~upon saying farewell to Oblio~

A word of appreciation, right off the "get go" to the good men and women out there who make their living cleaning carpets for all of the rest of us in this world.  After cleaning the carpets in my old home in Hutchinson, I realized one thing and that happened pretty dang quickly.  I'm glad that you do it each day and I don't.  "Holy cow!", is the only phrase that comes to mind this morning as I sit here to type this blog post and hope that I can get up again :/

Today is my 8th day to be here in Kansas and it shall be my last one this time around.  Come the early morning hours tomorrow, I'll point the car westward and begin the journey back towards the other side of the big mountain and home to Montrose.  When I left there last Thursday school had just been dismissed for the summer, I'd said my sad good-bye to "the 18", and the new shed Mike had been building was only partially completed.  Time flew, no matter if I was here in Kansas or there in Colorado.  I knew when I came back this trip that I could not stay forever because my new forever is now in another place and time.  But I'm glad that I came back, even with a journey that brings hard work, sore muscles, and a few tears to be shed.  God has been good to me and this trip has been filled with so many of His blessings. 

I came here with the intention of finally and completely emptying my house of its contents, something that I had been attempting to do a little each time when I traveled back here.  This time I have felt a sense of real urgency about the task at hand as it turned into an "if I really can't take it with me and I actually don't need it anyways, well then it's time to give it away or throw it away" kind of moment.  I'm so glad that good friends here in the area helped me out by coming over and taking home the things that I no longer needed but they could still use for themselves.  It was a great feeling, a "freeing" one at that, to be able to just give it away.  I don't know why I don't do more of that :)

I took time yesterday to pause for a moment and enjoy a few last moments with my dear friend and companion for four years now, old Oblio the Roundhead.  Obie has her 4th birthday this month, a yellow cat that has brought me so much enjoyment and love over the course of the last 48 months.  She was one of a litter of 6 identical kittens born underneath the shed of my sister-in-law Paula's house. Those little kittens were so  identical that I'm not sure how it was that we identified the one we took home.  But the one we took back with us to Hutch that day in the summer of 2010 became like a part of the family and when family members leave you and move away, well then you can't help but cry a bit so yesterday that is just what  I did.  That darn cat would absolutely not leave a Christmas tree alone, not for anything.  I guess I will always remember her when I see one and imagine all of the times when I tried to think of ingenious ways to keep her out of our tree.  Not a thing would work, so finally at the end I just gave up trying.  It was easier that way and a whole lot less stressful.   You can only have the official score stand at "Oblio-3,000 vs the Christmas tree-0" so many times before you realize how fruitless the attempt is to keep a curious cat from climbing the tree in the forest that comes out once a year during the month of December.  Geesch, humans can actually be pretty dumb at times.  I know firsthand that is true now. 

I'm nearly done and just getting ready to go back in to complete some last minute things.  My goal is to be finished by mid-afternoon here, still allowing just a little more time to visit with family and friends, see a few sights, and get some much needed rest before making the return trip tomorrow.  The journey will be long, 611 miles long but I will make it.  I have before many times and will do again I am sure.  I will be glad to have a day off to rest on Sunday before I head back to work on Monday morning as a CNA providing health care to the elderly who are still able to remain in their own homes in lieu of entering the world of long-term health care.  I will be busy but that's ok with me.  I tend to get into a lot less trouble when I have a busy schedule and that's a good thing.

For the wonderful days I have spent here, even if they have been busy ones, I give thanks.  Kansas, I love you very much.  Your people are MY people and I will never forget that, not once.  Colorado, I have grown to love you too and your people?  Well THEY are my people as well.  I have missed my dear friends in Montrose and Olathe and I hope to be able to reconnect with a few of them during the course of the summer months ahead.  Back home in Montrose, just outside the city limits in a little 100-year old farmhouse, there is this guy I know and his dog named Sally.  They miss me and I miss them.  After over a week of being away from the Western Slopes, it is now time to get myself back home.  I love you guys all and I thank you for all of your kindness to me.  Here in Kansas or there in Colorado or anywhere in between, I am one very blessed woman.  May peace be the journey you have this day dear friends.  Take care of yourselves and one another. 

She was only a six-month old kitten that very first Christmas of 2010.  I loved that cat and despite the fact that she would NOT stay out of the tree that year, we managed with having her in the house.  Oblio Miller will be just fine, living the "life of Riley" wherever she may be.

A guy I know and his dog.  Sally came to live with us last fall and is a dear companion for Mike.  Every boy needs a dog, I suppose :)

~it all started at Ulrey's corner~

Good morning dear friends and family from the south central part of the great state of Kansas!  It's early, even by my standards as I type these words to you from the small town of Haven.  What a blessing it has been to be able to spend time here with dear family members who have graciously allowed me to lay my head down on the pillow each night after I've finished working at my house back in Hutch.  To my sister-in-law Paula and nephew Christopher, I give you thanks for the kindness you have shown me always.  I miss my dear brother Mike but I feel his spirit here in this town and even in this very room that I am calling mine for a few days more. 

I'm down to the last three days to be here and the time has gone so very, very fast.  With each day that approaches the weekend, I can sense that the time in the hourglass is running out a pace more rapid than even I would have figured.  The house is getting emptier all the time and that is a good thing. In all of the many trips that I have made between Montrose and Hutchinson, I have always managed to take a car load full of stuff back each time and this trip shall be no different.  I smile at the things I find as I am cleaning here, items that never actually made the journey at first but now will be going with me.  My mom's canner that she bought out of the Montgomery Wards catalogue, now 30 years back, will be riding "shotgun" beside me in the front seat.  The last deck of Rook cards that she bought to play her favorite card game with us all has been tucked into the glove box of the car.  In the basement I found yet another box of neatly labeled packages that contained greeting cards that I have received over the years.  They won't be left behind any longer.  What I couldn't take back with me this time was placed into storage here in town and the stuff that I no longer could see to keep was recycled into the hands of other friends and family members.  It was good to let it go to them.

This will be a short blog post because the day ahead is a long one.  I woke up at 2:30 and just couldn't get back to sleep.  My mind is full of a thousand things and when your mind is full then sleep is a little on the tough side to find.  As I have realized many times during the course of the last four years of blogging, sometimes when my mind is heavy with the concerns of the day the very best thing I can do is get my fingers on this keyboard and type away until I have talked out life for a bit.  Then things look better :)  I think that the clock says 3:30 so I am heading back to sleep and catch a few minutes more rest before my alarm says "GET UP" at 4:30.  God is with me here and everywhere else for that matter.  I'm going to be just fine.

From Haven, Kansas where every school morning in my youth, my little sister and I walked from our family's restaurant all the way, miles and miles, to school each day.  (ok, ok it was really only 8 blocks but when you are a kid it surely seems different)  We would cross the street from the highway at the corner where the Ulrey Family lived and just keep on heading north until we made it to school.  All along the way, even walking by ourselves, we were safe and sound.  This is Haven, a place where truly every single person takes care of one another.  As for me, whenever I am asked in this life where I hail from, the answer shall always remain the same.  My hometown is Haven, Kansas. 

Have a great day everyone out there!  Be at peace with life and those that are around you.

From long, long, long ago.  These two sweet little children were the first two kids that I ever babysat for here in Haven.  Now they are adults with nearly grown children of their own.  Babysitting for the Price Family on a Friday or Saturday night was about the best thing you could ever get to do.

I grew up in a place that was quiet and peaceful.  A place where every single adult in town watched out for all of the kids that lived here, ALWAYS.  If you should make the mistake of getting in trouble at school or anywhere else in town for that matter, you didn't have to worry about telling your folks when you made it back home.  They already knew about it, long before you had the chance to fess up about it. 

Haven, Kansas brought these two kids from the land of long ago and far, far away together nearly 40 years after the fact.  I miss that guy and it's time to head back home to the mountains and to him very soon.

~as we have remembered the dead~

From the heartland of America, the great plains of my home state of Kansas I send a "good morning" to you and best wishes for a wonderful Sunday.  This is my third day back here in the place that I called where "home" was for many long years.  It's been nice to stay with family here in my hometown of Haven and to see many of the sights that are so familiar to me from the days of my youth.  It's been a gift to have slowed down a bit, to have stored up many more memories of a time when life was not near as complicated as it becomes when we grow up and have to start being responsible adults.  My greatest worry as a teenager was "Would I have enough money from my tips working as a waitress in my folks' café to fill my gas tank and go with my friends to eat pizza at the 4th Street Pizza Hut in Hutch Friday night?"  Then we grow up and get out on our own, something we desperately wanted to do in the first place, and find ourselves faced with the issues of adult life.  And so we worry about paying the mortgage, keeping ourselves healthy enough to stay out of long term care for as long as we can, and hoping that our children and grandchildren have a wonderful life ahead for themselves as well.  As much as we would wish to worry about it or change things in any fashion, it is what it is and they call it LIFE.

Yesterday I had the occasion to go to the cemeteries around Haven to visit some of the graves of folks that I have known from growing up here in south central Kansas and as I traipsed through the wet grass going from grave to grave, I decided something.  I believe that of all the holidays that the calendar marks each year, Memorial Day will always be the most special to me.  Yep, without a doubt I am going to say that the last Monday of the month of May each year is the most beloved day of my choice and here is why.

I have had the chance to go to five different places of rest, graveyards for the dead in the past two days.  Each time as I began to walk amongst the burial spots of family members, friends and total strangers, I felt as if I was in a sacred and holy place.  The truth is, that I WAS.  Row upon row of headstones told the stories of those folks, known and unknown to me, that have gone on before us all.  A person can learn a lot of history from the dead, that is if you are willing to go to the cemetery in the first place and pause long enough to read some of the messages they have left to us.  At the Laurel Cemetery, between Haven and Yoder yesterday, I watched as a son reverently paused at his parents' grave and then bent down to pull out the grass and weeds around their markers.  He honored and followed the commandment to honor his father and mother.  Other small groups of people cautiously drove along the cemetery path, taking care to stay on the trail so as not to harm any of the gravesites.  I never thought about it before, but what an act of respect that is.  When we were kids and our parents were taking us to the graveyards to visit our family members there, my dad always reached over and shut the radio of the car off just as soon as we approached the entrance.  In the years to come when we kids were old enough to drive our parents there ourselves, we always just automatically did that to our car radios too.  It didn't matter if it WAS your favorite song playing on KLEO radio out of Wichita.  We were taught to respect and show honor always to the dead with no questions asked.  The Scott siblings were taught to respect life and the living and to show equal reverence to the deceased.  I thank my parents for that which they taught me at an early age.  I still know it and practice this day.

The weather here in Kansas has been rather gloomy with little sunshine and lots of much needed moisture coming down.  Word from Mike back home in Montrose is that it is rainy there as well.  I will begin the long journey back home to Colorado on Friday late of this week and with luck shall make it back safe and sound.  I'm soaking in all of Kansas that I can and storing a treasure of memories that will last me for the next months to come.  It was wonderful to attend worship services  this morning at my old church here, Our Redeemer Lutheran, and to greet  so many good friends that I haven't seen in a long time.  I've been Lutheran for the past 42 years and I guess I don't see myself changing that in the future, whether I live here or in Colorado.  I'm grateful for the faith that I have and thankful that there is a God who knows my very presence, my whereabouts always.  He'll see me back over the big mountain later on this week and whether I am on the Atlantic or the Pacific side of the Continental Divide, I'm ok.  I'm always in good hands as I make passage back and forth between here and there. His hands. 

Time to get busy and start this Sunday as I try to finish up what needs to be done here in Hutchinson, Kansas.  Back home, 611 miles to the south west there is a guy named Mike Renfro who is anxious for me to get back there again.  In as much as I love you KANSAS and always will, I'm ready to go home to Colorado and begin life again there.  Come the Christmas season, I'll return once again.  Have a great day everyone out there and take care.  Be at peace with your lives and with one another.  Life is just way too short to live it  any other way.

Honoring the memory of my great-great grandmother, Rebecca Burch at the Fairview Quaker Cemetery.

She will be my next-door neighbor when my time comes to leave this place called Earth.
We lived a hundred years apart but through the stories I have heard of her since I was able to listen to them, I feel like I know her any ways. 

~UPON THE PASSING OF ONE YEAR'S TIME~

     "A year ago today I left my home of forever, dear Kansas, and headed west for a new life over the big mountain and down into the valley to settle in a place called Montrose, Colorado.  I was newly married, newly retired, a flatlander who would soon become a transplant into the Rocky Mountains of the south western part of the state.  I survived being homesick and lonely, being lost and uncertain.  A year later I can look back and see how very much I grew and I changed.  Today's blog post is a pictorial reflection of where I have been and where I figure I am going to in the days ahead. If the old saying is true, that what does not kill you actually makes you stronger, then I am about as strong as a person can imagine.  I'm in Kansas for these upcoming days as I finish up what is left of life here.  Many people have been worried about me, making the many trips that I have back and forth between here and there.  Thank you for the concern~I know that you have my best interests in mind my dear friends.  I'm ok and sometimes it just takes a while to get life completely figured out.  As much as I love this state and the fine people that live in it, the time has come for me to finish up here and to settle down into the life that God has led me to in a place far, far away from where I sit this morning.  Friends and family, I say to you once again how much I love you and hold you close to my heart.  I have not always understood why things happen as they have, why things end up going in the directions that they do.  But this much I DO know and I rest assured in the that knowledge....  Everything that has happened to me in the past, shall happen to me this day, and that which will follow in the future is just a part of a great plan, one set forth just for me.  In those times when I have a bit of fear, I remember that God is with me.  He knows exactly where I am, anywhere or everywhere I may be.  Really, what would I have to fear?  Absolutely nothing.  Have a great day out there everyone with greetings from south central Kansas, a great place to have lived for over 55 years of life."

A year in the life~a pictorial view of the last 365 days of existence on the great planet Earth~

                      Saying "good-bye" to dear bicycling friends in early May of 2013.

Marrying that young man from the "land of long ago, and far, far away" Mike Renfro.  The last day of school for Lincoln Elementary, May 21st of 2013.

 

Every time I see this photo, I have to smile.  The poor skin of "old lefty" is pretty withered and old looking after my accident.  Mike knew how self conscious I am of the way it appears so as we took this photo, he reached over and pulled the skin back to give my hand a more normal appearance.  We laughed until we cried.

Paying a visit to the place where this whole thing got started, 40 years earlier in the hallways of Haven High School where Mike and I are both alumni.  Who would have thought?  Surely not us.

When I saw this sign on the way home just a year ago today, I began to cry.  It wasn't because I was almost to Montrose.  Rather, it was because I realized just how far away from Kansas I really was.  Homesickness had already arrived but Mike understood.  The thought of taking baby steps to get through the next few months began right here, right then. 

By June, these guys began to make their arrival each day as they paraded through the alfalfa fields around our house just outside of the city limits.  My very first friends :)

We made our very first campfire right outside the house and sat out under the stars to talk about life.  Mike Renfro is a very good listener and I really know how to talk, ALOT.  :)  One of the best things we found out about how to handle the stresses of life was to just sit down and talk about it.  He put up with a lot of tears in the early weeks.  I am thankful that he did.

By July, we began to find ways to get me out of the house and to start learning to enjoy life here.  One of the places we frequented on the week was the local bowling alley.  I never could beat Mike, EVER but it was kind of fun to try.  He's a great bowler.  I am not. 

He could beat me with both arms tied behind his back and one eye closed.  Believe me, no kidding.

To my always "less than 100 pin a game" credit, at LEAST I never had to use the dinosaur helper for the little kids.  I'm kinda proud of that :) The months that would follow were filled with many memories and much less homesickness.  THAT was a good thing.  A REALLY good thing.

We saw the view from the more than 10,500 feet in the air atop the Grand Mesa

And were happy to see Mike's cousins and their friends who had ridden their motorcycles all the way from Great Bend, KS. Total strangers became my best friends that day :)

We paid a somber visit to the traveling Vietnam Veteran's Wall at Baldridge Park

And continually watched the skies around us for the danger of wildfires in the forests of our part of the state.

By August life had begun to change and I received the blessing of becoming a fourth-grade teacher at Olathe Elementary.  I no longer had time to feel homesick.  I was way too busy trying to stay one step ahead of "the 18".  Slowly but surely I began to see the purpose and an even greater view of my part of life's plan.

I still practice random acts of non-violent, civil disobedience whenever I can

And I will never forget from where I once came.

Monarch Pass, you cannot scare me and for all of the times I have worried about crossing you, I really had nothing to fear.

WHAT SHALL THE FUTURE HOLD?  ONLY ONE PERSON KNOWS THAT ANYWAYS, SO WHY WORRY?  I MOVE FORWARD WITH EVEN MORE CONFIDENCE AND FAITH THIS DAY THAT GOD WILL ALWAYS PROVIDE THE WAY.

So from here ................

To there and everywhere in between......

I am alive and well this day and I pray always that the same shall be said for you my dear friends and family.  From the plains of the great state of Kansas, the 34th star of the flag, greetings to you all.

 

~upon return~

Greetings everyone from the Midwest and the great state of Kansas~

I'm here for the next week as I finish up things in Hutchinson and visit my family and friends before returning to Montrose at the end of the week upcoming.  The 611 miles that it took to get here this time for some reason seemed like 1,611 instead.  Perhaps that is because I've made the journey more than I ever imagined that I would.  God is good and the trip was without incident.  I give thanks for that, always.  You know, we seem to take for granted those vehicles that all of us drive around in.  That there will never be a flat tire, an empty gas tank, a dead battery, or any other of a thousand assorted problems that some drivers encounter on even the shortest of trips, let alone one like I have made. 

Today I am making the journey over to the cemeteries and decorate the graves of my family members who are buried in the Kansas soil near the Harvey County town of Halstead.  My mother and father, brother and sister, niece and cousins, and grandparents all lie at rest there.  I promised my mom long ago that I would continue on with our tradition of making sure that each person was not forgotten in death and so far, I've been able to do that.  It's a good thing, a right thing, an honorable thing to remember the dead.  I plan to also visit the tiny Quaker cemetery where my earthly remains shall go when my time here is done.  My great-great grandmother, Rebecca Burch, will be my "next door neighbor" and I am thankful to the very good friend I have who encouraged me to not scatter my cremains to the wind underneath some old Kansas Cottonwood tree but rather to have them lain all in one place.  It's a peaceful cemetery and the view is pretty spectacular, as far this Kansas farm girl is concerned.  All around it are wheat fields and old country roads and the home that I spent the first 8 years of my life in is just down the road a ways. 

I woke up this morning and am still alive and well.  There is a reason for me to be here, a purpose in my very existence and if you are reading this then there is a reason for you to be here too.  We see our destiny each day and sometimes the road takes some strange twists and turns, but one foot in front of the other, we just keep plodding on.  Be safe on the journey everyone and be a peace with your lives.  Have I told you how much you mean to me?  Do you know how much I care about each of you?  If not, please consider it done.  You are the best of family and friends that I would ever have asked for.  We may be far apart in miles at times and mountain ranges may now separate us but in my heart you are as close as ever.  Full as my heart is, there is plenty of room inside of it yet.  It is where you are and when I leave to return I intend to take those nice memories of you all back with me.

A few weeks back I said that I was making a new bucket list to begin working on, one that will help me to learn more about my new state of Colorado.  I finally came up with a list that works for me.  Just as soon as I return there, I plan to begin accomplishing some of them.  It feels nice to have a "bucket list" focus once again.  Rather than the 10 item list that I have used before, I narrowed it down to a list of 5 things and shoot, when I get those done I can add more to take their place.  So here it is.......  "Peggy's Bucket List of 2014, version 1"~

1.  To ride my bike once again~I have an overall goal of riding 500 miles by summer's end.  It seems like a small amount compared to what I used to do in Kansas but you have to start somewhere and since I got a little on the lazy side last summer, it may take a while for me to make it.  But I'm going to try.

2.  To visit the memorial near Silver Plume, Colorado where the plane crashed carrying members of the WSU football team back in 1970.  It's a hike to get there but I believe I can make it.  That October day will always be remembered by me and it would be a privilege to be able to see the memorial alongside I-70 where the plane went down. 

3.  To choose 3 sights of interest to see in Colorado and visit them before school starts in the fall.  I'm not sure what they will be but I have been reading up on all of the things that are within a day's drive from our home in south western Colorado, including the Arches over the line in Utah.  Mike is always up to going to do things like that so I will surely have a willing traveling companion :)

4.  To do what I have admonished my students to do over the summer~read a book, or two, or even three.  Even though the summer months are going to be a very busy time for me, there is no reason why I cannot set aside twenty minutes each day to enjoy a great piece of literature.  What's good for children is equally good for adults.  Be ready for my "book report", ok?  :)

5.  To continue to meet as many of my Facebook friends as I can, buy them something to drink and visit about life for a while.  This has been an ongoing thing for me, for many months now.  For those that live so far away from Colorado OR Kansas, it might take a while.  But I'm not giving up the "try".  If I call you "friend", well then I really mean it.  You ARE my friend and I am thankful each and every day for that.

Coming out here to Kansas yesterday, I heard a song on the radio that I hadn't heard for a very long time.  It's a John Denver one called "Poems, Prayers, and Promises".  I loved the words, especially these.....  so for you my friends, may your day be a good one.

"And talk of poems, and prayers, and promises and things that we believe in.
How sweet it is to love someone, how right it is to care.  How long it's been since yesterday and what about tomorrow?  What about our dreams and all the memories we share?"
(the words of the late John Denver)

Last summer, exploring the top of the Grand Mesa and stepping into leftover snow in a warm June day in Colorado.

The view from the top~Rex McMurray's topographical map of the world.  High atop the Mesa.

John Denver's "Rocky Mountain High"~now right outside of my window each day.

My childhood home in Haven.  I used to live in Kansas, now I live in Colorado.  I am the same person and that will never change.

My "secret" overall ambition for the summer is to beat Mike Renfro in a game of bowling and never have to use the dinosaur helper to do it. 

~for the children~

May 21st is the last day of school for the 2013-14 school year at Olathe Elementary.  174 days after it all started that day back in August, it now comes to an end.  It's been my privilege, my honor to be a fourth-grade teacher this year to a wonderful group of kids that I always referred to as "the 18".  I wrote my blog post of that first day, now 9 months ago for them as we started our time together.  Today as we end our time as a class I write this blog post for them as well.  It will be a whole lot easier to write it in these very early morning hours at home than it will ever be to read it to them.  I've said many times before and will say again until my dying breath, there is NO greater calling for me to have followed than to have been a teacher.  Year #36 is just hours away from being in "the books". 

So, for "the 18"~

Dear children,

I guess this may go down as the blog post that was the most difficult one ever to write for me.  I've typed and deleted a thousand words in the past 15 minutes since I began it and just can't figure out what to say to you.  Part of the problem is that I just woke up and it's only 4 in the morning but an ever greater problem is that I cannot read the words I am writing with eyes full of tears.  I think what I am trying to tell you is that even though today is the last day of school and I'm as ready for summer vacation as you are, I will still miss you very much.  The strange thing is that I know you will understand and that is one thing that has made all the difference this year. 

Do you remember that day that we first met one another?  That very first day of school in August?  Man, that sure seems like yesterday to me and to realize that 174 days of school just passed by us in the blink of an eye seems hard to believe.  But they did and in between that very first day and the very last one today we have learned so much. 

I want to tell you something.  Please listen to me and understand that what I am telling you is the truth.  In my mind and in my heart I will always remember you as my heroes. Now I know that many of you have your own "super heroes" because I've seen you write about them, draw their pictures and debate with one another as to who is the finest of them.  But I say to you all that there are many kinds of heroes in this world and some of them are 9 and 10-year olds just like you guys are.  Remember how I told you early on about myself?  That I was lonely and very homesick for Kansas and was just about ready to give up ever finding you all and then "voila" there you were?  By coming to class each day and being to ready to learn you gave me purpose, much purpose in being here.  YOU saved ME and the really special thing about all of that  was that you didn't even realize that you were doing it.  You are young people.  It just comes naturally for you.  Your teacher most sincerely thanks you.

We've learned many lessons during this fourth-grade year and I really wish we would have had more time each day to have learned even more.  I've done my best in preparing you as I could to go on to fifth grade next year.  You are very smart boys and girls, all of you and I hope that you will give 100 percent to your studies as you sit in your new classrooms in the fall.  I have faith in you.  I believe in you all and will check in with you next year to see how things are going.  You, "the 18", are the 36th class I have taught in my career as a teacher.  You will make it, of that I am most positive. 

I will take away so many memories of this school year but the greatest of memories will be those of the lessons of life that we learned together.  I love to teach kids life's lessons, maybe because I've had the chance to learn a whole bunch of them myself in my 58 years of living, many of them the hard way.  Remember that those kinds of learning experiences don't come out of the teacher's daily lesson plan book and you will surely NEVER find them listed within the state standards of Colorado.  Those kinds of lessons are sometimes called "teachable moments" and what a gift it was this year for me as your teacher to have experienced many of them.  Do you remember when sometimes I'd be teaching a lesson and then something would happen and I'd just close the book and we'd talk about something totally different?  Those moments were among my favorite and for us to experience them together will always be considered a blessing by me.

One last thing before I go.  Take a look around you right now and look at the people sitting beside you, in front of you and even behind you.  Remember what I have always told you as we have struggled this year to learn how to get along with one another and work together for the common good in this classroom.

"Do you see them?  You are looking into the faces of your brothers and sisters, your friends and neighbors.  You may not always like one another but for better or worse, it would be to your benefit to learn to accept one another for who you are at this moment in time.  You know the saying "I've got your back"?  Use it.  Practice it.  Believe in it.  Take care of one another and really mean it.  I've always told you that it's great to be a top reader and very handy to know how to do math quickly and precisely.  To be an accomplished  writer is a wonderful attribute but unless you have a heart that is kind and good and you care about what happens to others, it will mean little in the years ahead of you.  You all have wonderful hearts and spirits about you.  Please don't lose them or trade them in, EVER."

This is "it".  We found the finish line for fourth-grade and you have all crossed it.  I have always admonished you that we would never leave anyone behind in our classroom.  We are going together, all of us.  Thank you for calling me your teacher and showing up each day ready to learn.  I love you guys more than you will ever even be able to imagine and you know what I have always told you about what you should do if you ever have a teacher who says that they don't love you.  Please be careful this summer and have lots of fun along the way.  I want to see you back here in the fall and hear all of the exciting things that have happened to you.

Most sincerely,

Mrs. Renfro

Our very first field trip of the year at the Ridgway State Park for bird banding.

OK, OK sometimes I DID feel like this would happen to me.  No matter what, I would not have traded YOU guys for any other class.  We were meant to be together and I never forgot that for one moment.  It's called our destiny.

"If you ever have a teacher who says that they do not love you, then it is time to find another teacher."  Children, consider yourselves most loved.

upon the passage of 9 months time

 

Good morning dear friends and family with greetings from a place far away.  It is Tuesday the 20th day of May in the year 2014.  I awoke this morning and if you are reading this then so have you.  It's a message to us, you know?  A sign from above that says our work here is not through and as the "Good Book" would admonish us to remember-the day has been made just for us and we should really rejoice and be happy in it.  Sounds like a good and right plan to me.

Life has been most good to me and even in all of the struggles and trials my 58 years of residency on planet Earth have shown me, I know without a doubt that my blessings exponentially outweigh my troubles.  Not that things have ever been all that easy but as I sit back and realize how much more difficult things could have been, I surely do have to stop and give thanks.  In the very greatest of things, in the very least of things.  How about you?  Do you feel the same?

It will very soon be time to say good-bye to "the 18" and in all of the classes that I have taught now since 1979, these children may well be the ones that I will remember as having the greatest impact on my life.  As we were doing some of the last things yet to accomplish in class yesterday, I caught myself daydreaming and remembering back to the first day we all had together.  At the first day's end, we all stood together for a picture. 

                                Day 1-Now so very long ago it would seem to be.

One of the very first books I read to them was called "A Taste of the Blackberries" by Doris Buchanan Smith, a great read for children of their ages.  It's the story of two best  friends, a boy named Jamie and another boy who tells the story.  As it would go, Jamie is stung by a bee one day and dies from his unknown allergy to them.  The other boy is overcome with grief and at an early age learns the hard lesson of losing his dear friend when they are only 10 years old. The kids were good listeners as I read it and when we were finished we had some great discussions about it. 

We had a similar experience together when I read Karen Hesse's verse novel, "Out of the Dust" to them in October.  They were intrigued by the main character, Billie Jo, and the struggles she had growing up in Oklahoma during the great Dust Bowl of the 1930's.  We ended up turning it into a social studies/history lesson as we read it.  They began to make a "text to self" connection with the book and it seemed as though each day that I would be reading it to them, I'd notice that they were sitting on the edge of their seats listening intently.  Now that's the power of a good book.  I'm so glad that I was able to share many good pieces of literature with them this year.  Surely, reading with children is one of the greatest rewards a teacher can experience during the course of a school year.  We did just that!

As I was looking back through my blog posts from last August, I came across one that meant a lot to me and am reposting it below if you would so care to read.  It was for them, for the children and one that I shared with them later on in the fall as I began to introduce them to "A View From a Different Window".  They mean the world to me.  They saved me and tomorrow when I tell them this is "it" and that we are now done.......  well, buy stock in Kleenix TODAY friends.  Buy lots of stock.

Have a great day everyone and much love and peace to all of you.

From 9 months ago, August 18th, 2013

A reason for everything, a part of the plan

A very good Sunday morning to you all and as the character Charlotte would have said from E.B. White's Charlotte's Web, "Salutations."  It's so very early in the morning hours here and I am up and on cup of coffee #1 of many to follow for this day.  It will be a long one, a day I have left to finish up everything on the old "to do" list before school starts tomorrow morning.  As I peered into the bathroom mirror a moment ago and caught sight of my very weary and tired face, I'm sure I could have been the inspiration for the phrase "dead tired".  Life made a very dramatic change for me, now 6 days ago when I accepted a position as one of the fourth grade teachers for a wonderful school near here, Olathe Elementary.  I've been on the "run" since that day and although I'm exhausted I couldn't be happier.  So it begins!

As school starts anew, now in about 24 hours, I cannot help to stop and think just what a summer this has been for me.  It may well go down in the "Peggy Renfro history book" as the most memorable summer ever and not because it was all good either.  It's not a government secret or anything that I have been extremely homesick.  Shoot, as I look back over my blog posts from June and July, being lonely for Kansas, my family and friends and the old life I used to have was a very prevalent theme.  I didn't like Colorado and just kept telling people that there needed to be one big fat hole bulldozed between here and my home state of Kansas so I could look back and see through.  My dear husband Mike, whom I dearly love, spent many an evening listening to his new wife telling him that I missed home as  well as generally adding in the phrase, "I want to go back."  But I did not leave.  How many times I imagined a pioneer woman, just like me, whose husband would tire of listening to the incessant whining and simply trade her to the Indians for a new horse or something.  What I am telling you is that he did a whole lot of listening and still loves me.

Aside from the fact that I moved to Montrose to begin a life anew with Mike,  all summer long I have questioned very seriously what in the heck I was doing here.  What was God's purpose in sending me to this place that was well over 600 miles away from my home in Kansas?  Did He have something in mind for me?  What would happen to me?  Would I ever be happy here or satisfied?  I have been full of questions since I arrived here and it was beginning to get the best of me.  And then came last Monday morning.

I'm not even going to try to explain how the opportunity came for me to teach fourth grade this year and perhaps we could just suffice it to say that it could not have arrived at a better time. And as in everything in my 57-year old life, when I finally stopped trying to figure out the reason or the purpose of this all, God made it known to me.  I smile now as I think of Him watching my half-hearted attempts at figuring out what I was supposed to do here and finally after 3 months saying to me, "Hey, Peggy.  If you would just leave this all to me it would be a whole lot quicker and easier for you kid."  

And thus for me, I feel blessed to say that tomorrow begins my 36th year of returning to  a job that I hold near and dear to my heart, that of being an educator.   Never, never in my wildest of dreams did I think it would happen here in this place, south western Colorado.  I've driven through the little town of Olathe a dozen times this summer and not even once did I say, "That's where I'll be teaching some day!"  But at the right time, God's time, it has happened for me.  I know now why I was brought here~it wasn't just some random act in my life's plan that I was transplanted from the flatlands of Kansas to the mountains of Colorado.  Everything that has happened from January of this year until now was a small part my life's plan, drawn out long before I ever even arrived on the face of this earth.  And although I have questioned it  hundreds of times during my 21,116 days of life, I am at peace in my heart that someone who is so many times wiser than I am is in charge of it all.     

Well, it's definitely time to get a move on because this is one day that I cannot afford to trade much "daylight for dark".  The wind is blowing out of the east once more as it comes off of Cerro Summit and my bare feet are a little chilly right now as the early morning breeze comes in out of the kitchen window.  I want you all to know that I am ok and that little by little life has become easier here for me.  Being shown to me what I was supposed to do here has been a blessing to me, a REAL blessing.  Although I will always consider Kansas to be my home, I am happy to finally say that I don't mind living in Colorado and believe me when I say to you, that is a definite change in attitude for the better.  Thanks friends and family for all of the kind and encouraging messages that you have sent to me in the weeks that have passed.  They came when I needed them the most :)  Have a great Sunday all of you.  This is the 18th day of August, 2013~a great day to be alive in and if you think it's good today, then just wait until tomorrow.  It'll be even better.  

 

~sweet Judy blue eyes~

~One of the very last things we have finished up this year in our fourth-grade classroom at Olathe Elementary is to do a report on a famous Coloradoan of our choosing.  I decided that if I  was going to ask my students to do this assignment that their teacher should do it as well.  It's been fun to learn more about the famous and the infamous people of the Centennial State.  My famous person is still living and I decided that my blog post this morning would be the "report" that I'll be sharing with my students in just a few hours more.  It's kind of strange to be the "student" as well as the "teacher" sometimes.  Yet come to think of it, I kind of like it that way.

Have a great day out there everyone and remember to enjoy this day that we have thus been given. 

Mrs. Renfro's report on a famous Coloradoan follows~

      When I assigned you all the task of choosing a famous person from Colorado history to research and write about several weeks back, I decided since I didn't know all that much about our state's famous people that I should choose one as well.  What is fair for you as learners should also be fair for me as your teacher.  I remember the day that we all sat down at our desks, sticky notes in hand and listed our top three choices.  Then little by little in a "lottery" type of fashion, we each ended up with hopefully the number one or two person on our lists.  I told you that I too had someone in mind but would wait until today to let you know who that special person was.  Thankfully, none of you chose mine :)  I'm not sure WHO my number two person would have been. 

     I have listened with great interest in the past two days to your reports of some pretty famous Coloradoans like Buffalo Bill Cody, Doc Holliday, Kit Carson,  Horace Tabor and his wife Baby Doe.  I learned a whole lot of things about this woman they refer to as the "unsinkable Molly Brown" and how fortunate she was to have escaped from the sinking ship Titanic.  Thank you for telling me about those people and many others.  I'm a flatlander, remember?  I have lots to learn about living here in the Rocky Mountains.  Now it is my turn to tell you about the person I chose.  Are you ready to listen?

     When I was a young girl, in what seems like a gazillion years past but really only 40 years ago, I loved to listen to music on the radio as I was falling asleep at night.  Sure wish I still had that little aquamarine one that used to sit on my bedside lampstand.  My folks bought it at the old Gibson's store on 4th Street back in Hutch and gave it to me for Christmas the year that I was a senior in high school.  It was wonderful and the most entertaining thing a kid could want back in the days of the late 60's and early 70's.  At night as I was drifting off to sleep I would listen to music being broadcast from places far away from my home on a farm in south central Kansas. From Chicago, Illinois on a station called WLS or Oklahoma City's KOMA or from Wichita's KLEO, the singers and songwriters of my generation would serenade me to sleep each and every night.  In my imagination, I was there in that place with them, far away from a Kansas farm girl's life in Reno County.  I had many favorites but one of my most loved ones was actually a famous Coloradoan named Judy Collins.

     Although she was born in Seattle, Judy Collins spent her growing up years in Denver, Colorado.  Born the oldest of five children on May 1, 1939, Judy loved music from her early years on.  At an early age she began to study classical piano but later on her attention was turned to folk music.  When she was not all that much older than you are at this time, she began to play with a local orchestra.  She came by her musical prowess quite naturally.  Her father, a blind radio broadcaster, loved music as well.  He was a singer and musician who exposed his children to a wide variety of the standards of American music.  In my opinion, Judy Collins was born to be the singer and entertainer that she was. 

     She received the nickname "Sweet Judy Blue Eyes" after Stephen Stills wrote a beautiful composition with her in mind.  It was really called "Suite:  Judy Blue Eyes" and was a compilation of four songs written by Stills for his then girlfriend, Judy Collins.  They were just about to break up and in his sadness that they would soon depart from one another, he wrote the song in September of 1969.  Believe it or not, I was only 14 years old then but I remember nearly every word to it still this day.  It is your teacher's favorite song.  Always has been and always will be.  It was performed by my favorite group of all time, CSNY (Stephen stands for the "S") at a strange thing called Woodstock.  Some day when you are older, perhaps you shall read about more about it.  The music of my generation was the best of all, although others will beg to differ.  I loved it and refuse to change my opinion :)

     Judy Collins was not only a great singer and songwriter, she was an activist as well.  She promoted the idea of peace among nations and lent her name and her many talents to worthwhile causes wherever she could.  I admire her courage to speak up against things in life that she felt were wrong or unjust.   Not everyone is able to do that.  She battled many addictions along the way but was able to overcome them.  I think sometimes the price of stardom and fame is a heavy one to pay.  Some cannot rise above it but I believe Judy Collins did just that.

     Today Judy Collins lives in Manhattan, NY with her husband Louis Nelson whom she married in 1996.  She is still singing and still promoting the causes she holds dear and near to her heart.  Among those causes are the abolition of land mines worldwide and suicide prevention a subject of great importance to her after the death of her only child, Clark at age 33. 

     I love all of the songs she ever recorded and sang, so many of them timeless classics today in the year 2014.  My favorite one is called "Both Sides Now" which is a reflective piece of her thoughts of life and the changes that we all have to go through each and every day.  I'm thankful to have been entertained by her beautiful voice and most grateful to be able to share just this little bit about her with you today. 

    Who knows?  Someday you guys will grow up and be telling some other "young kids" about the music you grew up listening to as well.  May your memories be as happy as mine are.  What a gift that will truly be.

     "HER name was not Judy but she DID have blue eyes!  From the

land of long ago and far, far away.  She is me." 

~life in its perspective~

Good morning friends and family, this time not from along the Western Slopes of the beautiful state of Colorado, but rather from the "Air Capitol City of the World" in Wichita, Kansas.  Mike and I made the long journey from Montrose to Kansas together this time, having begun the trek shortly after school was out for me on Thursday.  I have to say right up front how nice it was to leave the driving to Mike while I sat back and navigated for him, well that is when I wasn't  extremely busy looking at the inside of my eyelids :)  I've made the journey so many times in the past 18 months that it has become a routine.  Once in the early days of last year, before Mike and I were even married, someone asked me what the most difficult part of the journey was.  Perhaps they expected me to say traversing over snow covered old Monarch Pass or even coming into and out of the deep canyons everywhere.  Hey it could have even been the long flat stretches between the state line of Kansas and the towns of Dodge and Garden Cities.  But now I remember, with a smile on my face, what my answer to them always was....

"The most difficult part of the drive for me, you ask?  The worst part?  Well that would be the 600 yards it takes to get from Mike's front door to the end of the drive way when I have to leave and go back to Kansas each time."

It shall soon be one year that this whole odyssey began for me, this unbelievable life changing event called "getting married, retiring, moving away from family/friends and home, all in one fell swoop."  Just a few days remain before we celebrate our official first year together.  As I sit here this morning typing this blog post to you, I am most thankful for the growing and changing that has occurred for me thus far and I would dare to say shall continue on in the days, months, and years that shall lie ahead. 

Even though I have always believed that what ever should happen to us in this life is always just a part of the "plan", I still had a hard time even imagining why things happened as they did last summer.  If a person could die from loneliness, homesickness, or the desire to have a "do over" and make different decisions, well then I would have been long gone by now.  I will never forget those early days and the struggles that would result because of that.  Holy cow, it's not a secret friends, I wasn't sure I'd even make it more than a few months before I would say "enough".  The idea of Mike and I actually reaching our first wedding anniversary on May 21st just didn't even seem plausible at times.  But unless something happens (and for the record, it won't!) we WILL make it in just a few days more. 

We made the nearly 670 mile journey here to celebrate with the rest of the Renfro Family the graduation of our niece Sarah.  It will be a quick trip with our turning around just as soon as the ceremony is over and heading back west towards the mountains.  But it is a trip well worth it because high school graduations come only once in this life.  This morning we are heading out to visit some of my favorite places here in Wichita.  I intend to go  to the Spice Merchant and pick up enough of my favorite teas to last a while and head over to Gander Mountain, the place where I often met friends to go shopping for things to enjoy the great outdoors with.  Mike has never been to either of those places and as I told him about them, I remembered something kind of strange.  I told Mike that the last time I had gotten the chance to go over to the Spice Merchant was on the 12th day of January in 2013.  He had a strange look on his face that I would even remember the date but I explained to him how it was that I could recall so quickly a date so "out of the blue". 

I had checked my email prior to leaving that Saturday morning long ago and saw that I had received a "friend request" from Facebook only a few minutes earlier from some guy that lived in Montrose, Colorado.  His name?  Mike Renfro.  And the rest, as they say, is history.

Have a great day family and friends out there.  For everything that you have done on my behalf, no matter how great the world would deem the importance, I will always remain most beholden.  By tomorrow evening we will be back home again in south western Colorado.  When school lets out for the year on this Wednesday upcoming, I will return back to the Sunflower state for a few days more.  By June 1st, my life will continue on deep in the Rocky Mountains of the Centennial state of Colorado.  Whether I am here or I am there or anywhere in between, God is always with me.  I can live with that :)

Although it's not exactly like writing my name in the clay soil of the state I now call home, at LEAST my name was planted into the soil of the Riverbottom Park in Montrose for our field trip on Thursday.  It looked kind of good to see it there that day, a sign that I am exactly where I was intended to be at this point in my life. 

A trip to Pueblo last May, a couple of weeks before we were married.  I have grown to appreciate and enjoy that city along Highway 50 between Hutchinson and Montrose.  It's a great location to stop and rest for the night rather than making the long trip all at once.

Now I am an Olathe "pirate" and very thankful to be looking forward to year number 37 of being a teacher come the next school year.  It's back to first grade once again for me and I think I will make it just fine :)

~to not give up is a lesson to learn~

I had a sinking feeling even before we uncovered the first plant after school yesterday. Pretty  much as we went down the rows of tomatoes and peppers that we had already planted a week ago now, the verdict was the same.  The weird and unusual weather of a couple of days back, sleet, snow, wind, and below freezing temperatures for just a few hours over night had killed 75% of the early plants we had in the ground already.  Their blackened leaves a testament to the fact that plants and freezing temperatures will never be able to mix with one another.  Out of the 17 plants that I brought back from Kansas, only 5 tomato and one pepper were left standing and at this point in time are not anything to brag about.

At first I felt a whole lot of discouragement, even though I knew in my heart that there was a better than not chance it would happen like this.  The freeze of a few days ago was a rare one and even though I had checked Horsefly Mountain to see if it was barren of snow, I guess in my zest to return to gardening this summer I perhaps jumped the proverbial "gun".  The few that remain upright out there may not make it either, but I will sit back and wait to see just what happens.  Plant by plant yesterday afternoon, I yanked up the dead remnants and threw them to the side.  But even in the bad there is good.  Those wilted plants will decompose and return to the soil and hopefully add strength to the new ones that we will put in their place.  As much as I hated to have spent all the money to buy them, transport them over the big mountain from Kansas, and put into the ground I know that I am fortunate.  I have good friends who lost an entire wheat crop for the year about the same time as our freeze when springtime storms hit Kansas as well.  One thing I know from all my years on the plains is that hail and wheat never get along with one another either.  In the very least of things, I have to always remember to say a word of thanks. 

Life is busy here along the Western Slopes right now and every day seems to get even more so.  Each evening when I finish at school I've been working part-time as a CNA doing home health care for the elderly here in the Montrose area.  It's only an hour or so and I usually make it home about the same time as Mike does.  I enjoy doing my "other" job and it always helps me to remember just how fortunate I really am.  When school is out I will be working for an agency here in the area for the summer and they promise to keep me very busy.  So for the months of June and July I will trade in my lesson plans for nursing scrubs and a blood pressure kit and give thanks that I am healthy and able to be of help to those that are not.  I have said it many times and will say again and again in my life.  I hope that when I am older and no longer able to take care of my own needs, that someone who is good and kind will come to help me too. 

We are finishing up the last of the things on the "to do" list at school and in just a very few days more will say our "good-byes" for the summer.  Much remains to take care of but we shall make it, I am sure.  What a year this has been for me, what lessons I have taught and what lessons I have learned.  It was a time of growing up for me and that's kind of a strange concept for a woman who is now going into the summer of her 59th year but it is true.  You know, the truth is that we are always growing up and changing.  If we are not then we aren't really becoming the people that we were intended to be. 

Mike and I are headed over the big mountain later on this evening and back towards home and Kansas to spend time with family back in the Wichita area.  It's graduation for a very special niece named Sarah and we wouldn't miss it for anything.  It will be a quick trip as they all have been so far but it's important that we make the journey.  So proud of all the graduates out there who have worked so hard to make their dreams come true.  It's not easy sometimes, but boy is it ever worth it! 

Have a great Thursday out there everyone.  The clock on the wall is reminding me how fast these early morning hours are going by.  Time to get a move on and face the day that lies ahead of us.  Thank you for being my friends~much love to you all this day and always.

The "baby" of the Scott family, our little sister Cindy, will be among the graduates listed on the official roll of Ft. Hays State University back home in Kansas this weekend upcoming.  She worked hard to receive her degree and I am very proud of her.  Class by class, hour by hour, she stuck with it and NOW all of her hard work pays off.  She is standing alongside her official Spanish tutor in the photo above, taken in Wichita on the ALS walk in 2010.  I am proud of you Cindy and so glad that you were able to attain your degree :)

~the confessions of a card saver~

I come from a long line of card savers.  My mother saved all of the cards that she ever got.  Her mother saved all of the cards that she got before her.  I didn't know my Great-Grandmother Schilling, the dear and saintly woman they all referred to as our "German grandma", but I bet if I had that she too would have been a card saver.  Over the years I've amassed a fortune of them, perpetually stored in boxes and cartons, inside of old chests and pasted into the sleeves of picture albums.  I guess there is no real law against retaining every single, solitary greeting you receive in this life.  If there IS one, well I guess it's no denying it.  I stand guilty as charged.  To my dear red-headed friend back in the Flint Hills of Kansas, Dennis you probably should start arranging for bail money :)

Seems so hard to believe but even now, nearly a year after I moved here to the Western Slopes from my beloved home in Kansas, I am still unpacking boxes that have been stored these many months.  Each trip that I've made back and forth between Hutch and Montrose, I've always managed to come back with a carload of stuff that needs to make the 611 mile trip over the big mountain.  By the end of the month I hope to have everything emptied out of my house back home in Kansas and either put to use here or delegated to storage for a while.  Most of the big stuff has already been taken care of.  Now it's just the little stuff, the leftovers that remain. 

Some of the last things that I have brought out here were the boxes and tubs that I had tucked away into the two small bedroom closets in my old home.  I knew they were in there all along and could have brought them out at any time before now.  But I chose to leave them to the very last for a reason.  And the reason is this.....

Inside of those boxes were about two gazillion greetings cards and letters that I had been saving for many, many years.  My LIFE was inside of those boxes and I knew that if I had to face what was there, I'd be even more homesick than I already was.  It was definitely an "out of sight, out of mind" kind of moment.  As life got better here in Colorado for me, I slowly began to dare to bring out a box or two each time I went back to visit my home there in the Midwest.  I didn't always open the boxes up before storing them here but sometimes I would peek inside and pull out a card or two and read them once more.  It wasn't easy, really believe it or not, it wasn't easy at first.  Sometimes a tear or two would make its way down my cheek and I'd quickly put the lid back on the box.  But it got better and as time went on, I found a lot of solace and much peace in rereading the greetings from the people inside "the box". 

As I sit here in the living room this morning in the very early morning hours of this Tuesday, I'm pretty much surrounded by the boxes.  We've been doing some major changes inside of the house here and to be honest there is stuff strewn from here to tomorrow.  Yet the nice thing is, I'm "ok" with all of the greetings from my past being around me.  I know what is inside of those containers and they no longer haunt me, no longer taunt me to look at them.  And if I wasn't so dang busy doing 40 gazillion OTHER things, I'd be looking at them right at this very moment in time.  I think that is a good sign for me, don't you?

I'm rereading a book that I love, a quick read called "Live Like You Were Dying" by Tim Nichols and Craig Wiseman.  Within the pages, they address the issue of saving old letters and cards and why it is that people do it.  I love what they write and after reading it, I realize that even though I have saved countless greeting cards and letters over the years, there is a real reason for it.  I'm not as weird as I thought I was.  From their book, THEIR words.....

"Why do we keep them?  Maybe because they are the mile markers of our journey, the currency of our soul and our past.  They give our lives a value nothing else can approach.  They marked the times in our lives when we knew we were loved."  (the words of Tim Nichols and Craig Wiseman from their book, "Live Like You Were Dying".

 Not exactly sure what will become of the cards in the months and years to come.  For right now, they will probably be stored under the bed somewhere or high atop the closet shelves.  Once in a while, I may take them out and look at them once again.  I don't have to do it all at once.  Not like they will go "bad" or anything :)  But perhaps when I am long gone from this earth, my family will look through them and "meet" through the messages scrawled and scribbled  across the bottom of each greeting card, people they have never met before.  Little Catherine Lois may hold them in her hands one day, a grown woman who is looking through the last belongings of her Grandma Peggy.  Perhaps she will some day share them with HER own daughter.  The possibilities of old greeting cards are endless.  Talk about your oral history lesson.

The day is getting ready to begin here in Montrose County and we are down to the last remnants of the school year.  Somewhere in their own homes, the "18" are still sleeping.  Our last 6.5 days together are looking at us square in the eyes.  I've been the recipient of many greeting cards from those dear fourth-grade students of mine this year and have neatly tucked away the cards that they have given me.  It's getting a little crowded in those boxes as of late and since I have no intentions of getting rid of any of the cards, I guess that it's time to buy a few more empty boxes. 

I'm a saver of cards, like my mother and grandmother before me.  I come by it naturally and honestly.  I love the messages.  I love the memories.  I love my life.  Dear friends, may the same be said for you.  God's richest blessings to all of you this very day.  This is Tuesday, the 13th day in May, 2014.  What a great day to be alive in!

A message that I found that had been left inside the walls of the Roseman Bridge, Madison County, Iowa in the autumn of 2011.  What a wonderful day to visit the covered bridges of Madison County.

These sweet children from summer school in Hutch made me cards to say "thank you" for being their teacher that July.  They are folded up in the bottom of one of the containers next to me.  Their kind and honest sentiments are forever inscribed in crayon for me to enjoy in the years to come.  "Kid made" cards are among the finest to have ever received.