Leap Season Begins

2020 is shaping up to be a leap year in more ways than one.  The word leap can be used as a verb—to jump a long way with force. It also works as a noun—a forceful jump or quick movement.  Whichever way it is used, it describes action.

Facts about Leap season:

• February 29 is a leap day.  This day is added to the calendar in leap years as a corrective measure, because the Earth does not orbit the sun in precisely 365 days.
• 2020 is a leap year with 366 days.  It rolls around every four years, except for years evenly divisible by 100, which are not leap years unless evenly divisible by 400. 
• March 8 begins Daylight Savings in the US. This means we leap ahead one hour and that day has 23 hours instead of 24.  I love this anonymous quote about daylight saving time:“Only the government would believe that you could cut a foot off the top of a blanket, sew it to the bottom, and have a longer blanket.”
• March 20 will be the day we leap into Spring.                                                                  

Other Leap Events in 2020:

• November 3 – Election Day.  In which direction will US voters leap? 
• Coronavirus – As we watch it leap from one country to another, we are concerned about its effects. As a result, the stock market has taken a giant leap downward. 

Leap to a better you: 

• Take a leap of faith.
• Faith is the opposite of fear
• Taking a leap of faith says that we believe God rather than what we hear in the world or what logic or fear tell us.
  
   

I can survive a Leap Year filled with uncertainties and scary changes if I take the unchangeable God at his word and rely on him through the next 366 days.

A Spring in My Step

Spring is a much anticipated time of the year that I eagerly await – until it gets here. Then I have to face some of the more challenging things about the season.

• The sun doesn’t come up until after 8:00 am and I have a harder time getting out of bed in the dark. Thanks Daylight Savings Time.
• The deck and car is covered in yellow dust and there is a haze of pollen in the air.  I am using more antihistamines, eye drops, and nose sprays just to make it through the day.
• My closet is a jumbled mess. Heavier clothes need to be cleaned and boots packed away.
• Dust bunnies are visible in the late afternoon sun reminding me it’s time for spring cleaning.
• Baby squirrels busily destroy my container garden of pansies and tulips before we discover their nest under our grill cover.

As new life springs up all around, I am also reminded of the enjoyable aspects of this time of year.

• The ornamental fruit trees are dressed in white, pink, and purple blossoms. The red and orange leaves on oak and maple trees gradually fade into green.
• Catalogs arrive with page after page of colorful spring fashions that tempt me to order the latest and greatest.
• My too late bloomer husband agrees to use on sale coupons and take his semi-annual shopping trip for his furnishings.
• Reminders of the Easter season and the new life experienced in Christ are in the stores and even on the History Channel (Jesus: His Life.)
• My thankful heart rejoices in all the challenges and joys that this season of renewal has to offer.

It's Time for a Change

Jim Rohn Quote

I am a BAH HUMBUG protester of Daylight Savings Time. It will take me at least a month to adjust to government imposed jet lag. I know some of you think I am crazy because you like the extra light at the end of the day. But I miss the sun streaming through the windows and the chirping of birds in the early morning. As a result of the time change, kids in Georgia have to once again wait in the dark for school buses creating a safety issue.

OK. I am done complaining. Now I can tell you why I celebrate change most of the time.

Gibbs Gardens

Just look around. Change is everywhere. Here in the South the landscape is exploding with new life. The white Bradford Pear trees, the pink Red-Bud trees, and yellow Forsythia are putting on the earliest and prettiest display I’ve seen in years. Can you imagine how bleak things would be if the trees and flowers stayed in their dormant state—refusing to bloom and shower the air with pollen and seeds? The purpose for which they were created would no longer exist and in a year or two all plant life would be dead.

People tend to avoid change because it involves risk. And risk is something we want to avoid at all costs especially as we grow older. There are some changes I’m facing as I’ve grown older that I’m trying to embrace.

1.     My body is slowing down and more things hurt. 

When I tell others how my liver transplant changed my life, I comment that “Now I get to have the aches and pains of old age just like everyone else.” While some might see that as a curse, I see it as a blessing. One hundred years ago people died at a much younger age and if they had a terminal disease like I did, they never would have survived. How can I embrace physical changes—keep moving and not give in to my aches and pains? To help keep me active, I am in physical therapy to loosen tight muscles in my hips that have caused me a lot of discomfort. The therapy is painful but productive.  It will allow me to keep active.

2.     My brain is not as nimble. 

There are days that brain fog takes over and I struggle to complete ordinary tasks. Gone are the days when I could multi-task and do three things at once. The big project I signed on to last month, seems monumental today. My solution:  Take a day off, and let the brain and body rest. I have a friend who calls this “aggressive resting.”  It an oxymoron, but it works. One of the advantages of growing older is that I can usually set my own schedule and get back to work when my energy returns.

3.     My stuff is overwhelming and I am less disciplined.

I have to practice discipline and vigilance to keep from becoming a pack rat and clutter collector.  I am not as organized with my stuff as I used to be. The changing season is forcing me to deal with my stuff, whether I want to or not. The first day of spring is March 20 and the weather this year in Georgia is right in sync. There will be still be some nippy nights, but mostly warm days are ahead. I am trying to pare down my closet to those things that fit, look decent, and are season appropriate.  For every article of clothes I buy, I pledge to donate at least two more. Now, I need motivation to deal with office paperwork and others projects that are stacked up. Getting started is half the battle. It’s like exercise, I feel a lot better after I’ve made the effort.

4.     My spirit desires a closer relationship to my Creator.

During this Holy Week leading to Easter, I want to spend more time reflecting on the great gift of salvation provided through the death and resurrection of God’s Son, Jesus. It is so easy to let all the other demands of spring crowd out the most important event in human history. My body and circumstances may change, but “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” (Hebrews 13:8)  Jesus never changes, but I have to constantly change so that I don’t become stagnant and useless in serving Him. The following quote by Gail Sheehy – motivates me to embrace all the changes that come my way.

“If we don't change, we don't grow. If we don't grow, we aren't really living.”

Climate Change Reflections

February was definitely a month of climate change in Georgia. First we had SnowJam 2014 when every interstate and side road in Greater Atlanta area was locked up in a massive traffic snarl. And snarling is exactly what people did as they spent hours and even nights in their cars. The salting trucks couldn’t even get around the mess. Two weeks later IceJam 2014 closed down schools, offices, and stores. Everyone had to stay home until the ice melted. 

As soon as we defrosted, Charles headed to Ottawa, Canada for a wind tunnel test. Now that was one cold and snow packed city. But he dressed for it and actually enjoyed seeing all the ice sculptures in the park across from his hotel.

Less than one week later, we spotted a gorgeous pink Eastern Redbud on the road to our office. It only took a few days— with temperatures in the 20’s to temps in the 60’s— and that tree burst into full bloom.

I have a real issue with the climate change scientists who declare that humankind is solely responsible for warming up our planet to the point where catastrophe is awaiting around the corner. During the coldest winter in decades, people have been left helpless before the onslaught of plunging temperatures and mounting snow. I choose to believe that the natural forces put in place by our Creator are the deciding factor when it comes to climate change. Yes, we should all be responsible citizens and not pollute the air and water, but we don’t need to destroy jobs and our economy to do it.

To all my friends and family in the northeast and other colder climates, I know you are so over winter and are counting the days until March 21-the first official day of spring. In the meantime we have March 9 and the return of Daylight Savings Time. How did that get here so fast? I much prefer more daylight in the morning and less at night. But, once again, nobody asked my opinion.

 

I defer to the wise words found in the Bible. Genesis 8:22 says it all. "As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease."  

Stay bundled up and look forward to warmer days ahead.

If Winter Comes

Our area was experiencing weeks of rain—not what I sometimes call “liquid sunshine”—but the raw, cold kind that seeps into bones and affects attitudes. The groundhog hadn’t seen his shadow, but I was very skeptical about his prognostication of an early spring. Since I had errands to do, I couldn’t hibernate. Water from an eighteen wheeler sprayed onto my car windshield, and I slammed on my brakes muttering as the truck took a sharp right turn into a local nursery. Emblazoned on its side panel was a brilliant picture of Encore Azaleas—one of my favorite flowers and the inspiration in May 2012 of my first blog article “Life’s Encore.” The colorful azaleas painted on the truck reminded me that winter rains are necessary before spring can emerge and beautiful flowers bloom.

One of the advantages of being a senior adult is that you can develop perspective on your life. You can look back and recognize challenges you’ve experienced and how they were resolved. Some of the most significant events in my life occurred after bleak and long winters of my discontent. (“Now is the winter of our Discontent”-William Shakespeare, Richard III, 1594.) 

It was March 1965 when I first experienced deliverance from a winter of chronic depression and found joy and peace when I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior. My long, lonely winters of widowhood ended in March 1996 when I met and soon married my late bloomer husband, Charles. It was a beautiful spring day two years later when I received the call to go to Emory University hospital for my liver transplant. My eighteen year long winter of failing health soon became a spring of restored life.

Every year I gladly lose an hour of sleep when we change to Daylight Savings Time. Even though I suffer through the sneezing season and an abundance of southern pollen, spring remains my favorite time of year. The poet, Percy Shelley, said it best in Ode to the West Wind:  “If winter comes, can spring be far behind.”

All the nitty-gritty details of the winters, springs, and other seasons of my life are chronicled in my memoir, Born Three Times-A New Life, A New Liver, A New Love. Thank you to all of you who have read it and encouraged me with your positive comments. For those who still want to order an eBook or soft cover edition, click on the “How to Order” link above.