Continuing on this mission to purposefully give to someone each and every day this Lenten season, I reflect upon this past week. Wow. More layers than a piece of baklava, and it feels good!

Getting a better handle on finances as of late. The wage is just not keeping up with the mundane expenses and I must find additional employment opportunities. Now that I've trimmed all that can be in the house, it is time to re-focus energy on side-line work. I cannot imagine being a person so fortunate to just have one job. The amount of time that would free! I could do more volunteer work!

There is nothing so crystally satisfying as watching a person receive totally unexpected kindness.

As I look around the house there are some cobwebs growing on the rocks. Rocks in the house. Why yes, they're forms of good energy and grounding so to speak. So unlike last weekend when I spent hours matching socks and have only about 80 unmatched ones left, this weekend - today - is remove clutter and webs day. Literally. Figuratively.

Have you gave unexpectedly, even better anonymously!

Do you have life clutters and webs?

Senses.

Ever noticed how they capture moments?

A song brings me right back to rides to the dump, now affectionately termed landfill, with Dad. Yes, I'm listening to Neil Diamond. Dad has always been a music listener and so it was that Dad's trucks had 8 track players during that stint of time. Listened to a lot of music when I'd wait for him in the truck while he jawed with the guys at Carroll Motor Supply. I chuckle at people who are aghast when they see children waiting in vehicles. It was so very commonplace. I suppose like riding a bicycle without a helmet. Now I listen to songs - ones that I used to choose as ringtones for certain people - like Shawn Colvin's I've Never Saw Blue Like That. Well, my phone is now liberated. They're all gone - everyone is now a surprise.

Smell. Working now over half of my life in emergency services, I can say smells can bring you exactly back to full color vision playbacks and the rest is up to your imagination. On a much better note, few things are comforting smells to me: a spicy white carnation, a box of Camel cigarettes, a soothing rose. Mmmm....

I've been enraptured by this velvety blanket I received for Christmas. It feels like the tippy ear ends of the vizsla that I am so fortunate to borrow on occasion. Remember the wear-a- blindfold-walk-on-eggs-atop-crackers game? Please say yes. That better have been something everyone had to feel. The day I crawled into a wrecked car in pitch blackness and sat on a dozen eggs and a box of Saltines - well, ping, I remembered the game.

Cilantro. It tastes like dish soap. Now, now - I never had my mouth washed with dish soap as that was left to bar soap and thankfully not usually Lava. Is it not the most amazing thing - taste? How so very well defined in some compared to others.

As the big brother on the block, sight tends to rule over the others. But, there are many levels to it. Our challenge, should we choose to discipline ourselves, is to look beyond the surface.

Intuition. Like sight, this requires sensitivity, but in addition to constant honing is also discernment. A gift not from within ourselves.

Memories and our current breath entwined and etched....by our senses.

Lived what seemed to be a life documentary last night.

Persons with psychiatric problems thrashing out upon others and themselves. Then seconds later, calmness like mirrored water. An injured caregiver on one side, a previously vicious person on the other. One born in a native land, severely disabled, left by his family in the care of others with the edict that much of traditional United States medicine is not allowed upon their son.

To watch the givers close and afar was spiritually twisting. At one moment they are saving themselves from being injured and the next whispering kind notions and funny sounds to their aggressors. Bless them.

Sharing what was mindful overload and realizing there are not many people of depth with the capacity to fully appreciate and core-fully understand. It is no wonder why our world of relationships seems to be a bouncing ball from thing to thing and person to person. An emphasis on physical support, with the weeping wane of spiritual and emotional support.

Yet there are those quiet and steady givers amongst the rest, and they, like stars, grab attention when you take the time to look.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! Just a few months early (notice the optimist says early, not the opposite).

Had this discussion about snow the other night while sitting on the rescue truck tail. Yes, that would be when I spent the tick tock of midnight with the rescue guys. One of these years, that's going to change. So about the snow, I live here for a reason. It's called The Lake and The Seasons. People who whine and complain about receiving snow in the winter are showing their inner, green sprouted garlic bulb. Move on. Plant somewhere else.

There's a lot of snow on the decks from today. I'm thinking this week I'll disconnect the Sea-Doo battery, and switch attention to Little Blue. A tenacious and trusty snowblower that desires only to have the spark plug removed, gas down the cylinder, and a few pulls each and every year.

The neighbor's homemade Irish Creme was a silky delight. That recipe, I do believe, will be the next request of these very salt of the earth people. But first, I must continue shedding the current contents of the fridge. It's pluffed with too much. You know, when the meat and vegetable drawers are full of beer bottles, it's time to keep the doors unlocked and the invites flowing.

Life ever seem like a bout of hiccups? Well, I'm trying to drink from the other side of the glass. I'll let you know how it goes.

Grandpa's birthday was Christmas. First one without him.

Might have to raise of can of Old Milwaukee just for him. I used to say, "Grandpa, that stuff is made to put your worms in while fishing. Please, please try some of my real beer." Then at that very moment, I'd get this grin - not a smile, a grin - and a warm, spirit-filled look from his hazel eyes.

I suppose I should bring the little Buck knife he gave me to the Christmas gift opening. Grandpa won't be there in person to rummage in his pocket for his. The man insisted on slicing envelopes and cutting Scotch tape. Like bringing a stick to a toothpick party.

So about those hiccups...time to move on and try new stuff, make even more of every opportunity!

The closest I usually come to tanning in the winter is sitting next to a fireplace. If Dad is making the fire, it can result in second degree blisters. My fireplace - well, I stopped using it last year. The cracks give me thoughts of dialing 911 while going to get the fire engine to return to my own home.

So, in search of warmth - although, I have been keeping the house a balmy 64 degrees now with the new furnace - I tried a tanning bed.

Apparently I am a prehistoric cavegal because even though I said this was all new to me, there I stood staring at it thinking okay do I grab the top and pull it closer? Why is it not lighting? Shouldn't the bulbs be on? Press the green button a few times. Green means GO right? After about seven minutes, it turned on. Mmmmm - nice. Then three minutes later - tada! You're done. Come on - toast doesn't even brown that quickly.

Back to the petite, bronzed gal at the front counter. Oh yes, quite a few mouse clicks later and I was trying it again. Laying there giggling as fleeting thoughts zinged through my head...for the number of times I laughed at people telling me about how wonderful tanning is. I'm now justifying this as Vitamin D production.

Alas, the larger picture - I'm taking it as a sign that I was assigned to the Jamaica Room. Tonight, I added a few more pieces of change to the jar. Everyone needs a dream or two or three or...

So very many people have expressed to me to write a book. I have not, but I was just re-energized to start the Blog again. Today, a moment back in history... I figured there are quite a few adventures that I've experienced, which looking back may be quite funny. See - I never think of them as much. But when I share with others, they say LYN - more, tell us more! Strange. Okay - there are perverse people who like my abnormalities....and so with that let's re-enact part of the infamous Reno Rally:

None of the medical teams showed up for the rally except the chief of emergency services. When I say rally - that's the kind with competition racing cars that go flat out racing on closed sections of roadways. So, yes a medical team is sort of important.

Well, I didn't travel all the way to gloriously sunny, and FREAKINGLY FRIGID Reno for nothing! I said that’s it, we’re going to figure this out one way or another.

The Yooper unearthed.

So, I scanned the crowd and found two more people – one a paramedic and another a trauma nurse. Cha-Ching! POOF! We looked at the schedule, we divied out the equipment and I added what I brought in the Samsonite. Ta-Da! We can do this. One in a truck, one in a bunny slipper Volkswagon and me in a rental Trailblazer. When I looked at the available rentals, I chose the Trailblazer figuring the name was apropos for the way north, at the end of the road – literally, rally called Reno. Little did I know.

So we find our spot in the open range and I hop up into the middle of the 180, but discover that driving over sage brush leaves a very lasting aroma. Then the steer arrive. Yes, by golly, they have surrounded us. I ask on the radio what to do? Drive through them. Okay – well, I can’t move and so the folks pile into a little Audi and try this maneuver. Now I come from the place where Audis are few and far between and not really something you would move steer with! This technique hardly works. We are apparently smack dab in the middle of their road to water – literally. Yes, this road we want to race on is their routinely used "path" to the watering hole.

We need additional support, and so while we await the calvary, my rally partner and I scour the high desert for a potty point. We find a gully and while one remains as scout, we discover the technique of shelfing and creating a little pooling spot in the sand. Further explanation can only be done in person; however, if I may say, this is definitely NOT the northern woods style.

More people arrive and get this – they literally take after the steer on foot and drive them over the hills to the water a different way. Our radio network now calls us Steer Corner. Lovely. A callsign that many years later, no one has forgotten.

The rally cars start and what arrives? A donkey. Yes, a donkey.

It stands at the top of the hill staring at us. When a rally car comes, it shifts its gaze to the car and watches every moment. It’s head literally moves with the car as the rally car negotiates the corner and leave the area. Right now I was thinking I’d been overcome by sage fumes. Later I find out that donkeys protect steer.

Come on?! Seriously?! One of those thousand pound beasts needs a donkey?

The rally happened. Pretty much all that mattered.

Yet another life experience. Get out there. Do it! Don't wait. There's only one occasion to smell the sage brush and look down the beady eyes of a snot dripping steer.