Upon giving praise for the substitutes~

From the "other side" of the Continental Divide, a good Sunday morning to everyone out there.  Hey, it's warmer here this morning as I write this blog post to you by a whole 3 degrees my friends!  Lots of people rushed about last evening as the weather guys from the tv station up in Grand Junction advised us all to prepare for our first hard freeze of the season.  Glad to have the chance to maybe save these poor, scraggly geraniums from the elements and hope they can begin to thrive indoors along the ledge of the kitchen window for the rest of the season.  It didn't get below 37 degrees but it was time to get things ready for the cold weather anyway.

I have always loved growing geraniums~these have struggled all summer long to grow and prosper, but now all of a sudden, they are beginning to take off and do well.  In many ways, they have turned out to be just like their caretaker, me!

Today will be a busy Sunday around here but I would not be surprised to hear any of you dear friends and family say the same of your lives as well.  We all try to put way too much into the 48-hour span of time that we lovingly refer to as the "weekend".  In just a few hours, we'll head to Delta to go to church and after that, Mike will head on to his weekend job and I'll head to school to get things prepared for this week.  It will also be the start of getting plans ready for the substitute to follow for when I am away from school for a couple of days in the very near future.  Believe me when I tell you (and I have many teacher friends who will say the same thing), I'd rather take a beating than have to prepare for having another teacher to come into my classroom.  But if I want to go home to Kansas in just a few days now, it will be a very necessary thing, so prepare I must.

Just a word about substitute teachers~In the 36 years now that I've been a teacher, I've needed the services of a substitute many times in my career.  I am so very thankful, most appreciative of the men and women who are willing and able to step into another teacher's class and take over for a day or two.  As I think about it, there haven't been that many instances that I can remember when the substitute I had was one that I wouldn't have wanted in my room.  99.9% of the time, I have had nothing but positive experiences in this respect and I just want to go on the record right now and say this-Thank you to ANYONE out there who serves students in such a manner as this.  Teachers could not do their job without your invaluable assistance, sometimes with only a few hours of notice.  People get sick, emergencies arise, and sometimes homesick "Flatlanders" just want to return back to Kansas for a visit.  I do not personally know the gentleman who is taking over for me soon but I am surely thankful that he is willing so to do.

What kind of classroom will I leave for another to take over?  My answer to that question would be one that has grown exponentially in a very short period.  In six weeks' time, we've come a long way in our room~students and teacher alike.  It's taken some doing and hard work on everyone's part, but we are making it.  One of the things we will continue to work on is our system of classroom management and how we can get the most from our very limited time together each day.  Although 7 hours and 15 minutes seems like a lot of time to some, it goes by in the "blink of an eye" in the matter of a regular school day.  When you have to squeeze in math, reading, writing, PE, science and a half-dozen other little things into a day that sometimes doesn't go as planned, it can get a little challenging.  There are teachers all over the place who face the same thing every day, no matter whether they teach here in the West, back in Kansas or in the Northeast.  I have the greatest of admiration and respect for my teaching colleagues and if the opportunity arises and I see something they are doing that works well, I ask to use it in my own room.  I will always be open to new ideas, especially ones that work for my students.

As I ready my lesson plans for that Friday and Monday, I have a lot of things to consider.  One of them is to make sure that the kids stay busy, engaged in their work, learning and out of trouble.  If someone were to ask me what I think the hardest thing is to teach children these days, believe it or not (even as a charter member of the "I hate math club" from 1965), it is not mathematics.  It's not even reading or writing, although they present a few challenges on occasion.  The HARDEST thing that I find to get children to relate to and understand is the need to do things for the intrinsic value of it and not for the extrinsic reward that they are used to getting.  It's the "training them up in the ways they should go" idea.  Forget about $4,352.61 multiplied by 519 being hard for a fourth-grader to understand.  Imagine teaching and re-teaching them that coming in, sitting down and getting busy with the day's lessons is the most important thing that they should do and that they should do it without getting a piece of candy or extra recess time :)   We're still working on that one folks and my hope is to make good progress before I leave in a couple of weeks.  The substitute will be most appreciative, I am sure :)

The sun has come up here along the Uncompahgre Range and unless I want to start a new fashion statement of going to church in your pajamas, then I guess I'd better get changed and ready to go.  I don't know what you all will do this day but what ever it is, make it something you are glad you did at this day's end.  Be good to yourselves today and that bit of advice comes to you from someone who didn't always remember that in her 57-years of life.  Take care of each other and stick with one another, just like glue.  See many of you very soon and for those that I cannot, I will be thinking of you just the same.  If I haven't told you lately, then I am now~I am so glad that God saw fit to allow us to meet and become friends with one another.  Cannot imagine what it would have been like without you all.

From 2005-2006, third graders from my classroom at Avenue A Elementary.  They grew up but I will always remember them as these little people, just learning about life.  One of them, dear Adahir, has already passed away.  My heart always smiles when I see this photo.

the confessions of a life-long snow hater

     A good Saturday morning to everyone out there~hard to even begin to imagine that this is the last weekend of the month of September.  I'm beginning to believe that the higher the altitude you live at, the faster the time goes.  The calendar may say that today's date is September 28th but it really feels a whole lot more like November 28th here along the Western Slopes.  It didn't quite make it to freezing overnight but according to the weather app on my phone, it got mighty close at its current temperature of 34 degrees.  The mountains around us are beginning to be covered with snow and on Wednesday of this past week when I got home from school, I took the photo below.  Another snow has fallen since then.  Man, they didn't stay barren of the "white stuff" for very long this season.  Welcome to Colorado~

     I wish that I could say to you that I love snow and winter, that I LIVE for the moments when the first flakes of snow make their appearance in the sky.  But if I did that, I'd not be speaking the truth.  The real story is that I hate winter, have a huge disdain for snow, ice, freezing temperatures and everything else that goes along with the season of the year that lasts way too long in my opinion.  It's the time of year that I dread, in big part because it seems to trigger my own version of seasonal depression and anyone who has ever suffered through that malady understands exactly what I'm talking about.  Yet even with all of that being said, since I love the other three seasons of the year I guess a person just has to take the fourth one knowing full well that the others will sooner or later arrive in their own good time.  

     There were several people that I know back home in Kansas who thought I had lost my mind when I made my first trip out here to the west in early January to visit Mike here in Montrose.  I'd never made that kind of trip before, especially in the dead of winter and in the darkness of the very early morning hours.  The weekend I came here was a beautiful one with the sun shining and the sky a beautiful and crisp shade of robin-egg blue.  The temperatures were in the 40's but it didn't seem all that cold to me here.  In fact, it was so nice that I didn't even bother wearing a jacket or gloves.  Even with snow all around us, I just didn't notice the fact that it was winter here.  Mike and I actually spent a great deal of time outdoors seeing the sights, some shown below.

                     At the Black Canyon of the Gunnison-January of 2013

The view along the road to Ouray, a community about 30 miles to the south of us in Montrose~on the way to watch the ice climbers-January of 2013

Now these guys looked like they were having a lot of fun!  I could have stayed there for hours just watching them go up and down the ice wall.  Shoot, might even have to try that myself some day.  

A quarter mile from Box Canyon~a really beautiful January day.  Little did we know then what would lie ahead of us in the months to come.

     A good friend from back home in Reno County sent me an email the other day and asked me if I was ready for the winter weather that I would encounter in the weeks and months to come.  My response back to her was, "Not hardly!" but be ready, or at least to be semi-prepared would be a good plan to have in the old back pocket.  Like it or not, it's going to arrive.  Hey, but when you stop to think of it, really it's not that much different than being prepared for it back in the Midwest either.  Keeping the gas tank of your car filled up, having a blanket or two in the back seat along with some water and non-perishable food and a fully charged cell phone make a lot of sense no matter what part of the country you live in.  And above all else, if you are out there travelling somewhere, let someone know of your plans.  We can't change the weather, only learn to have respect for it.

     13 days more and we'll be heading out of here and back home to the Midwest.  We don't anticipate any travel issues this trip that are weather related and hope to make the journey safely.  Coming home at Thanksgiving and Christmas may present a different scenario but surely between Mike and I sharing the driving responsibilities, we will make it.  Old Monarch Pass hasn't moved a bit since we crossed over it back in early August.  It will be waiting for us when we cross over once again on October 10th.  And since we cannot go around it or through it, we'll just have to climb over it.  I will never be afraid of the attempt.

     I had to laugh the other night as we were listening to a radio station out of Grand Junction.  The DJ was lamenting the fact that after the first snow of the season, the passes on I-70 going into Denver had been closed for several hours due to all of the accidents that had happened.  His comment was, "Hey, I'm just telling you this.  I've lived here all of my life and I would advise everyone to just stay on THIS side of the Continental Divide until winter is over!"  My response to him would have been, "Well young man, I guess you didn't grow up in Kansas."

     Well, the world is waking up around here.  Mike and Sally have arisen, the coffee pot is brewing and it's time to get the day started.  We're heading up to Grand Junction in the afternoon because this "flatlander" needs some warmer clothing for the weeks and months ahead.  And since learning how to snowshoe is on my new bucket list, I guess I might even have the chance to look for a pair of those things today.  Wherever you are dear friends and family, please take care of yourselves.  Watch out for one another always and be at peace with whatever it is that you choose to do.  Love you guys all and see you sooner than we can imagine.  

Looking forward to getting home and seeing good friends from there, just like these two dear ladies.....  Have missed you my friends!

As you learn from your mistakes~

Good morning everyone out there and best wishes for a wonderful Friday to be coming your way.  It's still pitch black outside as I type these words to you and even though it's 5 a.m., a steady stream of cars are already making their way along Highway 50, some going east and others going west.  The lights from the city of Montrose are shining down in the valley and from where we live atop a small hill, a little rise in the road, we have a great view of life.  Have  I ever learned a lot about geography here!  Words like "valley, ranges, western slopes, the front range, mesa, cliff, canyon, oroyo" and a whole lot more are part of every day life here in Colorado.  At home in Kansas, I just lived in the flatlands, yet they too had their beauty. I suppose that, come to think of it, I've known those words all along.  But it wasn't until I came here to south western Colorado to live, that I really understood what those words meant.  I do now.

More than six weeks have passed since the start of school here in our part of the world and I cannot tell you how fast they have really passed by us.  Remember back when we were kids and we thought that school would never end?  I do.  You'd be sitting there at your desk, looking at the clock and swearing that the hands not only hadn't moved, they had gone backwards.  From the other side of the desk, the teacher's side, I can tell you that someone sets the clocks to the "speed up" mode most every day of the week.  Each day when I leave and head back to home, I continually find myself wondering if we accomplished everything that we were supposed to.  How many tasks were actually completed and if not, then how in the heck will we be able to finish them the next day?  It's amazing what we ask of children each day, some of them not even out of the womb but 5 or 6 years already.  Times in education change each year and although I don't always agree with it, "change" is what it is and you go with it.

I have learned so much in this my 36th year of being an educator and the greatest thing that I've learned and have said over and over is this~For all of the things I know, there are twice as many  more things yet that I don't know.  I've made mistakes, more than a few, as I've gone through the first part of this quarter of the school term.  Yet through those human errors, I've become a better teacher and for crying out loud, that sounds like a good thing, right?  That's how I'm looking at it.  The 17 students in my class have made mistakes as well and every time that we can, we learn from those mistakes too.  I figure it's the only way that we can improve and if we are not there to get better, then we probably ought to all go on home.  That will never be my choice.

You know, we were watching "The Blind Side" the other night (for about the 40th time) and even though I've seen it a lot, I still get kind of choked up at the end where Sandra Bullock's character talks about what would have happened if they hadn't taken in the young man named Michael Oher.  She wonders and probably justifiably so, if young Michael would have ended up dead on the streets, a victim of drugs/violence.  It always makes me stop to think of the kids that I see every day and if I think long and hard enough about it, then I have to accept the fact that there have been many kids just like Michael in the schools that I have taught in over the past nearly 4 decades.  The truth is that right in Olathe Elementary, many will perhaps sadly find themselves in the same proverbial "boat".  That always make me pause and to be honest with you, makes me sad.  

In just a few hours, I'll be with 17 fourth graders who, for better or worse, I have come to love in a very short period of time.  Each morning when they enter my classroom, it's a brand new day for them.  It doesn't matter if we had difficulties the day before because today it's a "do-over" for them and for me as well.  Our work is cut out for us and the task is sometimes very overwhelming.  We have to work hard to help them to improve their reading and math scores, to make them better writers.  I hope I can facilitate the kind of learning that will accomplish that goal.  Gotta tell you, and I'm not the only teacher that knows this, it's not easy.  But we keep trying, all of us to get them there.  I take a lot of comfort in knowing that right now, all over this great land of ours, excellent teachers are at work giving their all to get their students where they need to be.  Pray for them, please?  When you see them on the street, in WalMart or at grocery store, offer them a word of thanks.  They are doing everything they can with limited time, resources, and sometimes energy.  But they do it, day in and day out, for one thing only~their students, your children and grandchildren.  

Well, the day will begin soon and it's time to get another Friday started.  How many mistakes will I make this day?  That answer is simple....enough to learn by.  Have a good Friday, the 27th day of September of 2013.  I predict that when the day is done, it will have been a great day to be alive in.  Get out and find your life's destiny my friends...it's waiting for you to arrive.

Me with my first ever snowman, named Eleanore from this past February back home in Hutchinson.  Making another snowman, this time out of Colorado snow, is on my new bucket list.  I hate snow but I have to admit this was kind of fun.  It was nice to be like a fourth-grader once again.

Shoot, this kid knows ALL about geography.  My son Grahame and I from 2011.  He was getting ready to leave for a 30 day hiking journey along the Appalachian Trail.  This guy was born to be a traveller, a pilgrim of sorts.  Love him so very much.

for that which I want to do~

    Good morning everyone out there and greetings this day from our home here in Colorado.  It's just me and a cup of hot coffee at the kitchen table but the alarm clock will go off soon and once again the day will begin.  I will never cease to be amazed at the speed with which the the proverbial "time flies" in this life of all of ours.  It makes me nearly always stop to give pause and wonder, "Have I spent the day doing what was the most important?"  Sometimes I can say "yes" but sadly other times I must say "no".  Do you ever find yourselves asking the same question and getting much the same answer?  If so, we are all probably in some very good company.  It happens to each of us at one time or another. I think that they call it "life".

    The calendar notes that it's just 16 sleeps more before we can head  back to the Sunflower State for a  few days visit and ok, I have to say (as if you couldn't tell) that I am excited to do so. I learned the hard way that  I had to go away from my home in Hutchinson, Kansas to realize just how much people and things back there meant to me.  You know how it is, sometimes a person just starts taking for granted all the things that have been at their disposal for a long, long time. You wake up each morning and the familiar life you have known since forever is there waiting on you.  Then you  move away and you think, "Dang, sure do wish I could do that again!"  Without a doubt  that's what happened to me and it was only  after  I had traveled 611 miles to the west and a time zone away that I saw what had occurred to me.  I'm telling you the truth, it didn't feel so good.

     In just a few days more, Mike and I  will pack up our stuff and head towards the east, up Cerro and Blue Mesa Summits, over Monarch Pass.  We'll follow Highway 50 along through the Colorado communities of Canon City and Pueblo, LaJunta and Lamar.  In the darkness of the very early morning hours we will cross over the border into the great state of Kansas and when I see the sign shown below, I will rejoice to have found the land of my childhood and shoot, most of my adulthood.  It will take us nearly 11 hours, even with switching drivers from time to time, but the Renfros will make it back to the south central part of the state.  It will be pitch dark outside but it doesn't matter.  I could find THAT sign with my eyes closed.

     We are heading back for a variety of reasons, all of them "memory makers".  This trek has been planned for months now and as the time fast approaches, I've been thinking of all the things that I want to do while I'm there.  I'm making a "to-do" list of activities  because for certain, I know how quickly the hours will pass and it will be a while before we can return again.  I'm going to make every moment count and thank goodness Mike is a great "sport", willing to go most anywhere I might drag him along.

    How wonderful it will be to reconnect with the friends  that I used to know and went to school with all through my growing up years in Haven, Kansas.  We may all be in our late-50's now, but when we meet together for our 40th  class reunion on October 12th, I bet it will seem like we are kids once again.  Looking forward to standing along Main Street (really called Kansas Avenue back there) on Saturday afternoon and watching the Fall Festival parade as it makes its way from south to north.  To wander along on the very same sidewalks that my little sister and I walked each and every day as we made our way from our folks' restaurant to school, will be a special memory.  Just having the chance, the great opportunity to be in my hometown again  is worth everything to me.  The good Lord willing, I am not missing this journey  for any reason and that's something you can count on.

Hey, it's been hanging on the refrigerator for many weeks now.  I made plans to be there even before I moved to the West.

Three rowdy women from the class of 1972.  I had to step in and keep them under control...geesch, that's not the truth!  I was the baby of the bunch that day but only by one year.  I love those 3 dear friends of mine.  Here we were...same corner, same town watching the Fall Festival parade as it went by us.  Our vantage point was the Grier's Pharmacy building, a great place to see everything as it went by.

     It will be so nice to see at least two of my children once again.  How I long to give a "hug" in person to my son Grahame and my daughter Ursela.  I have missed them so much and although they are grown now and really don't need their mom as much any more (LOL, I know they still do though), it will warm my heart to see their faces and to hear their voices in person.  I want to see the rest of my family and as many friends as I can, to go to church at Our Redeemer only a few blocks from my house on 14th Street.  I want to scoop old Oblio "the round head" up in my arms, feel her warm body and listen to her noisy purring.  And one thing for sure, I am not leaving town until I have gone to Bogey's for a medium diet-vanilla Dr. Pepper with extra ice in it.  Geesch, I hope they haven't forgotten me there.  I may have to make two trips through the drive-thru just to be sure they didn't!

My daughter Ursela on the day after Christmas last year....her 22nd birthday.  We celebrated in Haven at Paula's house.

My middle child, Grahame~the guy who saved me when "old lefty" got "smashed to smithereens".

Old Oblio the Roundhead-Thank goodness she hadn't forgotten me in early August after I'd been gone for so many weeks.  I love that dumb cat!

     Funny thing though, for as much as sometimes I want to be back home in Kansas, I will know when the time to leave on the Monday following comes around that it is not Kansas where I belong right now.  I have a different home, another place to which I will be returning.  Here along the Western Slopes, nestled among the valley of the San Juan Mountains is where I live and where I now teach.  After having spent the better part of the entire summer feeling like a displaced pilgrim trying to figure out where in the heck that home was supposed to be, I now have a sense of real belonging, of actually needing to be here.  For now, the mountains and I have reached a "compromise" of sorts and as long as I can safely travel over them, back and forth from time to time, I will learn to live with them.  Truth be told, I don't really feel swallowed up so much by them these days and if I look at them, REALLY look at them, I can actually acknowledge their beauty, their real splendor.

     Well believe it or not....I'm typing these words at the day's end.  Didn't get around to finishing this blog post this morning but am sending it on now in these, the evening hours.  It's been a good day, no really I think I can say it's been a great day.  The sun is shining and the south western Colorado sky is a beautiful shade of "robin's egg" blue.  It was a calm day, a relatively peaceful day and for that I give thanks.  I hope your day has gone well wherever it may have taken you my dear friends and family.  For the tiniest of blessings, for the very least of things, we all should remember to give our thanks.  Have a good evening friends and a peaceful night's rest.  

  

    Lots and lots of reasons why I came here to Colorado and these are only a few!  "A reason for everything, a part of the plan."





   

And no bears found us~

Colorado Bucket List 2013-Item #8
"To be a witness to the sunrise and the sunset from the top of Cerro Summit~"

Good morning everyone and good Sunday greetings to you all from wherever this message should find you today.  It's officially the first full day of autumn, my first fall season as a resident of Colorado.  Back in Hutchinson, Kansas the streets around my old neighbourhood on East 14th Street will soon begin to look like this.................

I miss my old part of the world, sometimes just a little bit and other times a whole lot.  Depending upon the weather, the beautiful trees back in Reno County, Kansas can put on their colour show for the better part of a month.  It was always a pleasure just to take a walk and see what the "Artist's" paintbrush was doing on any given day.  

When I came up with my new bucket list just a few days back, one of the things I felt I wanted to do was to find the sunrise and the sunset some day atop Cerro Summit, a land form not even 15 miles from where we live here in Montrose.  So, not willing to "trade daylight for dark" for a whole lot longer, last night we set out to at least find the "sunset" part of it before the cold winter weather that will some day sneak up on us, should arrive.  It was actually a very enjoyable time, all things considered.

When I made the journey here to south western Colorado for the first time back in January of this year, Mike told me that there would be three passes that I would have to cross over before I would find him in Montrose~Monarch Pass and the summits at Blue Mesa and Cerro.  He assured me that if I could climb Monarch that the other two would be easy for me and basically, he was right.  This is what the summit at Cerro looks like as you cross over it on 50 Highway just a few miles outside of Montrose.  That huge pipe carries water from one of the reservoirs over to the other side.  Last night when we were there, we kept hearing this rushing sound of water going from one place to the next.  As we left, Mike found where it was coming from and we stopped to take a look.  I didn't feel like messing around too long looking at it.  Too many stories of bears are going around here and I kind of have a healthy respect for those creatures of the family ursidae.  But we did take a quick photo, shown below.

The trenches where the water rushes through~an audio clip here would have been great.

We arrived about twenty minutes before the sun really started to sink into the western horizon and we had some time to look around at the really beautiful and majestic scenery that this part of the county affords its viewers.  Neither of us had ever been up there before and as I looked around me, I couldn't believe what I saw.  I guess it's what happens when you are in such a hurry to get to one place from the other, that you truly miss what is right alongside you all along.  I got some nice photos of what it looked like from way up there.

The view along the way there~if you want to see sights you have never seen before, "ya gotta" actually leave the place where you are to do it.  The adobes just outside of Montrose, going to the east.  They are all around us.

Have to admit my ignorance here.  This plant was beautiful and all around.  I supposed it could be like a milkweed but not sure.  It was beautiful nonetheless.  

Although it is not quite like seeing in the "flatlands", I guess it could be said that you could see from here quite a ways out.  Some day I am going to figure out how to bulldoze a huge hole in the mountains that extends all the way from here to Reno County, Kansas.

I have actually lived here long enough to be able to pay attention to the various landforms that there are in this part of the state.  It felt good to look out from that vantage point and recognize the beautiful Grand Mesa in the background.  This truly was a beautiful sight to behold and it goes on forever and ever, AMEN.

What in the heck is it with this state?  LOL, "Signs, signs everywhere a sign!"  Guess that's all I'd better say or else I'll find myself in hot water for using the words of that famous song of the 70's but no kidding!  I know there's probably plenty of good reason for how they post usage for everything around here but sometimes all of the "signs" really do clutter up an otherwise gorgeous landscape.  I'll stop short of referring to this as another act of quiet and random, civil disobedience on my part.

                                                   A guy and his dog

Finally, a little after 7:00 p.m. MST, the sunset arrived.  It was beautiful up there and a different vantage point than we normally witness, at 1,000 feet lower.  The Creator really knows how to put on a "show".  God's handiwork at its finest of hours, I believe.  

Well, the sun has arisen and the clock says it's just about 12 hours later.  A  new day has begun here in Colorado.  If you are reading this, well then the way I figure it, the same God that made that beautiful sky shown above has determined that you should go out and find your destiny for this day.  The same goes for me as well.  Please dear friends and family, wherever you live go out and look for the things that are right before your eyes.  I've missed a lot of great things in this life of mine because I was just too wrapped up in things that when all was said and done, meant very little to the overall scheme of this life.  To that way of living, I say "no more".  Take care of yourselves, one and all.  I'm thinking of you all this morning.  Oh yeah~Reno County....see you in less than 3 weeks now :)  Not that I'm watching the calendar or anything you know.

                   Alive and well along the Western Slopes of Colorado.....

Upon finding my niche

A great Saturday morning to everyone out there and greetings/best wishes from a place far away called Montrose, Colorado.  Last night when I went to bed I determined to NOT set an alarm for once and prayed to not wake up at my usual hour of 4:30.  I was tired and thankful that when I did open my eyes, the clock said "5:30".  Ah, to sleep in!  The days of doing the proverbial "try to burn the candle at both ends" thing really has been catching up with me.  Now, ready for cup of coffee #1 and the chance to visit with you, my friends on this blog site.  

Through the magic of technology....greetings to you from the kitchen table at our house.

     Mike just reminded me that today is the first day of autumn and what a reminder it is to me of the journey I have gone through here in the West since I came here, now nearly four months ago.  So summer has handed off the baton to fall and the world continues to spin whether I live in Reno County, Kansas or Montrose County, Colorado.  And no matter where the little girl who used to be called "Peggy Scott" finds herself, the same God who watched over her back home in Kansas continues to watch over her here along the Rocky Mountains.  So what else could I even ask for any way?

     The students in my 4th grade classroom at Olathe Elementary are studying the ecosystem and learning a myriad of vocabulary terms that relate to it.  Vocabulary is not our "strong suit" and we know it.  Therefore, every chance we get to teach a new word or two we jump on it.  One of the words for their ecosystem unit is niche-the job or role an organism plays in the environment.  For some strange reason, that's been a tough one for them to relate to.  So yesterday, with an occasional tear in my eye, I told them an easy way for them to remember it from now on.

     I told those 17, nine-year olds the story of a very lonely and homesick, newly married and twice retired school teacher from Kansas who had spent the better part of the summer in search of something.  And the something was them.  "Did you guys know that I was looking for you?  Did you know that I almost gave up on finding you?", I told them.  They looked at me wide-eyed and puzzled.  Perhaps they are too young, maybe they haven't had enough of the life experiences that their old teacher has.  But some day they will understand, I'm sure.

     I explained to them that I had found my "niche" when I got the opportunity to come and teach them this year.  I had finally, after an entire summer of searching for my purpose here in Colorado, come to realize that they were the reason.  So when they see that word "niche" on their science test next week, they should just remember me and the fact that I have found my job here.  They actually began to understand a bit more and really with all things considered, so did I.

     It's funny, you know?  Everything that has happened to me (and to you as well) really has been part of a great plan that was set in motion long before we came to the face of this earth.  It was in the destiny of this little kid from the small Kansas town of Haven to suddenly, in the autumn of her 58th year to find herself uprooted and transplanted into an area along the Uncompahgre Range of south western Colorado.  Would I ever have imagined being a teacher in a school like Olathe Elementary or wearing a shirt that said "Olathe Pirates"?  Nah, don't think so.  But yesterday, that's where you would have been able to find me.

    I love Olathe, Colorado perhaps because in a way it reminds me of a combination of the Reno County, Kansas towns of South Hutchinson, Haven, Buhler, Yoder and even a little bit of Nickerson thrown in.  It's a small and rural community that is famous for its delicious "Olathe Sweet Corn".  The people there, its citizenry, are all pretty much common folks.  The rich and the famous don't live there, thank goodness.  There is a strong Hispanic influence as is evidenced by the fact that over 50% of our students are ESL learners and for that I'm grateful.  Finally a chance to speak Spanish each day to little people.  The parents of students at school support the teachers all the way and they do what they can to make sure that their children get to school each day to learn.  I may live in Montrose but my heart, soul, and spirit have begun to align themselves with the a community about 10 miles up the road towards the Grand Mesa.  I am happy there.

     Yesterday all of the kids at the elementary school got to make the big trek of two blocks towards 5th Street to plant themselves along the street to watch the 15 minute homecoming parade pass by.  We spent a part of the day preparing for it by joining our reading buddies in Mrs. Morris' kindergarten class as we assisted in the making of official pompoms to shake and cheer with as the floats passed by.  It was fun to watch the kids working together and to hear Mrs. Morris coaching the kids in using them.  "Now remember, if you want them to throw lots of candy to us off of the float you are going to have to yell really loudly, 'GO, PIRATES, GO, PIRATES'", she told them.  So yell, those little tiny 5-year olds did and the bags of candy that we came back with were the proof that their dear teacher Mary was right.

     Friends, what is your niche?  Have you found it in this life of ours?  Have you changed it from time to time?  Wherever that job or role in life may have played out to be, I pray you are happy in it.  If you are not, then why not take the opportunity to change it if need be?  I spent an entire summer, well nearly, at struggling through what I should be doing here, of what my own niche might be.  It was waiting for me all along but it just needed a little bit more time to play out in order that I could see it.  I almost gave up finding it, seriously I almost gave up.  But just in the right time, God's time, it was mine.  

     If you never have had a friend who flunked "retirement" 2 times in a row....well now you do in me.  I was born to be a teacher in Kansas and it would appear for now at least this year, in Colorado.  I'm happy and at peace with that idea.

     The sun has arisen over the cliffs of the Uncompahgre Range now and the clock is ticking away quickly.  Time to get busy and start this weekend.  I'm thinking of you my dear friends and family all back home in Kansas and parts beyond.  3 weeks from today we will be back there with you all and celebrating my 40th class reunion with the class of 1973, Haven High School.  I have been blessed in this life and I will never forget that.  You are my friends and I want you to know how much I love each of you and count it a blessing each day that God saw fit that we should meet in this life.  Take care everyone and have a wonderful weekend out there.  This is Saturday, the 21st day of September, 2013 and a great day to be alive in.

It was fun to watch my fourth grade students interacting with their kindergarten buddies yesterday.  They really were patient with them as they showed them how to cut along the lines with their scissors and fold into a pompom to use at the parade.

This class of kids made pirate hats to wear as they watched the parade.  Kind of like "cheese heads" gone bad or something.  

Hey they took this "cheering them on" idea very seriously.....

I've seen the outhouse on the back of the float around town somewhere....Dennis Ulrey and Craig Sailsbury,  I thought of you two dear friends for some reason.  :)

Colorado Bucket List 2013

 Hello to you my dear friends and family with greetings from 611 miles out here in the west.  When the late and great singer John Denver always said...."Now that's far out!", well I guess I know now what he was saying.  Probably it didn't mean exactly the same thing but hey, it works for me these days. Some times I feel like I'm on the outer edge of the universe here along the Rocky Mountains and yet other times, such as when I write this blog to you, it's as if we are all sitting down around the same supper table, sharing a common meal and some great conversation.  Especially when I am homesick, I prefer to think of it in that way.

It's been some time now, in fact over 6 months, since I finished up the last item on the Miller Bucket List back home in Kansas.  Since getting married and moving here to Colorado, I've been a "slacker" as such in formulating a plan that would ensure that I made the most of each day of my life.  For three months, most of my energies have been spent on being homesick and not knowing what to do with myself in this "foreign country" that the locals here call "Colorado".

It feels kind of nice tonight, to actually say that I have become more accepting of life here and although I still miss home back in Kansas, I can finally find some positive points to living here along the Western Slopes.  My good husband Mike put up with some serious times of loneliness and sadness for me here and still continues to love me.  Slowly but surely I have learned to become a tiny bit less of a flatlander and I suppose as time goes on, it will become even better.  I have made a wonderful group of friends amongst the folks that I work with each and every day at Olathe Elementary in the small town of Olathe, CO, only ten miles from here in Montrose.  I have found my niche here and spend my week days in the company of 17 9-year olds, whom I have come to love very much in such a short span of time.  I have been blessed and for every heartache that I felt in leaving the place that I have always called "home", Kansas, there have been many nice things that have found their way to me.  For the least of things, make that the very least of things, this Kansas farm girl will always give thanks.

I've been thinking that it's time to get back towards working on my bucket list and after some thought, came up with the following "Colorado Bucket List of 2013".  They seem attainable to me and none of them really sound as difficult or dangerous as curb jumping on my bicycle ended up being.  I'm going to start with these and work my way up.  It feels good to have something to strive for once more and equally good to finally "release" a little of the homesickness.  I will always be a Kansas girl, the daughter of a Kansas farmer.  But now, I'm a Kansas girl whose home is in Colorado and that's not that I love the mountains or anything it's just that home has to be where your heart is.  

Good night everyone out there!  Have a great night's sleep, all of you.  Peace always!

I'm getting a whole lot of mileage out of my ALS Walk of 2010 shirt from back in Kansas.  My brother was a fine man who left us way too soon in 2007.  Every time I put it on, I think of him.  Rest in peace my dear brother, Mike Scott.




1.  To learn how to "snow shoe".

2.  To make my first snowman from Colorado snow. (that may be a bit of a challenge)

3.  To take a beautiful photo of the Aspen leaves in the fall.

4.  To make a scrapbook for my first grandchild, to be born in early March of 2014 and deliver it to Whidbey Island in Washington in person during our spring break in April.

5.  To make a difference in the lives of the 17 students that I have been entrusted with in my fourth grade classroom and to help them learn how to bring up their scores in reading and math by the end of the school year in May.

6.  To continue to make the journey over Monarch Pass and back home to Kansas for Thanksgiving and Christmas this year.

7.  To bring back the fine art of letter writing in my life and send a real letter (not an email or text message) each month to someone that I know.

8.  To be a witness to the sunrise and the sunset from the top of Cerro Summit.

9.  To continue to "reconnect" with as many of my Facebook friends as possible, buy them something to drink, and sit and talk about life for a while.

10. To follow the advice of a very true friend and never let my "bucket list" go empty because you cannot kick a "full bucket".

Upon the discovery of unwanted guests....

It was at five o'clock this morning that I realized the absurdity of it all.  There I was, dressed in about the most "thrown together" look imaginable with hair barely combed and eyes barely open.  I was headed down the road making my way to the neighborhood WalMart store to purchase of all things, mousetraps.  Yep, it's that time again~the season for moving into the warm and cozy indoors from the cold and wet "great outdoors" for rodents, one and all. 

It was after 10:15 last night and everyone else was sound asleep.  I was sitting at the kitchen table, working on the computer, when I spied the first one sneaking around the corner by the refrigerator and high tailing it into the mudroom.  Moments later, a second little four-legged creature made its way around from the pantry and headed for the living room.  It was like a "mouse convention" had stopped off at the Renfro House and decided that they would spend the night and enjoy our hospitality for awhile.  Oh man, I gotta tell you that it got my attention, and fast! 

Shoot I was ready to change from my pjs to street clothes and head to WalMart, then and there.  I hate mice with a passion and the thought of them roaming at will, wining and dining on what ever they could locate  while we all slept gave me a feeling of dread.  Luckily, I was tired enough that I just fell fast asleep but when I awoke this morning at 4:30, the first thing I did was get dressed and head out to buy some traps.

I know I'm in Colorado, in the wilderness as such, most times like these.  Those little tiny four-legged nuisances had me on high alert enough that I didn't even give consideration to the resident skunk that seems to like to hang out around the farm machinery in the yard.  Last week Mike was walking Sally in the very early morning dark hours and they had an encounter of the "too close" kind with it.  Sally was sprayed and immediately headed into the bathroom shower for a tomato juice bath.   But even knowing that the skunk was probably out there, waiting for someone else to "greet", didn't dissuade me.  I was on a mission to buy those stupid mousetraps.  Just outside the driveway, only a few yards down Locust Road, a huge buck deer with beautiful racks that would make most hunters swoon, was making its way slowly across the road.  Even that didn't phase me in that early morning hour.  Exterminating those tiny little mice took precedence over fear of any animal that might be waiting for me in the darkness. 

Once I got to WalMart and found a clerk, they directed me back to the chemical section of the grocery aisle.  Good heavens, there's about a zillion ways to catch/trap mice these days.  I wasn't interested in the humane way so I didn't even bother looking at anything but the old trusty "put some cheese on this thing and hope they snap this" kind of trap.  I've never understood the logic for using those sticky trap things.  What in the heck do you do with them once you find a struggling mouse in them?  And I wanted to be sure that I could kill the dang things in the trap, not merely snare one by the tail and meet it halfway down the hallway on my way to the bathroom in the middle of the night.  $4.57 later, I came away with what I hope will do the trick.

Not sure why we even bothered baiting them with the cheese from an ancient cheese ball this morning.  If any of them were standing around, lurking in the corners watching us they would have surely just died laughing.  There probably is no more pathetic of a sight than watching two grownups in their mid-to late 50's trying to set mousetraps.  Neither Mike or I were all that confident in our trap setting abilities and finally after many times of snapping the traps on our own fingers, we had enough of them to place strategically around the kitchen and pantry area.  And so we wait and hope that some how or another, we can entice them to walk over, take the bait and SNAP! 

This has been my summer to meet and see all kinds of creatures.  Starting with the deer parade, then the two baby racoons, a resident hive of bees in one of the cottonwood trees at the end of the lane, a moose or two in the high country, hummingbirds galore, Canadian geese on the barley field, the lovely skunk visitor and now these guys....it's kind of been like living where Noah's Ark landed.  The only thing I haven't seen yet are bear of any kind and I suppose it's only a matter of time before I see them too.  Hopefully it won't be on my front door step.  ( Just as an aside, this has been a bad year for bears.  They are very overpopulated right now and are wreaking havoc amongst hikers and campers.  People are reporting seeing them in pairs all over the place.)

The seasons have changed partners here and although the calendar will officially announce the arrival of autumn next week, for all intents and purposes it is here now.  The arrival of the mice just proves that it's time to get started and prepare for the coming changes in weather that will soon be upon us here.  So much to be done, by animals and humans alike, to be ready for the colder weather that will soon arrive.  And in defense of the mice, I know they are only doing what comes naturally to them.  You run out of food on the outside, well you have to find it somewhere else.  Hey, just so you know, I'm not a "cold-blooded" killer.  Normally I'm pretty mild-mannered about critters and such.  It's just that I really don't like mice as my house guests. 

For now the score is "0-0" but by the evening's end, I'm sure gonna be glad for a "2-0" verdict for the people.  If they know what's good for them, they'll have their little suitcases packed and be heading down the road to the east before I make it home. And just for the record, after checking online for the best bait to trap a mouse....it's not necessarily always cheese, well that is unless the cheese is soft and chewy.  The very best "standby" is always peanut butter, it would seem.  What ever it takes, doesn't matter to me.  To all of the Colorado mice out there reading this, I have just one word of advice....."beware!"

Have a great evening everyone out there.  Sending you greetings from here along the Western Slopes of the Rocky Mountains where I am alive and well.  Much love to you all, my dear friends and family members.  See you very soon back home in Kansas where the mice have only slightly more sense.

                           Don't worry friends...the traps will probably do the trick :)

Upon revisiting the "land of long ago and so very far, far away"

Good morning everyone out there from here along the Western Slopes.  It's the early morning hours once again.  The sky is black and there's not one star to be seen out there and that would appear to be a sign that probably we are in for more rain today.  Montrose, Delta and Mesa counties are under a flash flood warning for yet another day.  We are thankful that here in the south western part of the state we are not experiencing the massive amounts of flooding being seen in the north east near Boulder and Ft. Collins.  For the least of things, wait I mean for the VERY least of things we should always give thanks.

I keep an eye on the weather these days and pay close attention to the changing seasons.  Funny, 10 years ago I would have never thought of having a cell phone in my purse that, with the touch of a screen icon, could bring up the weather in any one of a dozen places.  But now I do.  I've got Montrose, Olathe and Grand Junction, Colorado at the top of the list and the Kansas cities of Hutchinson, Haven, Wichita and Valley Center not far behind them.  Yet perhaps the one that I have paid the most attention to in the past few weeks isn't really a city at all but rather a landmark here in Colorado that I have come to learn to have respect for, Monarch Pass.

When I first made the trip out here to the West back in early January of this year, I came over Monarch in the dark, in the dead of winter.  I had absolutely no idea what I was doing and although I knew I was climbing in elevation as I drove, I had no idea that at the summit I was at over 11,000 feet.  Shoot, I was a very naive Kansas farm girl who was used to life at the 1500 feet level.  I remember as the sun came up and I was heading downwards towards the town of Gunnison, I looked back in the rear view mirror and saw this huge massive black thing taking up most of the landscape.  Then and only then did I realize what I had driven through.  Gotta say that truthfully, it was slightly unnerving but I made it.  I actually came back over the pass four times more before I moved here back in late May.

The skies were sunny when I took this photo on the way back to Kansas in mid-January.  Roads were clear but snow was all around me.  I honestly had never given that much thought in life that as a Kansan, I lived on the Atlantic side of the great Continental Divide.  Mr. McMurray, my old social studies teacher back at Haven Grade School, I am sorry sir that I must not have paid all that much attention some times.

Monarch Pass in mid-February on a much different day.  20 more inches of snow had fallen, cold mountain winds were blowing and the sun was having one heck of a time trying to make an appearance.  I remember taking this photo on the way home and thinking that whatever picture I got, one would be enough.  I just wanted to get down to the other side without any problems.  I learned to have respect for this geographical point from then on.

In less than a month we will be making the journey back home to Kansas in order that I can go to my high school class reunion.  Because the seasons are readying to change partners, I know there is a chance that we will perhaps encounter a little bit of snow up there on the mountain.  Since I'm gonna be at that reunion, NO MATTER WHAT, I am praying the the weather will be hospitable for us as we travel over.  October 10th is still a bit away from us on the calendar and who knows what the day will bring?  But I am going forward, in faith that we will make it home, safe and sound.

You know there are a lot of things in life that are worth the travel that it takes to attend and I know that as for me, the 40th class reunion of the class of 1973, Haven High School is one of them.  It wasn't a big group you know?  Probably if I recollect rightly, there were about 70 graduating seniors that year.  We were just kids, all of us.  We grew up together, shared friends and classes together, made a lot of memories with one another and most of us lived to tell about it in the years that followed. The lucky ones, the really blessed ones, are still living there today and watching an entirely new generation of "Haven Wildcats" grow up.  

When I told some of my teaching colleagues at Olathe Elementary that I would be gone for a couple of days in October to go back home to Kansas, they asked me how long it would take to go "over there".  I still smile every time I hear someone phrase it as such...I just never think about it being a journey that you have to go "over" there.  But they are right and climb both Cerro and Blue Mesa Summits we must and those are before we have to scale the pass at Monarch.  Most of the folks at school seldom venture to beyond the Front Range but they understand my need to return back to the Midwest from time to time.  

Well, in the time I've been writing this the sun has attempted to rise and the mostly cloud filled skies are out there, just as I figured.  It's 55 degrees right now and the high is anticipated to be at 75.  It will be a rainy day once again but with a bit of a break I can get laundry done and on the line this morning before the heavens open up and send down the buckets of rain that have been promised.  Somewhere in this world today are places desperately in need of rain so for the inconvenience we may encounter, we should probably just be satisfied to have seen some. 

The view, just now, looking off towards SilverJack Mountain to the south east.  I've never seen such varieties in shades of blues and purples as I have seen here in Colorado.

Time to get the day started and with the way time flies on the weekends, it won't take long for the day to be done.  I hope everyone out there is well and at peace in life.  Take care of yourselves and of each other.  Stick together, like glue ok?  

My dear friends and family back in Kansas, I cannot wait to see you all again very soon.  God willing and the "pass" on friendly terms with me....I'll see you in Haven!  Just 26 sleeps more :)

Dear friends from the class of 1972.  I was the "baby" of the bunch that day back in 2012 at the Fall Festival in Haven.  But it was so nice to just to be with this great group of girls who were a class ahead of me in high school.  Toni, Annetta, Joyce, Sara, and Cherry what great memories we shared.

The lessons I learned from my mother

     My mom would have celebrated her 93rd birthday today if she were still alive. 6 years ago, in 2007, she spent her last birthday here with us while yet on earth and two weeks later succumbed to the effects of kidney failure, congestive heart disease, and basically the desire to "check out" from the sick and tired 87-year old physical body that her spirit inhabited.  She was ready, no make that MORE than ready to go and when she breathed her last breath in the early morning hours of September 25th, 2007 it was truly a blessing that she was "released" from her suffering.

     In the years that have followed since her passing, much has happened.  How crazy is it?  Someone you loved forever dies and yet the world and life continues to go on as if that person never was there in the first place.  As life went on in the time following that autumn day in late September, it drug me along with it and you know what?  I'm pretty sure that is the way my mom would have wished for it to be.  Even though I miss her terribly, I don't sit around and dwell on the fact that she is now gone from us.  There's too much that my mom would rather I be doing and I honour her memory by doing just that.

     Soon I will be celebrating my 58th year of life and as I have grown older and perhaps wiser, I've given it some serious thought and I realize just how many lessons I learned from growing up the daughter of Lois Scott.  Those times of learning came in a variety of forms, mostly just when I needed them the most.  I didn't realize the value of all of them at the time I received them but this I can tell you most assuredly, I definitely realize the value of them at this point in my life.

     The greatest lesson that I learned from her was how to work hard, how to give an honest day's labour no matter what kind of a job you might be doing.  As a kid growing up on a farm in rural Kansas, I took my share of the chores that all farm kids did and I accepted the responsibility pretty dang seriously.  Hey, when your family of 9 people is depending upon every egg that you would gather for their supper that evening, well you tend to make sure they all arrive back to the house in one piece.  Later on, from age 11 to age 21, I worked at our family's restaurant on the edge of the little town of Haven, Kansas.  Those were hard days and I can remember being so dead tired that it was all I could do to stay awake at school some times.  But the hard work that we put in was nothing that would kill a kid, even though we were sometimes sure that our death certificates might read that we had died at the age of 14 because our parents worked us to death!  I'm grateful for the way I was brought up and every hour that I was working for my parents was just an hour that I stayed out of trouble.  They were doing the right thing by making us work and I know it now.  Have to say that I wasn't so sure back then.

     The most heart warming and humbling lesson came when she was living in a long-term care setting in Hutchinson for the last 3 years of her life.  I had become a CNA and on the weekends I would work in the same care home that she was living in.  Sometimes her call light would go off and I would be the one to answer it.  She always hated to have to ask me to help her in and out of the bathroom.  It was humiliating for her to need assistance and especially to have to ask her own daughter to be the one who did it.  The same went for helping her to get dressed/undressed, having her dentures washed or to have a shower.  I would be the first to admit that in the initial days of my learning to provide care for her, that it was kind of difficult for me as well.  But you know what?  We made it, my mom and I, and soon it just became "old hat" for me to go in and provide whatever assistance that she might have needed.  I'm glad that I was able to do that for her and that after a while, it became "ok" for her to accept the help from me.

     The saddest lesson?  Well, it's the one I learned on September 25th of 2007 on the day that she died.  When it became apparent by midday on the 24th that her time was soon going to come to a close, we kids all began to gather around her in order to be with her as she left.  It's a tough thing, a very rough spot in time, to watch a parent leave you and this world right before your eyes.  She'd been given medicine to calm her breathing down and to help her rest and the pills were really taking effect.  For the next 12 hours, we'd sit there and watch her slip away one breath at a time.  Sometimes she'd wake up momentarily and say something to one of us.  Yet, only moments later she'd be back asleep once more.  I wanted to talk to her.  I wanted to ask her questions that I'd forgotten I needed the answers to and I knew that the time was running short.  I sat there on the end of her bed, crossed-legged and made as many memories as I could before the time in the proverbial "hour glass" ran out.

     A couple of hours before she passed, Mom gave me such a wonderful gift and probably didn't even realize the impact that it would have upon me that  night.  She woke up momentarily and looked at me setting on her bed and as clearly as could be she said to me, "Peggy Ann you are a good girl."  With that she closed her eyes and slept the rest of her life away.  I remember lying down next to her and putting my arms around her, laying my head upon her chest.  And I cried like a baby.  I wasn't crying for her because I knew that her suffering would soon be over.  I was crying for me, the daughter that she was leaving behind.  I learned that what they say in the "Good Book" in Ecclesiastes is most certainly true...that to everything there is a season....and that there was a time to be born for my mom and a time when it was "ok" for her to say "enough".  And she did.

     I usually do pretty good these days about not crying so much when I think about her.  I guess the passage of time does indeed help.  But today at school, in front of the kids, I had a little trouble.  I told them that today was my mom's birthday and that she had died six years ago only two weeks after turning 87.  I wanted to tell them that she would be happy for me that I was teaching students today but you know I couldn't get past "You know my mom would be so ......." before I was overcome with emotion.  That class of 9-year olds became silent as they watched the tear roll down their teacher's face.  They'd never seen that happen to me before and the more I tried to explain the worse the tears seemed to want to fall.  It took me a minute to "get it together" but those kids, they didn't laugh or get unruly.   They showed compassion.  Sierra spoke for them by saying, "Mrs. Renfro don't worry about crying.  We know what it's like to lose someone that you love very much too.  It's ok cause we understand."  And I know it was "ok" and that my mom would be proud of me for continuing to teach long after I said I would retire.  As for me, I've kind of felt her very presence right alongside me each day any ways and for that I rejoice always.

     So to the woman who taught me about life, who showed me how to garden and to can vegetables and make jelly, who taught me how to be a productive citizen and to help others, and  who enabled me by her example to be a good mother to my own children, I give her thanks and praise.  Some day I will be reunited with her in Heaven and you know, I can just about imagine what her hug will feel like as we greet one another again.  So "Happy Birthday" to you dear mom and if you are still blessed enough to have your own mothers out there, my mom, Lois Scott, would be the first to tell you that you best be giving them a call sometime soon.  Please don't wait dear friends, for in the blink of an eye, your chance might well be gone to do that.

Good night everyone out there from along the Western Slopes of Colorado.  Day is nearly done here~And here's a pretty decent thought to remember these days.....Even at its seemingly worst, our life is truly good.  Tonight I feel most blessed and I hope that you can say the same as well.

After her funeral at Trinity United Methodist Church in Hutchinson, Kansas.....children and grandchildren that could be in attendance.  We loved her very much  and miss her more than can be imagined.  Mom's part of "the plan" was finished...the road back "home" took 87 years and two weeks to travel but she finally made it!