The Blanket - A Story

 The Blanket 

 

When I moved to Scotland, I really didn’t have an elaborate plan, I was going there to escape not only my family; well, not my kids, but what was left of a childhood full of both good times and honorable times that somehow, and for some reasons had turned so ugly that I really didn’t even recognize it let alone call it “family” anymore. I love my kids; I won’t make excuses about any of them when people ask me about them or want to know more. I’ll just pause a second and let my heart fill up with overwhelming joy; joy warm enough to light a fire. I was going to need a good fire; it was colder in Edinburgh than I had actually imagined it was. Oh, yeah, I saw the photos and watched videos. I did my homework before moving, but that wind took me by surprise and weirdly reminded me of the very place I had left; Oklahoma.  

         I found myself quickly volunteering for just about anything and everything I could in order to find new friends, meet new people, and be a part of the newest of new communities that in reality, if you think about it, are ancient by my standards of what is new. In Oklahoma, we thought the buildings being renovated downtown were “old” because they were built at the turn of the 20th century, I didn’t know what old was, I guess. I was just about to walk into a building over two and half centuries old, and it was sitting squarely in a place the locals refer to as “New Town”. Yeah, there’s that.  I walked into the Thrift Store; aptly named “The Thrift Store”, you gotta love a good catchy name for a storefront. At least I found it easily enough. 

As I walked around the store taking in all the new smells from both newly sprayed disinfectant and old clothes that could probably have been washed another round before being hung out to be sold, I realized that there must also be a cat in the little building and even though the smell of a two- or three-day-old litter box was evident, it didn’t seem to bother me. In fact, I’d say it had a calming effect on my soul; I knew if nothing else were to come of the day, I would at least count on meeting at least one new friend.  Cats aren’t dogs, but anything friendly would be great. So far, I had managed to track down and meet a few online acquaintances who agreed to meet me once I landed in their neck of the woods.  We had been cordial enough, and the coffee was good – one of them told me about the Thrift Store needing help, and sure, I know it’s volunteer work and I won’t be paid, but I will be paid another way, right? I will make friends, I will be a part of the community, I will see things, learn things, know things, and just maybe someday actually fit into my new surroundings. This was a starting point. 

I wasn’t in the store very long before meeting the first level of administration, a chap called Lucas, he was a regular volunteer, one who had been nearly knighted for his hours of servitude. One could only dream of one day being so revered by the others; I nodded to Lucas, and he showed me to my position, explaining to me along the aisles that things didn’t put themselves back onto the shelves after “visitors” (that’s what we were to call customers) had their moments with the “bits and bobs” as he called them. He was fairly certain after years of experience working at the Thrift Store that I would have no problems folding t-shirts, linen, and rehanging coats or jackets that had been removed; some of which he assured me I would find in the oddest of places. He was not wrong. 

Somewhere in the third hour of my employment, I reached to the well-swept floor to pick up what appeared to be an unfolded and tossed about dull colored blanket that was either knocked to the floor unwittingly, or perhaps someone had picked it up and opened it thinking they’d possibly buy it, but when they realized it had holes in it and it was a bit oddly shaped, they set it down and forgot about it. I walked past it myself, saying I would come back to redeem it after I had my afternoon break; a bit of coffee from the Wee Café. Again, I loved the name. It was in fact, yes, a very small café - - great name for it. 

When I returned to the Thrift Store, I found the floor where the blanket had been was empty; or rather it was clean, there was no longer an older rough blanket lying about. I thought nothing of it, but my heart pricked a bit thinking it had been sold and I had not presented it well to my new visitors. I had possibly failed them.  That wasn’t the case at all; no, the blanket had been tossed to the bin and was laying out on the open dusty black pavement just outside the back door of the Thrift Store, not quite fully out of sight, and sort of hanging halfway in and halfway out of the dumpster outback. Again, I really should have just thought nothing of it, but my heart would not leave me alone about this damn blanket. There was something about it. What? 

Before asking Lucas what he may have thought about it, I walked to the back door of the store, propped open the door so it wouldn’t close on me (I had heard a rumor about that) and I reached into the big blue metal dumpster and retrieved the old, torn, misshaped cloth. Surely, it would have some worth to someone, wasn’t it donated? Where did it come from? Was it now just too old perhaps, too worn? I don’t think I thought about that when I had examined it; sure, it was tattered but nothing a bit of mending wouldn’t fix. Maybe it was dirty. I hadn’t actually taken the time to smell it or give it a real look; I just walked away – well, I guess like others had done before me. It just wasn’t all that impressive to anyone, perhaps that is why Lucas had decided to finally rid the store of it; it wasn’t worth much to anyone.  

I remember taking the garment back to the front of the store and finding my new boss to see if he would mind if I gave the blanket a bit of fixing. His words were harsh, but not necessarily wrong; he said it was not worth my time but if I wanted to do it I could and he didn’t even mind if I did it while working at the store because it would give me something to do during those lull hours when nothing much is happening. Believe me, volunteering at a community thrift store can be a bit dull at times. You see the merchandise a few dozen times and you walk the aisles over and over again helping or assisting visitors, it doesn’t take one very long to learn the layout and know just about everything under the roof! 

 

When there wasn’t anyone to help, and I didn’t have anything really else to do, I decided to pull the old blanket out from under the desk where I had kept it safe from being discarded again. I held its long and thick mass up as far as my hands could reach above me. It seemed to be a double-sized bed cover, one that was good at one time and probably kept at least two people warm simultaneously. I allowed myself a bit of a free for all when it came to thinking about where the blanket originated, what its real purpose was, where it was purchased, who purchased it and how long did they own it before either giving it to someone else to use or more likely just storing it in a cupboard for years before deciding to donate it to the Thrift Store. 

I ran my fingers along the edges again wondering and asking questions in my head about how the tears were made and why no one tried to patch them; they were literally just left to grow bigger. Everyone knows if you leave a tear long enough it will just fray out and eventually become impossible to mend; was this the fate of my new...wait, was I just about to consider a worn-out blanket a “friend”?  I guess so, I hadn’t found hide nor hair of a cat! I knew I was going to ask Lucas about something but I got so busy, and then the break, and now the blanket - I know there’s a cat hiding in the store somewhere, but right now my thought was with the possibility of possibly mending the old cover and making it, I don’t know, somewhat useful?  

It did stink. I could smell it now, now that it was closer to me, and I was holding it up against my face. There was a smell to it, and maybe the owners didn’t wash it because they thought to do so would leave it worse for wear; literally causing it to unravel and then they couldn’t even donate it. Best to just hand it over to the clerk when you drop things off, no questions asked, maybe it was at the bottom of a paper sack and no one would even know about it until it was either too late to reject it or maybe too late in the day to make the trash run – whatever the reason, it couldn’t have been at the Thrift Store very long or Lucas would have found it by its odor and tossed it, which is probably exactly what happened now that I think about it, and yeah, I thought about it.  

I decided that this was my new mission. I don’t even know why I decided that. I think it had something to do with the sad way it was discarded onto the floor when I first found it; or maybe it was just something calling to me from inside the woolen fibers saying “Hey, we used to be on the back of really cool sheep (or two) and we walked this Earth! Save us! We spread our love over people, unknown people, and we kept them warm from the weather, safe from the storms outside. We deserve more than this!”  OK, you can see that being a writer and working in a super eclectic place like a Thrift Store, where memories and history collide, could be a bit of a playhouse for one with such an imaginative imagination. I thought so; it was fun. Just me and blanket getting to know one another. I was all he had left now; wait, I just called it he. I was getting into this, wasn’t I? 

I counted 11 holes and a torn corner. The corner that was torn was also the corner that seemingly was tugged and pulled out of shape, causing the entire blanket to appear to be mangled in a way. God help me, I was going to accept this new assignment. I'd need God I'm sure.  I thought to myself that a good cold wash would set that but first, these holes would need to be mended and repaired.  I set my detective skills in motion and went about the store, through each aisle, up and down each row and shelf trying to find perhaps a sewing machine that someone had donated, but the best I could come up with was a repair kit, from the Scottish Army in fact, and from World War II.  This store was nothing if not amazingly surprising with its strange mishaps of properties once belonging to so many people and now resting for various amounts of time on clean organized shelves lending themselves to “visitors” who may or may not wish to acquire said items. A Scottish Army mending kit was in my opinion something perhaps a college drama club could have in their prop collection; I would want one if I were a stage manager. Who knows? 

The blanket had a little tag sewn to the back of it and in the opposite corner of the torn pulled corner. The tag read 1980; it was blue and had white letters, well, numbers. I suppose with this new clue, I was to assume that the blanket was about 40 years old; quite old for a blanket but not necessarily so since it was first made of remarkably pure material, to begin with. God, Himself had made the sheep you know, and man had sheared them, carrying the fibrous fluff to the manufacturer who then stripped it, dyed it, blended it with strengtheners, and wove it into the miraculous masterpiece that I’m absolutely sure it was at one point. It had to be. It was just too something to be anything else, but I couldn’t put my finger on it, even though all of my fingers and thumbs were completely lost in it now as I found new thread from yet another box of do-dads, and began making my way through the dense plush wool with my ever so interesting needle; I can call it a needle since that’s the closest thing it resembles, can’t I? 

Oh, the resourcefulness in me! I found a bit of steel, and I took almost the rest of the afternoon trying to fashion it into what would be used as a guide to lace the new threads through. Though the new thread wasn’t the same color as the blanket, it would lend a bit or reason as a conversation starter whenever someone asked me about it. I fully intended now to keep the damn thing. I had grown not only used to it being in my hands, but now I was fond of it for some reason. God help me, I am such a romantic at times, and this blanket was my patient in terms of me healing it and restoring it back to usefulness.  

Fashioning the needle took a long time, and it wasn’t easy either as I had to find something to file the thickness of it down to a sharper point; a point that would be very dangerous indeed if someone were to prick themselves with its tip, but for me I wanted it to be smooth so it could carry the thread through the wool without snagging it causing yet another tear or perhaps worsening one that I was working on to begin with. It was imperative that the needle be able to do the job correctly; I saw to that. I took great and steady aim when I bore a hole at the top of the hammered top of it; I literally used an old wooden handled ball hammer to flatten the top and then a small nail to bore a hole so I could thread it. Was I really this mad? What the hell had come over me; it’s an old worn-out blanket and I was giving it the attention Florence Nightingale gave to one of her wounded patients on the battlefield – that’s it, this was a hero; it must be. I was devoting too much time for it to be anything else.  My mind was made up; this blanket would answer questions once it felt better about itself. I knew it. 

Lucas called from the back of the store to thank me for my time as a new volunteer and he told me to leave a bit earlier than the actual closing time because he was the only one, he trusted with the finances and he’d see to it that the doors were locked. I could come back he said if I wanted to. I made my leave, waving good night to his back as he turned to lock up the rear door. I made some mention about taking the blanket and his wave or gesture let me know he was OK with me taking it and his chuckle let me know he thinks this American could use a few more screws in her head. Well, he’s not wrong. I do seem to obsess when I get something in my skull that I just can’t shake. I don’t know if I’d call it a pit bull with a bone, but I’d go with Chihuahua any day. I don’t give up easily; that’s for sure. 

At home, where I had more light, more thread, a real needle, and a good pair of cutting scissors, I was able to make a bit more headway with the repairs.  I turned on the “telly” as they call it here, and started watching a “football” game, which of course, you may have guessed, is actually soccer, but yeah, when in Rome. I’m not about to try and convince anyone that the sport they call football isn’t really football because I’m not in my own backyard now, am I? Nope, just grin, laugh with them, walk away, asking questions about it to myself, that’s the plan.  Meanwhile, back on the couch, the blanket and I were beginning to get a little chummy. He was keeping my feet and legs warm while I was poking him and drawing my hap-hazard needle through his skin.  I didn’t find a strong enough needle in my belongings to do the job, so I just stuck with what I had made. It was working, and it sort of gave me a satisfaction of sorts to know I had made this actually happen in the first place. 

Eleven holes. Done.  Eleven various shaped, various pulled, variously various holes that could have been explained if my new friend could talk, but one was definitely caused by being burned. That was unmistakable. Someone had either fallen asleep with the blanket and burned it, or maybe they were just too close to someone who was smoking and things got rough, whatever happened the blanket took the brunt of it, and weirdly (I do say that word often) the burned hole was the one hole that really didn’t need mending as it was cauterized and wasn’t spreading; it was just there. In fact, I couldn’t really fix that one without pulling the material and causing a gather or pucker, so that one was left as it is, tattooed if you will, forever into the flesh of the blanket close to the tag that bore his age.  Tattooed. Interesting re-thought. 

I was finished with the repairs and the commentators were just about to end their rants on Scotland’s national team at the same time. I will never understand how a 90-minute game can go on for an hour after it’s over and the deciding goals or points can be determined by penalties rather than actual play on the field. In REAL football, a penalty is dealt with right then and there, you move the ball back a few yards and you move on; none of this time added and bickering over who gets a yellow warning and who gets a red card.  In our game of football, the only cards being played are the aces up the sleeves of the quarterback as he steps into his pocket to see where he’ll end up throwing the damn ball – with his HANDS! Hands all over the ball; you know, football. Never mind. No amount of complaining was ever going to change anything.  

With the brightly colored mending thread laying across and inside the older duller colored blanket, I had to ask myself if I should have waited to find a closer matching thread to make my repairs. I mean, given the time and effort I put into it, there’s no way I would undo the work and start over, it was going to have to be OK the way it was – something inside me said the blanket really wouldn’t work less, feel less, be less, or even care less if I had used rainbow thread; it was fixed! It was useful now, or it would be after I gave it a good soaking in some cold soapy water.  I decided to hand wash it in the tub rather than chance it being damaged in the washing machine. Besides, having my hands all over it, rubbing it, feeling it, and actually loving it, made me realize that it really was mine now. I hadn’t actually paid for it, but it was tossed out, thrown away, and I had been allowed to redeem it.  Redeem.  I thought about that word.  Hadn't I been redeemed? In fact, I was.

The dirt and filth that came off that blanket when I drained the bathtub! I decided to give it another bath just for good measure. God only knows where it had laid and on what surfaces. There must have been at least a half-pound of dust and dirt hidden within the woven stitches, unseen, but detected by my nostrils to a degree.  I knew something was there, but I had no idea. I was both surprised and pleased when I lifted it out of the final rinse and began the process of slowly wringing it, massaging all of the water from its grip - - massage, that’s an odd word to use, but that’s exactly what I was doing to it. I was massaging it.  

Being an American, I had determined not to use a “green line”, what we call a clothesline when I knew I was moving to Scotland over a year ago. I had made plans to buy a dryer at their equivalent to Home Depot, a store called ScrewFix, and buy a dryer I did! I bought a big, fat, heavy-duty, expensive dryer that I knew I would put to use every single week if I needed to, but I was not about to be someone getting caught in an unexpected serial rainstorm and have to bring my laundry in after having hung it out only 15 minutes beforehand. This being winter, and the skies deciding not only to rain but to snow and blow wind at the same time, I knew I had made the right decision.  

Throwing in a few scented dryer sheets was a given for this project. The blanket’s fluff would be restored soon enough, and to be honest with you I was looking forward to seeing just how wonderful it could be given the love and care it deserved. I wondered how much it may change (if at all) with the heat from the dryer – I decided to turn the temperature down a smidge, but I wanted the blanket to feel fresh and toasty since it would be sleeping with me, in fact laying on top of me tonight. That wasn’t my initial plan, it wasn’t like I ran out to the dumpster and grabbed the old thing to force it to do my bidding, but something told me that the blanket, once returned to health would want to repay me with kindness; the type of kindness he was created to give. I was right. 

When the bell from the dryer dinged to let me know my charge was finished, I looked up at the clock. I don’t know why I did that, just maybe the bell sounded a bit like a chime. I looked up and it was actually one o’clock in the morning. One ding, one o’clock. How fitting.  The blanket and I made ourselves newly acquainted; me with hardly any clothes on mind you, and he with his freshly stitched scars being amply displayed for anyone to see and notice. There was no hiding the fact, the truth, that he was in fact broken, hurt, marred from years of abuse and wear; and he may have been thrilled to be given a new assignment, or maybe he was feeling a bit open and exposed because everyone would see his painful past being covered up and maybe I was overthinking this a bit! 

My bedroom was upstairs and it was time to say goodnight to the house plants, put the coffee in the maker, and prepare the alarms for the night to secure my house. I think I should have done that when I first came home, but the blanket kept my mind from routine thinking.  It was going to be OK I told him. He would be with friends and he would never be discarded again; never sleep rough again, not if I had anything to say about it, and I did have a say in the matter. He had a home now. He was loved and even though I don’t know everything about his past and he certainly has no idea how many blankets I’ve slept with - - I don’t think he really gave a damn; he fit right in on top of my other comforters and no, I didn’t even try to hide the fact that he was patched up; I let my night-light light up the colors on him, and on everything new about him - - and now, well,  everything glows. 

Photo Credit: Two Sisters Quilting

Lose Weight With Prayer

 Sounds almost too good to be true, but it is true, and there is not only divine power behind what I'm doing but science as well.  Gotta love it when you can add science to the mix and prove to those who don't like listening to you teach and preach the Word. (Hey, Skeptic -- here's a hint, God made Science). Who wants to know what I did to break the damn plateau that I was cradled with for more than three long, tiresome, damn, stupid, worthless months? It was in fact, the worst plateau I have ever experienced and I have been trying to lose this stubborn belly for ages upon ages. I would try really hard, get a little excited about some of the weight coming off, and then BAM, plateau. It happened every dang time, and though I knew it was coming, it was as if I didn't have a plan to get past it. Well, I have/had a plan this time! I prayed about it.

    Taking God strictly at His own words, that if I delighted in Him, if I obeyed Him, if I trusted Him, He would give me the desires of my heart. Well, OK, that's easier said than done at times because the subject matter of my "delight" has been a boo-bear as of lately, but I still pray for him as God commanded me to do. I still pray for this man's wisdom, his protection, his guidance, and his decision-making. I pray from my soul that he will be assisted in his own walk with Christ, that he will not start to stray, that he will stand up for what he knows is right, and that he won't allow family or loved ones to stop him from proceeding with God's work. 

     I decided back in April when he began being a pig-head that I would give up praying for him and let the chips fall where they may, but God reminded me that no matter what this man did on his own I was called by God to pray for him, and if he was indeed (and in deed) being a putz, it was probably more necessary to pray for him now than it was before. OK - - back to the closet for me! I didn't want to lift this man up to God, I wanted to walk away, dust off my hands, be done with it (him), and just say "You know what, you seem to have it all under control, don't you? Well, have a nice life."  That's not what God asked me to do - - and because God trumps man every time....I remained in prayer. God calls some people to far distant lands to be missionaries, some people he gives large congregations of believers to corral, but me, no...for me I am the odd one out I suppose. Remember, I was the one with a two-legged dog that needed to bark around the world and let the people know that you didn't need to look perfect to be perfect for God. My "assignment" this time is only one man.  Simple, right? Not really.

    Well, I followed God and I did what I was told to do. I am still doing that. I don't know that my assignment will ever actually end, it may just go on until the rapture, but I will follow my orders. I am a dutiful soldier if nothing else.  Because of it, because I decided to follow God, I also asked Him to give me the desire of my heart to lose the stubborn weight, trim the belly fat, get my body into the shape I both want and need it to be so I can travel well, be healthy when I arrive, and be strong and beautiful for the rest of my life -- or until the rapture comes, and yes, I am a pre-tribber, so there's that. I think we're on the cusp of going home. Before we get there, since we live here, I want to look the part and feel the part of a wonderfully healthy and fit woman who isn't afraid to follow disciplines and put in the exercise and attention needed to meet the goals. It's just that my body was refusing, utterly refusing to do what the experts all say happens if you do exactly what they say to do.

    I was (and am) eating correctly, working out daily, or almost every day, because you're not supposed to stress your body.  I sleep more than 10 hours a day, no seriously, I sleep a great deal of the time I am on this Earth. I am a lot like a cat at times. I drink more than 100 ounces of lemon water every single day, I don't fudge on that, in fact, fudge hasn't been a part of my life in over a year. I take the supplements I need to take to poop better (and they work). I eat only fresh, lively, natural foods with very few preservatives, barely any carbs and I think the word sugar only comes in play with words like grapes, honey, apples, and such. I am a machine! So why was my weight literally stagnant for over 90 days? I didn't budge a single pound, and at one point I gained 2 or 3 pounds and that was a battle royale in my own soul believe me. I hit the closet double time in prayer and just kept thinking what am I doing or not doing? I have to stop this.

    VIOLA!!  Oh, joy! Let me tell you, God was fantabulously wonderful in having my own best friend point out to me that the supplements I was taking were mostly gummies and they had calories. She mentioned that the collagen I put into my smoothies had added calories. She pointed out that the smoothies themselves actually could be reduced in calories if you thought about it, and used different natural foods to replace the other natural foods that had more calories. JUST by paying more attention to what I put into the mix made a massive difference. I had NO IDEA I was adding over 800 calories to my morning smoothies but I was. Things add up. Here are the two smoothies (basically) and you can see for yourself.

BEFORE:

1 scoop of protein powder (usually chocolate or strawberry) named brand, good reviews.

1 banana or 1/2 cup of strawberries

1/2 cup of coconut milk

1/2 regular milk

2 teaspoons of chia seeds

1 tablespoon of flaxseed oil

1 egg

2 tablespoons of yogurt

Spices: cinnamon, ginger, paprika

Papaya seeds

Honey

Collagen powder

That mix was 815 calories approximately.

By rethinking the smoothie I was able to do the following with much better and greater success calorie and carb-wise.

1/2 cup of blueberries or strawberries

2 eggs

2 tablespoons of yogurt

Some honey, not much

1/2 cup of coconut milk

Water

Spices, papaya seeds, and crushed pills of collagen, not the powder supplement. I reduced my intake to around 300 calories and I take a flaxseed oil pill that has 25 calories, not 110. I literally get the same benefit.   

I gave up the gummies supplements and replaced most of them with a one-a-day vitamin that I knew had all I needed, but I preferred the gummies; who wouldn't? Well, the gummies, each of them, had calories, and when added together I was taking in over 200 extra calories a day just because I liked the texture. I can get over myself now. I have no need to pamper myself or to allow myself to be so slack. I gave up over 700 calories a day just by paying attention!

    On Thursday last I wrote in my journal that I would eat 900-1000 calories a day for the next 4 days, meaning from Thursday through Sunday I would eat 900-1000 calories, work out lightly, as to not exhaust myself, and I would see if there were changes. WOW...there was a major movement. I went from 2200-2400 calories to 900 (maybe even less on Thursday) and by Saturday I had lost two solid pounds, that's a pound a day.  This morning when I woke up I had lost another .8 pounds, a near pound, and there is no way I'm going to stop what I'm doing for at least another week to see if God will continue to bless me and lower the numbers on my scale even further. Please, and thank you, God.

    Well, that's about it, I know it sounds odd, strange, and even unorthodox, but to be perfectly honest, it is the most orthodox thing out there - - trust and obey God and He'll listen to you when you ask for something. I mean, I don't need a million dollars, I need to be healthy. I don't need to be famous, I need to be fit. I don't need to be recognized, seen, applauded or praised. I need to feel vibrant, joyful and be willing to serve. I can only do that with a strong, healthy, clean body and soul. It makes sense, it's science, and it's all 100% God. Thanking Him constantly just doesn't seem like I'm doing enough.  I just can't decide though, and maybe you can help me out by commenting below - - which of my two daughters do you think I should look more like? Should I go for the sexy queen Caity or the gorgeous, athletic Wonder Woman type of Laura?  LOL...maybe both?

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.