The Turnaround

We here in Colorado have had a great snow year, and you would know this to be true in that I didn’t purchase a ski pass for the first time since moving to Colorado. After the sorry excuse of a ski season last year I chose to save the dough and the knees and go ski pass free this year…..for those of you enjoying the great powder this year, you are welcome. All this to say, when there is a great ski year in the mountains there typically are a few flakes seen down here in Denver. We have experienced a few flakes plus a couple buckets more. The reasons I love Colorado are endless, but the reason most associated with this post is the snow and winters; that we don’t tend to have blistering cold like I am use to from Oklahoma. That changed this past week when we had snow, lots of it, and cold. That kind of cold that makes you want to stay in bed, curled up in a fetal position, and refusing to even let a toe sneak out from under the covers. So you can understand my complete discontent when my alarm went off at 4am and I had to somehow muster the mental strength to get out of bed. Let’s be honest, I have to muster up mental strength everyday when my alarm goes off, 4am is not a normal hour for anyone on this great planet to be awake much less out of bed. There are many mornings my mind is as sharp as a spoon, however this particular morning my mind was as sharp as water. I often find myself frustrated when my watery mind does not give me any indication that it is not going to function at any level of competency. As I slugged around the house trying to get ready and then out the door to the bus I was void of any brain waves. I am not sure if it was the bitter cold or the fact my mind finally decided to join the land of the living but as I made my regular morning trek to the bus I stopped dead in my tracks and realized I not only forgot my lunch at home, but I also forgot my wallet at my boyfriends place. It was far too late to turn back, I foolishly left no room for mental error this particular morning….I had a bus to catch. It was while I was thinking about what a bear I was going to be turning into come lunch time that I found myself falling to the ground. I guess in my intense contraction on food or lack thereof that was my belly was going to see during the day I hit a spot of ice and my feet went out from under me. I lay on the ground looking up at the falling snow seriously considering turning around and just going back to bed. But I heard Charles Spurgeon say ‘by perseverance the snail reached the ark’. So I pulled myself by the boot straps and continued on my journey. Nearing the bus station I reached in my pocked to check the time and noticed my cell phone was missing. Did it fall out of my pocket during the fall and I didn’t notice, I thought to myself. So I turned around and back tracked my almost 3 block walk from fall to bus station. No phone anywhere to be found, I was hoping it was on the counter with my aging lunch. By this point I had mentally prepared myself for seeing the red tail lights of the bus as I approach the station. To my surprise all of my bus buddies were still standing there in the blistering cold waiting. I, honestly by the grace of God made it, but not without perseverance. With three strikes against me before 5:45am I was hopeful the remainder of the day would rain sprinkles on me. Sprinkles were exactly what I received. To be continued………..

Home Bound

I promised a play by play of a recent adventure that ranks among the top of most Epic of public humiliations. Let me set the stage for you…I had been home from the office for 2 days after being diagnosed with pneumonia. I found myself getting a touch of cabin fever so I felt I was safe to travel out into the land of the living. When I say safe, what I guess I really mean is that I had been on antibiotics for 2 days so I was not contagious. Wait, can pneumonia even be spread from one human to another? If it can then I was safe from a medical perspective, either way my feet posed to be a huge danger and anyone around was at risk. The adventure started out like any other typical outing, I pulled up at the store front, got out of the car, locked it and headed inside. I was on a mission to find an accent table for my living room. You see I have gone 10 years of living on my own without any tables in my living room. This always seems to pose a problem when guests are over and they want to place their beverages somewhere other than the floor. The lack of furniture is not due to a lack of hunting for that perfect piece, I have been on this mission for a few years now. I am not sure if this shortage of essential items in my home is due to the fact I am educated in interior design and I don’t want something in my home that does not fit perfectly or if I am just so picky that something more or less must jump out in front of me before I am sold on the item and feel it would be a great addition to my living space. Now might be a good time to let you know that I went 6 months without furniture when I moved into my first place after college. I slept on a blow up mattress and I sat on an exercise ball to read in the evening. Which for the record was not too bad, I never had those days when I felt like being lazy and staying in bed for a bit longer than normal, and I had killer abs being when I got tired of reading I just busted out a few crunches. Nonetheless I felt it imperative to my social life that I invest in at least something to sit on in my living room. There seems to be a golden thread through this post….my living room is a torn to my interior design side. Back to the humiliation at hand…as I was looking through all the accent tables at said store I found a table that I thought would be a perfect fit. Could it be so….have I FINALLY, after a long arduous journey, found a piece of furniture I thought would not only fit, but be a perfect fit for my living room? I was in slight disbelief that this could actually be happening to me, I looked over that table with a fine tooth comb. I was certain there was going to be scratch, a broken drawer, something. After very little time spent, I found the scratch that knocked the table out of contention and realized it was not meant to be. But I really liked the piece so I asked if there were any others in the back. Can you believe it, there was, and it was all wrapped up prudy in a box, which to me meant scratch free. A sales associate helped me to the front of the store so I could purchase this awesome, rustic, perfect table. The transaction was made and off to the car the sales associate and I went. I took my boyfriends SUV to the store with the knowledge that if I found something it was not going to fit into my car. As fate may have it, the table was not fitting into his car either. The back seats needed to be folded down if we were going to have any success in getting this table home. Isn’t it said that those ‘things worth having takes a lot of effort, time, diligence, and patients’…or something like that? I was trying to fold down the sets and was not having success so a phone call ensued. Help was provided and the need for more space was a reality. After folding down the backseat on the driver’s side I navigated to other side of the car to fold down the remainder of the row. Success was had, the table now fit, and as I was hanging up I met face to face the asphalt of the parking lot. That silly cart that had brought my table to the car somehow sprouted legs and moved itself right in my path. I didn’t notice this before finding myself on the ground, scraped up, bruised, all the items from my pockets strewn out everywhere, and my pride…it dies right then and there. I went home and have not left since.

Dreamin'

Is there any way to turn back time? You see I had this new year's resolution to start blogging daily or at least weekly again, like I did during those days when I guess I didn't have a life. Yet in my defense I am fully convinced I went to bed on Dec. 31st and I woke up on Feb. 1 which I suppose is fine if my dreams were anything close to what reality would have been had I not been asleep for an entire month. In my dreams my job was eliminated 2 weeks before Christmas, I was offered to stay on with the company in the capacity that I knew from the word go was not going to be a great fit for me, I got a sinus infection that turned into pneumonia, I was a grouch, I had a moment of utter public humiliation (a blog post for a different day). Now that I think about it.....phew I sure am glad I slept through all of that! Since I slept the whole month of January, then really to be fair to everyone my new year's resolution is still good....right?

Drummond Fall Family Picnic

I made the flight back to Oklahoma for the third time since June to attend another family gathering. You see, when one has a family the size of mine………

…..there are bound to be many events, some of them back to back. The Drummond family just came off a massive, amazing, fun, energetic, and family centric reunion. The day was beyond perfect and I was not sure there was a chance the experience could be beat or even equaled. I was proven wrong as I stepped foot into the Drummond Ranch for the Fall Family Picnic.

It was a kid friendly, pie eating, pumpkin carving, and country dancing hoedown. A different kind of party than that of the reunion, but an equally joyous event nonetheless. This party held annually at my cousin Gentner’s home place has grown larger by the year and is known for its fun factor but more specifically it is known for the pies. Pies that are brought in from the far nether reaches, slaved over, perfected, some women and men still wearing flour on their brow as they arrive at the ranch. These pies are judged, and ultimately a winner is crowned.

I am not sure how many of you frequent ranches or the country. However, the more you tread through the tall grass, step in cow manure, watch unobstructed sunrises and sunsets, step in more cow manure, ride horses, enjoy the peacefulness that only the prairie can bring, there is something that begins to change within us. Some of us find our inner cowboy/cowgirl later in life, while some find it early and it never seems to leave. I truly believe we have a little country in all of us; the question is how much do you want to embrace it?

The evening was full of family

Pumpkins

Friends

Pies

Kids

A beautiful sunset

Fireworks

And an amazing host and hostess

It was an evening like all evenings spent with family in which I will cherish always. Cheers to the family I love, the friends I cherish, and the new friends I made!! Thank you Gentner and Wendy for opening your home for a fun fall evening, it was a true blessing!!

Living In The Moment

From time to time I find myself in the position of office therapist, shhhhhhh, I secretly love being placed in that role. I have a deep deep passion for helping others, this gives me an opportunity to share tools I have gathered along my self seeking journey, and lastly I love to listen. A past boss once told me ‘God gave me one mouth and two ears, I use them in the portions for which I have them, my ears twice as much as my mouth’. Not only did that conversation stick with me and I find myself using similar statements many years later, I also live by it. You see for me, the lifelong student, the gatherer of knowledge, I love to hear about people’s lives, their journeys, their hopes, their dreams, their struggles, their triumphs, their losses, their loves. I love to gather knowledge and use that knowledge to help them use their voice, follow their dreams, overcome their struggles, and live the life they deserve to live. Today I had a candid conversation with a friend in which they were seeking advice on how to overcome a frustration. The conversation went something like this: Do people who ‘play it by ear’ bother you? Situations in which people used the ‘play it by ear’ card use to bug me A LOT but I more understanding to it now. What changed to make you more understanding towards it? It seems to me people who use these statements are trying to maintain maximum flexibility in case something else comes up that’s more exciting. Living in the moment and also realizing that everyone lives their life differently is what has allowed me the understanding I needed to see situations like this more clearly. I needed to appreciate that just because I tend to not ‘play it by ear’ does not mean that is right or wrong, everyone is different and the choices they make in their life are different. That is a good way of looking at it, but the other is also true Could you possibly try looking at it from the perspective of flexibility, maybe focusing on opportunity as opposed to waiting for something better? I believe you may very well be correct, in some cases people are possibly leaving themselves wide open for something better. Yet there are plenty of other valid reasons for the state of ‘playing it by ear’; people have a hard time committing, people have different personalities, ect. Very true, thanks you. I will fill you in on a little secret. The more you let yourself live in the moment, only concern yourself with what you can control, and realize people are people; we all have amazing assets we bring to the table and also characteristics that are not so desirable. Once you can begin to implement this secret, life begins to be a bit more bearable and people are easier to understand and appreciatation for our differences is shared. Love, JB

The Intersection

Last week I attended a leadership conference; more specifically a women’s success forum. The day started with a keynote from Jane Pauley and continued on an exceptional track thereafter. I had many aha moments, many flashes of wonderful leaders & some poor leaders, thoughts of many people whom are in leadership positions that should not be….not to mention any names, government officials. It was a day of unmatched knowledge, blessings, comradely, and an all around eye opening experience. Here are a few key notes of insight I was able to take away. 1) Leadership is the act of using your gifts in a purposeful and powerful way 2) Inspiration is everywhere you just have to be looking for it 3) Be willing to say yes to something that is new, challenging, and/or a long shot 4) You find the path to reinvention at the intersection of where your gifts and passion meet 5) Don’t leave a career position until you have to opportunity to lead 6) Don’t trade wholeness for approval 7) The word listen has the same letters as the word silent 8) A grateful heart knows many joys As I sat and reflected, I came to realize, for the 76th time, I do not have the personality cut out for the corporate world. I have the drive, the dedication, and the love for what I do. But I do not have the tolerance for lacking integrity, failing truths, and trampling others as the corporate ladder is climbed. I have a passion for people, for kindness, for grace, for peacefulness. My aha moment was that of where my life will lead over the next few years. I will not share at this time what that journey will look like because let’s be honest when we try to plan things out God has a funny way of helping us to not follow that plan exactly. But I welcome you to stop in on this blog and go on this journey with me, through the highs and lows as I find that intersection where my gifts and passion meet. ‘When you discover your passions you light up your heart. When you live it you light up the entire world.’ JB

Day at the Denver Zoo

The weekend was more than busy, appointments, a move, cleaning of the old apartment, and somewhere in between a trip to the zoo. My little really wanted to go to the zoo, and I simply can’t say no to my little. Also, like anywhere at the current moment as the seasons are changing, it is a tossup as to whether Denver is going to have nice weekend of weather or a snowy weekend. That said I found a way to fit a trip to the zoo into a weekend that also involved a move across town. Unlike our nation’s capital, the Denver Zoo is not free and being like to engage in low cost or no cost activities I had never even thought about the zoo. As it turns out, it is really not that pricey for a day of fun, sun, smelly animals, cute babies, great walking, and did I mention smelly animals. Here is the day through the eye of a lens.

Signing Off -