The Only Thing That Doesn't Change is Change

You can say what you want about life - but you can at least be assured that if you wait long enough something about your life will change. I've often said the only thing that doesn't change is change itself. I've also heard it put this way: "The only absolute is change". I agree.

We go about making plans and then the facts fall into place and we have to adjust and make new plans. Somehow however, it always works out. It doesn't always work the way we want, or the way we expected, but there's just as much to learn from the new as there was from the old. I am of course talking about my current situation. I am still teaching. I will probably always teach in one form or another. I am also selling books online, and preparing to write another book. I've been working on a children's book, a novel, and God knows what else. I'm also probably always going to write. I'm speaking, giving direction to those who call me and ask me to give them direction or inspiration. I love it! I live for those moments. Why someone would believe I have it all together is beyond me, but I do come across as being rather collected in person. God knows the real me. There is something else I'm doing again; I'm selling insurance again.

This time I'm selling for AFLAC (American Family Life Assurance Company of Columbus) You know them for their crazy duck commercials...I remember them from the 80's when I wanted to sell for them but my managers and those I knew in the business said they were a "fad" and wouldn't be around for very long. HA! They're not only around today, but AFLAC is a Fortune 500 company, one that has been written up in many Fortune type magazines for being the best loved and respected company and the most ethical. The ethics of any company will win me over every time. EVERY time. I recently filed a claim with State Farm, a great and honored company. However, because I had purchased the policy only days before my truck was broken into and my laptops stolen, State Farm has decided to make me wait more than 120 days to pay - and they put me through a deposition which wasn't scheduled in a timely manner, and I've been treated in my opinion, as the criminal. I'm really NOT happy with State Farm and of course I left.

A company is ONLY as good as their claims department. So after years and years of carrying State Farm (renter's was a new policy) I have decided to change - and I did. Change can be good. Change can be VERY good. I'm looking forward to so many changes going on right now in my life, and in the lives of those around me, my kids. Reuben is now living in Indiana with us. He's joined the National Guard, and will be a National Guard Recruiter very soon. Changing his life from dullness and depression in Oklahoma to exciting and worthwhile surrounded by friends and family. Laura too, is joining the National Guard, where she will be a supply clerk but work at Starbucks most of the time. Reuben will be a drill sergeant on drill weekends and YES he's excited to be Laura's superior! Caity has changed the most. She's a mommy now, and though she's not working, but she is studying to sell insurance and will work with me once she gets her license and has the time to learn the field training. Brandon...well, he's been evolving since we met him over two years ago. He's really matured, works extremely hard when he has a good job to go to, and he's the best daddy in the world to Copeland.

COPELAND...that's our #1 change around here. He's our boy, our pride, our every reason to breathe. Cope turned a year old this past April and he's up and running, talking, giggling, and being the best boy ever. What's up for tomorrow? Who knows? God of course, but for me I just wait until it happens and pray it will be the right thing for us. I'm always on the watch of course, but when change comes I try to roll with it, and if it doesn't come - - well, that would be a change.

I've Lived at Least a 1000 Years!

Some nights I sit here at the computer and stare into the open blank screen and think to myself "There has to be something I want to talk about, why am I not writing right now?", then it hits me, I'm usually just too tired from all the living I've done over the past 12-15 hours I've been awake! It seems lately that every morning I start the clock over again - - and someone somewhere needs me, can't live without me, has to have my advice RIGHT NOW! When did I get to be this important? When did I get to be this trusted? It must be that I'm like that old horse in the barn that's been there and done that, and no matter what you throw at me I'm going to be too calm and too understated to be upset about it. 

I'll probably breathe at the initial shock of whatever it is that this person thinks is so vastly important that I have to stop everything I'm doing (including sleeping in) to help them survive this newest and most disastrous peril. It must be that I have experienced something like this; therefore I MUST have a solution. Or, and probably more accurate, it could be because I'm the mom. I'm only 50, so I can still say with a clear mind that I remember the 60's. I was there. I was a kid, but I do remember them. I remember the Vietnam Conflict, our president claiming on television that he wasn't a crook. I remember noodling, fishing with my hands in the river. I remember climbing trees before I could read. I remember walking for MILES away from my home at night, and riding my bike even further, and not being afraid that someone would kidnap or harm me in any way. 

I remember when moms made our birthday cakes and we licked the bowls clean. Funny, I remember what I was wearing when I jumped off the cliff at Falls Creek Church Camp into shallow water, but I don't remember hitting my knees. I've seen pictures of them all bruised and battered but if it hurt I don't recall that. I've patched up more scrapes and cuts than I care to mention and there's NO WAY I could tell you about all the times I snuck into or out of someplace I wasn't supposed to be. Still, I have to pretend to be upset if one of my kids does something too similar to what I got away with...is that OK? For me to just pretend to be upset? Inside I'm sort of giggling about it. Does that make me a bad person? I grew up somehow, even after drinking creek water with tadpoles in it. I did survive! I made it to 50 even though I bought more than a dozen Volkswagen Beetle Bugs, put a bit of work into them, drove them across the country to L.A., and sold them for FAR too much money so I could live off the profits and not have to actually work. Where did I ever get the idea? How did I ever pull that off? I grew up somewhere between the cheerleading, gymnastics, football and baseball games, the rodeos, stand-up comedian work, and all those times I begged McDonald's and Taco Bell to give me just one taco or burger so I could live another day. That was when a manager of a restaurant felt a bit sorry for a skinny dirty-faced kid with barn mud on her boots and straw sticking to her hair.

Hollywood was fun. After the horses, the dogs, the friends, and high school I worked my way to the limelight and then stayed absolutely clear of it. I worked behind the scenes writing, dancing, helping, driving, doing anything but acting, and made it in 11 films and a few sitcoms as an extra. I was perfectly OK with it too, just as long as I didn't have to look into the camera. I don't have ONE CLUE as to why its "eye" scared the hell out of me. I hated it; although there was this one guy that worked the lens in Hollywood that kept my attention - - I'd take 1983 back if I could. I'd do those Hollywood nights another go-round if I knew what I know now. Who wouldn't start over? I ran home you know. I ran! Got scared out of my wits; too naive and country for the real grit. 

Since then I've lived again but it's not the same type of living. I worked, I married, I had kids, I went to school, divorced, fought for custody, gained weight, got hurt, got over it, bit the bullet, paid the bills, and found a way to say grace every day too. Grace was the most important part of my life then and it still is. So I wake up now, I look at the clock and think to myself "Tomorrow all of what I do today will be yesterday. I better make it work", and somehow, probably by Grace; I do.

To Fire or Not to Fire

I'm on the fence right now over the new Kindle Fire. I'm SURE an Apple iPad would do everything I wanted it to do, and probably a million things I had no idea it could do, but I don't want to pay out over $600 for it. I'm waiting on them to go down in price - - and they do. Kindle Fire offers more or less what I need such as reading, viewing, browsing, and watching TV/movies, but the iPad does more of the other things I want, namely e-mailing and editing of documents. Both have a wi-fi dependability that doesn't make me happy. I'd like to have the capability to use the iPad and/or tablet as a passenger in a car without worrying about signal going in and out. There's that. There's also the fact that the Kindle is smaller and easier to put into my purse! AAAGGGGHHHH!! I'm sure something will come along to help me make up my mind.

I was even playing around with the thought of just going without a tablet, but I could use one. I'm forever mistyping on my iPhone because my fingers are just too big, and I can't and won't carry my big laptop with me. It was smaller when I bought it, but now it's a giant compared to the technologies available. It's not that I have to be connected but I like to be. Actually with my job I don't have to be connected whatsoever, I can teach and go home and live in a cave and no one would care unless I didn't show up for work. Next year will be a different matter. I'm going to be teaching online courses and having the tablet will be so much easier than carrying the laptop into Starbucks and setting up shop. I do that, I go to Barnes & Noble, Starbucks, maybe even outside if the weather is nice, and I tell the students where I'll be in case they want to come by and have coffee with me. It will be very necessary next semester to have either the iPad or something like it; so I was hoping that the Kindle Fire would answer these questions for me.

In a few reviews I've found the Kindle Fire is NOT meeting up with the expectations of the purchasers. In one report the owner actually said she would throw the Kindle Fire into her fire if it acted up again. I don't know what she was or wasn't able to achieve with it, but I am NOT a geek - I am a dork. If I have to do more than turn it on and type there could be a problem. The Kindle Fire I'm told, is more for uploading and downloading, or as they say "pulling from the cloud" to give me the tv/movies and books or magazines I want to view. Well, I want to do more than view. I want to interact, design, create, move things around, e-mail, maybe even use it as a camera if it has that capability....how funny would that be, it would mean the return of the larger camera again.

So, it's the iPad for me I guess. Better start putting the pennies away now. Maybe Acer or HP can make something as good. I say this as I remember I have already thrown out a number of LG and Samsung phones with Android capabilities that were suppose to rival my old 3G iPhone. I'm keeping it. Fat fingers or not, it beats the heck out of the touch pads I've been playing with. I guess I answered my own questions. See how rewarding blogging can be? Just imagine if I could do this on the move...and I can, but just not today.

You Just Can't Please Them All

Laura and I have been the fodder for a young girl's rants online lately, and there really isn't anything we can do about it. She (the girl, we'll call Kate) has a bit of a mental illness and I asked Laura politely once to be kind to her because of it. This would be kinder gesture on my part led to Kate's feelings being hurt and suddenly I'm the "bad guy" online. I've been told by friends and people I don't know that I've been marked and/or targeted by her banter but to be honest I'm not that worried about it. If I had done what she claims I have done some one of authority would have already have stopped me right? Maybe not, maybe I'm that clever...anyway, my point is that I just can't please everyone and so I won't really try that hard to do so. If my gesture was taken as pity it wasn't intended that way.

I'm reminded of the time I drove about 150 miles out of my way to deliver a dog to a woman who, after I had arrived, informed me that I needed to take the dog to the vet for a check up. Then I was asked if it would be too much of a bother to pay for the check up because the lady hadn't actually AGREED to take the dog until she knew it was OK. I smiled. I opened the gate to her yard, let the dog out and waved. For that I received a blasting online about how I abandoned animals. Me, the one person who I know goes all out of whack to be sure I accommodate the fuzzies ones...but it is what it is. I'm sure we have all been there, or have stories about how our good intentions or good deeds backfired.

Today Laura and I went to the barn where she boards her horse and I told my oldest daughter that if Kate were there I wasn't going to be mean or nasty, I wasn't going to ignore her as Laura had suggested, I was just going to be as nice and sweet as I possibly could be so that speaking poorly of me again may be harder on the kid. Who knows, maybe she just didn't want to be treated nicely. Maybe that was my bad, and I should have just let the chips fall. There was (and I am thankful) absolutely no drama! Lots of mud though. We were slinging it, but it was the real mud we were mucking through and not the type you throw with innuendo! Viva la Good Deeds, I say. I believe we should continue to be nice, continue to be sweet, continue to be the great people we were made to be, and if the nay-sayers don't like it, well they can eat a worm...no wait, let's make that a gummi worm. I don't need anyone writing how I was belligerent to the needs and caregiving of our slimy friends in ponds and creeks.

Back to the Chalkboard - Or More Appropriately, the Whiteboard

So, I'm happy! I woke up happy, and I'll probably stay that way! I am about to start a new semester of teaching Ethics, Philosophy and English! YES! I'm one of THOSE instructors who just loves to get out of bed and teach someone something. It makes my day to see just ONE light bulb pop over a student's head. When the eyes open up, and the mouth drops just a tad - and then, wait for it....the SMILE! They get it! YEA!!! There aren't many teachers and/or professors out there working for the money alone. We wouldn't be doing what we do if we did. Nope, we'd be at the Financial Planning offices downtown, uptown, or on the streets peddling futures. Instead, I'm in the classroom training for the future. Hey, I'm selfish! What can I say? If I can get these guys to open up their minds and take real responsibility I'm that much better off considering they are my future. "Learn them well" as my old Philosophy prof used to say! "Learn them well".

This semester I'm teaching 5 classes: 2 English Comp., 2 Ethics, and 1 Intro to Philosophy. The Philly class is on Saturday mornings from 8-12 so we'll be up and at it before everyone else, just laughing and carrying on. One of the requirements is to bring your breakfast and pour my coffee for me when I get too busy and let it go cold. I'm all about team work. Socrates is one of my favorites to discuss. He and Teddy Roosevelt do as much as they can to teach my students what it is to be both intelligent and responsible with intelligence. If it weren't for Socrates I'd probably be one of those people thinking I knew too much, and perhaps I'd become arrogant as well. Socrates reminds me daily that I probably don't know anything at all really, and to delve too deeply into a subject may reveal to my brain that I was correct in assuming how very little I truly know. Then again, the fact that I want to delve is good - right? I think it is.

Teaching English is much more of a classic instructor's role for me. I'm required by the rules of the college to have the students meet criteria necessary to progress. We prod and trudge through academia on a much more traditional path; no one is asked even once in my English class to stand up and role play their favorite blabbermouth or explorer. We write, read, create, and revise. I like teaching English very much, it brings me back to reality. Reality is a good place to hang out from time to time, but my home is somewhere back in the mind. I'd rather think, dream, believe, and create than be, dare I say, civilized. At least I'm the Fun English Instructor. At least I have the same goals of seeing the students smile and laugh their way through the drudgery of developing outlines or determining how many adjectives should properly be applied to one paragraph. (For the record I require 15 adjectives per paragraph, and 8 sentences minimum)

Today is not a teaching day however. I must go back upstairs and put things away both in my room and in the closets. We've recently moved and though all of the boxes are now properly placed into the correct rooms I am finding that my room is so very hard to move around in. Boxes, bags of clothing, books, shelves, and shoes clutter my way. I put the 12 full boxes of CDs in a hall closet; my iPod holds their content. There will be a day when these plastic pieces will be valuable...like vinyl was. Remember LPs? No? Well, they were awesome. Go forth and learn something today! It will make you feel fantastic.

Green - a Poem

Green the grass rolls yonder
Setting fragrance free
Breezes flower, blooming
Bursting at their seams

Honeysuckle, Daffodils
Roses, creep like Myrtles
Draping. Swing. Mad Willow
Bend and show the world

Bend and show to everyone
The Oak is not so strong
She holds her ground,
But breaks to Wind's harsh song

Sing your songs sweet Sparrow
Counter speak the Doves
Listen Willow, feel them
Hiding in your gloves

Green your leaves drape covering
Busily sweep the air
Not for me to question
Not for me to care

Creep the Myrtles purple
Bloom and give to green
Willows kiss the future
Winter hands off to Spring

-- Jude Stringfellow
2010

Zen Baby, Zen!

It's so funny! These babies, they think they can get one over on me. No way. Please, I've been zenning babies since 1986. I have it down to a science. Within a minute or so after I pick a screaming squealing kid that simply won't shut up I can have him or her flat on their backs resting in their cribs and either sound asleep or in that hazy-lazy spot of zen-perfection. Easy stuff. All I have to do is put my little ipod on New Age music, maybe something Celtic, maybe something Oriental with dings and pings and little tinkling bells....that's it. Happy, cool, calm, collected baby. I set the leathery soft over-the-ear headsets on large so they don't fit tightly, but snug enough they can hear it all. I can hear it too, so I turn it down just a notch as not to hurt the tiny eardrums, and before I can say "Highland's March" the baby is out! I asked Caity to assist me with this project of course before Copeland was even born. When she was 3 or 4 months along I asked her to put the headsets over her belly bump so he could feel the vibrations. I wanted to spend the extra money and get her some wireless headsets but never got around to it. I do watch the cords when I set him down to be sure he's not tangling himself in them. He's gone - - out. I can hear him every now and then cooing something or making a very satisfied sound such as to say "Don't bother me Granny, I'm listening to David Arkenstone at the moment and can't be disturbed." He even moves his arms around like he's conducting. He wants to have his music played for him, he cries for it..literally. If I had to guess I'd say his favorite are the Celtic Christmas tunes or the band 2002, which is more New Age zenny and he likes the harp. That much I know. So, go on you old-fashioned grannies out there rocking, carrying, pushing, strolling, and driving your grand babies around to shut them up, not me..we zen. We zen, and we zen, and we zen. As soon as he's old enough we'll meditate with headsets on and I'll take him to a music store so he can pick out the instrument he wants to play. I don't know all there is to know about babies, but I do know, there will be music.

Happy Daddy's Day

I have a father of course, and I want to take a minute and acknowledge him today as it is HIS day. It is Father's Day and he is a wonderful father. He and I didn't (and don't) usually agree on anything whatsoever, but I still consider him to be wise and wonderful. He's fantastic in so many ways. Happy Father's Day Dad!!

I have another father I want to think about today and congratulate. Brandon! My grand baby's father. Brandon is just a young man, a very young man in fact, but he's a daddy, and today is his very first Father's Day. Today he was served his breakfast in bed (thank you Caity) and he was allowed to lay around, not do much, and watch anything he wants to on television - - it's HIS day!! He's choosing to spend his day of course with Caity and Copeland. They're going to go on a walk later on I imagine. It's too wet here in Indy to go to the Zoo, but he'll make up for that soon. He's going to be watching movies with them, playing, and hanging out. I told them about a new trail that Laura and I found, so I'll watch Copeland while he and Caity explore that. It's concrete and doesn't have all the slippery slopes that the nature trails have, so the rain outside shouldn't be too much of a factor. He's not made out of sugar, he won't melt.

So, Happy FIRST Father's Day to Brandon - - he's been a great daddy to Copeland since before he was born and I think he'll be a winner for a very long time. I have to really stand tall on my tippy-toes to hug him, he's about 6'4" but I did manage to get it done!!

Apparently I am Jeff Saturday!

It must have something to do with the fact that my son loves Jeff Saturday's beard, or because Saturday wears number #63 on his Indianapolis Colts jersey because Reuben wore #63 when he played for his high school team. Whatever the reason is, it is only known to Reuben, but he has donned me to be "Jeff Saturday".  I have been called so much worse, I assure you. 

Whenever I need to make a point to Reuben I do so by using football analogy. If I can't use a comparison to something dealing with football, I try to use the next best thing; war. Somehow football and war are close enough that no matter what my point is, I can usually make it by finding something to relate it to using either of these two subjects.  

Well, today I was telling my son that I need to be more of a team player, more blended and less noticed. I recently lost another job because I was curious and asked too many questions about ethics and oh, I don’t know why it is, but I usually expect my employers to actually have ethics from time to time.  I was working for an insurance company in Indianapolis, a new company mind you, not the one I was working with just a few weeks beforehand, where I had quit due to the fact that the boss fully expected me to work for free without paying me after I sold $22,000.00 in annualized property and casualty premium – small things like that sort of bother me.  I was working for the new company, and they had flown me to Chicago from Indy to train for a week. I made it past the first night OK, even though I had to pitch a fit when they had tried to double book my room allowing another woman whom I had never met before be my roomy for the week. That’s a no-go. 

While there, and I mean the first few hours of the first day, I managed to get myself into more trouble again, by asking why it was that the company trainer was asking us to break about sixteen laws and to be overtly immoral to boot? It was a valid question. I sat in the front row of the training room, a spot I always take, because to me, if you’re worth anything at all you’ll place yourself near the trainer so you both ask questions and see clearly if there are any presentations to be made.  I was not alone in my thought process; a man by the name of Marty Kapp joined me at the front of the room while all the younger, less experienced sales agents were sitting so far back that at one point the trainer gave Marty and I a head nod thanking us for paying attention.  She even leaned in and thanked us, but for all of her gratitude she failed miserably when it came to expecting her new agents to play the game correctly, or by the book! 

I wasn’t there for the first lunch, we’ll put it that way.  Within an hour of her presentation the woman managed to ask us to break at least two truly impenetrable laws which if we had been caught doing would have meant losing our licenses for sure; yet there she was demonstrating exactly how to get around every rule! Marty, an ex-police officer, Navy man, and good guy all around, just shook his head at her and then turned to me and said something like, “When you walk out of here, I’m right behind you.”  Marty and I shared a quick lunch before both of us packed our bags and made our way to the airport to fly back to our respective homes. I was going back to Indy, and he to Ohio.  I called Reuben (again) and asked him to pick me up earlier than he had anticipated. 

Reuben looked at me from the driver's seat of the car and said "You know Mom, I'm getting a little tired of picking you up early and finding out that you lost your job because you think something isn't legal, or you think something could be done another way. You need to be more ... you need to be more like Jeff Saturday and less like Peyton Manning. Peyton has a right to know what's going on down the field, he's the leader, he's the quarterback, he's the one with the win or lose on his head. YOU, and Jeff Saturday, need to keep your head down, one hand on the ball, one hand on the ready to guard, and listen to full count before making your move. You never know, the QB may just call an audible at the last second." And with that I realized my son was actually being more like me....and I understood everything he was saying to me. It wasn't that I wanted to cause trouble by asking the trainer why they were allowing or even training us to break the laws, I just wanted clarification; and understanding of the situation. What I got was an ejection from the field for being up in the Head Coach's face during a play when I should have been on the field minding my own business with my hand on the ball and my head down, waiting for the count to snap. I get it.  

Reuben explained that Saturday, as the Center, is in the middle of it. He's strong, quiet, paying attention, forceful but controlled, and he's the one the ball belongs to until he gives it away. I'm supposed to give my knowledge, training, and experience to the situation not fuss with the coaches or the managers about the rules of the game. I get it. Besides, Saturday is a Pro-Bowler and he's cute too. I can be cute. I'm not gonna rock a beard like his anytime soon, but I can do this. I can be Jeff Saturday...he's cute, I can do this.  

Copeland Elijah Wayne Stringfellow

Caity woke up April 26 with a bit of a pain in her back, but thought she would be sent home if she went up to the hospital to be checked. She had been checked a couple of days beforehand, and was sent home. The nurses told her that Copeland wasn't going to be coming for at least a week, but Caity felt that she was already a week overdue. She was trying to get the nurses to understand that she had made a mistake in her previous calculations - - she felt that the baby was now overdue. (She was right!)

Baby Copeland Elijah Wayne Stringfellow came into the world at exactly 3:26 p.m. weighing just under 9 pounds. He was 8 pounds, 15.6 ounces and he was 21 inches long. He wasn't all that happy about being out of the warm belly either. He has a sort of serious minded expression most of the time. I'm not sure he's still really happy with us, but we sure are happy he's here! We currently all reside together until the kids get their feet on the ground; this gives everyone a chance to bond with Cope and give him the secure family feeling he needs. He has been a blessing from the beginning and we thank God for his health, his safe entrance, Caity's health, and all the stuff that goes with being a new member to the family.

Reuben wanted to be at the birth, but had to finish working. I can't even explain the look on Laura's face as Copeland was being born -- she was hiding at the top of the bed behind Caity. Oh, and Caity was something else too - - let me tell you. When the midwife came into the room and checked her, asking her if she needed pain meds or the epidural Caity wasn't sure she wanted anything. I spoke up and told them yes. She was dialated and ready to start getting serious; when I was in that position I was begging for help. NOT CAITY...if you know the girl you'd know she doesn't cry much, and even has a tattoo on the inside of her lip! She just doesn't feel pain like the rest of us...like normal people.

Copeland was born, we all relaxed, and Caity has been just the best mommy. She's a natural. For his part, Copeland is a good baby, a bit fussy, but he's a Taurus. We get that..just like his Aunty Laura and my dad. Can we survive another one? As long as nothing changes we should be fine huh?

Copeland's daddy's name is Brandon Wayne, so that's where the Wayne comes in. My dad is also Reuben Wayne. They came up with Copeland on their own; I think it's the name of a band they both like. We call the boy "Cope" or "Copey" and of course he's perfect....of course.