Tag: rambling

The update to my bucket list

JenLeave a comment

1. Go on a long road trip on a motorcycle.
2. Skydive
3. Get in a food fight
4. Learn to surf
5. Publish a book
6. Ride a hot air balloon
7. Go grape stomping and make wine
8. Go scuba diving
9. Ride an elephant in Thailand
10. Explore a real castle
11. Attend a ball
12. Eat sushi in Japan
13. See the cherry blossom festival
14.  Design a video game
15. Attend SDCC
16. Achieve my ideal weight (i’m so close!!!)
17. Learn to ski
18. See the amazon rainforest
19. Climb a mountain
20. Paint a mural
21. Make a CD – in a professional recording studio
22. See the aurora borealis
23. See the pyramids
24. Send a message in a bottle
25. Buy a house
26. Go on a cruise
27. Visit New York
28. Visit Vegas
29. Cook through an entire cookbook
30. Fly first class
31. Go on an African Safari (no killing things tho please!!)
32. Experience Zero Gravity
33. Explore the Louvre
34. Visit Tuscany and experience “the Tuscan light”
35. Fly in a fighter jet
36. Drive on a race course as fast as I can go
37. Play a real game of poker in a casino
38. Go to the airport and take a random flight for a weekend
39. Experience Mardis Gras
40. Be at Times Square on New Years Eve
41. Get hypnotized
42. Speak at a design convention
43. Milk a cow
44. See Stonehenge
45. Meditate in a temple in asia
46. Rent a bus and party with friends
47. Set up a soup kitchen
48. Dress up in disguise for a day
49. Camp on a beach
50. Make a cherry pie with a lattice top
51. Throw a boomerang
52. Spend a day in bed… NOT sleeping 😉

53. Be “stranded” on an island for 3 days
54. Attend the Olympics
55. Kiss under the mistletoe
56. Be a part of a flash mob
57. Attend a murder mystery dinner
58. See real fireflies
59. Skinny dip in the ocean
60. Sex on a beach
61. Swim in a tropical ocean at night
62. Taste a sprouted coconut
63. Buy an investment property
64. Make someone smile every single day
65. Learn to play guitar
66. Go 140 mph on a motorcycle
67. Take a pottery class
68. Make stained glass
69. Flip a house
70. Attend my kid’s graduations
71. Meet my grandkids (this better be a LONG LONG time from now lol)
72. Join the mile high club
73. Take a bubble bath with someone

74.  Open a physical shop to sell bath & body products, cosmetics and candles
75.  See the glaciers in Alaska
76.  Remodel my home
77.  Learn to make cheese
78.  See mexico and South America

79.  Participate in a zombie flash mob

80.  Have my side business become my full time job
81.  Finish decorating my house (to where I actually feel like it’s mostly complete)
82.  Read an entire library’s worth of books (I’d say i’m doing pretty well at this goal)
83.  Learn sign language
84.  Write a love letter in french 🙂
85.  See, in person, Shea butter or cocoa butter being made and/or collected from the source.

2023 Additions:

86. Learn to Hunt
87. Build a homestead/farm – with sustainable practices
88. Cull my first chicken
89. Get pigs (and maybe a fluffy cow!!!!!)
90. Tattoo as a guest artist somewhere tropical
91. Retire from the tech world
92. Get my medusa tattoo that I want and take back my power
93. Rebuild this plane as I fly her!!!!!
94. Allow myself permission to not only love myself – but free myself from my fears and triggers from traumas of the past and love again.
95. Learn to be a great fisherman (fisherwoman??)
96. Learn to plow snow
97. Become a forager/gatherer – herbs, mushrooms etc.
98. Build a greenhouse and help feed the community
99. Make a difference in this community I love
100. Find Peace

“Staying in your lane”

Jen1 Comment

My sister says this to people. A lot. And sometimes I agree with her, and other times, not so much. You see, if I had “stayed in my lane” my entire life, then I wouldn’t be where I am. In fact, I’d wager, had she said that to me long ago – I’d have found a way to kindly tell her to go fuck herself because you can’t stay in one lane when you own the pool. 😀 But I digress. I get why she says it – it’s to help someone know when they are slipping from their path – or losing focus. It is a signal, to reel it in and double check yourself. How often do people even DO that anymore? I find that I do it often – and perhaps maybe need to just let it loose a little more. Granted – that does beg the question – what happens if you don’t know what lane you’re even in? Maybe you’re actually swimming diagonally across the pool?! Maybe you don’t believe in lanes! 😀 Hehe.

This week – I really need to stay in my lane when it comes to work focus. I’ve got lots to do, both for my day job and for my comic. I also just generally need to recover from a full weekend of shenanigans. The sister and I went to Portland for a short overnight getaway. The weekend was filled with a mix of things – shopping, self care, good food, strippers!, new friends, old friends… you name it. And while I had fun – a blast actually during most of it – I’m feeling a bit overly crispy around the edges today. Like – stick a fork in me already – i’m done. I may take a bit of a nap later and see if it re-energizes me.

My comic work is coming about slowly and steadily. At least on one of the story lines. My Mom book however I’m still stuck on. I need to just suck it up and start drawing the main character and not stop until i can do her consistently. But the problem is – she is me. And i’m still learning to see myself. It’s hard. My view of myself changes constantly – perhaps that’s why I feel like I own the pool rather than a single lane. I’ve written about this in the past and it still feels true today – we wear a lot of masks in society – and I’m not entirely convinced that all of us have figured out who we are without them.

Well, I better get back to my work morning – but here’s me wishing you a happy week!

Good morning Neverland!

What is beauty really?

JenLeave a comment

It’s dark. I’m at the park.  The sun will be popping its head over the hills within the next 30 minutes or so.  Puget Sound stretches in front of me.  The lights of a boat quietly makes its way along the shore; I think it’s a tug, but it is still too dark to properly see.

A small factory is nearby and I get caught up watching the steam billow from the single chimney  I sip from the coffee I brought with me.  I have music playing from my phone – a song that I seem to play a lot lately.  And I mean… A. LOT.

Scars to your beautiful

She just wants to be beautiful
She goes unnoticed, she knows no limits
She craves attention, she praises an image
She prays to be sculpted by the sculptor
Oh, she don’t see the light that’s shining
Deeper than the eyes can find it
Maybe we have made her blind
So she tries to cover up her pain and cut her woes away
‘Cause cover girls don’t cry after their face is made

But there’s a hope that’s waiting for you in the dark
You should know you’re beautiful just the way you are
And you don’t have to change a thing, the world could change its heart
No scars to your beautiful, we’re stars and we’re beautiful
And you don’t have to change a thing, the world could change its heart
No scars to your beautiful, we’re stars and we’re beautiful

She has dreams to be an envy, so she’s starving
You know, cover girls eat nothing
She says beauty is pain and there’s beauty in everything
What’s a little bit of hunger?
I could go a little while longer, she fades away
She don’t see her perfect, she don’t understand she’s worth it
Or that beauty goes deeper than the surface
So to all the girls that’s hurting
Let me be your mirror, help you see a little bit clearer
The light that shines within

There’s a hope that’s waiting for you in the dark
You should know you’re beautiful just the way you are
And you don’t have to change a thing, the world could change its heart
No scars to your beautiful, we’re stars and we’re beautiful

And you don’t have to change a thing, the world could change its heart
No scars to your beautiful, we’re stars and we’re beautiful

These lyrics, the words bounce around in my head.  I suppose they strike a chord.

Beauty.

Beauty is something so fleeting… so changeable, and yet so many of us strive to embody it. But what is it really?

We have this image in our heads and hearts of what the perfect version of ourselves would look like, and yet…

In nature – it is often the unique…

real-snowflake-under-microscope-wallpaper-2

the renegade…

macroyellowtulipfield

the inner play of co-existing dualities that are some of the most beautiful.

iceland-main

Beauty can be simple and can be complex.

plant

For too many years now, I have looked at myself as not beautiful. I’d turn such critical eye to my perceived faults instead of celebrating that which makes me beautiful and unique.

Enough is enough.  Maybe it’s the state that the world is in lately, maybe it’s just a strange burst of frustration mixed with heartbreak and hope … but damn!  If I can’t love myself, how can I possibly expect the people in the world around me to spread love? Enough with the hate.  Enough with the judgements.  Today… I celebrate myself.  Today – I will celebrate you, your neighbor, your mother, your friend.  For today – and every day to come, I will find a reason to spread a smile, and lift someone else up.  The world must change. Let’s put away our walls.  Love yourself, and love others.

Thanks for sharing a moment with me.  Off to work now!  Much Love!

I Had An Epiphany Today

Jen1 Comment

There’s something to be said about commuting in a car, it leaves for plenty of time to think.  To decompress and review things in my head.  I certainly don’t do it with everything, but I do find that on occasion, something someone will say or do will get stuck in my head.  It leads me with a need to churn it over a bit and mull on it.  I think it’s because, in the moment, my brain will nod and move along in conversation… but later, it will pop back in my mind and I’ll wonder about that moment – why did I react that way?  Do they really feel that way?  Is that really what they meant?  Perhaps I am simply an over thinker and need to learn to control that side of myself a bit better. Regardless, it is how my brain works.

Ginger kitten looking in mirror and seeing a lion

Friends and people who learn my story often comment to me about how strong I am.  And while it’s nice to hear, it is in no way a reflection of how I see myself.  I have strength when it comes to my brain.  I’m able to figure out a solution, make a sale, or find a way out of a sticky situation on most occasions.  BUT… when it comes to matters of the heart, and when it comes to matters of sex…. I am a total pansy.  Let me repeat that, because I’ve never admitted that before.  I am a pansy. I wasn’t always like this.  This.. is new.  A new Jen.  One who, now that I see her, I’m not too happy with.

Of course, it doesn’t help that the few times I’ve really opened up and trusted in someone, I’ve ended up highly disappointed and heartbroken over it.  A part of me wants to remind myself that “Hey! That’s life! You win some, ya lose some.” But, because those times have been a bit few and far between – what I usually end up doing is just raising my walls further.  Protect myself from the pain just a little bit more, but of course, the side effect from me doing that is that sometimes, people who’ve been trying to get inside my walls – get hurt.  I shut down and close myself off – and it leaves them hurt.  Which ultimately – is not something I’d ever want to do to those who are close to me.

I’d like to change my goals for the year.

I want to learn to bring those walls down a bit more.  To let someone in.  I suppose… this is my very first step.  Admitting that I can see it, recognize it and want to change it.  I also have to understand that it means letting in some pain.  If I bring down my walls, it’s going to hurt.  I’m scared to hurt.  I’ve felt sadness and hurt and pain for long enough over plenty of things.  The idea of facing pain and sadness scares the shit out of me.  But – I want people to know me.  For people to see me for who I am – and if they don’t like me… it’ll hurt a little.  But this is me.  Who I am on this blog… is me.  And if I ever want to feel like I’m not alone anymore, it means I have to let people in.

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Memories

JenLeave a comment

I was watching a movie tonight.  And a scene inspired my brain to run a million miles a minute.  I had to go look up the line from the script so that I could share it with you all.

I tell you, I just….
I just wish I could have a piece of her that I could keep safe, you know?

Just something.

Something more than a bunch of memories.

Memories.  It’s interesting to me how broken we get when something that we thought was our entire world… gets reduced to memories.  A lost love, a death, or even a rejection of some sort… when we feel that something has been stolen from us, even when that something was only a dream… it evokes a strange pain.  A loss that we have to grieve and accept in order to move forward.  And then things change and shift and all that is left are the memories of it.  It’s almost like we have to grieve the dream of what was.

memories

Almost makes one reconsider what the worth of a memory REALLY is?

If memories are all we have to take with us, if they are all we get to cling to on those lonely nights when it’s just us alone with our thoughts… then why do we put so little value on them?  Why do we get so caught up in all the strange bullshit that we do, when we should really be trying to savor every single delicious moment that we have – because in the end, it will only be a memory.

This evening I was reminded… oddly by a movie that I haven’t seen in a long time… that sometimes, you just have to let life flow.  There are things that happen that are out of your control- and that if I just hold on to the memories from my past, and relax and keep creating new memories… that somehow, it’ll all work out in the end.

Goodnight Neverland.  Much love to you this evening.

XXO!

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