~with one month's passage~

A good afternoon to everyone from here along the western slopes of Colorado.  It's mid-day here and the noise of the hay swather is making a steady hum as the alfalfa field just outside the front door is being cut for the first time this season.  Oh how wonderful it smells as it is freshly mown down and if for some strange reason you have never smelled it, I am sorry for you.  To me, it smells of the earth, of life and for farmers around these parts of Colorado, it represents one of the main crops grown.  Come this winter time as the snow falls deep along the mountainside, animals will be enjoying a meal that was harvested right in our own front yard.

Wish you could smell the fresh cut hay~it was a treat for the senses to be able to witness it being done this afternoon.  Sure brought back some lovely memories of growing up on a farm in south central Kansas.

Today marks the one month anniversary of being married for Mike and I.  Without a doubt, the last 30 days have been whirlwind of change for us.  Not everything has run smoothly, the plan didn't always play out as we thought it would.  There have been a few road blocks, more than a pot hole or two to cross over, and even an occasional complete u-turn from the original plan of the day.  Yet through it all, we have made it and we are STILL married :)  

I have learned a lot about life, about myself and about changes since May 21st, now exactly one month ago today.  Learning how hard change is, even if it is done because of a wonderful reason, has been a real eye opener for me.  I have fought the battle of homesickness for many days and actually I think I am gaining somewhat of an upper hand on it.  I used to gauge how I was doing on that front by keeping track of how many hours it had been since I cried LOL.  Now, most of the time I have to try to remember how many days it has been.  As for me, I call that progress and for the "record", it's been six.

In a month's time, I've changed my social security card and driver's license, got a library card, sent off my fingerprints to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (for my teaching license), visited the Grand Mesa and the Blue Mesa Dam/Reservoir.  I've been with Mike as he did some of his various jobs and learned the fine art of product merchandising and thus will never take for granted again all of the stuff that can be seen in the aisles of Wal Mart.  I have renewed my CPR certification, photographed about a gazillion deer, buried two dead baby raccoons, learned about flood irrigation, and became friends with Pat who owns the Southside Laundry facility here in Montrose.  A thousand things have happened to me here, all of them brand new experiences.  Not all of them have been the best but in the very least of things I still have given thanks.  What will the next 30 days bring?  Only God knows but I am in it for the duration and will soon find out.

It's been 30 days since I was back home in Hutchinson, Kansas.  A long time has passed since I saw my children, old Oblio the round head, my friends and family, or drank a diet-vanilla Pepsi from Bogey's.  I have wondered what it would look like again to see nothing but flat land ahead of me and to all sides of me. ( I know what it would be like~it'd be great!)  I have missed it tremendously, even being called "crazy" by others out here who cannot understand the beauty of my home state.  Tomorrow morning, I get to go back to Kansas for a couple of days.  I'll make the journey on my own but I am not afraid.  I've done it 6 times before with most of them being in the dead of winter.  Old "Monarch Pass" will still be there to cross, doubt it's gone anywhere since mid-May.  Heck, I might even see some of the awful wild fires that are burning here in this state.  The distance between Montrose and Hutchinson still stands at 611 miles and one thing else for certain will not have changed~I'll miss Mike terribly when I have to drive away from here.

So on this the longest day of the year in daylight hours, this summer's solstice that we observe today, I wish you all the very best in life.  I have thought of you, each of you, so very often and even though I am so very far away, have continued to hold you close to my heart.  Friends please remember this~ There is a reason for all of this stuff we endure in life, a really good plan that most of us are unaware of.  It was no accident that you and I should have become friends with one another, no coincidence in the least.  It was supposed to happen in this way.  No matter what happens to us out there, we are all in this together.  Thanks for being there to pick up my part of the "slack" in life and I hope someday to be one of the folks who picks up the "slack" for you too.  Have a great evening friends and family and to all of the people back in Reno County~who knows, maybe I'll see at least a couple of you this weekend.

May 21, 2013~we turned the gymnasium at school into an impromptu wedding chapel.  It was a mixture of a lot of different things and it couldn't have been any better!  We had the best behaved crowd of 200+ little kids that there ever was.  It was our desire to have the students be with us and we wouldn't have asked for it to be different in any way.

     It was no accident that after 40 years, Mike Renfro and Peggy Miller would meet one another again. God knew just what He was doing, imagine that!  Marrying "the blessing".