As Dawn Wanes - (a Poem)

 As Dawn Wanes 

 

Whispers prick the belly of my ears gently 

Sinking deeply in their pools 

Laughing whiskers tinge my soul’s tongue 

Lick the steam as coffee brews 

 

Morning lifts her skirts, awakened 

Dawn slips away, he dares that smile 

Robins sing their distractions 

Allowing Dawn to hide a while 

 

He will return to rage the battle 

Dreamers fight within his snare 

Clutches give and thrust their bedsheets 

Morning fears Dawn’s final stare 

 

Give to me your hour so longing 

Bring back heaven, hold me fast 

Care not if the hour is waning 

Squeeze my thighs, renew your grasp 

 

Grey eyed stare, veiled delusion 

Scrape my heart and gouge my faith 

A fantasy, a reason to 

Keep Morning oh, so far away 

 

Jude Stringfellow – July 17, 2021 

Photo Credit: The Naked Scientist 

Anticipation!

 About a week ago I sent off my MyHeritage DNA kit and I must say I was very impressed not only with the price ($59.00) but also with the presentation of the packaging and the layout of the test itself. To be sure, it was very quick, very easy, very user-friendly.  MyHeritage leaves nothing to be questioned, you really can't screw up the samples unless you absolutely try your hardest to do so. I imagine there may be one out of a few hundred thousand that simply can't follow directions, but this girl did exactly what she was instructed to do!  There are two long cotton swabs in the box, and two small mini vials to put the swabs into once you have rolled the tips around your cheeks for about 30 to 60 seconds. You roll one on the right side and place it into the mini container, breaking off the stick before sealing it; and you do the same with the other swab for the left side of your mouth. You can't mess up - - get yourself a test!

    Upon completing the application and paying online, I think it took 5 days to receive the box in the mail. It was delivered regular postage and it was small enough to fit into the mailbox, but I will admit I have a larger mailbox.  I opened it up on a Monday, did the test immediately, and sent it back on its merry way on the same day.  I received an email on Thursday last saying they have received the test and they will begin working on it first thing. There's even a little button on the email they sent to let me track the progress of the test, but it's really not necessary, because they even email you (me) to say they are currently in the process of working on the extraction of the DNA and by Friday (tomorrow) they will have the test completed, and they're just waiting on the results.  I may actually know the results faster than they said it would be; which would be really cool.

    With all the DNA tests available these days, and most everyone using the one you get from Ancestry, I decided to use another company; to go another direction.  I figure the Ancestry people know what they're doing and all, but why not share the love, and give another company the opportunity to be the hero, to deliver me the great news that I'm actually 94% Scottish. (That's not going to happen, but if I were a horse I could maybe expect that from the Texas A&M lab.)  Let me tell you a little story about what happened twice (two separate horses) when I sent my DNA kits off to be tested.

    Eoghan is a rescue horse. He's never to my knowledge been registered, but that doesn't mean that he wasn't. It only means that whoever gave him up didn't send his papers with him, so I sent off hair samples of my very sorrel steed to the Texas A&M animal DNA lab; I don't know their exact name, but it's supposedly one of the best there is. I found out that my absolutely you-can-look-at-him-and-tell-he-is-out-of-Impressive Quarter Horse was in fact, according to their records, more than 80% Missouri Fox Trotter and if there was ANY Quarter Horse at all in his bloodline, it would be too trace to mention. I almost rolled over in the barn laughing when I read the results to Eoghan.  He giggled a bit as well. He knows.  He may not be able to say it, but you only have to look at the boy and KNOW he's literally not only a Quarter Horse but out of a very specific bloodline.  Chalk one up for wasting my money.

    The next time we decided to send off the hair samples to the Texas A&M lab we did so because we knew 100% without doubt positively certain what breed the horse was, and we wanted to see what the lab would come back with - - keep in mind these tests were about a year apart. Though I owned both horses I rescued them both and couldn't register them without knowing who their parents were; you can register a Pinto and/or an Appaloosa without parentage, but not a Quarter Horse.  My second horse WAS a Missouri Fox Trotter, and she was in fact, registered at one point, but because she was accidentally bred by a donkey they sold her while she was pregnant and didn't send the papers along with her. She was later sent to a kill pen, with the baby, and I bought both of them. I sent off the hair of the mare for grins and giggles.  

    When the results came back this time I had my Quarter Horse! Yes, true story!  The results of the Missouri Fox Trotter mare came back nearly 100% Quarter Horse with traces of Hanoverian and Arabian, but they used both breeds to create the Quarter Horse, along with Thoroughbreds and often Morgans. Well, there you have it, the labs just can't always get things right - - but I did have the opportunity to ask Eoghan if he wanted to use Ava's papers; it would of course, mean that he had to admit from now on that he was a mare and not a gelding. He blew his nose at me; I take that as a no. He's fine just the way he is, and we know he's impressive even if we can't prove he's actually out of Impressive. You just know if you know, and that's all we care about. He's perfect.

    So I'm just over here waiting to see, to find out, if the lab people will make the same type of mistakes and say my people were German or Swedish. I'll demand my money back if they say I'm less than 30% Scottish or more than 40% English - - some things will not be tolerated. At least I'm not being saddled with the fact that my mother was born in Texas! Damn, that could really be a scar to bear. Daddy should have asked before marrying her I guess.  Fun fact: Dad's side of the family fought with and defended William Wallace, while Mom's side of the family killed the man. No wonder I fight with myself. 

Eoghan 

Ava

How May I Serve You - - Attitude is EVERYTHING

 The longer I live on this Earth the more I long for Heaven, that is just a fact, but we can't get there until it's time to go, so we do need to somehow focus on what we can do while we're stuck on this rock! For years, mostly throughout my childhood, I remember various good-hearted relatives telling me to play fair, do the right thing, and they always admonished me to help others; don't be selfish.  It was beaten into my soul that to be selfish was one of the worse things a person could do; it was sin, and it was a nasty sin at that. I was told to think about others before thinking about myself. I was told to do unto others as I would have someone do unto me. I was preached to, taught, and directed to have a spirit of giving not receiving. Doesn't the Bible even say it's better to give than to receive? 

    Over and over again, we are held accountable for what it is that we think about others, do for others, etc, etc, and the lists go on and on, all the while in our hearts and minds we can't stop thinking about what our own dreams are and how we're going to make it all happen. We like people, sure we do, but is it really fair to ask someone to put aside their hopes and wishes in order to help someone else make all of their dreams come true? I mean, c'mon, let's be real for a second - - can we really do that?  Answer? Of course, we can! In fact, the Word also tells us that if we do it right, and yes, you do have to do it right, that God Himself will be the one to bring us the blessings we hope for; they're called the "desires of your heart" in the Bible, in Proverbs 37, verse 4.  "Delight yourself in the Lord, and HE will give you the desires of your heart".  Sounds like a sure-fire thing to me! If God said it, that settles it - - at least for me it does.

    It's been a minute, but I adopted an attitude of gratitude a while back. I purposely focused on not worrying about life and all that it throws at me because there's that one promise I can put my finger on every single time, and if I ever (and I do mean EVER) feel that things aren't necessarily going my way I can always bet with confidence that it's because I haven't done enough for others to make that actually happen for myself. Sounds like a paradox, I know, but hear me out -- be VERY selfish with this one. If you want your desires (and we all do) all we really have to do is to delight in God. What? Say that again, and this time, say it in a way I can understand it? 

    OK, let me be blunt -- I'm good at being blunt.  Do what you know you're supposed to do, do the right thing, do the best you can to make sure what it is that you're doing is what God wants you to do, and don't worry about having the money to do it - - just do what you can, He'll bring the opportunity for you to prove yourself, and when you are truly delighting in Him, doing what He wants you to do, then BAM....desires fall out of the heavens, literally. He brings them to you, every single time, you can put it to the test, you can bank on it, you can say to yourself "Wow, that worked" because you know what? He can't lie. You have the word of God that if you just delight - - show your gratitude and do what He wants you to do, you will have your personal desires -- you may not win the lottery, but I'm pretty sure that won't even rank in the top 100 desires in your heart because something happens to your heart when you start delighting in God - - it's a cycle, but not a vicious one, it's a VICTORIOUS one.

    Be as selfish as you can be. Work really really hard at helping others in order to get your personal desires. Paradoxical, ironic, strangely weird, but ever so true. Whenever I give someone money I never loan it to them. If they ever paid me back I wouldn't get my blessing! It would be a loan, I can't expect to delight in God if I'm just going to wait on someone to pay me back - - nope, delighting in God means to let that money go where it needs to go when it needs to go, and He'll take care of me because I didn't stop to ask questions and put my own two cents into it. I mean, you don't have to be stupid about it either, know who you're giving your precious time and help to; a fool is not going to appreciate your assistance and you'll learn a hard lesson helping fools.  Be wise, but be at service.

    If you're new to the action, and you really haven't been much of a servant, start out slow and build up your personal confidence in yourself. Do small things, random acts of kindness; watch the results. Step up and volunteer, do something you may have otherwise never imagined would be fun and fulfilling, and you'll also find that your servant's soul will begin to produce more "fruit" than you ever knew you had in you to begin with.  Do more, do it again, look for opportunities, and make them if you can't find one. Help out a local children's hospital, a nursing home, a church, a rotary club, something where you can serve but not be seen or "thanked" necessarily because you don't need to be thanked do you? No, you don't, you're there to serve, not be recognized. God will do all the recognizing you can ever hope for; believe me. It's not a game to Him, it's a promise!

    One last thing -- don't go around telling everyone what it is that you're doing for others. Just do it. Don't blog, post, brag, boast, talk about or even hint about what it is that you're doing to serve - - just serve. If God wants you to pray for someone do that. If God wants you to help in the food pantry, do that. If God wants you - - let Him direct you. Just be there, open up that heart, open up your arms, and your mind -- walk dogs for the shelter; they need your love. Think about what it is that you can do and then ask yourself if you can see yourself making the changes you want to see in the world. You really are more than you know you are or think you are. You are capable of making someone else's burden a little easier - - and wouldn't it be GREAT to have your own desires fulfilled just because you were promised they would be? Yeah, He's cool like that - - always has been. Always will be.

Ask yourself "How can I serve today?" 

Photo Credit: Education's Choice

Perfect Practice Makes One - - Better.

 I'm making plans to move to Scotland, and in doing so I have to come to a few realizations such as the fact that I won't be driving when I get there. I mean, I could drive, sure, but no one wants that to happen really, and yeah, I don't want to have to explain to cops and judges why it is that I was ticketed for driving on the right side of the road. It's going to take some getting used to, so what I decided to do was to "practice" driving on the left; using the one car I know I can't get pulled over in, I use my Google maps "car".  I am having too much fun, and let me tell you this, there is NO speed limit apparently because I can jump through time and space like no other in my invisible vehicle - - I am unstoppable. 

    When I jump on the Google maps site with a pinpointed location, let's say Tranent, Scotland, I can find a street and just start driving. I can choose to go in any direction, and I don't have to worry about hitting anyone. I don't have to worry about passing them correctly (do you do that on the right, I guess?) I am just scooting long, zooming really, and from time to time I even back and turn around so I can see what the front of the sign says so I know where I'm going. If nothing else happens, I won't be lost if I ever make my way to Tranent for real! I know those streets.  I'm becoming more familiar with Musselburgh, Portobello, Joppa, and Dalkeith as well. Soon, and very soon, I'll head over to the west side of Edinburgh because that's probably where I'll end up living, I need to know those streets too. Too much fun.

    My little car, I tell myself, is a comfortable little crossover, maybe a silver Ford Focus hatchback like Steve. Oh my gosh, I can make myself cry if I start talking about Steve. Of course, I couldn't drive Steve in Scotland because his steering column is on the left side, but maybe I could drive his cousin Callum! That's it, my new little zoom-around is another silver Ford Focus, a newer model, and his name is Callum! Here we go - - I'm on the hunt for a few roundabouts now! You have no idea! I tell people now, that I'm moving to Scotland to be in the land of roundabouts. I LOVE them...maybe I'm sick in the head, but I just absolutely love a good roundabout. If only the rest of the world ran on such logic. We wouldn't have to stop to pay for things, just sort of slide by when it was our turn, or maybe there would be no more waiting at the doctor's office, the Department of Motor Vehicles, or when we find ourselves standing in line to get into our favorite restaurant. NO MORE WAITING....just roundabout it, and move forward, always forward. Move on! Move!

    Another thing I'm going to have to give up or get used to not doing once I hit Scotland, is the ease in which I just simply go where I want to go, and do what I want to do because I have said ability to do so. Because I do have a car here in the states because I can and do just jump into the car and go about a mile down the road to pick up a pack of toilet paper, a few groceries, and maybe stop by Braum's Ice Cream for a half-gallon tub of Peppermint ice cream. Not going to happen. Not fast anyway, and I won't be walking home with my arms loaded up with a twelve-pack of toilet paper and expect not to be mugged for it - - wait, that was 2020. I digress. I could probably still walk home hugging my Charmin if I wanted to, but I may have that delivered. 

    I'll be walking so much more when I move, so what I do now is I walk 2-3 miles a day to practice having to walk, having the stamina, getting in the workout, making sure I don't faint along the way. There's very little more pathetic than to see a broken-down woman on the side of the road clutching her twelve-pack of toilet paper eating a half-gallon of ice cream so it doesn't melt simply because she couldn't make it all the way home on her own!  (I guess God did invent taxis, right?) I can always walk to the store I suppose, then get my things, and call a taxi to take me back if what I bought is too cumbersome for the trek back home - - see, planning is everything, planning is key, planning is my breath! I am nothing if not a good organizer. Viva la Strategy!  Plan! Plan! 

    Let's see, besides not having a car, and having or needing to walk, I'm pretty sure there are other things I need to be aware of that perhaps I could be or should be practicing. Oh, I know, eating seafood. That's right, I'm not the biggest seafood fan, but knowing that I'll be moving to a place literally surrounded by the sea, and knowing that a mainstay of the land is in fact seafood, I may need to practice eating a bit of it to make sure I won't die of starvation and/or worse, become a vegan. I can't do that. I need to eat more seafood!  That being said, I've been boiling up shrimp (prawns) every week, and I've put on a few cod and herring on the grill as well. I'm not going to attempt to lie to myself about eating oysters, not happening, but I will concede to trying things that don't have gooey guts, which excludes octopus; for good reason. Yeah, no. 

    This is going to be fun. This is fun. I'm doing it now, and I'm learning so much more than I expected to learn. I will say this, having traveled the same streets of Tranent over and over again, and seeing what Google took photos of over and over again, I have begun naming the people I see in the snapshots along the way - - they're really just passersby on their way to the park or the store, but they were caught on the Google maps camera right? So why not name them, give them purpose, make them seem as if they were meant to be part of my life.  I see Helen and her friend Teri making their way from their cute little neighborhood on their way to church to volunteer, I see Bob and Maurice, they're twins you know, and I see Roni, the wee chap who was probably supposed to be in that little schoolyard, but he decided to ditch classes today and run off to Scotmid for a bite; maybe try to get the cashier to sell him a pack of smokes! Cheeky kid!  I love my mind.

    I wonder what I could find, who I could find if I travel the City Centre of Edinburgh - - so much to do there. So many faces. I'll certainly be walking a great deal when I go to the City - - but I won't stay there for more than a few days at a hotel I'm sure. I prefer the outskirts. Plotting is so very vital at times like this - - did I say "plotting", oh, I'm sorry, I meant to say "planning".  Then again, a good plot is a good thing to hold on to as well - - Edinburgh is no stranger to murder; why not add a few new and old to the mix? Yes, I can practice that today in my mind of minds -- but first I have to park the car and hop a bus; if I do leave virtual DNA I don't want it to be in a private car. No, mixing my own DNA with hundreds of others on public transport makes a lot more sense in terms of hiding in plain sight. Did I say that out loud as well? I must be mad. 

Photo Credit: Unknown (Wikipedia)

    

My People -- Daddy's Side (From Edinburgh)

 Genealogy can be fun, challenging, annoying, aggravating, and just plain interesting all at the same time. There are no shortages of ancestry-type sites where you can join and pay (buy credits) and find out all you can possibly find out about one or all of your people. I did this recently, of course choosing my dad's side of the family first since I am a Stringfellow and he is a Stringfellow, I wanted to chase those people down first.  YES, I was hoping to find that they traced back to Scotland, my favorite place in the world, but I did find that they not only are from Scotland, but that the line stops there - and there is no more information about where the Robert Stringfellow from Scotland (1615) was from other than the general area that is called Midlothian, and is generally in the vicinity of Edinburgh. (If that Stringfellow is anything like the rest of us, he'd be on the outskirts and not in the city proper. It's who we are.)

    Here's the lineup and how I get there.  I used Ancestry.com, Wikitree, and Google to find the various Stringfellows that line up with who I KNEW was a relative, a guy named James Stringfellow who married Margaret Cambell in or around 1657 (when he was around the ripe old age of 15); WHAT? True love, I guess. They had a bunch of babies and moved to the new world the same year that they married, so it's my thought and dream that he was in love with her, couldn't bear the thought of moving to the new world without her, so they got married and ran away -- makes sense, could make a good movie. Whatever the reason these two kids were minors and they married; settling in the Virginia Commonwealth area and he was a tradesman. 

    I was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in 1961.  My daddy was Reuben Wayne Stringfellow, born in Horatio (Frog Level) Arkansas, on April 22, 1932.  His daddy Reuben Jefferson Stringfellow Jr. was born January 8, 1909, in Arkansas, probably around the same area as my dad.  His father was Reuben Jefferson Stringfellow, Sr. born in 1847 in Mississippi (interesting fact, some records have him at Rueben Jefferson and Rueben Jeffrey) makes me wonder if he was running from the law or people just weren't that great at keeping records. His daddy was William Robert Stringfellow, born in either South Carolina or Georgia, the mark in the Bible was hard to read, it was in either 1814 or 1815.  I hate that there are discrepancies about that, but we can't change the way things were back in the day.  His daddy was John Reuben Stringfellow Sr., and where he had a son named John Reuben Stringfellow, Jr., he also had William Robert, and that's the one we came from.  John Reuben Stringfellow Sr., was born in 1780 and was the son of Richard (possibly Richard Reuben) Stringfellow, born in 1760; so he was a young man, and out of Virginia.  Richard's daddy was William Jr, born in 1729, and he is the son of another William who was born in 1687 in Virginia and he was the first Stringfellow in the family to be born in what would become the United States. His father James had other kids, but William is the one my family is out of - - James was 42 when William was born.  James was born in Scotland, around the Edinburgh area to Robert Stringfellow - - who was born in 1615 according to vague records; no other information is known about him other than he was married to Catherine Rodgers Stringfellow, they had four kids and he packed them all up in 1660 and came to the new world.

    When I traced the wives of the various Stringfellow sons, I came up a lot of different surnames obviously, but they were mostly English and Scottish. Their names are Campbell, Shipp, McTyre, Brookes, Ashton, Elkins, Bullington, Rudolf, Bryant, Roberts, Rodgers, and Moore.  Mostly English for sure. I bet when the DNA comes back it will reflect that as well. I don't know how in-depth those things really are. I know my grandmother on my dad's side had German blood (Rudolf) and I'm sure we'll find quite a few trace elements of other European families to boot.  Because the father of James Stringfellow (who is Robert, brother to a Reuben) was the patriarch of the family at the time of his marriage, James, who was only 15-16 years old in 1657, would have been encouraged to marry before moving to the new world. He did marry a young lass by the name of Margaret Campbell, so I'm trying to hunt down her family now, as Campbell is in fact an older Scottish name. Good luck! 

    Now for the fun part: I'll try to trace mom's side too, and/or my dad's mother's side to see who the other people are. I'm taking a DNA test from My Heritage soon, and I'll post the results. I am hoping to find more than 13% Scottish blood in these veins. Who knows? Well, God knows. We'll find out soon. Here's a photo of my Great Grandfather Reuben Jefferson Stringfellow, Sr., my Grandpa Reuben Jefferson Jr. (with dad and Uncle Bill), and my daddy. (There are very few photos of my actual grandfather, he died in 1967 before people really used cameras on a regular basis.)

Great Grandpa Reuben Jefferson Stringfellow Sr. 

Dad, Grandpa Reuben Jefferson Stringfellow, Jr., and Uncle Bill

My daddy: Reuben Wayne Stringfellow

Marriage between James Stringfellow and Margaret Campbell in 1657, June 16.

Weight Gain. Depression. Work it Off.

 I decided to talk a bit about weight gain, weight loss, the connection between gaining weight and stress as well as both anxiety and depression.  I'm going to be 100000% honest with you, and let you know that I know of only a couple of times in my entire adult life that I could say with any definitive narrative, that I was in fact depressed or anxious.  If I was either it would be anxious, but not in "anxiety" but more pissed off and didn't know which direction I was going to go in order to solve the matter. (I have to solve things. I can't let them lie still and fester.) I am a doer.  I do things. I plan my attack, I plan well, then I put forth the most amazing and magnificent attack possible - - it will be solved. It's who I am.

    I don't have time for anxiety. I don't have time to be depressed. I don't have time to be stressed. It would appear to anyone reading this post that I value my time and I am in fact quite jealous of it. I won't share my time with emotions that ultimately hurt me or could cause me to hurt myself or others. I just won't do it. Now, that's not to say that it doesn't exist. I would never be so cold or uncaring to say that people don't experience real depression or real nervousness about a matter; they do. I know quite a few people who just can't seem to work out their issues emotionally, and it always, without exception, manifests itself through weight loss, weight gain, inappropriate behavior, rudeness, crudeness in some cases, but always results in harming the person who finds themselves unable to beat their depression or anxiety. I pray for them; I really do. I know it must be devastating, but I have simply (or by divine intervention) never really had much of it to speak of. Like I said, I have been sad enough to say I was depressed for a while; and I have been anxious about a court ruling or what was going to happen with the kids and the custody battle(s) I went through, but ultimately (LISTEN) I found that Jesus really is bigger than any of my problems.

    I can say I had an underlying current of depression or something closely related to depression for many years, but it wasn't out and out sorrow. It was more or less a defeated feeling that I wasn't going to be any healthier than I was, I was getting older, I should just let life happen and time can consume what's left of me; that attitude was exactly what I faced last summer (2020) and I decided to not only destroy that current but to blast it to Hell where it came from. There is NO reason to believe less in yourself than what God believes in you. You just can't out believe God, and you just can't go around pretending that what He created is not worth giving your last breath to in order to make it, and to keep it in shape if for NO OTHER reason than to honor and glorify God. 

    Our bodies are a temple according to the Bible. We are responsible for them. We are literally held accountable for what we put into them, what we do with them, where we take them, and who we share them with. God is there. God is with us. God is in us in the form of the Holy Spirit, and those who will make fun and jest saying "Oh well, I have a bigger temple than I used to have" are sinning with the same sin-stick that Satan uses to strike us with when we openly hate, because treating yourself with the level of disrespect that you do (I did) when you don't eat right, exercise, sleep well, and drink water to hydrate, is flat out wrong. It is sin, and when we realize that rather than ignoring it, we'll do much better for ourselves obviously, but we will also honor our Heavenly Father who loved us enough to make us in the first place.

    Before I get too upsetting to some, I will say that I am absolutely aware that some people who are grossly overweight have issues that are chemical in nature, hereditary, and perhaps medical (to the point of not being able to do much) but I also know that most of our excuses are just that; excuses. We put off what we know we can do, and we stuff our faces with sugar, carbs, alcohol (which is sugar), and other things that cake on (word use intended) the pounds, and over time we just accept that it's normal, but it is NOT right. It is positively the most negative thing you can do to yourself. PLEASE STOP.

    For me, it was that final moment when I realized I was no longer able to ride my horse without pain and without being so unbalanced that I came off more than I saddled up.  I was falling to the side almost every time the horse turned because I was riding as if I was a thin woman, but my big, fat, ugly, in-the-way gut told a different story. The weight of my girth pulled my body from the horse's back and onto terra firma more times than I want to admit, and certainly more times than my daughter Laura knew about because if she had seen it she would have forced me to eat salads and give up frappucinos long before I did the right thing for myself. She would have encouraged me to look in the mirror and to stop fooling myself; which is exactly what it is that we do. We aren't fooling the other guy - - they see us exactly how we really look. It's our own eyes that deceive us. It was ME.

    Depression can come from being in the wrong relationship. It can come from staying in the wrong relationship. It can come from the fear that you can't leave that relationship for financial reasons, emotional reasons, maybe kids are involved, maybe parents are involved, maybe church family is involved, but we cannot let that/those things stop what must be done. CUT BAIT already!  Take care of YOU before you can see clear enough to care for others. 

    Depression can come from loss. It can come from being lied to, betrayal. It can come from years of doing the same things over and over expecting different outcomes. Whatever the reason for depression the answer is (usually) not medication. You don't need drugs to make you feel better - - you need to stop eating stupid foods you know will harm you, you need to work out, you need to work out more than just 10 minutes. You need to pump iron, you need to do yoga, jog, run, walk, jump, kick, punch, dance and by all means and all things Holy, you need to pray! You need to ask God (your Creator) to help you on your new journey, the steps you're taking to glorify and honor HIM. He really will help you.

    God told Peter to put his shoes and coat on, but it was the angel who opened the prison door. You can use this analogy to put down the ice cream, put down the candy bar, put down the soda, even the alcohol, and to pick up the dumbbells, pick up the bottle(s) of water, and pick up the pace. You have a lot of work to do - - it will NOT happen in a few days. It will need to be a lifestyle change, and by change, I do mean CHANGE IT ALL. You can't just give up the food and expect things to work out for you. You also have to sever ties with negative people, negative situations, negative employments, negative family members, anything and everything that would be between your soul and God's heart so that you can go to Him and ask directly for the help you need. If you're hiding things from God you aren't hiding them at all. He sees it. I know, I did that for too long.

    It was August 3, 2020, when I woke up and decided to make the plan to change my life for good. I have lost over 42 pounds, but I'm not finished. I have gone from a size 18 (tight) to a loose 14 and even a tight 12 in most cases, but again, I am not finished. I don't count my success by the size of my body, but by the strength of my spirit. I believe in myself so much more than I did; and yes, the weight was a massive (pun) part of that; it helps to be able to face a mirror now instead of walking quickly past one. I don't stop and stare yet, but I'm looking forward to the day I can say I achieved the final goal. The goal will not actually be final though - I have to, and I want to, maintain a healthy lifestyle.

    One of the reasons I post my food, my breakfast, lunch, dinner, etc, online is to show people that it is a day to day to day struggle and achievement. I allow cheat days, I do carb cycling, I do (and did) so many things to force this body into the groove to keep it moving in the direction I need it to be going. It is NOT easy when you get older, it is not easy when you're heavy, it is NOT easy at all, and we know this, but you know what else - - SUCK IT UP BUTTERCUP, you are better than the person you let yourself turn into. Make the decision to be the most you can be and then do it, damn it. DO IT. If you need help, find help. There are so many things and people online willing and waiting to help you -- for free. You don't need a bunch of money to eat well. Cutting out the crap in your life gives you the money you need to buy the good stuff.

    Bottom line it:  Get good sleep, over 8 hours. Drink 100+ ounces of water (I put lemon in mine) every day, eat far fewer calories than you used to; I eat about 1200-1500 on an average day. Exercise more than you used to and not only sweat, but stretch, move, keep moving, and rest too. Weigh every day and take poopy pills or fiber, lots and lots of fiber. Then take more fiber. Eat fibrous foods, drink fiber, pop fiber tablets. Get a great deal of it in your body, but take a bunch of water with it, because it will pack you up if you don't. You don't want that. 

    Friend, I love you. I don't even know you, but I love you. God has allowed me to love and has allowed me to pray for you. I am doing that right now. You need this. You need strength, you need hope, you need someone to tell you it's really going to be OK. You've got this. God's got this. Together you can do so much more than you thought possible - - you once thought it, but someone took that joy from you, and over time you allowed them to - - it has cost you. You're depressed and you're anxious - - but the good news is, God is bigger - - so much bigger.  Don't fret.  Not unless you have a guitar in your hands. You know what I mean.  I'm going to the closet now to pray. I'll include you in those prayers.  Be blessed.

Photo Credit: www.wartsila.com 

It All Started in the Third Grade.

  

What a monumental year for this girl.  The third grade was in fact, one of the most important years of my entire life; I have so many events that I can pinpoint to having started during, right before, or around that time. I will let you in on a really big family secret at this point; I changed the spelling of my name from Judy Stringfellow to Jude Stringfellow during the third grade because that's when this girl learned about the long "e" sound and believe it or not, I didn't believe it was true. I thought the teacher was some sort of "new-fangled idiot"  (my dad's words) because she wanted to teach me something that my Aunt Wilma had not already taught me. I was absolutely sure that Mrs. Tipton was trying to fool me. She was trying to make me look stupid when she told me that I could spell my name with a "y" at the end of it, with an "i" at the end of it, or even an "e" if I wanted to, because I could put a line over the top of that "e" and it would be pronounced like the sound of the letter itself.  Who did she think she was talking to? 

    To say my precious parents were not all that into education would be an understatement. I didn't come from a long line of educated, college graduates, in fact, there were (are) so very few actual college graduates in my immediate and extended family, that I can assure you that Mrs. Tipton was not very popular with my parents when I informed them about my choice to change the spelling of my name to make it at least appear to be Jude, since that's what my daddy always called me anyway. Since I could now spell it J-U-D-E and people could still call me "Judy" was good enough for me - - for about a week, then I decided it would be Jude and that it would rhyme with rude, and you can bet I knew all about that word. I was that word. I can still be that word. 

    The third grade also brought about the decision I made to be independent enough to sass-mouth my mother when she told me she wanted to see me fold my socks and place them properly in the drawer instead of leaving them in a pile on my bed with both dirty and clean clothes. I tried to explain to her that I knew which ones were clean and which ones were dirty, but she would have none of it. I also tried to explain to her that the dog really liked sleeping in and on top of my clothes, that from time to time I used my clothes as a make-shift body pillow, stuffing them into a pillowcase so I could do that, but again, she was adamant about me putting them away.  

    One day I came home and she had taken all of my socks out of my drawer and had matched them for me. I thought that was nice and all, but since I had already decided NOT to fold my socks it was a good time to reveal to the woman who gave birth to me,  that I had no intention of wearing matched socks ever again! I wanted to be different, and that was the best thing I could come up with so that I could in fact be different. Unmatched socks. I'm not sure it was really that I wanted to be different, I am pretty sure I just didn't want to take the time to match my damn socks and put them away properly. It took too much time.

    Mom looked at me and with that wit and brilliance she often mustered in her face, she said to her youngest kid, "OK, have it your way, but if I ever catch you matching your socks again you'll have to not only fold them and put them away properly, you'll have to wash them by hand and let them dry outside too."  I accepted the challenge -- that was....well, over 50 years ago. I'm obstinate. I admit that. I don't fold my socks, and I don't match them either, and it's more or less a thang now and has less to do with obeying mom.  People who know me always expect to be able to look down at my feet and see that I have on two different colored socks. They may both be white or gray, but they have a different trim usually -- I am who I am.

    The third grade was the year I learned how to answer the telephone appropriately. Why that wasn't talked about at home I have no idea. I remember very clearly seeing a telephone in the Media Center and it was connected to a very long wire that connected to the office of the school. I could follow the cord more than 60 feet to see that it was attached to the principal's office but was displayed like the Crown Jewels on a podium, almost like something that was to be worshipped.  Again, I was not pleased with Mrs. Tipton's methods of teaching myself if this was the case. I knew at that age we were not supposed to be bowing down to anything and here we were, us children, on our knees, around the base of the new telephone stand just waiting for our turn to be introduced to it as if it was a new visitor to our homes. 

    When it rang I was to pick it up carefully and take a breath.  Why I was instructed to take a breath always set poorly with me. I was told I could use the time it took to inhale and exhale to think about what I would say to the person on the other side of the "line".  I was to breathe and then clearly state the words, "Hello, Stringfellow residence. This is Jude".   Today I laugh, and I shutter too, I would beat the tar out of my grandkids if they announced to everyone who called what our last name is, and who they are.  It really was a different time, wasn't it? We're talking end of the '60s here, not the end of the '70s, '80s, '90s or more recent times. We're talking about a time when courtesy was paramount.  I passed the telephone test with flying colors, not that my parents were willing to ever let me actually try answering the phone at home. No one was calling for me. I was told that a number of times, therefore when the phone rang I was NOT to answer it.  That was for an adult. I was 9.

    I ditched school for the first time in the third grade too. I jumped on a trampoline for the first time in gym class, did my first backflip without using my hands, and even managed to eat a few tadpoles on a dare without dying.  Brian Adams has a song about the Summer of '69 and how he got his first real six-string guitar; I learned to play chess that summer.  My cousin Gene (Aunt Wilma's son) taught me, and I learned to ride a bike. My sisters had them, I didn't have one, so I took one when they weren't looking. I took it, went all the way to the top of the hill with it, and climbed up onto the seat. I couldn't quite reach the pedals when I sat down, but I did OK when I stood up, so that's how I rode it. I never crashed it either -- God alone knows why. I think my Guardian Angel knew more about bike riding than I did.

    The school I attended and began attending in the third grade was a new concept type of school. It was an experimental type concept, an open concept. There were NO WALLS between classrooms. I could stand on a chair and see all the way to the other end of the school. I could see the entire primary side; grades 1-3, and I could see through the open concept Media Center into the elementary side of the world, grades 4-6.  My brother and my sister were over there on that side.  Teachers taught, kids learned, people made noises, and you could visually see and audibly hear everything going on in every classroom if you sat still enough and paid attention. I sat still enough and paid attention, and when I did that I could hear 4 or 5 teachers teaching all at the same time, as well as the Librarian who was hosting a class in the Media Center. Talk about distractions! The experiment ultimately failed, but I learned.

    I learned I could multi-listen, I could multi-watch, I could multi-learn, I could divide my brain into sections all at the same time, and I could hear conversations far away and up close. I could not have known then that this conditioning of my brain would lend itself to being so very useful as an adult when I'm in public places listening, being able to hear and listen to several private and public conversations at the same time.  So many of the kids I went to school with have commented that the years they spent at Apollo Elementary were some of the worst because they just couldn't concentrate. I don't remember that at all. I remember it being interesting, fun, full of lessons because I would be listening to one teacher teaching Science and another teaching English while my own teacher was demonstrating how to properly introduce myself over the telephone.  It was - - fascinating. 

    I don't match my socks, I misspell my name intentionally, and I absolutely refuse to believe a single thing any teacher tells me if I don't agree with it first. I check out literally everything they say because I just know people have agendas and want others to just simply go along with whatever it is that they are told. I have always, and I do mean always, been stubborn and insubordinate. I guess it is part of my initial makeup, but it also a cognitive choice. I trust myself and I trust Jesus.  The others who I trusted, my dad, my grandpa, my cousin Gene, and my Aunt Wilma (and yes, my sweet Uncle Marvin, who could have told me the sky was green and I would have believed him) were all gone - - just me and Jesus left. That's a majority - - even without me being part of that equation.

Photo Credit: Jude Stringfellow