Adapting to Change

ALERT!!!! If you're reading this at what you think is 7:00 am, then you under-slept! It's only 6 am here in the Central Time Zone. You missed the "FALL BACK" time change. Thank Ben Franklin for his grand idea. Change came, both in our daylight savings time and change is happening in the trees with their leaves becoming all variations of beautiful color. I witnessed it firsthand yesterday when I traveled home from Tulsa to Frisco. What a beautiful sight! We're even having cooler weather.
CHANGE is coming. It will get even cooler.

This is my favorite time change – the one that “falls back” and for those of us who remembered, we get a much needed extra hour of sleep. We adults can get this and adapt quite readily. But, oh my goodness, I remember when my children and grandchildren were babies and those time changes came and it was a work-out to get them on the new schedule. But, these days, wise young moms have learned to trick the time clock. They start regulating their children's schedule way before last night. They gradually moved bedtime and morning wake up time and nap times later by 10-15 minutes. By the time this Sunday came those little ones' schedule was already tracking the new time change.

I love that. Adapting to change. Rather than cranky moms, dads and kids….be forward thinking. What can I do to make what I know is coming…..an easier, calmer, less-stressful outcome? First of all, I can ACCEPT that changes are inevitable. Like this Daylight Savings time change – it happened whether we liked it or not. Again, thank good old Benjamin Franklin for that! He proposed rising an hour earlier in order to conserve candles, but it didn't take root until World War II, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt started what he called "War Time” in an effort to save resources. Thanks, Ben, & President Roosevelt!" And you can thank me for giving you this piece of American History. You're welcome!

Being willing to embrace change has so many rewards. While I still love my former home city of Tulsa, and the friends and family that live there, because I made the change and moved to Frisco, TX, now I have precious new friends. I'm closer to my family for sweet times that I would have missed if I hadn't "made the change".

Change in our lives is inevitable. We can hold change like the tight reins of a horse and resist it and refuse to submit to change, or we can take off those old hats of “I’ve ALWAYS done it this way, and I’ll never change” or put on those new hats of “I’m going to embrace change – and grow and learn and adapt and be ALL God destined me to be.” Maybe it’s time to rethink that potential new hairstyle, that better job, that computer course to up your game, that circle of friends, that same-oh-same-oh attitude of gloom, doom, and despair. Just maybe it’s time to get a new lease on life by being willing to CHANGE!

Time for Change -- FALL Back!

Summer is officially over….though it has seemed to drag its feet here in Tulsa! We’ve had way warmer temperature than usual…..but hold on…..change is coming. In fact, it’s cooler today – just in time to give a little ARK (Act of Random of Kindness) to my FB friends. I'm wanting you to get that extra hour of sleep that you deserve! Daylight saving time 2016 will end tomorrow morning, Sunday, at 2 a.m., so it'll be best to set your clocks back an hour before retiring tonight!

This is my favorite time change – the one that “falls back” and we get a much needed extra hour of sleep – unlike the Spring time change when it advances an hour and we lose an hour of sleep. We adults can get this and adapt quite readily. But, oh my goodness, I remember when my babies and grandbabies were babies and those time changes came and it was a work-out to get them on the new schedule. They didn’t understand they could get an extra hour of sleep in the Fall. But, these days, wise young moms have learned to trick the time clock. They start regulating the kids’ schedule way before tonight. They gradually moved bedtime and morning wake up time and nap times later by 10-15 minutes. By the time Sunday comes those kiddos’ schedule is already tracking the new time.

I love that. Adapting to change. Rather than grumpy moms, dads and kids….be forward thinking. What can I do to make what I know is coming…..an easier, calmer, less-stress outcome? First of all, ACCEPT that changes are inevitable. Like this Daylight savings time change – it’s going to happen where we want it to our not – we can thank good old Benjamin Franklin for that! He proposed rising an hour earlier in order to conserve candles, but it didn't take root until World War II, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt started what he called "War Time” in an effort to save resources. Thanks, Ben, & President Roosevelt!"

Being willing to embrace change has so many rewards. Last Tuesday night, at our Women of the Madalene Meeting, those sweet ladies gave me a really special tribute because of my move to Texas. I was reminded that my friend and I as President and Vice President, 10+ years ago, saw the need to change the name of our women’s group from “Women’s Club” to a name that would be more inclusive of ALL the women in the parish. We had no desire to be an exclusive “club”. After much thought and deliberation and acclamation by our Board – the CHANGE was made and the group’s name was changed to Women of the Madalene. Did it ruffle a few feathers because “It’s ALWAYS been the Women’s Club – why change?” Yes. But here we are years later and the name stuck like glue….and now other parishes have changed their Women’s Clubs’ names, too. Change was good.

Change in our lives is inevitable. We can hold change like the tight reins of a horse and resist it and refuse to submit to change, or we can take off those old hats of “I’ve ALWAYS done it this way, and I’ll never change” or put on those new hats of “I’m going to embrace change – and grow and learn and adapt and be ALL God destined us to be.” Maybe it’s time to rethink that potential new hairstyle, that better job, that computer course to up your game, that circle of friends, that same-oh-same-oh attitude of gloom, doom, and despair. Just maybe it’s time to get a new lease on life by being willing to CHANGE!

Do You Have SPRING in Your Steps?

Did you ever hear that phrase? It means that we're walking with a bit of a bounce in our steps, implying that we're in a good mood or something good has just happened to us. Think of a coiled piece of metal that pushes back when it’s pressed upon, like the springs in our mattress or the springs on a trampoline. Ever been weighted down with a heavy situation, and suddenly good news came, and you felt light as a feather. You were pressed down and weighted down, then suddenly you had SPRING IN YOUR STEPS!

This time of year helps with adding Spring to our steps and we get a fresh new perspective on life. On Thursday, I had 14 of the most amazing “single” women (single, divorced, widows) over for a Spring Dinner Party. I had a great time preparing for it to make it a special night for these women who are so gracious in volunteering, being so joyful and full of life in our community. One of the games we played was “Who Am I?” I had asked them to email me the answers to these questions: 1) What do you love about Spring? 2) What is your favorite flower and why? 3) Tell us something we don’t know about you. It was such a great way to get to know each other better as I read off the answers from each lady, and they tried to guess who that person was. They had trouble with my response to “Tell us something we don’t know about you”, and I answered “Something you don’t know about me is I helped deliver a baby calf that got stuck. I vaccinated baby calves, put plugs in Mama cows utters because they were stuck, and castrated the bulls.” LOL! I'll bet you didn't know that about me either, did you?

I loved the answers the women gave about what they love about Spring: "It marks a new beginning; I love to see the flowers blooming; I love that it brings Easter and celebration that Christ lives; I love getting to wear flip flops and lighter clothes; All of nature is renewed and it reminds me all the more of God's great love; It smells so good and the birds are so happy; Daylight savings time; Everything starts to come alive; Our world gets filled with color." Now, isn't all that reason enough to have SPRING in our steps?

Spring in our steps brings a breath of fresh air to those we meet and come in contact with. We have the reasons for joy and life and it should exude from us. We should be like a ray of sunshine because we have good news of a great and mighty God to share. We have some wonderful things in our lives that make us different and because of it, we should have that extra bounce to our walk. Like the birds that come singing in the Spring, we should be singing songs of praise and thanksgiving with a "Spring in our Step" everyday! With each step, we should have a smile on our face and love in hearts! After all, WE KNOW the CREATOR of Springtime. He is our Maker and He made us with "built-in" springs that can cause us to always rebound with God’s peace, joy and love each and every day!