"It occurred to me that rather than looking down yesterday that I should look up instead. I had my camera in hand and was just getting ready to take a photo of the San Juan Mountains over in the distance. They were glistening in the mid day sunshine, still covered a bit by leftover late winter snow and I thought it would make a great shot. Yet something told me that the sight above me would be much more beautiful. So from the seat of the Adirondack chair I was resting in as I enjoyed the shade provided under an old Cottonwood tree in our yard, I aimed upward with my camera and I loved the image that I was able to capture. Sometimes it would seem that we miss some of the very best of things life has to offer us simply because we aren't looking in the right places to begin with."
the view of the Colorado sky yesterday Good morning friends and family out there and greetings from here along the Western Slopes. It's so very hard to imagine that tomorrow marks the last day of the month of June and that only means one thing. This summer is flying by us at a rate hard to even imagine and the older I get, the more so it is apparent to me. Somewhere out there, "the 18" are hopefully enjoying a vacation away from school as they do the fun stuff that all kids like to do. Also somewhere out there are a group of new people, perhaps they shall be called "the 22" or something. My new first graders, kids that I am STILL taller than, are having fun too. Perhaps they are wondering what it will be like to meet their new teacher, a lady named Mrs. Renfro, come this August. I equally wonder about what it will be like to meet them. My heart sings when I think of it and in as much as I usually love summertime, I will be happy to find them and the sooner the better :)
As summers go, this one is worlds better than last summer was. For that I am so very grateful. The days of longing for returning to life in Kansas and of being homesick and lonely and just about any other sad feeling you can imagine are gone. Thank the good Lord above. Yet even having said that, this summer has been a most stressful and trying one here, with way too many proverbial "irons in the fire". I know better than to do that but I do it anyways. I've surely decided that having two different properties in two different states, houses that are 611 miles away from one another, is not a good plan. We've made countless trips back and forth to Hutch getting things cleaned up and ready for someone to call my old house their new home. Each of those trips kind of begin to take their toll on a person but we soon will be done. Now to just find the right person to live there is about all we have left to do. When I look at the big picture, it sometimes seems overwhelming to me and so I've narrowed down my focus during each of the trips back home. Cleaning out belongings, tidying up everything and getting my mindset ready for giving up that dear old house on 14th Street had to come first. Finally at long last, we are ready to get it rented by August. I need to remember, especially when I feel so overwhelmed by all of the decisions to be made, that someone out there is waiting to move into that house. God has a plan for someone very special to live there and although I would have rather had it rented out and occupied by the first of June, the right person wasn't ready for it yet. I sure hadn't been looking at it that way until just a few days back but now that I see it differently, everything makes a lot more sense. To whoever that "someone" will end up being, they are getting a nice to place to live, in a town that I called home for so many years. If God has chosen to them to live there, then they must be really nice people. I'll let you know when we find one another :)
Last week, for the first time since I moved to the Western Slopes last summer, I became ill. At first it was laryngitis which quickly turned to bronchitis. I ignored it, just like I always do, because I hate being sick and going to the doctor. I'm ____________________ (insert any lame brained excuse you wish into that blank) to go to the doctor. Friday night presented a different story. I awoke from my sleep with a sharp pain in my chest and when the pain wouldn't magically disappear, I started to get a little bit on the worried side. I woke Mike up and said that I wanted to go to the ER here and so off we went. It didn't take long for the doctor on call to figure out that I was very dehydrated (a bag of IV fluids helped me out) and that I also had pleurisy to add to the "I finally got sick" mix. Percocet for the pain and a Z-pac for an antibiotic to kill the bug that was ailing me have helped me feel much better. But I finally got the message from God above when I got one of His "whacks upside the head" that told me how foolish it was to get sicker as each day went by without going to see what was the matter. Every once in a while, He does that to me, you know? He sends me the message that I really don't need to be quite as busy as I think I do. That slowing down a bit and resting wouldn't hurt me a bit. Life will go on whether I have my hands in everything or not. As I was lying there on that bed in the ER, drifting in and out of "Percocet land", I realized that I'd been way too busy and not only was I burning the candle at both ends, I was meeting it in the middle as well. I promise to try and do better.
The afternoon is soon to arrive and I just got asked out on a date with this guy I know here named Mike Renfro. He wants to go bowling and since I've really no good excuse NOT to go, I said "yes". Of course, he will more than likely beat me every single game but really it's fun to try. I haven't been bowling since last summer so before I totally forget how to throw the ball hard enough to get at least a strike or two, I guess I'd better get my shoes on and head over to Montrose's "Rose Bowl" and show up :) Whatever you are doing this day, may you be at peace as you do it my friends. I think of you guys, each of you, all of you every day. I wonder if you are ok and if life is going all right for you. Dear friends and family back home in Kansas, Mike and I will see you this next weekend upcoming. Even though our trips back there have been fast and furious, sooner or later the house will get rented and things will settle down a bit. I just know everything is going to work out. I tend to forget the message sometimes that the "Good Book" admonishes us to remember and the message is to trust that God is going to work everything out for the good of all involved in it. It works every time, if you only let it.
Me, last summer, just posing with the little kids' helper dinosaur. I never needed it as I did horrible enough on my own :)
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