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."