initial shock phase where all my muscles and joints are doing the collective WTF?! every time I move or lift something heavier than Styrofoam cup. 

I'll get over it, muscle memory is an impressive thing, and I'm actually craving a workout now, but I'm safely tucked away at work and at 6am when I get off, sleep will come knocking again before the gym does.
I'll get there soon enough.  I'm on a mission now, it's not just a pit stop.

{one of my favorite new finds, abeautifulmessinside.com
if not for the name alone, I found her recently and love  her site and her daily Facebook pick me ups.}  

I'm not looking for sympathy, so please save that for someone else who actually might really need it.

I'm just venting. 

I'm just trying to leave it all on the proverbial floor here on this blog. 

 Like in yoga studio, where I find I think so clearly, not just on the surface, but down in the depths of the what's bothering me.  

The heart of the problem. 

I think & I stretch & I sweat.

{from abeautifulmessinside.com}

I find that I keep seeing the same messages coming at me just a word or two at at time.
So, I am going to type them out right here and right now.

Because just like my fitness confession, breathing life into these simple words here for my little part of the world to see, well, it places them on a platform.  

Exposes them to the light of understanding. 

It gives them life.

Simplify. 

Be still.

Sleep.

Rest.

Let it be.

{just breathe}

~ Lauren 

It's a Natural {Glow}

...and then totally at random, looking at new blogs from Tuesday's GFC Blog Hop, I stumbled across this gem of a video from the always sarcastically funny Jenna Marbles

   

and then...*facepalm* I thought of this one time in Vegas:

{ Who's gonna yell at you for having extra bronzer on your face?  No one.
Are you embarrassed?  No, I'm just excited to BE HERE. }

Don't you just hate when you're watching YouTube satire and you realize it might possibly, exactly, totally be something based on your real life? 

 Yuuuuup.

Viva Las Vegas!

Go big. Go bronzed. Or go home.

~ Lo 

{Survived}: my weekend in pictures

I saw this weekend coming for weeks...

on paper, in my calendar, it looked manageable. 

 It would prove to test my limits, but it was so worth it. 

It was jam-packed full of: family, friends, food, 5Ks, personal achievements, music, mishaps and detours, many, many miles and oh so many memories.

Earlier this week, I announced that I had some craziness coming at me like a runaway train,
some of you wished me well,

maybe a few of you prayed that I'd make it through in once piece. 

Thank you, thank you. 

I survived, barely any worse for the wear {ok, maybe a few lbs extra, but I'll work those off in due time}.
If I didn't get a chance to see you in the last few days, here's the storyboard:

My official weekend began on Wednesday, the only day without out of town plans, I was overdue for a visit to my Grandparents.

It's tradition to grab tacos from our local taqueria and sit and catch up for a couple of hours. 

This time, we each had unexpected, belated gifts to exchange. 

Really though, just hanging out with Grams & Gramps is a treat in itself. 

Thursday was left to appointments, bills, some time with my Uncle Mick, and a 10 hour shift-trade that lasted well into the AM hours.  Enough to keep a girl plenty busy.  I just drove around town and gave my money away, but there's this thing called ownership and that other thing called functioning utilities.  Meh. 

{bills, bills, bills...but then I got to go to lunch with this sweet ol' guy!}

Friday, the day that pushed the limits. 

{cousins are as cousins do, my younger crazy bro, my cousin, and me}

{we wait, we make faces, we stand, we make faces, we take pictures, we make faces}

After about 2.5 hours of sleep coming off of my Thursday night trade, I was up at 6am and getting ready to be in Sacramento for 2012's first graduating class of the California Highway Patrol (hoo-rah!), my cousin, Mike, being one of those proud, new officers.

{The Class Motto: "Blessed are the Peacekeepers"...for they shall be called the Sons of God. It is and has been one of my favorite Cop verses/sayings for years now. 
It made me happy to know that this graduating class of 67 men and women began their careers with that as their motto and their direction for their future. 
God Bless the Peacekeepers}

I've been the law enforcement black sheep in my family for about 15 years, to know that there would be someone else in this profession with me in our family now -  knowing the climate of these political and criminal days lately, knowing what it was to take that oath, and put on that badge, knowing the stress of training, shift work, not just the physical stress, but the emotional one, knowing that it's a sacrifice of the entire family when you have someone in a uniform, in a vest, on the side of the highway, behind a gun and a shield, in the service of others and willing to sacrifice everything that comes with that...to know these things is bittersweet.  It is humbling and proud all at once.

I just sat there in that gymnasium and listened with pride and tears in my eyes as I heard these words said over and over again from various speakers: 

you are all public servants, we are the muscle & bone of government

you are warriors, peacemakers, and now you know that you are more than the sum of yourselves

know that you have the authority but now the responsibility

stand proud, noble, upright, humble

remember you are and remember who stands next to you

May God be with you all

Leaving the gradation after the badge pinning, I headed straight over to this Capitol adjacent office to talk politics and political strategy game plan for the upcoming local election campaigns. 

Yes, this is what I do in my "free" time as the 8-year+ Secretary of the Police Officers Association.

I wear a lot of hats and crack a lot of whips.

Back in high school, there were two things I said I knew (I was 17, I knew tons of s#!% yo!) that I just didn't want to "sit in front of a computer screen all day" or "work in politics".

Adult Lauren, meet 17-y/o Lauren, she jinxed you. 

{Friday the 13th, the day when Scratchers, nude peep toe pumps, and purses ride shotgun}

No rest for the wicked, the rest of my day was tied up in traffic, errands, and trying to figure out how to intravenously inject caffeine into my system and wondering if I just poured it directly into my eyeballs would it be more effective? 

{Gallery showing/fundraiser for Rwanda for Justice, an NPO operating to educate Rwandan law enforcement and medical professionals to treat and counsel childhood victims of sexual abuse}

Home with just an hour to nap and change again, I headed off to an art showing for my good friend, and well she might as well be a little sister, Kerri, who had her first art showing.  She said "yeah, it'll just be a few pictures up on a wall. Oh ye of little self-confidence.  This was a showing of beauty, compassion, grace, talent, and pure God-given talent.  So young, so nervous, this girl is incredible, humble, and talented beyond her years.  This is just her beginning.  Someday I'll say "I knew her in her infancy, she was my second shooter at a wedding one time and now her portraits are in international art galleries."

Between the graduation in the morning and the gallery showing at night, it was just a day to celebrate personal achievement and applaud the compassion and dedication of the human spirit.

{my always-ready passenger, Uncle Mick, came with me - he just likes to get out and have a good time, and it comes easy for him because he is truly one of the friendliest men you will ever meet - we shall mark this photo "pre-incident"}

The actual "incident" involved a high curb and some gravel.  Let's just say it as a big monkey wrench in the long day that was Friday, but we literally rolled with the punches.

{we are 1 more incident away from an Emergency Protective Order (EPO) issued by Adult Protective Services (APS), me being the "restrained party" (R/O)...
I swear, it's just a coincidence that I'm always there for the falls.}

I busted out the EMD assessment with the quickness, gathered some first aid supplies, applied a few rusty, old  EMT skills and had this guy all patched up in no time. 

 Our cover story: teaching some local kids at the community center  what it was like to box back in the days of Muhammed Ali and Joe Frazier, things just got a little too real, yo!

Friday still incomplete without making pasta for 50 people, a night of cooking was still in store.  Let's say that tired cooks, sundresses, and boiling water do not mix.  Pasta is pretty forgiving, the cooking gods smiled down upon me and I prevailed just before the stroke of 2am.

{Childhood memory: my mom used to spank me with these wooden spoons when I was a kid...a few years later, she was talking to the neighbor over the back fence.  He told her that he found half a dozen wooden spoons thrown over the fence and was she missing any?  Uhhh...so slick us younguns thought we were.  So slick.}



Saturday ushered in yet another celebration with the entire family to celebrate our new Officer's accomplishments.  I just watched their faces, their reactions at the training video, the questions they had filled with wonder about what they had seen on COPS, how bad the new "beat" was going to be...perception vs. reality.  I just smiled at my cousin with the look that said "I've got your back."  He's part of the Police family now, a different breed, the one that bleeds blue and runs into danger while everyone else is running out.

{20 minutes in the sunshine on the edge of the pool watching the youngest generation of my family float all their childhood troubles away - remembering when a bathing suit, a pair of goggles and the awe of being able to do a headstand underwater was all it took to create bliss}

Earlier this year, I made it a goal to walk/run/participate in an organized run once a month for a year.  I started in March and haven't missed a month yet...this month made 5 for 5.  Of course an epic weekend wouldn't be epic without some kind of physical challenge.  Just the sheer distance between the Bay Area and Davis, CA in a jam packed weekend was enough to count as a physical challenge, but nonetheless, I got myself home, in my house for a quick change and off to the Moo-nlight Race along with what could have been half of the population of Northern California.

{these are the real runners...the marathoners, they came at us like hoards of zombies...we were walking, but I felt like we were slowly going to be overtaken by "walkers"...note to self: couch to 5-k, get on it so next time you won't become a speed bump for people in lycra and duty belts full of hydration bottles}

I could stop here and tell you that after the "run" I went home and went to be early, but I'd be lying. 

There was a post-party for the retirement party I missed while stuck in Davis traffic, so I ended up out on a ranch just east west of town and caught up with old friends in loooooow places {channel your inner Garth Brooks, go ahead, I know you just sang that lyric}. 

And then...Sunday came. 

I had been counting down the days to Sunday for months. 

Named The BEST Day Ever (part duex) 2012 edition, Sunday belonged to two of our favorite guys:

Kenny & Tim

{sigh}

You see, I am just a little bit more country than rock and roll.

{supplies .99 at a time, we got some looks standing in line...proof that our crazy day plans were already working}

{party supplies...we were prepared to make friends and have fun, this was round 2, we tried this technique 4 years ago with great success, people will do just about anything for free booze lemme tell you!!!}

{What Would You Do For A Jello Shot?!  Would you hula-hoop?  Would you limbo?  Would you strip down into a bikini top and grass skirt and do a little dance?}

{2008...who could say no to this band of merry Jello shot do-gooders?  No one, that's who.  No one.}

{girls, horns, and camera phones...we be making memories all day long}

{I call this an oasis...you call it what you want, this is a County Music fans Mecca}

{just happy}

{Kodak moment meets the tour bus}

{The clear day rolled out with the sunset and the Bay Area fog bank rolled in, just in time for a light show to put on a dance over our heads.  As I looked up singing along, I whispered  wishes and hellos to loved ones far and wide, the people that I thought of as my favorite songs floated out across the Coliseum.  Music always takes me to my favorite places, my favorite people, and my favorite times.  Music makes my world go 'round.}

Oh, how was the concert?  It was awesome!!!  I have a not-so-secret love affair with all musical things Kenny Chesney.  He loves what he does and it shows.  He's not singing to throngs of fans, he's putting on a show for all of his friends.  I'm a regular concert goer, and my musical taste runs the gamut.  There is nothing more disappointing than paying good, hard-earned money to watch someone put on the light and smoke show and a half-assed lip-synced show.  You'll never get that here. 

In the words of Kenny Chesney himself  "Music is one of the most powerful forces.  It speaks to our hearts, our minds, our souls...it takes us back to places we've forgotten and memories that have faded."

{We danced.  We sang.  We drank.  We smiled into the night...
We took pictures,  we made new friends, but above all else, we had fun, we made new memories, and we didn't worry about the to-do lists, family concerns, and job responsibilities, even if just for a few hours.}


I leave my weekend with a kitchen sink full of dirty dishes, an empty gas tank, an iPhone full to capacity with videos and pictures, an always increasing appreciation for my friends & family, a letting go of feeling like this place I call home is suffocating me, and a heart full of memories. 


I could tell you that it's easy for me to remember to be grateful and thankful all the time, but I'm not. 
I slip into wondering if the things I really want will ever happen for me.
Yeah, it's not all concert-stubs, sappy blogs, and photo challenges.

I can tell you that I sometimes think I'm addicted to staying busy, that when things slow down, I don't know what to do with myself because I've programmed myself to fill my days with meaning and purpose, or entertainment and hobbies.

I can make all kinds of comparisons about what it isn't, but what I will tell you it is
is that I am always making an effort to take advantage of the days and find time
for the people who I hold dear to me. 

I will tell you that the effort is worth it and you can always get some sleep tomorrow.

I will tell you that it's not the days we remember but the moments. 

If you were part of any of these moments of mine in these last five days, thank you for being part of my life.

~ Lauren

Spinning!

Today I feel like I"m on a broken Tilt-a-Whirl.

{pin}

Like everything is spinning, I'm seated, strapped in and holding on to the safety bars, but the damn thing just won't stop.

I think if I just type this out and get it out of my head, I'll feel better.

I know I do this to myself.  I know it's the middle of the Summer. I know that if I can get through to the end of this weekend, It'll slow down. 

My to-do list sprouted little baby to-do lists.

I can't seem to get anything done around the house.

Yes, working graveyard 12-hour shifts is a blessing and a curse.

This weekend I know I'm going to have a great time and I'm gonna see tons of people I love and meet some new ones I'll like I'm sure.

I just had to vent a little bit. 

Not to be ungrateful, cause lemme tell you, this is gonna be one hell of an awesome weekend, but do you ever have those moments?  What do you do?

{PS, especially if you're one of those awesome bloggers I've just started following...how do you keep up with it all, how do you do it? Any tips or tricks?}

Sleep, check out, drink, vent, get a pedicure, hide, cry, take a long shower, drive away? 

or D) all of the above?

Just breathe, just breathe, just breathe!!

Ok...I feel a little bit better. 

PS - really, I can't wait to share about my weekend in pictures, in blogs, and in person with some of you who read this. 

In advance, thank you for being part of what is yet to come!!

~ Lauren

PPS, Spinning and all, today, I linked up for the GFC Blog Hop and peeped at some new blog lovlies.