Favorite Teds 2019-2020

Accidental Happiness

and she traveled through the night

for so long the glimmer of sunshine 

shocked her head and heart


had she not been frozen with fear

she would have run back into the 

darkness for it was at least 

something she knew well.


Then all at once her shoulders dropped

she stood tall and breathed deep

and stepped into the light

unafraid.


J.Lyn
August 1st, 2016

January 8

New year, New Profession

Today is Friday, January 8th, 2016. I am finishing up the first week of my student teaching and I am exhilarated an exhausted.

14×40

January 1st, 2016

With the new year comes the typical evaluation of one’s life. As much as any of us might be refuting this out loud, in our minds it is happening. I, too, am infected with this malady.

It doesn’t help my case that this is the year I turn 40.

Rather than spend time trying to convince you (ahem, myself) that turning 40 is just another year I have decided to just set about 40 things I wish to accomplish by that event… in just 263 days… which gives me 37 weeks. Not that I am counting or anything.

So here goes..

I want to lose 25# of myself in 37 weeks. Healthy. Attainable.
Implement exercise/yoga as part of my daily life. For me. Because I want to.
Implement writing as part of my daily life. Now, I am student teaching this semester and it is required as part of my program, but once June hits I want to continue this each day. Reflecting not just on my professional life, but my personal life as well.
Write, Write On. Beyond reflection, I want to keep working on my Fiction, Poetry, and Nonfiction Writing. There is a fabulous group I want to get involved with here –> http://writeondoorcounty.org/
Purge! Oh my word, this house is full. Beyond the fact we seem to be accruing animals much faster than we accrued children, we have stuff. Lots of stuff. It is past time to organize and downsize. Now this may be a focus for June/July, but focus I must!
One thing in, one thing out. A new rule to live by to help avoid the stuff problem.
With minimizing complete, I want to return my buying focus to quality NOT value.
Food. I want better food in my house for my kids. Organic, local, non-GMO. no exceptions.
Clothing. How much does a person need really? This is one that will have to wait a bit as well. I have things from the 90s collecting the years waiting to fit back on my frame – that can all go. But I heard of this trick of turning your hangers around and in 6 months whatever hasn’t been used – lose. I like it! Hopefully in Wisco, 6 months will run us the gamut of needs as far as apparel goes!
Each day make the choice to be happy. Okay so maybe laundry isn’t my thing, or vacuuming, or scrubbing toilets, but you know, I love every single person in my life, so rather than bitch about cleaning up after any one of them, I am going to take the time to be happy I have them in my life.

Hmm. This is getting hard already. Do I have 40 things I want changed?

11. I want to read a book each week of the year.

12. I want professional pictures taken of my family twice each year. The kids are growing too fast for just one.

13. Celebrate my College Graduation like a BOSS. Now I am too ~~old~~ mature to do anything crazy, but I would love a nice dinner with my kids where everyone is happy and no one is fighting, frowning, or frustrated. I would love hugs from each as my gifts.

14. Talk less. Listen more.

McBeal Moment 1,234,567

**Profanity warning. I apologize. I could not remove it, for fear of actually saying it out loud.*

Today began with the following Facebook post:

Mom Log 11.13.15
3:30am Child 2 wakes me up. He has a tummy ache.
3:40 Child 2 falls asleep.
3:41-4:29 I lay in bed thinking of all the reasons his tummy might hurt.
4:30 I get up and check to make sure he is soundly sleeping -he is.
4:31 I get out homework. Might as well be productive if my eyes are open
*Good Morning*

Now I am at school, working on homework in this little-used (or maybe just less-used as it is off the beaten path) nook for studying.

And I am annoyed because there are people talking. I know, I know – take a pill, right? But up until I opened this blog up – I WAS working. Finally into the groove, powering through one assignment of a thousand.

I must be honest, the two talking are not the reason I opened up the Mom blog or the real reason I am annoyed. It is the other student. The blonde with perfect teeth (that her parents probably spent a fortune supplying braces for), hair sloppily thrown into a pony tail (because she has not a care in the world) , black rimmed glasses (once again… parents!), spotless Nike shoes with her matching sweatpants and hoody(dolla bills anyone?). Ear buds are barely visible, but the new Iphone (money, money, money, $!) is placed on the table in front of her. I would not have even lifted my head except the phone call she was on – she decided to share with A L L of us. TALKING AND SIGHING INCREDIBLY LOUD. To her Mother.

God Mom

I don’t know

I guess I’m fine.

I’m F I I I I N E.

What do you want me to say?

After five minutes of variations on the above sentences, I nearly lost my grip on reality. In a complete McBeal Moment, I envisioned myself walking over and pulling the earbuds from her ears, then hissing

“THAT is the women who pushed you out of her VAGINA – have some fucking respect!”

Then walking away indignantly.

But in real life she probably has campus police on speed dial or can google it faster than my clumsy self could gather all my shit (especially since my entire bag is spread from one side of my table to the other).

Now I am sitting here, uncertain if I should be begging Karma to do her thing and kick that girl in the ass

>or<

just hope to God above my own daughters never talk to me that way.

(to all the Mother’s of older girls, please refrain from commenting – I would like to naively swim through the water sidewalks of my make-believe little world for a few more years before facing reality, thank you.)

Happiness, Life, Decisions.

A few days ago a friend reposted something designed to make you think about the things you LOVE doing vs. how you actually spend your time. An evaluation that should lead to action designed to make you happier. This had me thinking….

Do you let life happen to you
or
Do you decide your life?

Finals Week

In such slow motion

we walk along autumn.

The first snowflake amidst rain

flickers before unnoticed death.

We dance by with eyes closed.

We skip, gallop, we trip and give a

day or two of thanks. We lift our heads,

there it is: Finals Week.

Like brushing teeth without water.

Like combing hair with thick fingers.

We plunge in with a mask but no air tanks.

Who knew we could live so long without breath?

Sunday, Funday, Cold & Wet Day: March 15th, 2015

drip. drop. drip. drop.

It is what I woke to today and what I will eventually fall asleep to. Seattle rain. Cold, consistent, expected, but not prepared for. But before I get too far ahead of myself – this morning I had to stop at Uptown Espresso again – their caramel lattes are really, very much, excellent! After getting some laundry going and kind of taking stock of our day, we realized we had better get moving for our brunch reservation time of 9am. *especially* after we saw this:

We headed to Toulouse Petit Kitchen (seriously do yourself a favor and check this place out! http://toulousepetit.com/ ) to meet up with two of my sister’s friends and the Mom of one. My breakfast:

I could hardly believe my eyes!! It was fantastic! After breakfast we headed home for an hour or two to just relax and read. I blogged… I know BIG surprise there! Then we decided to cross a few of the “must happen” places off our list.

Even though it was dreary and rainy, we decided to head to the EMP http://www.empmuseum.org/

I highly recommend this! Might have been one of the best places for souvenirs I visited!

Due to the cold chilling us straight to the bone, we detoured momentarily at Starbucks. My sister enlightened my world be introducing their *awesome* app!! Check it out if you frequent Starbucks or if you get a giftcard for there!

Then we headed to my place. The place I really, really wanted to check out

{Warning: nerd alert!}

The Seattle Public Library

Was…

From the outside, taken under an umbrella.

From the entrance. 11 floors people. THIS is how you do a library!

I am fairly certain there were as many people as live in my hometown inside the library while we were there!

From the first escalator.

The Red Floor. It is truly, only red.

As we weren’t entirely ready for dinner, but it was time, we decided to stop at The Brooklyn.

We chose two appetizers and one entree to split among the three of us.

Here is the description of what we ordered right off the menu:

The Brooklyn Crab Cake: garnished with shaved apple and micro green pluche, finished with wasabi aioli.
Peppered Steak Medallions: with king oyster mushroom, stilton blue cheese and port wine jus
and black garlic ponzu emulsion.
Day Boat Scallops: porcini mushroom dusted
with braised painted hills shortribs -served with red bliss potato croquettes and spinach. finished with honey crisp apple, smokey bacon and
cambazola blue cheese butter.

Here is the photograph:

and it ALL tasted fantastic!

and with that – we decided to end the evening on this most perfect note. We read, finished laundry, crossed of items from our “to get” and “to do” lists, and then headed to sleep!!

See you in the morning!!

~J.Lyn

Blue Skies and Playing House: Saturday, March 14th, 2015

Today was a touristy kind of day. The weather was quite perfectly Seattle. A bit overcast with a hint here and there of blue skies! But I digress.

This vacation Saturday began the way any vacation Saturday should begin…

Sibling Nintendo, Mario Bro Challenge, March 2015.

Perfect!

After our Mother woke we got some caffeine flowing through our systems and had a little breakfast from our venture at the Market.

It was in fact so delicious, we put the Market on our list for today again! Lil’ Sis had booked a treat at a Spa for the early afternoon, which left plenty of time to hit the Mall. After a quick stop at Macy’s, we had the pleasure of visiting Francesca’s, www.francescas.com/, an adorable boutique in the mall! I could have bought two of everything!! Then we had a bite at the Juicy Cafe, http://www.thejuicycafe.com/, I seriously wish we had just a smidge of the healthy options available here!!

It was at this point we headed to the car…

only to realize we had no keys.

It was a game of “Where Did We Leave the Keys?” With our spa afternoon on the line, none of us were too excited to play. Even amidst the Seattle Mall acreage and the thousands of people – – we found the keys.

As we traveled across some bridge, down some highway – I could not help myself but to take a few photographs!!

I know I drove my sister a bit crazy, but it was so beautiful! I love what I shall forever call “The Lorax” Trees!

We wound up just a few minutes late to our appointment, but we called ahead to let them know.

After all that excitement

and all that relaxation

We decided it was a good time to stop at the Market for more delicious fruit.

We did some prep shopping for the rest of the week at Target and Whole Foods and stopped at the Chocolate Box before heading home to put away our purchases.

A couple extra shots of gorgeous Seattle from the day…

For dinner – we decided to lay low and make our own hodge-podge offering…

Not too shabby, huh?!

We wrapped up our evening at The Elliot Bay Bookstore where I had to purchase:

A treasure among treasures. ❤

Until tomorrow,

~J.Lyn

A Costly, but Worthy Adventure: March 13th, 2015

Vacation. I should have taken the time to explain to my internal system what time zone my external system was operating within! 5:30am – I knew was the point of no returning to bed. My eyes were just going to stay open regardless of the rare opportunity to sleep in. So I snuck down to Uptown Espresso http://www.velvetfoam.com/ quite early and reveled in their Caramel Latte, extra sweet and shared their mouth-watering monkey bread with my Mom. We lazed around for an hour or two chatting with those back home. Then we made our way to an unitinerized venture.

Enough time had passed that Brunch seemed our first order of business. I guess one cannot or perhaps more accurately should not live on monkey bread alone, so we headed to Lola’s. Ah, the greatness of Lola’s! http://tomdouglas.com/?page=lola-location

The bacon.

Yep – that’s is where it is at!

So then we headed down to Pier Market. Along the way I had to pay homage to Pi Day

And along the way I could not resist a photograph of the ENORMOUS ad for the Pineapple. Perhaps a subliminal message to hurry to the fruit markets found at the Pier Market…. interesting.. and if so – it works!

So finally we arrived! It was a really fantastic day to walk and the slightly overcast sky made for great lighting!

There is no other location in the whole world I wish to drop into my backyard as much as I would love daily access to Pier Market!!

We also stopped at a fantastic boutique called Fini http://www.ilovefini.com/, which respectfully posted, “no photography please,” so we resisted the urge. Fantastic one-of-a-kind items, I especially love their cards!

We did the obligatory stop at Made in Washington gift shop: https://www.madeinwashington.com/ and picked up 2 Seattle Sweatshirts (buy one get one free!). We hit the Fruit stand pictured above pretty hard as it all looked so amazing – I can vouch for the fact it all tasted as good as it looked!! Then we bought some flowers for my sister for being such a fantastic hostess!!

Lil’ sis had warned us that we would be going to a fancier place for dinner so that meant a quick, but costly venture to Macy’s to pick up a nice dress for the evening.

We wrapped up our evening celebrating my sister’s awesomeness fittingly… at Canlis. http://canlis.com/

3 hours and 4 courses later the valet retrieved our vehicle before all three of us even made it out the door. I am leaving this somewhat vague – and I am not certain if I should, but I actually get a bit teary-eyed thinking of its perfection. The story of Canlis is like so many stories told on American soil and is beautifully writ on the inside of the menu. The cost is high, but the rewards more so. Live pianist. Impeccable service. Toe-curling bites. A view that leaves even the most chatty Kathy speechless.

I will leave you with the photographic evidence and urge you to add Canlis to your own list of places to experience.