profile

The Jane & Jaycee Project

Practical wisdom for women starting over.

Jumping a log
Featured Post

I took the long way

Hi friend, I got the news at work. An email I'd been waiting on for a long time, sitting right there in my inbox. I read it once. Then again, slower. It was good news. The kind you brace for so long that when it finally comes, you're not quite sure what to do with your hands. I could have gone home. I could have gone to our usual park, where I throw golf balls for Jaycee until my arm gives out. But none of that felt right for this. So I did something different. I picked a trail near me. Well...

Hi friend, This is where you'll usually find me lately. First cup of coffee, still warm in my hands. Maybe ten minutes after my feet hit the floor. Jaycee curled up beside me on the recliner, not quite ready to start her day either. And lately, before anything else, I open a little app called Yuno and let it teach me something. This week it taught me that the Vikings reached America. In longboats. About five hundred years before Columbus. Long before the story I was handed in school. I sat...

What is your legacy?

Last Sunday at my church — The Bridge in Cleveland — the pastor said something I haven't been able to stop thinking about. Our reactions and responses build a reputation that becomes our legacy. He was talking about legacy. Not what we accumulate. Not what we achieve. The reputation we leave behind — built one moment at a time by who we choose to be to the people right in front of us. Then he put up a chart. Two columns. Reaction on one side. Response on the other. Click on the image to...

I gave a presentation on May 5th to 85 people in an independent living community. I told them about the $4,500 I lost to a scammer. I told them the red flags I missed. I told them what I know now that I didn't know then. And then it was over. Except it wasn't. People came up to me afterward. Not to say nice things about the talk. To tell me their stories. They waited in line to do it. Some of them had been holding something for a long time. A suspicious phone call they were embarrassed about....

I walked into that courtroom ready. Two weeks of preparation. The judge's summary written. Exhibits organized. Every question I might face, rehearsed. I was ready. And then Eddie's attorney filed a last-minute motion. Not to argue the contempt. To ask the court to declare the entire divorce decree void. All of it. Everything the judge already decided. Everything that was already agreed to. Everything I have spent two years fighting to keep. They want it gone. I stood there and understood what...

There is a question I have been asking myself all week. What is the worst thing that could happen to me? I walk into a courtroom on Thursday. No attorney. Just me. I am representing myself because I can no longer afford an attorney. Two years of appeals will do that. Tens of thousands of dollars to fight for what was already mine. At some point the money runs out. And you have to walk in alone. Two years of appeals. One after another. All the way to the Georgia Supreme Court. Every one...

I was watching my ad results. People were clicking. They were curious enough to look. But nobody was signing up. I kept refreshing. Kept watching the clicks. No registrations. I had spent money I didn't have to spend on something I believed in completely. And the silence on the other end was loud. The question that follows a moment like that is never really about the numbers. It's always the same question underneath: is it me? Am I not good enough to do something like this? I sat with that...

Monday morning I ended up at urgent care. Lower left abdomen. Significant pain. The doctor said diverticulitis. She prescribed two medications and sent me home. I won't romanticize it. The medications have been hard. Nausea. A metallic taste that follows you around. The kind of low energy where the couch becomes your whole world. There was a point where I thought about stopping. Not dramatically. Just the quiet, tired thought — I don't know if I can keep taking these. And then I remembered I...

Someone left a comment on one of my posts this week. I had shared how I used AI to help me find the perfect flowers for my container garden. The colors I wanted. The light conditions on my porch. The combinations that would actually work together. I was pleased with myself, honestly. The comment said: You could also look this up on some gardening sites instead of using AI. You would probably get more ideas. Be careful how much AI you use because not thinking things through with your brain has...

This week I did something that scared me. I sat down at my desk and put together a set of legal interrogatories for an upcoming contempt case. By myself. No attorney. Just me, my documents, and AI walking alongside me every step of the way. I stopped having legal representation a while back. The cost made that decision for me. And for a long time, I wasn't sure what that meant for my case. Whether I could really do this without someone in my corner who knew what they were doing. I've been...