The Forever Stamp

Have you heard of the "forever stamp"?

Recently someone commented to me that postage had gone up. So yesterday when I needed to mail a letter, I "Googled" the cost of a postage stamp. It's still 39¢. That is, until May 14. Then it's going up to 41¢.

In this Web article I also read that when the postage goes up on May 14, you can also buy some "forever" stamps at 41¢ a stamp. That means you can use those stamps in the future no matter how high postage stamps go.

That caused me to ponder some. How will this work? Why are they doing this?

We have a great team in our office, so I posed that question to them. Here are some of their musings:

• How many of the "forever" stamps should we buy? I'll buy a whole lot and put them back and not use them until the postage goes over 41¢. (That's smart; wouldn't have thought of that.)

• Aha. I'll bet the post office is promoting this to get people to buy a whole lot of stamps instead of fewer stamps. (Think about that!) We've heard the post office is losing money because of people's using the Internet for e-mails and for paying bills. This, in a way, would promote people buying up for the future. Great promotional idea.

• Thinking about how this will work. We're guessing it will be a special printing with perhaps the word "forever" on it.

Isn't this the most interesting thing? You know, I thought "nothing is forever." I do believe in "eternal life" and living in heaven "forever" after death, but other than that, is anything forever? I guess now we can say we have "forever" stamps. I think that's funny, but interesting. Causes me to philosophize. LOL

Those are my thoughts for the day (not my "forever" thoughts ;-).
MB

Parents or Friends?

I thought I would branch out with this post on our blog and write about a relational principle that we have found to be controversial, but freeing for all involved.

That principle is this: When a child in the home becomes an adult and sets up his/her own home either singly or with a partner, then the parenting part of the Mother and Father ceases and the Mother and Father and adult children start establishing an adult friendship. If the parents are contributing financially to the child, then this condition is not yet fully met. This principle is applied when the child is separate financially and has separate living quarters. There is still some say in what children do as long as there is accountability in finances or in-home living.

Many people when they hear this thoroughly disagree. What I'm saying with this principle is that I will always be the Mother of my adult children, but I transition out of "parenting" them and begin to respect their individuality and their decisions and relate to them as equals, much as I do with my other adult friends. Acceptance and respect are the main characteristics of this relationship.

This is not an easy thing to do. I remember when I began to come to this, it was quite an eye opener to realize how much I was still parenting and giving advice. Some of my children were still seeking my approval. As we began to move away from this type of relationship it was hard. One of my children said to me, "I don't like this. You are my spiritual strength. I draw from you."

It was also strange for me because I still felt so responsible for my children's actions. But, as is usually the case, when one in a relationship stops the "relational games," it's as bad as too quickly jumping off the see-saw on the playground. It leaves the other with a strong jolt and no one left to go back and forth with. I think we as a family did okay because we talked and discussed this while the relational transitioning was happening.

Some of the wonderful benefits of this relationship with your adult children are (at least in our experience):
• We are equals. I've learned as much from my adult children as they ever learned from me. It's amazing!
• We are both responsible for our own actions. I am neither responsible nor to blame for their decisions as adults. How freeing, both for me and for them.
• We have all dealt with our expectations. I've worked on mine to get rid of them, and I think they have theirs also.
• When we're together, we can truly enjoy the fun and fellowship. Early on that wasn't true. It seemed when we walked in the door to be together, we all picked up the relationships they had when they were children in the home. That was not good nor was it enjoyable. I think we all realized we wanted something better, not the typical "have to go home, but can't wait to get away" relationship.

There are many other benefits, too numerous to mention.

We've had a lot of criticism from our friends and other family members about this approach, and many have told us how wrong they think we are. Interestingly, our four children tell us often they are glad we have come to this in our family. They say they listen to some of their friends complain about their parents and they're so glad we're at least walking this route in our journey.

I would love for some of our children to speak to this in the comments section on this blog, but since I respect their time and have no expectations, I consider this an invitation if they want to. If they don't, well, hey, that's what it's all about. ;-) And the reason for the invite is: It's one thing for me to say it, and it would be a special treat to hear how they think about it and how it's affected them.

For that matter, it would be good to have a "blog discussion" about this relational principle. Several people tell me they read this blog, but not too many (hardly any) stop by long enough to post a comment. Doesn't matter, it's fun to write.
MB

Plane Schedules and Stress

I've set a goal of trying to write twice a week on this blog. It's a loose goal, but one I would like to try and keep.

The most recent thing that's happened to me and thus it's fresh on my mind is my flight home last night from Austin. Thought I would write about it.

My flight was scheduled to leave at 5:05 p.m. To save the $50 taxi ride from the office to the airport, I hitched a ride with two other people with whom I had meetings. We headed out to the airport at 2 p.m. because the first flight one needed to catch was at 3:30 and the second was at 4 p.m.

First stress of the day was that a huge storm came into Austin about 1:30 p.m. Lightning, thunder, and heavy rain. That was fun trying to load luggage and drive through that rain the several miles to the airport. We made it just getting a little damp. But when we turned in the rental car, it was quite a walk from the lot to the airport pulling your luggage and dodging the huge puddles of rain on the ground plus getting soaked from the falling rain. Fun, fun!!

The other two travelers with me had no problems with their flights. Reason: one went to Aspen CO and the other to Orlando; neither went through Dallas. We had gone up to the Admiral's Club, and each of them left from there to go to their gate. So I just relaxed and waited there as long as I could. Those clubs are really nice and relaxing.

So about 4 p.m. I headed down to my gate. Oops. Flight delayed was flashing and time was reset for 5:30. I noticed an earlier flight at the same gate that was to leave at 2:35 was still sitting there. Hmmmm. . .That was not a good sign.

Soon the flashing sign just posted a brand new flight number and destination. I go out and look at the big sign with all the Arrivals and Departures, and they have changed my flight to a new gate. I alert the others waiting with me and we move to the second gate. We wait another hour plus and here comes our plane. Yeah!

But, bad sign number two: a maintenance man with a big light and a ladder starts going over the front of the plane while it's parked at the gate. My thought: oh, no, they're going to say we have mechanical problems. It was worse. Problem: that plane was hit by lightning upon landing and they would have to take at least an hour to check all the electronics. Within ten minutes we were told this plane was out of service and they were working on what to do with us.

At this time I noticed that the 2:35 flight at my original gate was still sitting there. It had not taken off. The couple next to me kept calling their relative in Fort Worth asking how the weather was. That big storm was going through Dallas/Fort Worth, so we got an update about every thirty minutes.

Soon, but not very soon, we were sent to another gate, our third gate. There we were combined with another fallout group holding green plastic cards. They had been waiting longer than we had been, so they got to board first. So much for being No. 1 on my boarding pass and standing in the A line to get a good seat. Now, it's like being in Line C.

One other tidbit: I was keeping Paul posted on my cell phone about each delay so he wouldn't waste his time sitting at the airport. I kept telling him not to leave home until I was taking off (not just landing) in Dallas. DO NOT!! Problem: My cell phone was losing power. Great! I thought it had a full charge. So, I plugged it in to charge up in the waiting area. When we changed gates, I completely forgot about it. Another, oh great!! Had to run all the way back and unplug and grab it and hurry to get back in line, hoping against hope that I had enough charge to stay in touch with Paul. (By now I'm thinking, what else could go wrong.)

Finally, they said they had found a plane and we were going to load up and take off. This was after they told us we had to all go through the process of changing our boarding passes. We moved to a different area and lined up all the way down the hall. The first person processed took over ten minutes. Being the math person that I am, I am quickly calculating how long it's going to take them to process fifty to sixty people. I would like to tell them this is a bad plan, it's not working. I just tell the people around me that. Before they get the second person processed, they came to the same conclusion and told us to never mind, they were going to try to do this without changing everyone's passes. Yeah!! But they asked us to just stay in line and they will guide us when we're to move.

In the meantime, another phase of storm is going through. The lightning is everywhere and lighting up the whole sky. Austin has been in a terrible drought and it is pouring rain. I'm glad for them, but wondering why I had to be there for the rain to come! JK

Finally, finally they board us. All the green plastic cards go first. We are at maximum capacity, and wouldn't you know. A large man sits in the middle seat and immediately claims both arm rests. I'm scrunched to the window, and I'm freezing. The day had started out very warm and I had packed my raincoat. Smart planning. The flight from Austin to Dallas was worse than a roller coaster. We traveled through lightning and so much rain that it looked like it was snowing outside. All the attendants had to stay strapped in.

We land in Dallas, but because of the erratic flight schedules delayed by weather, there are five planes ahead of us waiting for gates. More delays. I was really doing a number on myself to calm down, relax, take naps, relax, read a chapter, relax. That's harder than it sounds. Plus, I'm not going to drink water and make sure I'm hydrated, because there's not easy access to the lavatory or restroom. Nothing in, nothing has to come out. That was my reasoning. Isn't that bright? JK

Finally, finally we are up in the air going from Dallas to OKC and it's smooth and we're heading home. Boy, was I tired. Probably about as tired as you are reading this, LOL. I'm still freezing, freezing. I sit on my hands, I tuck my hands under my arms, I try to sit on my feet (no socks). I start dreaming of a warm bath and that wonderfully very warm, almost hot (in a temperature sense, and others ;-), body of my handsome feller. Hey, Handsome, I'm coming, I'm coming!!

The good thing about all of this is the airlines I was on. Southwest! They are the best at customer service and trying to make all of these delays as easy as possible on you. I've been on other airlines through this kind of mess and it was not handled nearly as well. The other good thing about this incident is that none, zip, nil, not one of the passengers got ugly. They were all very nice and understanding and did as told. I heard no griping. In fact, one guy spoke loudly to the attendant handling all of this that we all appreciated her and her graciousness. Very nice.

I landed in OKC about 11:15 p.m. I had arrived at the airport in Austin at 2:30 p.m. earlier that day. That's almost nine hours at the airport or on an airplane. A full day's work! LOL It's only a five and a half hour drive! In fact, one girl asked if anyone would go with her to rent a car and drive to OKC. No takers. She also stayed.

Moral of this story: When you can't think of a blog subject, write about your flight. Hopefully others will read and think about their day yesterday and realize it wasn't so bad after all. ;-)

Bottom line: Arrived home safely, albeit tired and hungry and have a real compassion for people who have to travel a lot in their business. Sometimes, quite challenging!
MB

Daylight Savings Time and Other Changes

This Sunday we "spring forward" one hour and go on DST. Losing that hour is quite a change. My metabolism has difficulty adjusting although the "fall back" to regular time in the fall is more difficult.

However my physical body adjusts, I also do some adjusting with every season change; for that matter, I have to do some adjusting to every change that occurs.

Some changes that are difficult, I adjust to but don't fully realize how I've adjusted. The last few years have had some traumatic changes for me.

The job I loved was taken away because the company was bought and the great facility we had was sold. I stayed on with the new company and had a huge learning curve and became an office manager, a properties facility overseer, an HR person, etc., etc. Actually I loved it, but I never go into change confidently and excitedly, but I do love to learn. All the changes have been good and I'm in my third year with the new company.

However that new company was just merged with another branch of the big company, and the two people who hired me and who have been phenomenal supports are no longer with this company. Change, change, change!!

And in the last five years we've had some major changes within our immediate family. Some changes were very hard for me and I didn't perform well with some of the principals, my dear loved ones. However, they have forgiven me and we've moved on to re-establish and re-connect.

And in the last six months I started having a few little health problems, like a fractured hip with unknown cause. Whoa! This is not in my plans for my healthy senior years. What I'm seeing in hindsight is that I've let my physical health go and have pretty much eaten my way through all the comfort foods and slowly but surely gained weight and gotten out of shape. Terrible way to handle change and deal with stress. But that was my choice and the consequences began to show.

So, time to take stock and to do some reworking. Here's the plan: Get this physical body back in shape, and quit taking out my emotional stress and distress on my body and get back in shape.

BUT! This is so blankety-blank HARD!! But success is around the corner!

My goals:

Get back down to my best weight, which is a few pounds below what the insurance charts say I should weigh. I wanted to do it healthily, so I've set a goal of losing two pounds a week. I weigh every Saturday morning and write down my weight. So far, it's working and I've reached each weekly goal. But this is not an easy thing to do. Question: Why is it so dang hard to take off one pound and so cotton-pickin' easy to put on two? I'm six weeks into it and have about six weeks to go. I'm committed!!

Get that injured hip back to being a healthy joint. I've started clogging again and though it was painful at first, I can now do most of the steps. The skip, hop, and slide steps were the hardest. The first time I tried it I was scared I had reinjured that joint. But soreness left and it's much better. I'm also doing one mile on the treadmill every morning and two miles on the bike. That's a have-to every day. No days of rest on this one. I take the stairs always, and try to run up them instead of trudging up. ;-) At first I was a little breathless, but now I feel like a spring chicken! Well, almost --

Get a healthy look: I've started tanning. The last two years I didn't wear shorts because I was so whitey white. I'm becoming a golden tan, although a little wrinkled ;-) and that's after getting a little red. Yesterday at work some of the team said, "Are you tanning?" It's becoming obvious. Yeah. I don't recommend this to anyone because of the dangers. However, I'm choosing to do this and I like it. Someone asked me, "Why are you doing this?" My answer: "Just because I want to and I feel better when I have a little color." Actually, I don't owe anyone an explanation. Should I have said, "What's it to you?" Oops. One of my other goals is to try to be respectful and polite. JK

Well this post is a little bit of a confessional, isn't it? One of my other goals is to try and post midweek and weekend on this blog; i.e., twice a week. This morning I could think of absolutely nothing to write. The above is probably too personal to tell the world, but hey, what the heck.

A few years ago Paul and I did much the same thing as I'm doing now. We had a goal of his high school reunion. We wanted to look good. (Isn't that funny how that's true of a lot of people. No one wants to look their age at reunions and thinks everyone else looks so old. ;-) We did pretty well, in fact so well, one of our granddaughters said that she didn't like Grams and Papaw looking so good, almost like movie stars. She preferred them looking normal (like white and fat)? LOL Hey, I like the first part; as if we ever really did look like movie stars, but that's a worthy goal in itself, isn't it? Look like movie stars to your grandkids. JK again.

So if and when you see me again, you'll obviously know whether I achieved my goals. (Remember: looking like a movie star is not one of my stated goals. That's a serendipity and a one-time statement from a granddaughter who was recovering from an illness, maybe not in her right mind. LOL)

I may be successful, I may not. I think I'm learning that most of the fun in life is the journey to, not reaching the end. Is that a copout or a good philosophy? I'll bet you have your own opinion.

We'll see. Thanks for reading.
MB

P.S. For those who don't know, JK stands for Just Kidding in Web lingo (or so I'm told).

March 4–A Special Birthday

Sunday, March 4, is the birthday of a very special person. Our sixth grandchild, Dara, will be 19 years old tomorrow. Unbelievable!

I remember well the day Dara was born. No one was prepared for anything being wrong. I'm from a family of eleven children, my older sister has ten children, I have four. Point being--we're a family who have had lots of babies and it's just part of life, no big deal. And very few of the births had any problems with the Mom or the child.

So, when Dara was born with spina bifida and hydrocephalis, it was pretty traumatic. Her head was triple the size it should be and the doctor said there was no brain activity. I was told the doctor had said, "This is not a human being. Let it die."

He said that to the attending medical personnel. I remember standing over the baby crib in the hospital nursery, silently weeping, and listening to the little non-human being whimpering like a little kitten. I had a lot of questions for God at that time such as, "If this is not a human being, what am I looking at?" Wonder why I believed that doctor? Don't think I really did, but I had questions.

Nothing seemed to be moving in the care of Dara, so her parents began asking questions, and they were told by a medical person not connected with the hospital to quickly get her transferred to Children's Hospital in Dallas. It was there we learned that much should have been done for Dara within the first 24-hours of her life. It was there we were told Dara would be paralyzed from her mid-chest down if they operated, but if they did nothing her chances to live were not very good. Her parents immediately said to do everything that could be done for her so she would live. The doctors in Dallas immediately took action and Dara was properly taken care of.

When the water was drained off Dara's brain and a permanent shunt was installed, her brain became normal size once the pressure of the water was gone. Much of Dara's spine and the connecting nerves, etc., were on the outside and unprotected. The doctors had to cut that away and quickly cover the exposed spine and nerves to prevent infection. Result: paralysis and they removed her ever having the ability to walk.

Those were Dara's beginnings. A new experience for our family. Traumatic but growth material. And that was just the beginning for all of us, especially for her Mom.

Some of the things I've learned by being Dara's grandmother: I've gained such an appreciation for families who have handicapped children; before Dara, I had an aversion to people who were handicapped, now I am drawn to them to relate to them, such a difference. I've learned that Dara can read people better than most people read books. Result? I can't get away with anything with her. She will call me on anything that remotely looks or feels like "spin" or deceit. Yikes! That's scary and funny at the same time.

Tomorrow Dara will be 19! This May she will graduate from high school. She's learning to be self-reliant. Just recently, Dara underwent some surgeries so she could take care of her personal needs without help. Dara's very active in her church. When we visited her church, we were surprised to see her acting as a Greeter in the entrance area. She also helps her Mom with the children's choirs. Recently for a class in school she had to spend a day with someone doing their job. She "interned" with their church worship leader. Dara entered a school election and won! Dara seems to know no limits to what she can accomplish. She's an inspiration to all of us.

So, Happy Birthday to a very, very special young lady! She has plans to celebrate all weekend. She told me recently that she loves having a birthday on the weekends because she can celebrate three days instead of one.

Dara always asks me if she's my favorite granddaughter, and I have to reply, "You're one of my favorites. I have others, you know." She insists she's my favorite! That's rather a joke between us.

One day a few months ago, Dara called and said she needed help. She'd had an accident and her Mom was out of town. I told her I would be there in fifteen minutes, as soon as I could get there. When I walked in the front door, Dara said loudly, "Thank God for Grams!" That's one of my favorite memories with Dara.

And, to conclude: Thank God for Dara. She's definitely a gift from Him, and she has enhanced all of our lives.

Happy 19th Birthday to you, Dara. You're a very special granddaughter (and one of my favorites ;-).
MB aka Grams