~and so I guess that time will tell~

     From along the Red River and upon the north Texas plains, good morning dear friends and family.  Welcome to the second to the last day of August for 2015.  Where in the world all the days of summer went, the good Lord above only knows.  It's been a fast one for sure.  The calendar upon the wall is getting ready to turn over a new page to the beautiful month of September.  Even though time passes way too quickly for me, it is what it is and they call it "life".

     I love September and the changes that it begins to bring to us.  My favorite season of them all, autumn, arrives at month's end.  Even though that wonderful time of year lasts just as long as all the other seasons do, for some reason it never seems like it lasts long enough.  The brilliant leaves that daily begin to transition to their true colors never cease to amaze me.  Although I love Kansas trees in fall, some of the most beautiful ones I have seen in my life were found in our old home back in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.  I will miss seeing them change their appearance this year.

These beautiful ones were nearby Olathe, Colorado and I got to see them every single day as I went to and from school.

Mike and I saw these one day when we went up to Telluride for the afternoon to look around one Saturday.

This was my favorite photo of trees from back in Montrose, Colorado.  I was heading to the store one day after school and came across these over on Niagra Street.  The clouds were in a "just right" kind of position and the sun was shining down upon the trees.  It was a perfect picture.

     Summer's heat will sooner or later begin to give way to the cooler and crisper weather of fall and I guess it would be the greatest understatement of the year to say that I am ready for it.  I'm thinking that I am speaking for just about everyone around here.  There's nothing quite like that first morning when you walk out the door and realize that a light jacket would probably be in order for the day.  I can't wait!

     Mike and I are both wondering what our first fall and subsequent winter will be like here in Texas.  We've heard from the locals that when a half-inch of snow falls down that people get all excited.  Where we come from, that would be considered a "not so much" kind of moment.  One thing is for sure.

     I guess time will tell.

We came upon this magnificent sight one autumn Saturday morning just west of Ridgeway, Colorado.  A good friend from school framed this picture for me and it hangs on our wall here on the plains.  

Here we are on the day that this whole new adventure began and much has happened to us in the 3 months that quickly have followed.  

     

    

     

~they only need to know that you care~

Welcome to Saturday!

When I woke up this morning and looked at the clock, I was sure surprised to see that it was already nearly 6 a.m.  After a busy and challenging first week at school it felt nice to sleep in past the 4 o'clock in the morning hour for once.  I must have needed a little extra rest or something because I swear I woke up in the very same position that I went to sleep in last night.  Just like the first 3 months of life here in Burkburnett went by at record speed, the same can be said of the first week at school.

Time flies when you are learning the names of over 120 children.

We went to see the Petrolia boys play football last evening over at Archer City where they ended up with their very first win of the season.  High school football on the plains of Texas is very important and the camaraderie amongst the players and the rest of the students was very evident.  Just like back home on the Kansas prairies or in the mountains of Colorado, people are out supporting their teams.  It made my heart happy to hear the voice of a young man that I have in class yelling to his buddies as Mike and I arrived at the game.

"Hey!  Look you guys.  Mrs. Renfro came to the game!"

Sometimes the best place to build relationships with students is at the local football stadium, in the school supply aisle at Walmart, the check out line at the grocery store, or on the streets of Petrolia. There are only so many moments in the school day and they come and go in the blink of an eye. If I really want to get to know my students then sometimes I'm going to have to meet them halfway and most of the time that is found outside the confines of the classroom.  I've made a few mistakes this week but I expected that would happen.  Those mistakes have taught me valuable lessons and the greatest lesson has been to not to do that again.  Yet one thing I learned long ago about the children I have taught is that they don't need their teacher to be perfect.

They only need to know that you care.

"Old Glory" flies at the stadium last evening at Archer City.  It was a beautiful night for high school football.

~and life remains good~

I always get asked by kids just how old I am.  Some are bashful and shy about it while others are forward and upfront.  I smile in my heart when the first one asks me because I know how I am always going to answer them.

"Sure I will tell you how old I am but you will have to do a math problem to find out.  What year is it?  Take that year and subtract 1955 from it.  Let me know what you come up with."

I love watching them go to work at it and in no time at all they usually arrive at the right age, kind of/sort of.  This week when I was asked by a student, a very good subtracter by the way, he said that I was 60.  When I told him that he was wrong, he immediately started to look puzzled. That boy is smart and he just knew that his figures were correct.  When I told him that I was only 59 until my birthday in late October, he smiled at me.

"Hey!  I knew I was right," he said back.

Yesterday would have been my sister's 73rd birthday had she not been killed in an auto accident back in 1969.  She was only 27 and still so very young.  Janice never saw the semi speeding towards her that late afternoon in November and she died instantly in the crash.  I told the kids about her and reminded them what I always remind myself, especially in times when I think about having grown a whole lot older these days.

"Please believe me when I tell you that it is a blessing to be older.  Life is a gift."

My father died when he was the very same age that I am.  Lung cancer took his life before he had the chance to celebrate his 60th birthday.  He seemed old to me back then but now that I am the same age as my father was he really doesn't seem all that old to me now.  In fact, he was rather young.  I have found it is all in the way you look at it, my friends.  

 So today on day #21,854 of my life, I give thanks and rejoice that I was healthy enough to pop out of bed this morning when the alarm rang at 4 a.m. to be able to start a brand new day.  I may be 59.83 years old in my body but in my spirit I am still 21.78 years young.  Life's been good to me so far and I believe I can say one thing more.

It shall be good to me in the days, weeks, and years ahead as well.

For all of the people who didn't make it to see the age 60, I commend this day to you.

My older sister Janice would have been 73 yesterday had her life not ended that November afternoon in 1969.

My little sister and I walked in memory of our older brother at the ALS walk in Wichita, Kansas in September of 2010.  Mike passed away from ALS in 2007 and was only 62 years old.

This is one of my favorite pictures of my mom and my brother Mike.  Both are gone now but are "frozen in time" right here in this photo.

This picture of my father was taken a couple of months before he passed away in December of 1982.  I have this photo in my classroom and when one of the kids saw it on the first day of school, they mistakenly thought he was my husband.  It seemed rather odd at first but then I realized that of course they would.  He was 59 in this picture and the very same age as his little girl is now.  One thing I feel sure in my heart is that my father would be most happy to see me celebrate my 60th year of life.  I'm not going to disappoint him.

The age of 21 doesn't really seem like it was 39 years ago now but it was.  Life was good then and I still believe in my heart that it is good right now as well.

~in a letter to the children~

This year I will be teaching English and language arts to students in 4th, 5th, and 6th grades in a small elementary school here on the north central Texas prairie.  I feel blessed beyond measure to begin my 38th year doing a job that I love more than any other career on earth.  

I am a teacher and there is nothing else that I would choose to do that would make me any richer or happier.  Today's blog post is actually for my students as I write a letter of introduction and tell them a little bit about me.  The plan is to use this blog for teaching purposes several times throughout the coming months.  I want them to see that becoming a good writer is essential, attainable, and most of all it is fun.  

Have a good day dear family and friends out there.  From here on the plains of Texas, I am surely thinking of y'all.  (By the way, I have actually caught myself talking like that from time to time.  Who would have ever thought?  Certainly not me!)


~in a letter to the children~

Dear children,

Good morning dear ones and welcome to our classroom!  I have waited for this day all summer long and I am so thankful that the first day has finally arrived.   If you feel like I do then you have butterflies in your belly about now.  If that's the case, then that's ok.  Chances are that you are in good company.  Please don't worry about anything that lies ahead.  I'm positive that this will be our best year ever.  Just you wait and see!

I have been a teacher for a long, long time.  In fact, it's been 38 years of a long time.  I never dreamt that I would be a teacher for nearly 4 decades.  I used to think that 20 years was forever.  Now I'm nearly ready to double that number and I am happy that of all places on this planet that we all share, that I am here with you for the next 9 months.  

You know, I didn't start out as a grownup.  Once I was a fourth grader as well as a fifth grader.  Hey,  I've even been a sixth grader too.  Although so many years have passed, just right at 48 in all now, I still remember what it was like.  When I walked into the classroom on that first day of the 4th grade, I had just gotten over having the measles for nearly all summer long.  Six weeks of my summer vacation were spent inside of a darkened bedroom feeling miserable with red spots all over me and a fever high enough to make me miserable.  It was in fourth grade that I learned how fun spelling was and before the end of the year was done, I had made it to the league spelling bee and gotten a blue ribbon.  I remember being sad a lot of the time in 5th grade as I found myself worrying about my older brother who had been sent overseas to fight a war in a place called Vietnam.  Sometimes it was hard for me to concentrate on my work.  It seemed like my mind wandered a lot as I tried to imagine where my brother was that day and what he was doing.  Mostly I wondered if he was safe and if I would ever see him again.  Thankfully I did.  6th grade was a tough year for me.  I had to work harder to get good grades and even when I did work harder it didn't always turn out like I hoped for it to.  I struggled with math and science and could never understand how it was so easy for some of my friends and so hard for me.  I made it though. 

I survived.
I thrived.

And so what lies ahead for us in the next 9 months of school?  My job this year is to teach you what you need to know about English, spelling, and writing.  It is my responsibility to help you be prepared for all of the testing that awaits us as the year progresses.  To be able to communicate in a manner that you can be well understood is essential to success in this life of ours.  Yet even in all of this, there are other things that I wish for you to learn as well.

I want you to learn how important it is to become a good citizen, to be honest and true, to show kindness to one another, to help your neighbor or even a stranger, and to look for the good in everything that happens to you.  My favorite lessons of all to teach are those that are found in "the book of life".  If you aren't sure what that means just hang on.  Chances are very good that there will be several taught in the first weeks of school.

The days and weeks that we have ahead of us will more than likely pass all too quickly.  170+ days may seem like a long time this morning on the first day of school but in reality it will be quite the opposite.  In that proverbial "blink of an eye" it will all be over.  Seriously.  I'm not kidding.  It will be done.  

You are part of a classroom community now in this room.  I need you to all stick together with one another and to help each other along the way.  We cannot leave anyone behind.  We are all going to cross the finish line on that last day of school in May together.  That includes me as well as all of you.  Sometimes school is not easy and we may get discouraged and want to give up.  I am telling you this for sure.  Don't get too discouraged and certainly never give up.  

Your whole life lies ahead of you this day.  Make every day that follows this one count for good things dear children.  I already love you more than you can even imagine and by the way, here's my first bit of advice for you and that counsel would be this.

If you ever have a teacher who says that they don't love you, here's what you do.  Find another teacher.  

Welcome to this community.  We were meant to be together, you and I.  I came over 800 miles to get here, from over the great Continental Divide.  I never even knew that you were here until one day I found you along the way.  We were meant to be together, you and I.  

Life is good young ones.  Please don't ever forget that.

Love,
Mrs. Renfro

~and there you will find it~

Mike and I took a short day trip yesterday to the great state of Oklahoma, something pretty easy to do when your home in Texas is just 5 minutes from the border across the Red River.  We visited the Chickasaw Cultural Center in Sulphur and both of us felt that it was more than worth the 100 mile one way drive to get there.  This is my "shameless plug" for them.  If you have never gone to it, please try to make the journey there some time in the future.  You won't regret it.

In my life on the east side of the great Continental Divide, 58 out of the last nearly 60 years, I've been around the influence of the plains Indians.  Yet even having said that, I didn't realize just how much there was that I didn't know about them until we went yesterday.  It was a great reminder to me of something that I have felt forever in my heart.

I intend to keep learning new things every day of my life.  Until my last day I shall say this.

We took several pictures along the way of different things that were of interest to us and learned about the Chickasaw Nation at every turn.  It was one of the trips that made you say that you would like to come back once again to see all of the things that you were sure you must have missed.  There was that much!

But perhaps the very greatest of ideas that I took away from this all was gleaned from listening to one of the dancers on stage in the auditorium who told of the ways of his Chickasaw people.  He told of how very crucial it is to remember the past and the people who went before you.  He spoke of an idea that I have held fast to for many years now as he told us all.

Do not ever forget where you came from.  Remember always those who sacrificed it all before you even arrived.

And  I do.
Always.

In my classroom at school I have everything pretty much ready to go for tomorrow's first day of the school year.  Books are neatly stacked upon the shelves.  The old science tables that I will be using are laden with dry erase boards and markers, pencils and erasers, and sticky notes by the 100's.  My desk is set up and kind of/sort of neat for now.  A computer is hooked up to a smart board and some day I hope to be able to figure out how to use it with ease.  Yet even with all of the "academia" type things, there are several others that mean as much or even more to me in a truly different kind of way.  They are the things of my past and serve as reminders for this school teacher of where I came from and most certainly of the folks who helped to pave my way.

Some people might look at them as knick-knacks but to me they are so much more than that.  They are who I am and who I will always be.

My dear and sweet forever home of Kansas~  
The man in the picture is my father.  He sacrificed everything in order that I could be brought up in a good home and enjoy a wonderful life.  The map behind is really a state puzzle that was made and put together into a frame.  Reno County, Kansas is smack dab in the south central part of it all.

I love plants and collecting pieces of pottery that are of the color blue.  Pictures of my 3 children are there to remind me of the blessing of being their mom.  Growing up a "teacher's kid" is not always easy.  They are my supporters, all the way.  My mother's photo is in a small purple frame to the right of the picture.  She loved hearing about how things were going with my students each year.  Often times she would make them special treats like cookies or cupcakes and then call me to come over and pick them up before I went to school in the morning.  She always told me that she had extra time with nothing to do and plenty of baking supplies on hand.  She really loved children and so do I.

My latest addition to the classroom was the "little library" that Mike made for me.  For about $10 worth of materials and several hours of work, he was able to construct something that can hold paperback books for kids to trade back and forth with one another.  It's not easy to be the husband of a teacher but he rose to the occasion right from the very start.  I will remember the support that he gives me each time I see a child open the little door and choose a book to have for their very own.

And to "the 20" and all of my friends and colleagues back on the other side of the big mountain in Olathe, Colorado.  This jar of stones and pebbles that are on my desk will always represent in my heart the love, care, and kindness of a whole lot of friends and family.  It was a great two years together with them.

You know, I was glad for the reminder from that Chickasaw warrior yesterday.  He was most certainly right and true.  Remembering where you came from should be at the top of everyone's personal list of things to do each and every day.

You will find it there on mine.

~it was just an old window~

It was just an old window.
Really no kidding, it was only a leftover window from a house made long, long ago with paint that was peeling on each of the sides.
Some people would say its purpose was now done and that it was time for the burn pile or the city dump.

But not this guy.
This guy had another plan.

His wife needed a "little library" for the boys and girls in her classroom to use.  So he took the old window and studied it  He drew out the plans on a sheet of gridded paper and set to work and it all started with the old window.

As the days passed by the little library began to take shape.  Leftover boards that were bought at a habitat store provided the walls all around it.  Very little money had to be used in order to construct it.  

The variegated colors of the different woods made a striking pattern for each of the sides and back.  

It came to life right there on the living room floor.  

Yesterday it was delivered to my classroom and it looked very wonderful.  It was just what I imagined it to be.  Now to fill it with books for kids to take with them if they choose and never have to be returned again.  Once they leave the little library, those books belong to them.

It was just an old window to begin with but the truth is this.
It was destined to be something much greater than that.

~to go forth~

The weather turned cooler yesterday here along the Red River and what a blessing that was.  Finally after running the AC for nearly two months nonstop, we could shut it off and give it a break for a change.  Mike dug out his favorite sweatshirt and had it ready if he should need it for the times that he takes Sally the dog for a walk.  We're trying not to get too used to these more comfortable temperatures.  The weatherman is telling us that by Saturday it will return to near the century mark for the day.  

This is Texas.

The days are passing quickly now and this first week back at work has been busy.  We've all been preparing our rooms and getting them ready for the school year that begins in earnest on Monday the 24th.  I love my new school and the people that I will be spending my days with.  I will meet some of "the 120" tonight at our open house and although it will take a while to remember all of their first and last names, I will try my best.  They will probably understand if I make a mistake.

Now I am a teacher of 4th, 5th, and 6th graders.  It's a brand new experience for me and even after teaching for nearly 4 decades, sometimes it seems like my very first year.  That's not a bad thing.  It just is what it is.

The teachers that I had back at Haven Grade School in the 4th, 5th, and 6th grade are now long gone and in their Heavenly home.  I remember them though, even after all of these many years that have passed by.  I was the quiet and shy little girl who loved to spell and strived every year to enter the league spelling contest.  My name is written in the books as a charter member of the "I hate math!" club for my 5th grade year.  I was not good at it and mostly all those numbers swirling around my head made little sense to me at times.  I would rather have been reading, writing, and spelling.  It took a bit of time for math to seem even remotely logical and it is still not my favorite of subjects.  Yet the good news is that finally at long last it did begin to make some sense.

Now, almost 40 years later it is my turn to be the teacher and I'm excited to be able to concentrate on English, spelling, and writing.  There will be plenty of things for children to write about in my classroom during the next 9 months.  One of the things that I'm really interested in hearing about from them is their reaction to the drought being broken this year in May.  It's been a long 5 years for all of this part of Texas as they waited for moisture that just plain didn't arrive.  I would like to hear about the drought from a kid's perspective and as they say here in this part of the world,

"I'm afixin to pretty quickly."


I never imagined that I would be here.  I never figured that I would be led to this part of the world to live and to teach children.  Yet here I am.  For whatever the plan that God has in store for the next years of my life should be, I go forth in faith.
  
I am going to trust and be not afraid.
What else can a person really do?

The fourth grade class of 1963-1964 at Haven Grade School.  Mrs. Bette Harris was our teacher.  Not sure how I actually managed to slide in on the second row instead of the bottom one for a change.  It has to be easy to pick me out but just in case you are still wondering, I'm the little girl in the blue dress standing next to our dear and sweet teacher.  

Life was good then.
Life is still good today.

~and for this I thank Tracy~

I wasn't going to blog this week, mostly because I felt I'd be too busy with getting my classroom ready for the first day of school on August 24th.  So when I signed off from my most recent blog post of August 15th, it was with the thinking that I'd be back after the first day of school was done and in "the books."

In fact, I ended it with the paragraph shown below.

One week from Monday school will begin here in our part of Texas.  All next week teachers will meet together to plan and get things ready for the first day of school.  It will be a very busy time for all of us.  I have much to learn and only a very short time in which to do so.  Much lies ahead of me to accomplish and so I plan to take a week away from writing in this blog post.  Even though I love writing each and every day it is good once in a while to go away from it.  Time away is not a bad thing but one thing is for certain.  I will be back.

I thought I'd take a break from it but I was wrong.  
There is something I want to say.

I have a good friend from high school who now lives in faraway Indiana.  Tracy is one of those people that I knew from "the land of long ago and far, far away".  We both grew up in the little town of Haven, Kansas.  Tracy is kind and thoughtful, always doing the sort of things that show people how much she cares.  She did a nice thing for me, not all that long after I posted my blog on Facebook.  Tracy posted a video of another teacher who was giving an inspirational talk to other educators about the value of building relationships with their students and in turn teaching those very same students to build strong relationships with one another.  

I watched it, not once but many times over the course of the past weekend.  Each time I viewed it, I thought of all the children that I've had the chance to meet, teach, nurture, and build a relationship with over the course of nearly 4 decades now.  Even though I don't have the exact numbers, suffice it say that it's probably more than 100.  In fact, I guess you could add a "0" to it and come up with a much more reasonable estimate.  No matter what the final number is, one thing is for sure.

I've known many.

Building strong and valuable relationships with the children under your care has got to begin on day #1 and that doesn't necessarily mean the very first day of school either.  It really begins on "meet the teacher" night which for our district will be this coming Thursday evening.  Students have to know that you are ready for them to arrive in your classroom, you are prepared for them to be there, you want for them to succeed, and oh yes, one other thing.

They must have a sense of feeling accepted and safe in your care.

One of the very first things all 120 of my English students will do next week is to become an official part of our classroom community.  I'm a firm believer and a staunch advocate for the notion that if children are going to be a part of your world for the better part of nearly 8 hours a day then they dang sure ought to feel as if they really belong there.  The idea of a strong community within a classroom is actually quite crucial to its overall success and the lack of it is reflected by quite the opposite.  It's important enough that I choose to spend the first two days of school doing team building activities and times of self reflection, not only for the kids but for myself as well.  

We'll be making our own community "rock jar", just like the one that my first graders back in Olathe, Colorado did last year.  It's going to have to be slightly bigger in order to accommodate more than 5 times the stones than "the 20" placed inside.  A person could look at it as a "visual" and it is, yet it is so much more than that.  It's the real thing.  It stands for who we are as a group of learners, both the teacher and the students alike.

It will be interesting to see how the beginning week plays out as we spend those first few days in getting to know one another.  I will tell those 9, 10, 11, and 12-year olds the very same thing I have told children for many years now and the words that I say will come straight from deep within this old teacher's heart.

I will tell them this.

"Children, if you ever have a teacher who says that they don't love you, then here's what you do.  You find another teacher."

"Children if you ever have a teacher who says that they don't ever make a mistake, then here's what you do.  You find another teacher."

So to Tracy, that dear and loving friend that I grew up with so very long ago now, I give my thanks.  Her kind gift of a video on my timeline helped me to find my "voice" in writing this blog post to you today.  For her timely reminder of how very important it is to value the "relationship", I am this day beholden.

It was only a jar filled with rocks yet it was so very much more.  I brought it with me over the big mountain and down to the other side onto the plains of northern Texas.  It shall remain with me for the rest of my days of teaching.  20 sweet and precious little children plus some very wonderful adults placed their thoughts and dreams inside of it.

~and I'm still writing~

I teach writing now and one piece of wisdom that I wish to impart to my students in the weeks that lie ahead of us all is this.

Writing does not have to be painful and can actually be quite rewarding if it comes from your heart.

I will be sharing bits and pieces of my blog posts with my classes as we go through the process of becoming good writers together.  Perhaps I will use a current one, a post not even published yet, to help with the editing part of the writing continuium.  I could go to any story I've written in the past four years and share it with them in order to help me get across the idea that the writing down of their thoughts is "ok" and sometimes very healing and therapeutic along the way.

This blog is a personal narrative and in a lot of ways has been my saving grace in times of trouble and some pretty deep despair.  I have always been honest as I wrote it and the words that a reader sees are my own true thoughts and feelings.  When I have been at my very lowest points, for example in 2011 after the bike accident that nearly ruined my left arm, writing helped my sadness and eased my feeling of despair.  It helped to talk about it and at times to cry about it too.  I wrote of it many times in my 197 posts from the year 2011.  

The following paragraph came from an August 24th post of that year as I spoke of the initial moments right after my infamous "I'm gonna jump that curb and crash my bike on the driveway" incident.

"I can remember most of it quite vividly, especially the part where I have to get my sorry carcass off the ground.  I knew I was in some pretty heavy-duty trouble when I had to reach down and "scoop" my left arm up so I could stumble to the pickup.  By the time I got to the truck, Grahame was already coming back with my keys for the trip to the ER."  (August 2011)

There was a time during my nine months of recuperation when I thought that I could never put my hands flat on a table like that ever again.  It's a scary feeling to realize how much you have taken something so simple as this for granted all of your life.

I want my students to know that they can chronicle their life's adventures by writing it down down on paper and that they can share those moments in time with others.  Right now they are strangers to me and I know precious little about who they are and where they have been.  One of their first assignments will be to tell me about their family and what they like to do for fun with one another.  I've written of my own family many times throughout this blog.  I have shared the joy of growing up the 6th child out of 7 and of calling the great state of Kansas my home.  

Sometimes very sadly, I have shared the fact that my parents are no longer living and that I miss them very much.  From deep inside of my heart, I have cried out from time to time as I have written of how much I still really need them to be around.  Perhaps someone from "the 120" has already had to experience the very same thing.  It happens, you know?  When we least expect it, our parents are taken from us and whether we are 9 or 59, it still hurts.  I have written of both my folks several times and I will share snippets of their posts to help teach the writing process.

A paragraph from a post from June 4th of last year is shown below when I wrote of my mom after coming across the journals that she kept for many years prior to her death in 2007.

I was going through the very last of my things back in Hutchinson last week when I came across them lying in a plastic tub.  There amidst a thousand other things I saw four of the old journals that my mom had written in during the years just prior to her death in 2007.  I had completely forgotten that they were there and as I scooped them up into my arms to place them into another box of things to go back to Colorado, I stopped for a moment and paused to remember her.  I didn't cry this time and I think that in itself is a very good thing.
(August of 2014)

Life is a very great adventure and during my 59 years here on this great planet called Earth, I've seen many of them.  My students are just now in the beginning stages and their ventures out into "the great unknown" are slightly more limited than mine have been.  But through this blog I can share with them what I've done and in turn through their writing they can tell me all about the things that they too have seen.  

Their teacher has done a few crazy things in life that perhaps some would have questioned at the time.  
Crazy things like driving over 2,000 miles all of the way from Wichita, Kansas to Portland, Maine via Owego, New York all in the course of 5 days,  just to see my very first lighthouse is right there in black and white.  I'm not sure whether I'll tell them the part about doing it all alone yet but if they ask I'll have to be honest.  I can share that trip with them and show a few of the great pictures just by going back to my blog posts from May of 2012.  

From May 28th of 2012, upon arriving at the New England village of Owego, New York

One of the nicest sights to see this day was the sign announcing I'd finally made it to this place in southern New York, a village called Owego.  As you can tell by the sign, it's no "spring chicken".  Owego is rich in heritage and tradition, a very proud community.  I'm so glad to have spent the day here.

Where I am from, Kansas, we're just glad to have seen our communities celebrate their centennial birthdays.  Owego has been here for, wait a minute cause I'm doing the math, 225 years.  You can't be here that long without establishing some very deep ties and traditions. (May of 2012)

And from the following day, a post from my final destination and the site of the beautiful Portland Headlight in Maine.

It was every bit as beautiful as I imagined it to be.  I was not disappointed in the least!  I took several photos, but am including a few with this blog.  I hope someday to see it again before I die.  

Wow, I look EVEN shorter than I normally do!  I went up the first adults I could find and asked if they would take a picture of me by the lighthouse.  Little did I know that they were from France and spoke hardly ANY English but we managed to communicate with one another and got the photo regardless.  Good folks, just visiting the New England states,  like me.  (May of 2012)

One week from Monday school will begin here in our part of Texas.  All next week teachers will meet together to plan and get things ready for the first day of school.  It will be a very busy time for all of us.  I have much to learn and only a very short time in which to do so.  Much lies ahead of me to accomplish and so I plan to take a week away from writing in this blog post.  Even though I love writing each and every day it is good once in a while to go away from it.  Time away is not a bad thing but one thing is for certain.

I will be back.

It all started with a bike ride across the state of Kansas in 2011.  More than 900 posts later (about 890 more than I ever intended for it to be) I am still writing.  

~and we stuck together~

I've got a few back roads to take in order to get from home to school this year.  They wind around the countryside as they take me past several little hamlets along the way.  The country cemeteries, fruits stands, the creeks and rivers, and road signage have become landmarks now to show me the direction that I need to follow in order to not get lost.  So far, so good.  

The view is going to be quite different than it was last year as I drove each day from Montrose to Olathe for school.  No more will I look out the driver's side window and see the beautiful Black Canyon or the Grand Mesa up ahead of me. The San Juans will not rise up to greet me on my journey home after a long day at school.   For two years though, it was my morning time gift from God to see such grand places as those were.  I took many pictures of them during my stay there and even though I am very happy to be living here in Texas, I sometimes miss their grandeur and beauty.

They were snow covered and stately in appearance the day I took this photo.  Even though I am not a fan of winter, the truth will always be that I loved the way they looked frosted over with lots of white stuff.  (the San Juan mountain range and the view out of our kitchen window back in Montrose, Colorado)

The Black Canyon of the Gunnison was in our backyard, literally.  Every day as I drove over to school in Olathe, I could catch a glimpse of it.  I especially loved this picture and the clouds that seemed to just stay hovering over it all day long.  

I have made several trips over to Petrolia in the weeks that have passed by this summer.  Yesterday morning I decided to go to school for a while to get a few things done.  The drive over there is longer than those I have been used to before but I'm getting accustomed to it.  It's a good time for thinking and planning for the day ahead.  About 14 miles into the 26 mile drive, I happened to gaze out of the driver's side window and noticed how different the sky was looking.  The sun was making its journey through some cloud cover that had begun to move in and the brilliance that emanated from it was beyond compare.  I was so taken by the sight that I pulled over to the shoulder to take a picture of it.

I can remember when I was just a little girl that every time I saw the clouds and sun in such an array that I believed it was what Heaven must look like.  Yesterday after I took the picture I felt a lot of peace in the journey that I am now making.  Life in Texas is very different than it was in Colorado.  It was not meant to be the same.  Even though I miss the sights (and somehow I can't imagine that I would be saying that especially given my extreme case of homesickness when I was first arrived there in 2013) God has provided me with a new place to call my home and together Mike and I are doing a pretty good job of figuring it all out.  

It's been a good summer here with only a few minor glitches along the way.  I still maintain that 99.9% of what has happened to us here has been very good.  There will be challenges along the way but I feel up to them.  We are now close enough to see folks back in the Midwest more often and we are not so far away that some day we shall return to say hello and visit with our "mountain family" once again.

So from this place along the plains of northern Texas I send you greetings and to say that I hope all of you are doing just fine.  Mike and I are alive and well here.  We are surviving and even thriving here.  One thing is for sure.

We will always be remembering of you all.

The very first picture that Mike and I took together from now 2 1/2 years ago.  I made a very long drive that evening after school to make it the 611 miles from my front door in Hutchinson, Kansas to his first door in Montrose, Colorado.  We stuck together :)

~we listened and we obeyed~

A Kansas journey~

I honked at the "lucky tree" each time I went by it during my stay back in the Sunflower state last week.  It's a special tree that one encounters on 96 highway heading east towards Wichita.  Not sure how it got its name or the legend of honking for good luck as you pass by it came about.  That part doesn't really matter.  What does count is that you do it.  

Plain and simple.

It had been several months since I had returned home and once again some of the very simplest of things tugged at my heart, like the sight of the robin's egg blue sky on Monday.  The clouds were huge and white.  They seemed to hang like massive marshmallows in the heaven's above me.  They looked peaceful and good to see.  It's not like I haven't seen a sky like that in Texas or even back in Colorado but when you see them in Kansas they just plain look different.

I routinely try do a few of the same kinds of things each time I return home.  Things like making a trip to Bogey's in Hutch for a diet vanilla pepsi, even though I have mostly given up caffeine, is just one of those items on my "to do " list.  This time I was able to go only once but at least I got to take a sip of that drink that used to be my favorite when I lived only just down the street a ways.  I gassed up my car at my favorite convenience store on 17th street and bought a few supplies at the supermarket on West 5th Street that I have gone to for over 25 years back there.  Routine seems kind of nice once in a while.

It was so good to see some of my family and dear friends back in Hutch and in Halstead.  The miles that separate us now are much fewer and I will be sure to come home as much I am able to in the months and years that lie ahead of me.  The GPS in my car was invaluable as I navigated traffic through Oklahoma City and beyond.  I used to be so afraid of ever attempting to drive through major cities like that.  Thankfully that has changed for me because there are lots of places that I wish to go and "home in Kansas" is one of them.

I brought back spices and tea aplenty from one of my favorite stores in Wichita.  I parked underneath the noisy overpass and I shopped at Gander Mountain. Even though I didn't find what I wanted it's ok.  I found other things there that made me happy and I stored them in my heart.   Sometimes it is all about the journey.  Really and truly, it is all about the journey.

When I returned home late Monday evening it was with a thankful heart that I had gotten back safe and sound.  The good Lord watches over me and this I know.  Even if I had encountered danger or trouble along the way, he would have still been there.  He always is.

Mike, Crosby the cat, and Sally the dog were pretty much happy to see me arrive home again.  I do believe they may have missed me.  Many people back in Kansas asked me about how we liked it here.  They wanted to know if we were doing ok or had any regrets about leaving the beautiful mountains of Colorado.  I told them that we were doing just fine.  Of course we miss the beauty of the San Juan mountains and the fact that the humidity was much more tolerable back there.  I reminded them of all the people that we left behind who had been our friends and family.  We miss them very much and the great experiences that knowing them brought to us.  

We came here in faith with no job and no idea of where God was leading us.  Every day that passed by us since our arrival in northern Texas has opened up the door a little further, showing us where we needed to be.  People here in Texas have asked us many times how it was that we came to this part of the state to begin with.  My answer is always the same and the perplexed look on their faces is pretty much priceless.

"Well, we opened up the atlas to Texas and looked at it for only a brief moment.  We pointed to the area around Wichita Falls and said that was the place."

It was God's mighty finger pointing to Wichita County, Texas not ours and the nice thing is this.

We listened and we obeyed.

While I was gone, Mike set his mind to making this bulletin/cork board for my classroom at Petrolia.  We picked up some "pirate" memorabilia to attach to each of the corners and this morning we are taking it over to hang it up there.  It all started with an old window frame and the desire to recycle it into something brand new and memorable.  We have a couple of old window frames left and he already has plans for making a "little library" that I can utilize in my classroom as well.  A lot of kids are going to be meeting their "Mr. Renfro" in the weeks that lie ahead.  

~really it was all I ever needed in the first place~

Good morning dear friends from here in the great state of Kansas where I've had the privilege to stay for the past 3 days as I visit family and friends.  Getting to my hometown of Haven from our new home in Burkburnett was a very quick 5 1/2 hour drive.  That's pretty fast considering it used to take me nearly 12 hours to drive here from our old home in Colorado.  I didn't have to worry about crossing over the big mountain to get down to the other side of the great Continental Divide.  My biggest concerns were the toll roads and Oklahoma City traffic, neither of which are very fun.  With my GPS to guide me, I did just fine.  You just have to be ever vigilant and watching.  I intend to come home to the "Sunflower State" many more times in life and with practice I will only get better. 

It has been wonderful to stay here in Haven and to remember the life that I used to have here as a young girl growing up in this part of the state.  Much has changed here but so much is just like it always was.  When I arrived in the late afternoon on Friday the very first thing I did was to take a picture of the elevator.  When I was a little kid, I can remember thinking how very tall it seemed to be.  It was almost a skyscraper to the tiny 10-year old girl that I used to be.  Now that I am nearly 50 years older, the strange thing is this.

It still looks like a skyscraper to me.

I've had the chance to go into Hutchinson three times now and will be heading in there this afternoon after lunch to attend funeral services for a former colleague from my early days of teaching here at Haven Grade School.  Tom was a good friend and a good teacher who will surely be missed by many.  His death is sadly a reminder to me that all of us are getting older and that we should live each day to its very fullest.

Yesterday I got the chance to go to Halstead and visit the cemetery there.  I always promised my mom that I would continue on with the tradition of decorating our family's graves each year.  I didn't get the chance to be here on Memorial Day because of our move from the mountains of Colorado down onto the plains of Texas.  But I knew that before the summer was over that I could carry on that tradition of remembering the dead.  My family is buried in the city cemetery just north of town on the other side of the Little Arkansas River.  I'm the person I am because of the ones that lie in eternal sleep there.  They are where I come from.

My parents~

My grandparents~

My great grandparents~

And even great-great grandparents too~

I must return home to Texas the day after tomorrow but I'm so thankful to have had the chance to see the place that I came from once again.  When I was at the Halstead cemetery yesterday, I stood for a moment and just listened to the sounds around me.  The city graveyard was its usual quiet self of course but for some reason I was more aware than ever of the sound of the Kansas prairie.  It's a calming sound, a peaceful one for sure.  Last week when I was in San Antonio for the teacher's conference there, I came to a realization about myself rather quickly.  The realization is this.

I am a small town girl.  I'm a farmer's daughter kind of small town girl.  I would never be happy living a life in a place filled with the hustle and bustle of of thousands of people and cars all around me.  To those who love that kind of experience I say that I am happy for them but as for me, just give me a life on the plains.  

That's all I really needed in the first place.

The very best part of the journey~

~it would seem to be easier that way~

My very early childhood years were spent growing up on our family farm nestled deep in the sand hills of Harvey County, Kansas.  It was before we moved to Haven and so all seven of us kids attended school in the town of Burrton which was only 6 miles away from our home there.  Up until the second semester of my third grade year that's where I went.  I made many friends among my classmates, learned how fun it was to read and write, played on the playground, and had fun just being a kid.  And oh, one other thing.

I fell down.
Not just once in a while either but a lot.
A whole lot.

Most kids get their share of scrapes, skinned knees, cuts, and bruises.  It's kind of one of the things that you expect from them.  Just wash it off with soap and water, grab another bandaid if it was really needed, dab on the Mercurochrome (and for you young kids who are shaking your head in wonder now, you'll just have to ask a grownup to explain it for you) and things seemed good as new.  The little 8-year old girl that I used to be got her allotment of those injuries just like all the others.  But then as time went on it seemed as if it was happening to me all of the time, so much so that my teachers and my parents became concerned.  Enough of those "red flags" arose for my mother to make a doctor appointment for me to see Dr. Olson over at the Bethel Clinic in Newton.

I don't have many memories of going to the doctor as a kid and perhaps that is because back in those days people didn't just pick up the phone and make an appointment to see the family physician.  Times were tight for lots of families, our huge family most certainly included.  You know come to think of it, I don't believe we even had medical insurance of any kind back in the early days when I was very little.  So for me to be taken to the doctor just because I seemed to fall down a lot was pretty serious business.

Doc Olson looked me over and checked for whatever would have been of concern for him.  I can remember being scared of the appointment but not scared of him.  He was a nice man who loved children and I guess that's why my folks chose him for those times when needs arose that could not be taken care of by simply taking a quick "look see" and sending us on our way.

He told my mom that he was positive that I was growing too fast and that nothing serious was wrong.  Sooner or later I'd catch up with myself and all would be well.  He must have been right because in time my "meeting up with the concrete" moments slowed down until they pretty much stopped all together.  Just as an aside here, maybe that's why I am so short!  I did all my growing rather quickly and by the sixth grade I was as tall as I was ever going to get.  Makes perfect sense to me now.

I've fallen a couple of times since we moved here to Burkburnett with yesterday morning being the latest one.  The first time was back in June when we were over at the farmer's market in Wichita Falls.  I was not paying attention to what I was doing.  That's for sure.  I didn't see the unpainted step up from the street and fell flat on my face.  I landed hard on both knees and even though nothing was broken I definitely wore the bruises that came about for the rest of the month.  It was strange to see the black and blue marks form as they ran straight down from my knee to my ankle.  Yesterday's mishap came from stepping off of one lone step that I was not familiar with.  It was my fault entirely.  Luckily Mike was there and saw me lying very unladylike on the sidewalk and came to help me.  I felt my ankle roll with an accompanying popping sound.  I was sure that it was broken but after a quick trip to the local ER, we learned it was only a very bad sprain.  This morning my right foot looks very sad.

In these final few months before I turn 60, I am reminded that I have got to be more careful.  It's been a long time since I had a bone density test done (I know, I know).  I don't remember when my last one was done.  Maybe 2007?  You get the picture.  It's been too long.  Not sure how to remember to pay more attention to how I do things.  Seems like the traumatic things that have happened to me have been the ones that taught me the most.  I no longer jump curbs on a bike nor do I take a ride on an escalator just semi-seriously.   I'm looking for a way to remember to be careful that does not involve having to break a bone or two in the first place.

It would seem to be easier that way.

I'm pretty sure that the stock market shareholders in the Mercurochrome industry got a whole lot richer with our family around.  Not a one of us got sick from its supposedly ill effects.

~I am~

While I was in San Antonio last week attending the state teachers' conference, I had the chance to attend a couple of mini sessions that dealt with teaching children how to become better writers.  Many of the presenters had some great techniques that I can't wait to try when the kids arrive at school exactly three weeks from yesterday.  

At the end of one of the sessions, the presenter asked us all to think about how it was that we learned the art of writing as children.  What grade were we in?  Who was our teacher?  What kind of memories did it bring back to us?  Were they happy ones or were they the type that we preferred to never have to endure again?  

You know at first I had to stop and think about it for a bit.  How did I learn to write?  It didn't take long for the 11-year old girl that I used to be back in the 5th grade to give me a nudge and remind me.  It was a teacher named Miss Rose Davis who set all of us about to the task of diagramming sentence after sentence in order that we could understand the notion of subjects and predicates.  Miss Davis was a kind woman but she was a taskmaster from the "get go".  I remember not liking sentence diagraming for some reason but it left enough of an impression upon me that I remember it to this day.  You remember how that went, right?

Circle the subject and draw a line under the predicate.  We must have done it about a thousand gazillion times that year.

Plenty of other teachers before and after her were my writing mentors.  I guess it all started back in kindergarten when Miss Josephine Marmont taught the kids in my class to pick up a pencil and hold it in the proper fashion.  Just as an aside here, on the first day of kindergarten she took my brand new blue pencil away to keep me from rolling it back and forth between my best friend Shirley and I.  Miss Marmont taught us how to form all of the letters of the alphabet correctly so that in the years to come we would be able to write a story that was at least halfway readable.  Sweet Miss Thompson in second grade probably was the one who told us about adjectives and how to use them in order to make our writing more descriptive and interesting.  By the time I got to 7th and 8th grade, Miss Edith Goertz was there to teach us spelling and writing composition.  I will never forget her.  Edie, as they called her,  couldn't have been a whole lot older than we kids were.  It was her first year of teaching and she was very beautiful.  Miss Goertz had a quiet manner about her and I don't ever remember her raising her voice all that much to any of us in class.  Even after remembering all of those fine educators that I had throughout my grade school, high school, and even college courses I have come to realize something about it all.

Those fine educators all taught me the mechanics and form of writing but it was up to me to decide the kind of writer that I would truly want to be.  The same would be said for you all as well.

In the summer before my 6th grade year I remember that my mom bought me a little package of stationery and it was beautiful with colorful flowers along the top and bottom of each sheet of paper.  The envelopes had a bouquet of flowers along the back flap and although I no longer recollect the color of it, I do remember those flowers.  All summer long I wrote letters to my classmates, addressed the envelopes and affixed an 8 cent stamp to the corner.  That simple act of putting pencil to paper and sharing my thoughts with someone else was my first attempt to publish something.  It didn't matter that the sharing would be with an audience of one person.  What did matter was this.

I was beginning to be a writer.

Yesterday I had the chance to go over to school and work during the morning hours.  I had lots of things to get out of my car and bring into my classroom.  I met someone new in the parking lot who was kind enough to help me open up the door and drag all of my stuff inside.  It seemed strange in a way to hear my new colleague's remark to me as I introduced myself.

"Are you the new writing teacher for our building?"

Gratefully I replied back,

"Yes sir.  I am."

I am so glad that my parents both insisted that their seven children pay attention in class, do their very best, graduate from high school and then go on to college.  My father dropped out of high school after his sophomore year.  As the oldest son, it was his responsibility to get a job to help provide for his family during the Great Depression.  He wanted so much more than that for his own children.  I have always loved this picture of them with a few of their kids and grandkids.  (Kinsley, Kansas-1976 wheat harvest)