~upon getting used to the changes~

Hello friends and family~on a very cool morning here along the western slopes.  As I sit at the kitchen table typing these thoughts, I'm wearing my "middle of the Kansas winter" sweats and long sleeve underwear.  For the 29th day of May, that feels just plain weird to me and to my good friend back in Haven, Kansas named Craig Sailsbury, I'm sure glad that when you announced to all of us back in early May that it was safe to put our long johns away for the season, that I packed mine right on top of everything else.  Somehow I knew I would need them way before the autumn and winter seasons rolled around again.

This is the beginning of my 5th day here in Montrose and it seems like forever since I saw everyone back home in Kansas.  I am homesick, no getting around it, but I doubt that my death certificate will ever read "She died from missing home."  Sometimes I wonder what Oblio the roundhead is up to~that darn cat.  She was the source of much trouble for me at times (LOL) but she also helped to connect me to one of the truest friends that I ever had.  Sometimes here at my new home, I almost expect her to come bounding around the corner at any moment.  But she does not.  Of course, I miss my 3 children but all I have to do is pick up the phone and give them a call at any time I wish.  So thankful to live in the times we do, where technology enables us to stay in contact with all of our friends and family wherever they might be in this huge, but ever shrinking world that we live in.

Everything is very different here and when my mother-in-law and I visited over the phone a day or so ago, she sensed my "sadness" and my desire to see home or at least something close to it.  She reminded me that it was ok to be a little sad right now, even a little lost. "Peggy, you are just looking for something familiar to you.  Everything there in Montrose is very unfamiliar.  It will get better."  And you know, she is very right.  My dear friend named Patti messaged me all the way from her home in Pennsylvania with thoughts on missing home.  She reminded me that it is ok to be sad and to even mourn leaving Kansas.  That it's a normal feeling, a natural feeling and in time, it too will pass.  They are both correct.

Mike has been such an understanding, caring, and loving husband and he realizes just how hard it is to do what I have done.  By Sunday afternoon, we needed a chance to get out of the house and away from the unpacking for a bit.  Because Mike loves bowling and is really good at it, I thought it might be nice (in a crazy sort of way) to go bowling with him.  Keeping in mind that I haven't bowled since 1978 and the fact that most of my attempts at knocking all of those pins down usually result in gutter balls, it was a little unnerving to me.  But I decided, "what the heck?"  I can unpack boxes or I can throw gutter balls...so I chose the latter.  It was actually a great deal of fun.  Shoot, I couldn't beat Mike even if he threw opposite-handed with his eyes closed, but it didn't really matter.  For the record, yes I did have a few gutter balls but I also managed several strikes and spares which was a shocker for me.  Out of the 3 games, I actually managed to score over 100 each time....my last game was 117.  Now for you great bowlers out there, yes I know that is a horrible score.  But coming from a woman who remembers at times barely getting 70 of them, I guess I could say that I've improved.  The main thing was to have fun with Mike and I would say we accomplished that.  

And even as great a miracle as it would seem to be brave enough to go bowling again after all of these years, the real miracle happened just moments later as we were at the Dairy Queen getting some ice cream.  I was standing by the door and waiting for Mike when a man and woman approached me from the side.  He came up to me and said "Hey, are you the person that is driving that car out there with the Reno County tags?  And if you are, then what in the heck are you doing way out here?"  And I'm getting goose bumps as we speak because that chance encounter was with another fellow Kansan, as a matter of fact he is another person from Reno County.  His name is Justin and he grew up in the small south central Kansas town of Sylvia and was a 1975 graduate of Fairfield High School.  He and his wife Karen make their home near here in a small community called Olathe.  Friends, I cannot tell you what a gift it was that day to meet up with them, to have this "chance encounter" with them.  As I shook his hand, I found it hard to let go and believe me it wasn't because he had the grip of a butcher (yet he did).  It was because I realized that our meeting one another was no accident, not in the least.  I've been the recipient many times of God's gift of grace and love.  He knew I needed to start making connections here~Justin has become one of them.  Perhaps we shall meet up with them again sometime in the future and it's just pretty nice and comforting as well to know that they are just down the road a ways from here.  

Well, it's 7:15 in the a.m. here and time to get going and start the day.  The mountains are being swallowed up by the clouds right now and there is just the slightest of breezes blowing out of the east.  Our high temperature today will only be 70 and here, just like so many other places in the United States, Coloradoans are hoping for rain as well.  To my Kansas family and friends, I pray for your safety today from the storms.  Keep your eyes to the skies all of you.  Love you, each and every one.

The view from high atop Monarch Pass during my second visit here to Montrose back in early February.  I remember how scary that first journey was and how I hoped that I would make it back to Kansas in one piece.  The high country got a dusting of snow last night and it was visible from the kitchen window here in the valley.  Still a strange feeling for me to imagine snow falling down during the first approach of summer.  

Me with Oblio the roundhead~Christmas of 2010~she was just a six month old kitten back then and we couldn't for the life of us, keep her out of the tree.  All the suggestions that my Facebook friends could offer just didn't do the trick.  So on the last day, we just let her have at it.  

~Upon remembrance of Decoration Day~

Happy Memorial Day everyone~

It seems a bit strange, certainly out of the ordinary, to not be visiting a cemetery today on this the official calendar marking of Memorial Day.  For years, more than I can even remember, I've gone to the graveyards where family and friends are buried and brought flowers to adorn their final resting places.  Decorating graves has always been a tradition with no excuses made in our family and I credit my dear and now sainted mother and grandmother for instilling that solemn practice in me.  Today it is different and I know that they would understand.  I'm nearly 650 miles from the places that I used to go to, the places they are now resting in.  But today as I sit here at the table in my new home in Montrose, I am remembering them and the many times I spent walking those hallowed grounds with them by my side.

From early on, perhaps as early as I can remember, I was taught that the practice of honouring and remembering the dead was a special privilege.  We went to the cemetery often, not just on this final Monday of the month of May.  The kids in my family, well we learned right off the "get go" that entering the cemetery grounds was the same as entering a very sacred and most holy of places.  It didn't matter if your favourite song in the whole wide world was playing on the radio, the music was silenced as you turned into the drive.  We became quiet, solemn and most reverent.  I can still, with a smile on my face, remember my mom admonishing us kids to "stop walking on the graves".  We were little and as little kids are often accustomed to, we paid no attention to what we were doing.  To this day, I never go across someone's grave.  My mom would be happy, I guess :)

As I got older, I still continued to go.  Many times, I went with my grandmother and found it to be like having a "walking lesson in history".  Grandmother Brown knew so many of the folks who were buried at the city cemetery, just outside of Halstead, Kansas.  Row after row, we would walk and she would tell me stories of who the people were and how it was that they came to die.  As she got older it became harder and harder for her to walk with me, so I would just drive her around and she would tell me where to go and somehow or another Grandmother would get out of the car, cane at her side as she slowly made the rounds.

Just north of Halstead on the Halstead-Moundridge blacktop, there lies another cemetery that is tucked into the fields in the northeast corner of the road.  They call it the Fairview Cemetery but it in my family it was always referred to as the Quaker Cemetery.  Many years ago in the late 1860's, my ancestors on the Brown side of the family came to the Harvey County area as Quaker folks. They had left their home in London, England decades before and made the journey to the "new world" of America.  They helped to establish not only the Quaker school but the Friends Fairview Quaker Church in Harvey County as well.  The school was just across the road to the west from the cemetery and it was there that my mom attended school for a few years. Buried in the cemetery there is my great-great grandmother, Rebecca Burch.  A monument just outside of the gates to Fairview is dedicated to her as the last living pensioner of a Revolutionary War veteran in the United States.  As a kid, it almost seemed weird to me that I would have a great-great grandfather who was a veteran of the war of 1776.  And if you are trying to do the math to figure that one out, well I can save you some trouble.  LOL  Great-great grandfather William Burch took  Rebecca as his bride when he was in his 70's and she was barely 30 years of age.  The generations of my family have been spread out since then.  I'm proud of my Revolutionary War heritage and I'm so grateful for the soldiers who have fought from that war onward.  For the record, I hate war as I am sure everyone else does too.  But if we have to be at war to protect our freedom here and the lives of Americans abroad, then I say with my whole heart a words of thanks for the soldiers who do so.

Although my mom and grandma are no longer living, I will never forget the lessons they taught me in this life.  On this Decoration Day of 2013, I pause for a moment in this morning to remember them.  I know that there are lots of people who prefer to never visit the cemetery, even some who are afraid of going.  Everyone has the right to do as they wish on that account.  But for me, I'm really glad that I'm not fearful of going, in fact some of the best visits that I've had with either my mom or grandmother have come to me as I stood at their graves, tears rolling down my face.  I will continue as best I can from a distance so far now, to visit their resting places whenever I am back in Kansas for a visit.  My memories of them and so many others are now stored in my heart and nothing, absolutely nothing, can take them away from me.

When my time comes to go, when God says "enough" for a little girl born "Peggy Ann Scott", I'll be laid to rest in that little Quaker Cemetery right next my Great-great grandmother Burch.  I love the location there, quiet and peaceful, surrounded on all four sides by beautiful fields of Kansas Hard Red Winter wheat. You know, I think she would like that, to realize that someone who never even met her in this life would love her enough to say "this is where I shall be placed."  In the years to come my friends, I hope someone will honour all of us as well.  God's blessings to you guys, all of you.  Still working on that "homesick" thing, but it gets better!  Love you all.

One final  visit to the cemetery before leaving last week~my parents and my brother are here.  My sister and niece not too far away.  A very peaceful place, full of quiet and solace.  I love the pastoral setting of it all.  The older I have gotten, the more I realize just how important of a place it has been in my life.

By Great-great grandmother's monument at Fairview.  I don't think I would have made a very good pioneer woman~I would have complained too much :)  I'm thankful for the sacrifices my ancestors made in getting here in order that in the years ahead, a little kid named Peggy would be born.

~on the subject of being homesick~

A good Sunday evening to you all my friends and family~wherever you may find yourself in this world of ours.  I am thinking of you, each of you, and hoping that everyone is ok.  This is my first ever blog post written as a new resident of the state of Colorado.  I'm on the western slopes now and it hasn't taken me long to figure out what Dorothy meant when she said to her beloved pet, "Toto, I don't think we are in Kansas any more!"  Believe me when I tell you, I am not.  

The nearly week's worth of time since Mike and I were married back on Tuesday, the 21st of May, has flown quickly by us.  The day of our wedding was a very joyous occasion, filled with happiness and a whole lot of people :)  The service was wonderful and when my good friend, Judge "Buck" Lyle pronounced us "husband and wife", it marked the beginning of a new journey, a new adventure in our lives.  Both Mike and I were so thankful, so very appreciative for all of the people who helped us out on that day and were in attendance at our wedding.  Many who could not be there sent their well wishes to us and we were equally grateful for those good folks.  There were probably about 150 kids there and I don't think you could have asked for a better group of young people.  I didn't hear a peep out of any of them and as their teacher, they made me so proud.  I told Mike beforehand that if we could just get them up close enough to where they could see and hear what was happening, that they would be good listeners and true to form, they most certainly were.

I was especially very proud of the children who helped in our ceremony.  Emma and Matt, 5th grade students of mine, as they read the scripture verses and Nadonna and Darin, former co-members of the "broken arm club"  who were the flower girl and ring carrier did such a special job.  They are dear and precious  children who mean this whole world to me.  

The days following this past Tuesday have been  fast and furious ones, with much to do before we left Kansas on Friday morning.  We spent time going to the cemeteries over near Halstead where all of my family members are buried, visited the one remaining aunt that I have living, caught up with as many old friends and family as possible, and even took a trip down "memory lane" when we visited the place where our encounter with one another began in the first place, the small Reno County town of Haven, Kansas. How strange a feeling it was to go back in time, well kinda/sorta, and see so many things that had meant so much to us as kids growing up in the "land of long ago, and far, far away".  

Here we are in the hallway of the high school.  Once a Haven Wildcat, well then always a Haven Wildcat.  Mike and I represent the graduating classes of 1973 and 1977.  In as much as some things change, they still in a weird sort of way, stay the very same.  You know it's kind of  funny how each of us could walk over and find the lockers that we used from our senior years~when on any given day, either of us can misplace our car keys or cell phones with little effort.  Hard to explain!

Our trip home from Hutchinson, Kansas to Montrose, Colorado on Friday of this past week was one that I will always remember.  It was a journey filled with "bitter-sweet" moments in time and if I said that I never felt any sadness about going away, then I would be the greatest liar of all time.  Sad moments WERE there, right alongside the very joyous ones.  It's not easy to just pick up and walk away from a life that I have known for the past 57 years.  Only a very foolish person would think that could be the case. 

I fought back tears several times along the way but for the most part I was able to keep things in "check".  But it was at a certain point along the way, just as we were leaving Salida  for the last 130 miles of a very hard journey, I lost it.  Really, I lost it!  It was my turn to be driving and I remember telling Mike that it wasn't a good thing for me to be so tired and so sad at the same time.  With tears rolling down my face, I pulled over to the side.  

We had just passed the sign shown below and what a rush of memories it brought back to me.  I'd seen it 6 times before as I made the way to Montrose to visit Mike.  It was always at that point in the trip out there that I realized how close I was to finding Mike.  I never gave any thought about how far away from my home in Kansas I was~my only thought was that I would seeing Mike very soon.

Well, for some reason on Friday, it finally hit me at that point in the trip that I was nearly 500 miles away from Hutchinson, Kansas.  It was there, on that particular stretch of Highway 50, that I realized just how much I had left behind.  The three kids, Oblio the roundhead, my old house, family and friends, Bogey's diet vanilla Dr. Peppers, riding along the Martinez Bike Path, and a thousand things more~I missed them all and heck I hadn't even made it to Montrose yet!   And I was sad, really sad.

But for all of the things that I left behind, sitting right alongside me in the front seat was the "blessing" and you know, he really understood what I was going through and will continue to go through in the days to come.  I have to get used to a lot of changes, rather quickly as a matter of fact.  But no matter what, no matter how many tears are shed by me, there is wonderful man who is now my husband, Mike Renfro, who will be right beside me to get me through all of the rough spots.  And for that and for the least of things, I have become ever more grateful.  

It's been a busy weekend with lots to do here.  Unpacking will take days I'm afraid but shoot, that's not so bad.  I made a new friend, my first friend actually, when I took the week's washing to the laundromat.  She's a nice lady named Pat and she is the owner of the Southside Laundry.  I decided this morning that I was going to make every effort to introduce myself to someone this day, to make at least the attempt to befriend someone.  I asked God to just show me ONE person, only one that I could call a friend.  Sure enough, He heard my prayer and now I definitely cannot say that I know only Mike.  I will meet more people as the days go further on.  Yet no matter how many I meet, I shall never forget the good folks, my dearest of friends back in Kansas and points beyond.  You guys are an important part of my life~I love you all.  We shall meet again somewhere down the road.

I'm learning a new language, by the way.  It's time for "dinner" (not supper like I am used to referring to it in Kansas).  Mike is an excellent cook and we kind of have this arrangement...he cooks, I do dishes.  Not a bad deal and what I like to refer to as a "win-win" situation.  I am well cared for and loved...you will never need to worry about me here.  We still shake our head in wonder, Mike and I do, as to how we managed to find one another in the first place after an absence of nearly 40 years.  Guess we really don't need to worry about the answer to that most perplexing of questions...rather, we are happy that it happened at just the right time in our lives.    Have a great evening everyone~from our home here on the western slopes to your homes, wherever they might be.

~upon the saying of farewell~

Good morning everyone, a very early "good morning" actually from here in south central Kansas.  It's 4:16 in the a.m. and I guess some habits are gonna have to die hard.  Having gotten up at this time for years and years now and with the anticipation of moving away today, well I guess it was bound to happen.  We got to bed quite late last evening, perhaps much later than we should have, but we had the best last day in Kansas that we could possibly have hoped for.  For that, I give thanks.... a whole bunch of them in fact.

Even though I told myself that I'd not write in this blog again until I was settled with Mike in Colorado, I am taking a moment this morning to talk out my thoughts.  You know, I've been filled with every emotion you could have imagined in the last 24 hours.  From extremely happy to moments of deep sadness, from full of energy to "so, THIS is what they mean by dead tired"~I have felt a bunch of them.  

In 3 hours I will be leaving the place that I have called "home" for all of my days and when I see the sign at the western border of the Sunflower State that says "Leaving Kansas", well then it will be "for real".   What a fool I would be to tell you that it won't bother me, that it won't make me feel sad because I know that will indeed be the case.  Mike knows my feelings, in fact sometimes I think he already knows "me" better than I know myself :)  He will help me get through the rough spots and for that I am grateful.  

At our wedding this past Tuesday, two of my students were readers of the scripture verse from 1st Corinthians~the verse about love from the "Good Book".  Matt and Emma, a couple of my reading students, have been special to me this year and it meant so much to me that they would be a part of this all.  Just before they went in to the gymnasium ahead of Mike and I, I looked at them both with tears in my eyes.  What a gift they were to me in my life.  I gazed down at each of them, one at a time, and put my hands upon their face.  I said to both of them the very same thing and I will always remember the words that I spoke.....  "You are very special to me and there is nothing that you could do that would ever make me change my mind about you.  I love you very much and you will ALWAYS be a part of my life.  I will carry you in my heart forever."  As I gave them a hug and a kiss, I made a memory in my heart.

Friends and family~the same I say to each of you.  "You are very special to me and I can't think of anything that could happen that would ever change the way I feel about you right now at this moment in time.  I will always love you guys, no matter what, and moving 611 miles westward on Highway 50 will not change my feelings , EVER.  If you were here standing alongside me this morning, I would put my hands on your faces and look you in the eyes and feel the very same thing as I felt with those two young people, now 3 days back.  You are precious gifts to me, blessings that I've been afforded by the very God that me and all of you as well.  I will not forget you~please don't forget me.

Well, it's time to start rousting people about.  It's just me and old Oblio the roundhead that are up and going.  Mike and Grahame are still sleeping away and by the clock on the wall, it would appear that the time is at hand.  I'm glad that I got up and wrote this~I felt a little sad when I woke up an hour ago but you know what?  I feel a little better now.  There will be days like this in the future but one thing is for sure....it gets better :)  

Please friends and family, take good care of yourselves.  Make time for yourself and one another and above all else, be at peace with life.  For the first time in forever, I am at peace with mine.  When the day is done, I will lay my head on the pillow in a beautiful place called Montrose, Colorado with a wonderful man, my husband, lying right next to me.  I thank God every day for the gift, the blessing of a brand new life with a man that I dearly love.  

This is Friday, the 24th day of May, 2013....a great day to be alive in.  I plan to do as the "Good Book" would admonish us all.  I will rejoice and be so very glad in it!  Love you guys, one and all.  

It's a blessing to have so many new family members. This is some of us last evening over at Valley Center~This ever "shrinking world" is a very small place.  When I lived at Valley Center last year, I was only 3 blocks away from the good people that were destined to become a huge part of my life.  All in God's "good time", my destiny was shown to me.

To the little town from "long ago and far, far away"-Haven, Kansas, thank you from those two kids shown above.  We are mighty beholden to you.  Without that little place, we would have never met.

~upon knowing the way home~

A good Sunday morning to everyone out there and greetings from Hutchinson where the thunder is rumbling, the lightning is flashing and the rain has poured down overnight.  How badly the moisture, this "gift", is needed and we take every bit of it that we can get here in the Great Plains.  Many of you reading this live in parts of the U.S. that are equally dry or perhaps even drier than we are here.  For every single drop, for the least of these things we give much thanks.

It's 5:10 in the a.m. and except for Oblio the "roundhead" prowling around the house, it's pretty quiet here.  The ceiling fan's whirr and the music of the "True Oldies Channel" are the only noises to be heard in this place.  In 24 hours things will definitely be making a change.  In the summer of what is soon to be my 58th year, life as I have known it will be taking quite a turn and I'll be going down some new roads in a place that is far, far away from here.  I'll be living in a new state, working at a different job, and making friends with an entirely new group of people.  It can at times be a little unnerving as I stop to think about it but the one thing that calms any uneasiness, any fear is the knowledge that I will not go through this new part of life alone.  In His own perfect timing, because He is way smarter than I would ever profess to be, God sent the right person into my life.  And you know, when the "Good Book" says in Ecclesiastes that "to every thing there a season and a time for every purpose under Heaven"?  Well, they weren't kidding.  May 21, 2013~marks the beginning of the season of the rest of the lives of two kids from the "land of long ago, and far, far away."  And those two kids, now well into their 50's, are sure glad that they didn't give up hope.

It seems like forever ago that I took that first journey out to Montrose in the middle of winter time.  I remember my good friend, LeRoy Willis, questioning my sanity and reasoning for driving in wintertime conditions through the Colorado mountains to visit this guy named Mike Renfro.  As I read his comments on my Facebook page, I had to laugh as I envisioned the ornery grin on LeRoy's face as he figured out just why this "flatlander" was making such an arduous journey.  Later on, he would ask me if Mike and I had intentions to marry one another.  "LeRoy if we ever do, you will probably be one of the first to know", I replied back to him.  In mid-April when Mike and I had decided that we would be married in late May, I contacted LeRoy to tell him the news and also to ask him yet another question....."Would you be there to give me away in marriage?"  And come this Tuesday, that dear friend will be the one who does just that.

LeRoy and I during the autumn of 2011~He and his dear wife, Anne, had just come back to Kansas for a brief stay before returning to their "warm weather" home during the winter time, the desert southwest.  They had found an indoor trainer for my bike and had brought it back for me to use while "old lefty" was healing and getting ready for another surgery.  The Willis's are two very fine people and my dear friends.

As I prepare for the last two days of school, the final "stint" of my life as an educator, I've come ever more to realize just how important kids have been in my existence here.  I have loved them, ALL of them, each in their own ways.  Not one has been more important to me than the other.  I am so glad that my current group of students, the 200+ children at Lincoln Elementary, will have been invited to be there when Mike and I are married less than 72 hours from now.  I have asked a few of them to help us that day and graciously they each said "yes".  Here they are~

Emma and Matt have been in my reading rotation groups throughout this year at school.  I have seen their struggles and challenges in reading but I've also seen much improvement on their part.  They have come a long ways and with the help of their own classroom teachers, they have made it.  With tears in my eyes, I want to tell you something.  It's "true confession" time for this teacher.  My dear friend Emma, talks non-stop sometimes.  I have found myself growing impatient and telling her that she had to be quiet or only listening half-ways to what she was saying to me.  I'm ashamed of that, really I am.  I didn't always get along with Matt and he and I "butted heads" with one another off and on for nearly the first 3 months of school.  As a student, he didn't always make the best of choices.  As a teacher, I didn't always react in the best way that I could have.  There was much room for improvement on ALL of our parts, mine included.  About November, I had Matt and Emma read the book "A Taste of the Blackberries", a story in which one of the main characters, a little boy named Jamie is bitten by a bee and dies from the allergic reaction to it. 

The challenge of teaching that book arises because by its very nature, the subject of death and dying has to be addressed.  We spent a lot of time talking about the new vocabulary words in the book, words like funeral home, grave, headstone, casket, pall bearers, and memorials.  It's a book that can easily be read in less than a week but we found the discussion of it so interesting that we took the better part of a month for it.  For some reason, and really I believe it was a "God thing", the 3 of us connected with one another and as the book went on, I found myself understanding those two students and another young man named Tre, a little bit better.  My heart softened (ok, ok almost to the point of mush) to young Matt and for dear Emma, I FINALLY started listening to her, I mean REALLY listening to her.  They both had a lot to say and when I finally realized that all I needed to do was just stop trying to be in control of everything and give part of the ownership of learning back to them, things got a lot better.  I have told them both many times, that our turning point was when we all "met in the middle".  I was able to gain their respect by showing mine to them first.  What a lesson it was for me to learn that day and in my 35th year of teaching to know that it wasn't too late to make a change in myself in order to bring about the best in learning for those two students.  Come this Tuesday, Matt and Emma will be a part of our wedding as they read the "love" verse from the Bible found in First Corinthians 13.  It's a tricky one, filled with words that are difficult for young people (heck even old people) to read, but I have all the confidence in the world in those two kids.  I told them that I will be there to help them, that it's going to be just like reading it in class.  The only difference is that their teacher will be married.  I'm sure proud of them and all of the kids there.  What a blessing I have been given, to know so many students over the years.

And of course, on the subject of everything happening for a reason in this life, my bike accident of August of 2011 allowed me to make a connection, a special friendship with two young people who will also help us on Tuesday as the flower girl and "keeper of the rings".  Nadonna, a little girl from our school, and Darin, the grandson of our school secretary, both broke their arms shortly after I did that year.  We went through the long and difficult process of healing together.  They both got out of their casts within a few months while I went on to another surgery and an additional 3 months in a cast.  Unfortunately dear Nadonna broke her other arm a few weeks back at school and is now sporting a new cast.  Life happens like that but as I have said many times to Nadonna, "It gets better."  Those two kids were the like the best and most powerful medicine that I could have ever asked for during those trying times.  If I felt "down", and believe me there many days like that, all I had to do was to talk to one of them.  We stuck together, the 3 of us and encouraged one another when things got a little tough.  Nadonna, Darin and I made it and we did so because we knew we could not, should not, and would not give up.  I love those two so very much and will always remember them and the times we went through together.

The Brothers Mitzner, Darin on the left and Kodi on the right.  How could a person NOT feel better?  Just look at those two cute faces~

Nadonna and I~between the two of us, we had one good pair of arms :)  I will never forget this little one and the wonderful gift of her presence in a time that was very rough for me.  

Well, this is it~the day before the "day before".  I have much to do yet before tomorrow arrives and if it doesn't get done, well I guess it just doesn't get done, right?  Today will go quickly and in just 24 hours from now, Mike will board a plane and head to Kansas.  When he touches down in Wichita, my son Grahame will be there to meet him and hopefully by 3:00 he will have arrived in Hutchinson.  What a wonderful feeling it will be to finally see him HERE and to know that we will soon be married.  It's been a long wait but he is surely worth it.  

This will be my last blog post for a while.  Once we are settled in our new home together in Colorado, I will write again.  Having finished my bucket list for here in Kansas, I have already developed a new one for life in Colorado.  I have no intention of stopping the practice of "living as if I was dying".....I have come to realize, most thankfully, that each day of life is a gift to us.  Every day that passes by without us acknowledging life's brevity is a day that is lost and never to be gotten back.  My dear friends and family, please do something today that you have always wanted to but just never got around to it yet.  And please remember, sometimes those things don't cost us anything but our time.  What are you waiting for?  Get out there and do it!  I'm not your boss, remember, only very bossy and I love you guys one and all.  

Michael Duane Renfro~see you in my part of the world tomorrow!  I love you and I am ready.  It's easy to find us, just go 611 miles east...you can't miss it!  A place they call "Kansas".

                                         ~the way home~

~upon nearly reaching the day when the road gets shorter~

Hello my dear friends and family, one and all, with greetings from "home" here in Kansas.  It's my last official weekend of being a resident of this great state of ours and I can't help but to think about that as the hours pass by ever quickly now.  This past week has been a busy one around here but I know I am not alone in that respect. All of us have "plates" that are overflowing and if you are like me, sometimes a person can find it pretty hard to keep their heads above the water line.  But as is usually the case, we all make it one way or another~it only seems as though we won't.

The past few weeks have been ones to make enough memories to last a lifetime with the students at our school, Lincoln Elementary.  Once the kids found out that Mike and I would be married on the last day of school, they quickly wanted to ask me all kinds of questions. I won't divulge all of their concerns here :) but their questions were innocent ones. However, I will say that the number 1 question asked of me these past few days was this~"When you guys get married, are you going to kiss each other?" My response to them has usually been, "Well, probably.  Is that ok with you?"  They all have been asked to be there with us on Tuesday as we are married and many of them have been able to accept our invitation.   It's a blessing, really a special one, that the little people who have meant so much to me over the course of the last 3 years of being a teacher there, will get to see us become husband and wife.

There is one remarkable young man that not only will be in attendance but will also have played an important part in our ceremony.  He's a great kid, a fourth grader in Mrs. Styes' classroom named Ezequiel.  He and I met 5 years ago when he was a kindergartner at my former school, Avenue A Elementary.  I was the ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher at the time and Ezequiel was one of my students there.  His first language is Spanish but he was able to pick up his second one, English, with little trouble.  I always loved that little guy and when he came to our school this past year as a fourth-grade student, I was so happy to see him once again.

In this "sea of kids" from my last year at Avenue A (2010), Ezequiel is on the second row and  from the right hand side of the photo, he would be the fourth one from the right.

Ezequiel's current teacher, my good friend Kris Styes, is not only a superb educator but additionally is one heck of a cake baker.  I asked her if she would be willing to make a small sheet cake for our wedding that our families could enjoy at dinner that evening.  She was happy to do so and began to ask what kind I wanted it to be.  So I gave her some ideas~yellow cake, cream cheese frosting, enough to serve about 30 people.  The last idea I had was to somehow tie my journey of going back and forth from Kansas to Colorado and how wonderful it would be when we were married and that long road would somehow get shorter.  I had left it at that, not even considering what she might be able to do.  Just a few days ago as we were talking about some ideas for the wedding she said she wanted to show me something.  She went over to Ezequiel's desk and pulled out the most remarkable drawing that I had ever seen, one that almost made me burst into tears.  This is what it looked like~

Knowing what a great little artist he is and how much it would mean to me as well, Kris asked Ezequiel to come up with a picture that could become an "edible image" for the top of our wedding cake.  She only gave him a few ideas and he took off with the rest of it on his own. I absolutely could not believe it when I viewed it for the first time.  From the flattened plains and farmland of south central Kansas to the beautiful mountain ranges of south western Colorado, across a now much shortened up version of the 611 mile stretch of US Highway 50, his drawing pretty much said it all.  I loved every bit of it, especially the "Hello Sunshine" part.  He took a lot of pride in doing this and it is yet again another one of those teacher "bonus checks" that I keep trying to tell everyone about.  You CEO's from the mega bazillion $$$$ corporations, heck you guys can keep all of your end of the year bonus checks.  I maybe didn't make a lot of money in a 35-year career in education, but I will always be glad that I was a teacher.  And oh yeah, as every one keeps reminding me, that being a teacher part?  Well I will always be one.

Time to get going and stop trading "daylight for dark".  Have a great weekend everyone and for those of us living in "Tornado Alley" take care this weekend.  Be sure to keep an eye on the skies all of you.  Take care of yourselves and one another because we are absolutely in this thing together, all of us.

As life goes on and on and on~

Hello everyone~it's been such a beautiful day here in south central Kansas, warm temperatures, a bit of a breeze, an exceptionally nice looking sky.  I just came in from the backyard where my 24-year old son Grahame is working up his garden.  He's put a lot of hard effort into it, his first one ever. What a joy it has been to see him out there playing in the soil just like his mother loves to do and his grandmother did before him.  When I went out after school today, I saw a huge mound of dirt that Grahame had dug out for yet another planting bed.  I half-jokingly, half-seriously asked him, "Son, are you trying to find a way to China? If so, there is a much easier method."  He only grinned at me.

 Grahame prefers to dig everything by hand even though a tiller is available for his use.  When I foolishly asked him why he was doing it the "hard way", that 6-foot tall and long legged boy of mine gave the answer~"Take your shoes off Mom and come step in it with me."  He needn't have had to ask me twice!  Didn't take long to get my 57-year old feet naked and as I ventured into the cool and moist earth, I knew exactly why he was doing it the way he was.  That freshly hand-turned dirt was like medicine for a tired soul and sinking spirit.  Grahame had found that out and since it's not a 20-acre patch of ground, only a backyard garden, he will more than likely never turn a tiller on again.  I like that boy~he has a little of me, a bit of his Grandma Scott, and still another piece of his Grandpa Hemman in him.  He will turn out to be a fine gardener, I am most positive.

This week has flown quickly by and I am daily reminded of the many changes that await my life in the days that lie ahead.  Between finishing school, getting married, and moving away to a new home in Colorado all in the course of yet another week, I've been burning the "midnight oil" more than ever.  I have surely been blessed in so many ways with dear friends and family here in Kansas and beyond that have provided so much help in getting things ready for the day that lies ahead next week.  Just like the time when "old lefty" was so badly hurt, my "school family" and many other friends out there have stepped in and helped to lighten my load as I try to get things ready for our wedding coming up on Tuesday.  Between baking cookies, helping with the decorating, providing moral support, offering to lend a hand in what ever way was needed including volunteering to help with the kids that afternoon, the load has become much lighter for me.  Not sure how I would have figured to get everything done in a timely fashion without their kind assistance.  To them, I am beholden. Once again I have witnessed what friends do for one another and they do it every day for no other reason, for no other gain, than this~They do it because it is the right thing to do for one another.  I thank God for those folks in my life every day and I always pray to be able to do for them somehow what they have unceasingly done for me.  You know it's difficult to type these words with eyes filled with tears and a lump in my throat.

With only 4 days left of school, precious few hours to make connections with the kids at Lincoln, I am trying to use every moment I can to "touch base" with each of them.  I want them to know how much I love them and truly how much I believe in them.  My desire, my greatest wish for all them is that they would grow up to be healthy and productive citizens.  The wonderful thing about teaching at Lincoln is that I not only speak for myself here but I speak as well for the many other great people on the staff there with me.  Those over 200 kids have a LOT of people who love them and very unconditionally, I might add.  Their paths will each be different and I know the road to the future is going to be rough and very difficult for them to travel.  There are a lot of "strikes" against children these days but when I stop to think about it, there hasn't been a generation of people who have not had challenges to overcome.  My generation, your generation~some how we made it and more than likely this current one will make it as well.  Even though I won't be with them next year, I will anxiously wait to hear how things go for them.  I suppose it IS true~once a teacher, always a teacher.

It's now the early morning hours on Thursday.  I fell asleep last evening as I was typing this.  Not a pretty sight I'm sure~just laid my head down on the table to rest my eyes a bit...ok, ok, ok, it was REALLY because if I didn't lay my head down I would have fallen off my chair being sound asleep sitting straight up.  45 minutes, a very stiff neck, and the most interesting and intriguing imprint of my tablecloth across my face later, I woke up!  Yesterday when I told Mike that the first thing I was going to do when we made it to Colorado was to sleep for a day or two, I was only kind of kidding.  Might want to have to do it for real now, you know?

Time to get going and start yet another day.  Life has gone on and on and perpetually on this week.  With thankfulness, I'm glad that God saw fit that I should be a part of it and if you are reading this today, then you have been chosen to be a part of it as well.  Not quite sure where our paths will all cross again in the future but somehow I feel they will.  In the meantime, how grateful I am to have known you and to have shared this life with you.  

Have a great Thursday everyone~this is the 16th day of May, 2013.  When it is done and we lay our heads on our pillows the night upcoming, it will have been the greatest of days to have been alive in.  I'm gonna do what the "Good Book" asks of us~I choose to rejoice and be very glad in it.  May you as well :)

Every time I see this photo, taken now 2 years ago, I just have to laugh.  We were four crazy women that day who were having the time of our lives laughing and carrying on as if we were in high school again.  Toni, Annetta, and Joyce~Even if I am 600 miles away, I will meet you sometime back there on that corner in the little town we grew up in.  I can never forget where I came from~it will always be a part of me.  Surely thankful to have grown up with "kids" just like you guys.

One week left to go~

Greetings everyone on this day of honouring our mothers and the many things that they do for us all of the time, without fail.  I hope that each of you had a great day and if you are blessed enough to have your mom still living, I hope that you were able to be with her.  It's been 6 "Mother's Days" since our mom was here with us.  I think of her always and am grateful in the knowledge that one I day I will see her in Heaven and wow, what a reunion that will be!

I just arrived home from a visit to Pueblo, Colorado in order to see Mike bowl in a state tournament out there this weekend.  It was a long trip but thankfully it was about 200 miles shorter than having to go all the way to Montrose where Mike's home is.  I don't know a whole lot about bowling, except how to be one of the best in the entire universe at throwing the infamous "gutter ball".  It was fun to watch him and all of the other bowlers and wonder in awe at their uncanny ability to knock down all of those pins, time after time after time. Yesterday was a full afternoon of bowling and they finished up the last 3 games this morning.  I took out right after breakfast in order to return a little earlier.  With lots of stuff to finish up around here, I thought it was best to get an early start back home to Kansas.  

It's a long ways from my home in Hutchinson, Kansas to Mike's home in Montrose, Colorado~611 miles of a "long way" to be exact.  I can well remember the first time I made the journey way back in early January of this year.  Foolishly I thought I'd make the entire 11 and a half hour journey on my own in one fell swoop, in the dark, in unknown surroundings, in the middle of winter.  Of necessity, I learned quickly to have great respect for the mountainous terrain of south western Colorado and indeed how quickly the weather changes from hour to hour, from altitude to changing altitude.  I had absolutely no clue, that first trip out, where I was going or what I might encounter along the way.  I laugh when I remember the crazy question that I asked Mike as I was driving out that first evening when I said, "Hey, do you live where bears might be?"  In my mind, I had envisioned his home being in the remote wilderness where giant grizzlies made it a habit to ring your doorbell and invite themselves "to home" at your dining room table.  Wow, what a "flatlander" I was and still am, by the way.  When I arrived at his home in the early morning hours that Saturday, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Mike lives very close to "civilization", only a stone's throw away from the city of Montrose.  And now, 6 visits later, I feel very much at home there~a good thing too since come May 21st, Montrose will be my home, my "new home", as well.

One week from tomorrow, I will see Mike again as he flies into Wichita from Colorado.  The next day we will be married after the "last day of school" bell has rung.  Our families plus many students, teaching cohorts, and friends will join us in the gymnasium of Lincoln Elementary School for our wedding.  On Friday of that week, we will return home to Montrose and begin our new life there together.  Both of us are still amazed at the fact that two people from so very long ago could meet up with one another 40 years after we were at the same high school in the small town of Haven, Kansas.  We stopped trying to figure it out and just accept it as the blessing that it turned out to be.  For both Mike and I, how wonderful was the realization that it was not too late for us, that indeed the time was the "right time" for us to meet one another again.  With what days we have left in our lives, we intend to love each other and go through this life together.  Only fools would believe that the road ahead of us will be smooth.  We know full well that there will be "bumps" along the way, heck there might even be a few "potholes".  But there is nothing that we cannot survive, absolutely nothing that we cannot accomplish as long as we stick together and that we surely intend to do.

The week ahead will probably be the busiest one of our lives.  Much to do in both places, Montrose and Hutchinson.  Even though it seemed at times like the days would never pass before we could be together again, they have really flown quickly by.  Many thanks should be given to all of our family and friends who have supported us and stood beside us in our decision to marry.  In both Kansas and Colorado and many other places, there are good people who would do anything for either of us.  What a blessing those folks have been.  As for me, I remember with gratitude all of the people, who many times, "prayed" me home on the long route along Highway 50 between the Renfro House and the Miller House.  I can remember many times, how that simple of act of kindness and friendship lifted me up on those many miles of travel.  We are beholden to many good people~may we do the same for each of you some day too.

Well the day is nearly done.  As days go, it was a wonderful one, a great Mother's Day.  I heard from each of my 3 children and was thankful in the knowledge that each of them was alive and well.  And even though my own dear mom is no longer here on earth to celebrate this special Sunday, I was able to call on the phone the woman who will soon be my mother-in-law, Mike's mom Bonnie.  She is such a nice woman, one who accepts me as her own "daughter" now and what a gift that is to me.  I miss my own mother but she would be so very glad to know that another "mom" is there for me now.  I love them both!  

Hoping you all have had a great day and if you were able to do so, that you visited or called your own moms out there.  It took me a long time in life to be able to really appreciate what my mother did for me and for my 6 siblings.  With regret, I'm sorry that I didn't realize it earlier but sometimes you have to go through a lot of life before you get to that point in time.  Luckily, it happened for me and I could thank her for it before she passed away in 2007.  Wishing everyone a good evening, wherever you are in this world.  I love you guys, ALL of you, and I thank you for being my good friends.  I would not have been able to make it to this day without you.

We had MORE fun in Pueblo, Colorado doing things that didn't cost a penny.  The down town area is filled with amazing art work that I wish you all could have seen.  We had a great time looking at all of it!

It gets better~

Hey, a good Wednesday evening to all of you out there from our part of the world, Reno County, Kansas.  The skies here are getting dark and the promise of some severe weather may surely come our way as the evening hours arrive.  Having lived here in "Tornado Alley" all of my years, I have come to expect that during the months from April onward to late summer the weather may well turn stormy.  All you can do is listen to the weather reports and head to the basement or shelter if the clouds are indeed deemed to be threatening. Tornadoes come and tornadoes go, but the spirit of the people who live in that wide swath of the U.S. more prone to funnel clouds forming than anywhere else, is not easily shaken.  I have seen many a community struck by F4 or F5 tornadoes come back and be an even greater community than they were before.  I love the Midwest!

While at school today, I was reminded of how strong and long lasting the bond between two people with similar things in common, can be.  Nearly two years ago now come this August, I broke my left arm very badly in an accident.  Numerous surgeries and 9 months of wearing long-arm casts were necessary in order to even regain partial use of my left hand and wrist.  Sometimes it was pretty miserable and a lot of the times I was just about sure that I'd die of old age, still wearing a dumb long-arm cast.  But I made it, partially due to the fact that there was a little kindergarten girl at my school who was suffering with the same predicament that I was.  Her name was Nadonna and she too had a broken arm.

Little Nadonna had busted her right arm out on the playground early in the school year and her injury required surgery just as mine had.  She became my friend that year and together we decided that we were going to get well and shed those awful "exoskeletons" that we were sentenced to .  The recuperation process wasn't going to be a whole lot of fun to endure but both of us knew that if we stuck together it would be much more bearable for both of us.  We made a habit out of taking pictures together as we went through the ordeal of trying to get our arms to heal.  It seemed to lift our spirits and as the old adage "misery loves company" goes, well we became mighty good company for one another.  Now that I look back on those photos, I have to smile.

We made it and luckily for Nadonna, she was able to shed her exoskeleton a couple of months before me.  The two of us decided to give up our charter membership in the "Lincoln Elementary Broken Arm Club" and to never return to it again.  For nearly the past year now, that plan has been working out pretty dang good, well that is until today.  I was doing some  end of the year testing with the first grade classes this morning. When I stopped in Nadonna's classroom, we caught sight of one another and with the saddest and most perplexed look on her face, she held up her left arm.  To my surprise and dismay, I saw it.  Nadonna was wearing a cast.  She had broken her arm again, this time on the playground as she played tug-of-war with a friend.  You know that little girl didn't have to say one word to me.  I knew exactly how she felt and her eyes and face sent me a message and the message was this..."Mrs. Miller, I'm very sad.  Look what I just did to my arm!"  

We visited for a while in my classroom and I reminded Nadonna that we both got through our broken arms of two years back by sticking together.  I asked her to remember that I would be right across the hallway at school and when she needed something, I would help her.  I told her the very same thing I said to her the morning I found her sitting at the breakfast table at school, struggling to get her milk carton, juice and cereal opened up one-handed.  I walked over to her, one-handed myself, and together we took care of the problem.  I whispered in her ear, "Little one, don't worry.  It gets better. "

Before she left my classroom today, we talked a little bit about her being there the day that Mike and I are married.  Since she is the "flower girl" for the occasion, we talked about what she wanted to wear and also that having of a cast would not make her unable to be in the wedding.  I said to her, "Nadonna, pretend that you have a bouquet of flowers in your two hands.  Can you do it?"  She quickly put her two hands together and her once very sad face broke into a little smile.  It sure was good to see that~having worn my own share of "sad and frowny faces" for the better part of 3 different seasons of the year in 2011, I know all too well how she feels.  It isn't fun but you CAN get through it.  

Well, just looked outside and saw the storm clouds from the south west.  Looks like a line of thunderstorms are headed this way.  Time to finish this and shut the computer down during the storm.  One week ago, snow, ice and freezing temperatures.  Today, only a few short days later, we face totally opposite conditions.  That's what I love about Kansas...you just can't predict what "Mother Nature" will throw at us.  Stay safe, stay well everyone.  Even when arms get broken, even when things look most bleak, we would do well to remember that we are all in this life together.  Good night everyone!

 
Nadonna and I in my classroom today.  I told her some day when she was an old woman just like me that she would look back on these pictures and tell her grandchildren about the time she broke both of her arms all in the span of less than two years.  She's a tough little girl, she will make it.  Surely, it DOES get better!

It does take a village~

Good morning friends and family from my home on East 14th Street to yours, where ever that might be.  It's the early morning hours here and save for me and Oblio, not a soul is stirring on this block.  Good reason for that~only the "crazy" people like me are up.  The sane people?  Well, they are all asleep.  I have heard it said that as we get older, we require less sleep.  If that is true, then I am indeed getting older.  

This is the two-week mark from the end of school and as the days continue to flash by me, I've had plenty of occasion to remember the many children that I have come into contact with over nearly the last four decades.  I don't even have a good "guesstimate" of how many kids I've taught over my time as an educator.  Long ago, I stopped trying to keep count.  But I think I can suffice it to say that there's been more than a couple of them.  A teacher remembers each of them, in their own way, for the years to come ahead.  You know what?  I have loved them all, even the naughtiest of them.  Wait a minute, let me rephrase that...ESPECIALLY the naughtiest of them.  Even in their moments of "problem causing" instead of "problem solving", they have made a special place in my heart.  

Back in the days of corporal punishment at school, when teachers were allowed to spank students who had stepped over the line one too many times, I only had the need to spank one child.  He was a first grade little guy and after about a bazillion tries to make things work out differently for him, I finally took him to the principal's office and spanked.  You know I never forgot that and he didn't either.  After it was over, his mom and dad called to thank me for doing it.  They too were at their wit's end and for the days that followed that little guy became a great student, not only for me but for the teachers that had him later.  Even though I know I did the right thing by spanking, I always wondered in the back of my mind how that little guy must have felt after it happened.  Years later, many miles down the road, he found me one day.  He had grown into a tall and handsome young man, newly married and a little guy of his own.  I hardly recognized him as he sought me out when I was at Haven one day.  After he said to me, "Aren't you Mrs. Miller?  I think you were my first grade teacher", I knew right away it was him.  The very first thing he did was put his arm around me and give me a hug.  When he introduced me to his wife, the first words out of his mouth were..."She's the one who paddled my hind end when I was a little kid."  And then he turned to me and said, "Mrs. Miller, thanks for doing that.  I needed it and it helped me to grow up.  You did the right thing."  I'll never forget that day or that little boy.  Haven't spanked anyone since and I guess if I end my career in 2 weeks having to spank only one child in 35 years, well shoot that's a pretty good record :)  

It's soon time to get dressed and ready for another school day.  By the way, we are still in school you know?  :)  Teachers are teaching, learners are learning.  And that's the way it should be, not only in the classroom setting but every where a kid might be in this life.  I wanted to share a few photos of "school days" that have meant a lot to me.  They all have and it's hard to choose any one group of kids that I enjoyed any more than another.  What a blessing, to have had so many good experiences that I cannot choose which one is the most special.  Have a great day everyone and remember, if you could read this post then somewhere on this earth there is a teacher that you need to thank.  It all starts with the letters and their sounds and ends up with the reading of the "best sellers" of our times.

My last group of students to teach at Avenue A Elementary-Hutchinson, KS.  I had the chance to teach ESL students for my last 3 years there before retirement.  It was important to me to have a photo taken of all the kids that I worked with, just about 100 in all.  You would not believe the chaos involved with getting that many kids to stand still in front of the photographer for one minute.  I look at their little faces and just have to laugh.  What an experience for me to have, one that I will remember for a long time to come.

Little Nadonna and I-She "bit the dust" on the playground one day and broke her right arm.  For 2 months, we both shared in the misery of having to wear casts at the same time.  We became friends, maybe because the old saying "misery loves company" was true for us in its own weird way.  This was the day that we made lemonade from the lemons and after a trip to Walmart one Saturday afternoon, I brought back enough pairs of gloves for both of us to share during the cold days that would lie ahead.  It worked out great and we still laugh together when we think of it.  That little girl "saved me" and she didn't even know it.  When Mike and I get married, now just two weeks from today, she will be standing there with us.  Some day our broken arms will just be a memory but I will never forget that little kid and the time we both were fellow members of the "broken arm club."

Little Sadie-the only kid I ever knew who made it her mission in her 8-year old life to check on me every day after school was out.  The year she was a second grader, I could always count on the fact that about 3:12 p.m. the door to my classroom was always going to swing open and her little face would be peering around the corner.  She would always say the same thing, "Mrs. Miller, I just came by to check and see how you are doing.  Are you doing ok?"  Then she would proceed to make herself "to home" in my room, often times drawing her best renditions of what she thought that the two of us looked like together with a marker on my dry erase board.  If I was I lucky, she'd use the kind I could wipe off.  LOL, there were a few times that she did not.  I love that little one and Sadie was blessed in the fact that a lot of other people felt the same way about her at our school.  (thinking of my good friends and Sadie's teachers, Patti and Elizabeth)  I don't know where she is these days but wherever she has landed in this life, I hope that someone is watching out for her at school and helping her along the way.  She's worth it!  They all are.

See that cute little guy standing there....the one that is obviously not Amish?  That's my now over 6 foot tall son, Grahame Hemman.  I include Grahame's picture here because he endured what most kids don't have to~his mother was his teacher two years in a row.  For 16 years I taught at Yoder Grade School (a part of USD 312 at Haven) as the first and second grade teacher.  95% of the kids at school during that time were Old Order Amish and in this particular class, Grahame was the only "English" kid.   Even though he had me as his teacher for those two years, Grahame swears that he was not scarred by the experience LOL.  He was a good student, very bright.  The only bad grade he got in those two years was in handwriting and he still to this day remembers the grade he got every single time... "N" for needs improvement.  I would like to tell you that it has improved over the years...I would LIKE to tell you.  This photo shows the time when we made refugee boxes to send to the people of Bosnia during one of the many times of strife there.  We worked through the Mennonite Central Committee office in  North Newton, who in turn came to school and picked them all up for us.  I taught that class of children how to read and write but even  more important, I wanted to teach them to be grateful for what they had living here in America and remind them that in the world there were many places like Bosnia where the children weren't so fortunate.  I have never regretted so doing.  The man that my son grew up to be has made it this far in life because of the wonderful influences of a lot of teachers along the way.  To those educators, this mom will be forever beholden to you all.

~Upon no longer having to prove yourself~

Good evening my dear friends and family, all scattered throughout America, this great place that we all call "home".  This has been a pretty decent Sunday and all things considered, we did ok today.  How wonderful that winter's last "grip" on us appears to have given up and maybe now we can FINALLY get back to some spring time weather.  If so, that will give us a week or two before summer arrives.  

This morning the "Sand Plum Classic" bike ride was held with the starting point at the Kansas State Fairgrounds.  A couple of weeks back, I signed up for it along with my friends Patti and Tonya.  At that time, we were sure that the weather would be warm and definitely more like spring than winter.  This morning as we awoke to an early morning temperature of 45 degrees with a wind chill 6 degrees lower, the three of us began to rethink our plans for the ride.  Didn't take long to make our minds up~for me the 3 mile ride to the starting point at the Fairgrounds was about as uncomfortably chilly as I care to get.  So I picked up my "official" t-shirt and headed back home.  Shortly thereafter, I met up with those two dear friends at the Village Inn on Main Street where we enjoyed warm cocoa and pancakes for breakfast.  For us, the ride was not going to happen and even though many brave souls DID go, we felt very glad that we chose not to.  

You know, the 3 of us have ridden many miles together.  This would have been our third Sand Plum ride, had we gone today.  We've also ridden, about 3 years in a row now, the 20 mile Sterling 4th of July Bike Hike.  It's just been plain fun and a tremendous fellowship to be a part of.  I know that I will miss riding bikes with these two ladies when I leave in two weeks for Colorado. I thank them for their friendship and encouragement to me over the years that I have known them, both on our bike riding treks as well as having them as teaching cohorts at Lincoln Elementary.  I will always be glad that our paths on this earth crossed with one another.  It was meant to be.

There used to be a time when I would have NEVER thought of giving up a ride simply because the weather seemed too cold.  No matter what happened, I would always make the ride, not always because I WANTED  to but rather because I thought I HAD to.  I used to consider it a sign of weakness to give up on something.  In years past, I have practiced the dangerous habit of  measuring my own "self worth" by the things I could and could not do .  One of those things was how many miles I could put in on my bike in any given season.  The year 2011 was a great example of how that all worked.

I was sure that year that I would be able to complete the Bike Across Kansas that June.  So sure a thing was it, that I put in well over 1,400 miles on my bike from early March until the first of June.  I may have even been a little "cocky" in the way that I did them.  I remember when the odometer on the bicycle turned over to 1,000 miles that year, I picked up my bike and carried it the last half block home just so I could show my son Grahame and to take a photo of it before it turned over to a new  number.  By the time the BAK arrived in early June, my spirit was soaring, legs filled with strength to pedal me across the nearly 500 miles of the journey. Yet, all it took on Day #5 was a bout with dehydration and heat stroke to bring me to my "proverbial knees" and my part of the ride was OVER.  I remember the blog post I made that evening when I got home from the clinic after receiving IV fluids for the afternoon.  It was about as disappointing a blog post as I have ever made, even more discouraging than the trials of "old lefty".  From that day, now nearly 2 years ago...

Day 5 on the BAK started out from Hoisington and was set to go to McPherson.  My day started out in Hoisington and ended up about 7 miles into Rice County on Highway 4.  I knew that I wasn't feeling good when I left this morning and about 15 miles into our ride I knew that I wasn't going to be able to ride any further feeling like I did.  Grahame picked me up and I went to the clinic here in Hutchinson.  4 hours later and bags of IV fluid I was given the "no go" from my doctor who said that blood work and the UA showed the effects of mild heat stroke and dehydration.  Looking back, I felt bad last night already and shouldn't have probably ridden the 30 miles that I did today.  But I wanted to try.  I am very disappointed but I have learned that there are lots of people in this life who have made a premature trip to the cemetery because of their foolish pride.  I kind of like living still.  So I am listening to the doctor and saying "enough".  There is much I wish to tell you about the 5 good days that I did have.  Tonight though, I just want to rest and stay cool.  More tomorrow when I feel a little better.  God bless each of you for the words of encouragement.  I will be fine~just need to rest!  Take care all of you and I will post more tomorrow.  Peggy (7th day of June, 2011)

I always vowed to myself that I would return the next summer to attempt to do the full distance of the route, to make up for my self-perceived miserable try that summer.  But only a couple of months after that day in June, I crashed my bike in my own front yard after foolishly attempting to jump a curb rather than doing the sane thing....slowing down to enter the next driveway.  One badly broken left arm and 9 months of recovery time later, the BAK of 2012 was out for me.  The summer of 2013 would have to be my time and so on Kansas Day, January 29th I signed up to make one last stab at it before I would quit. This year would have been my 5th try~and as it stands now, it was my last.

Funny thing happened along the way to the Bike Across Kansas this summer~Believe it or not, I lost interest in it, so much so that it no longer consumed my every burning desire to finish it in 2013.  I gave it several days of good thought and last week, right before the deadline to withdraw and still get money back from the entry fee, I took my name off the official list.  And actually, I feel pretty good about that.  While I really admire the people who do it, especially those who attempt it year and year, I've finally stopped measuring just how much "Peggy Miller" is worth to the world just by finishing it.  

I kind of think from now on that I'm going to ride my bicycle for one purpose only~to have fun and not just to see how far I can ride it.  I may never ride more than 10 miles at a time again....I may not even ride every day any more.  But when I do ride, it will be because I want to and never again because I feel like I have to.  Things will undoubtedly work out a lot better that way.

The day is slowly drawing to a close here.  Grahame is out working in the back yard making his own "official first" garden of his lifetime.  He's doing a pretty good job for the first time on his own.  I'm proud of the hard work he has put into it.  Some of his Grandma Scott's "gardening gene" must have been passed down to him.  Grahame loves to play in the dirt just as much as his mom does.  He'll be doing a lot of that this summer as he lives here in the house.   It makes me happy to know that even though I won't be here, someone will be who will take very good care of our home here in Hutch.  In Montrose, Mike is getting gardening and growing spots ready for me to plant things in just as soon as we get back there at the end of the month.  I'll still be growing things, just in a different climate zone :)

Have a good night's sleep everyone~take care of yourselves and of one another.  Be at peace with your life and with yourself...and thank you, one and all, for being my friends.  Life would be pretty dang difficult without you, ALL of you!

Probably my favorite photo of Grahame and I~taken in April of 2011 right before he left for a month's journey on the Appalachian Trail.  I owe a lot to him for all he has done for me in the past 3 years.  "My left arm AND my right arm."

Time surely does fly when you are finishing school, getting married and preparing to move away and yet a million other things :)

Good morning everyone on this the first Saturday of the month, the 4th day of May.  You know, I've spoken to more people this week than not who agree with me totally that time seems to be flying by us at a rapid pace these days.  The weird thing is, the older we all get, the faster it flies. You get up in the morning, go through the ritual of your day, and before you know it bedtime arrives and you say to yourself "Where the heck did THIS day go?"  With only 17 days remaining until school is out and Mike and I get married, I'm trading "daylight for dark" less and less every day.  Probably a good thing cause the list of things to do is not nearly complete, yet I keep trying :)

I've had some precious moments at school this past week, ones that will be stored as memories in my "teacher heart and mind" for years to come.  I've only told a few children about getting married at school on the last day this year, figuring that I'd tell them all when I mailed an invitation to each of them.  Since those "invites" went out yesterday, I thought it was safe to begin to say something to a few more.  Evidently the word may have leaked out earlier in the week because yesterday, I had a most interesting encounter with a 5th grade young man out on the playground.  It was my dear friend Cecil whom I have known now for 3 years.  A great kid that boy is and we have shared many a conversation together.  

On the playground yesterday he sidled up to me and asked me the question, point blank~
"Mrs. Miller are you married?"  I was a little shocked to say the least but had the presence of mind to answer back, "No, I'm not Cecil.  Are you looking for a wife?"  I'll never forget the priceless look on his face as he quickly responded back, "Oh, my goodness sake NO Mrs. Miller", and off he went.  Kids, you gotta love 'em.  By the way, I look for Cecil to do something really wonderful in this world.  There's a strong possibility that he may even change the world someday for the "good".  I love that guy!

Yesterday at day's end, one of my little third graders brought me her test score from the weekly selection test in reading.  She's been working hard, very hard to try and bring up her overall percentages.  Slowly but very surely, Brooke is doing just that!  That little girl is one determined student and I surely do love working with her.  When she showed me her test result, very much improved, I gave her a hug and told her how proud I was of her, that all of the work she had been doing for me in our small group time and for her teacher in class was paying off.  As she was leaving my room, she handed me the copy of the score.  I told her that she probably should give it back to her teacher. Brooke looked at me and said "No, this is really for YOU Mrs. Miller" and I noticed at the top of the page that she had printed in neat lettering....."To-Mrs. Miller  From-Brooke". 

Friends, it was one of those times when a teacher gets their "bonus check", a gift way more priceless than any other.  I thanked her for bringing it by and right before she left, I drew her close to me and told her that I had a "secret, a surprise" that I wanted to share with her.  For some reason, I decided to tell her about the plans I had to get married at school and to move away to Colorado.  Her eyes got big and she was actually speechless for a moment.  "Will I get to come to it?" she finally asked me in a whispering voice and I told her "yes" that all the kids would be invited to come to it.   And then for whatever reason, when I didn't plan on it to happen at all, I was just overcome with emotion and tears came to my eyes as I told her "You kids mean so much to me, I love you guys."  Before things got any worse (LOL), I said she'd better get back to class and after one more quick hug, out the door she went.  And then I cried.  That little 8-year old girl means that much to me and there are over 200 others that mean equally the same.  When I tell students that I love them, I mean that....I really do.  I am blessed to work with a staff of people at Lincoln Elementary who share the same sentiment-THEY love their students too.  It's a "winning combination" you know?

Well, my "to do" list is waiting for me and at the top of the list is to finish mailing out the last of the invitations to each of the students at school.  36 more and I am done.  When I was at Dillon's the other day picking up yet another book of stamps and a box of long envelopes, the "check out" person asked me why I'd been buying those in such large quantities lately.  I explained what I had been doing and she had a look of shock, almost surprise on her face. When she asked me why I didn't just send one invitation to the students at school, I replied to her..."Well you see they mean the world to me and I figure that at the VERY least that they each are worth the price of a stamp, an envelope, and a few minutes of my time." And that was that.  

I have loved being a teacher and believe me when I say that if I was going to give 35 years of my life to a profession, I could not have chosen anything that would have rewarded me more.  The last 12 school days are surely going to fly by and you can bet that I am going to store up as many memories as I can before it's all over.  I'll be teaching to the very end and when I walk out the door for the last time, I will know for a fact that I did my very best.

Have a great weekend friends!  Get out and enjoy the outdoors~barring any "freak" winter snows like the one two days ago, folks around these parts of the world should have a great day of much nicer temperatures.  This is the 4th day of May, 2013 and it most certainly is going to be the greatest day to have been alive in!  Tomorrow?  Even better.

From the "land of long ago, and far, far away"~The days of being of being a third grader-1963-1964.  The first half of my year was at Burrton Grade School.  Over Christmas vacation, we moved to Haven, Kansas and that's where I stayed until graduating from high school in 1973. Having seen so many students who have moved to various attendance centers throughout the course of just one school year,  I'm thankful to have only attended two schools in my growing up years.   Especially I am grateful that my parents chose the little Reno County town of Haven to finish raising their children in.  Many lifelong friendships were forged there for me and no matter where I am in this world, I will never forget those friends who have meant so much in my life.  

He's really a "little kid" still at heart.  Looking forward to the very near future with him and a wonderful new life in Montrose, Colorado.  17 more days Mike~we've almost made it 
there :)