~and their teacher loved writing~

Back in Montrose, this time of day was my favorite one to write in this blog.  The early morning hours afforded me a few moments to collect my thoughts and spill out onto the computer screen that which was on my mind and in my heart.  In those first few very lonely months, I relied on the art form of writing to calm my fears and provide a compass on which way to go in my brand new life in the mountains of southwestern Colorado.

It worked.

I think of those two years in Colorado often it would seem.  They were growing years for me and actually a gift from the good Lord above.  Those first tough weeks and months refined my very being.  I desperately missed my family and friends that I had to leave behind.  There was more than one tear shed for my old life back in Kansas and this homesick girl was never really sure if she would make it or not.

For the record, she did.

From our old kitchen window, I could look out in the pre-dawn darkness and see the stars hanging in the sky above old Silver Jack mountain.  Although I never once got the chance to go upon it, I considered that big old rock to be like a close friend.  One thing about it, Silver Jack never went away.  It was always there each morning to greet me and I grew to like that.  I remember watching the headlights of the cars and trucks going along Highway 50 to the east towards Kansas. Sometimes, especially in the early days, I would wonder if any of them were going to my home state.   Perhaps there was the outside chance that they were going to Hutchinson.  I thought of crazy things like that back then.

Here on the plains of Texas, I find myself writing at different times of the day and sometimes I have realized lately that I don't write at all.  I got an email from a friend yesterday who wondered if something had happened to me.  She hadn't see me write anything hardly at all during February.  I laughed and thanked her for checking in on me, but I was fine and not to worry. There are times when no words really come to me.  Little did she realize that during February there were plenty of times that I began to write something, only to delete the words halfway into things.  

There are lots of blog posts that I have written since May of 2011 that were only read by me. Those were the times when a concern was on my mind and I was questioning a feeling about something.  Writing helped me.  In the past nearly 6 years now, I've written nearly 1,100 times. I'm amazed when I go back and look at them all.  Rereading them is strange at times.  For the most part, I have trouble recalling what I wrote.  I look at the titles, click on them, and all of a sudden my life comes rushing back to me in the words that I have spoken.  It's fun and sad at the same time to see some of them.  Yet even in all of that, I am so glad that I have written them.

The early morning hours pass quickly and now it's time to get ready for school.  Somewhere out there, 22 little children are still fast asleep in their beds, safe and sound.  There is much for them to learn this day and it's my part of the plan to help them get to where they need to be in this part of their life.  In the years to come, perhaps they too shall begin to read this blog and remember a very special thing~

Their teacher loved writing and she loved them too.

My first time to see snow in the summertime came atop the Grand Mesa in June of 2013.

The children who saved me and they didn't even know they were doing so.  My fourth graders at Olathe, Colorado were my first class to teach in the Rocky Mountains.

This sweet young woman is a "Jayhawker" too.  Claire and I taught together that first year in Colorado.  She and her family have since returned to Oklahoma and we live close together now.