~revisiting the plate spinner~

A very good morning to you friends and family from our house, here along the Pacific side of the great Continental Divide.  It's the last day of April and so very hard to imagine that we are soon going to find ourselves finished with school for the year and sending our students and ourselves home for summer vacation.  The last part of school is a very busy and sometimes chaotic time for all concerned.  To all of my dear friends in Kansas, Colorado, and all other points in between who are involved daily in the teaching and nurturing of our children, I send you this message.

"Don't give up.  Encourage one another in everything.  Choose to do what is the most important and accept the fact that if you cannot get to everything, it's going to be "ok". 

You know dear friends, that message works not only for those of us in education but for anyone, anywhere who are facing a multitude of things on our "to do" lists this very day.  Not only do we all have "plates" that are full to overflowing, we are "spinning" a heck of a lot of them at any given moment in time.  You are not alone in this and neither am I.

One of the very earliest of blog posts that I wrote back in the first month of this online diary of thoughts and ideas for a Kansas girl's "bucket list", I wrote an entry called "Less like the plate spinner" and am reposting it below for you to read if you would care so to do.  My advice to myself and to anyone that read it, now nearly 3 years ago, still has merit this day.  If you are reading this, then I'm going to guess that there is a very good chance that you take care of others far better than you remember to take care of yourselves.  It's human nature and since we are all human.....well, you get the picture. 

Take good care of yourselves my dear ones and even if you don't stop spinning all of the plates you have going in life right now, maybe you could choose a couple?  Love you guys, all of you and from a place far away, I'm thinking of you.  I am alive and well, surviving and FINALLY thriving in the great American West.   It's a great feeling to be able to acknowledge that.  I used to have a plate filled with "extreme homesickness for Kansas".  The day I found peace in washing that one up and storing it emptied into the cupboard was the day that life took a change for the better here.  The cupboard door was opened by a lot of great people that I'll be seeing just up the road in a bit.  Have a great Wednesday everyone~



A very early blog post~from the 21st day of June 2011


Less like the "plate spinner"

Got to say, right from the start, that unless you are around my age or older, this post will probably seem like something from another strange world.  The truth be told, it WAS another world and they called it the "1960's".  


It was a time when families had one, yes I said one, TV and chances are (really good chances) that it was black and white.  And if most families were like my family, then every Sunday evening about 7 p.m. it was tuned to a variety show called, "The Ed Sullivan Show."  Long before the days of internet, cell phones, and modern technology, people relied on Ed Sullivan to entertain them with a 60 minute program of a variety of acts. We lived on a farm and I remember dad and my brother hurrying with the milking chores in order that they could finish in time to watch it.  I was just a little kid, but I remember very well the 2 acts that I always hoped to see.


One of them was this guy who trained chimpanzees to do funny tricks.  He would always bring 3 or 4 chimps with him to the show.  He'd dress them up like little kids and sometimes they'd ride a trike, jump rope, dance with him, or any number of other cute things.  I loved them so much and I begged for two "seasons" of Ed Sullivan in a row for my mom and dad to buy me one for a pet.  They always said "no".  One Christmas I cried enough that they finally gave me a stuffed one for a gift.  That did the trick.  

 This is me with a "replacement" chimp that my son gave me for Christmas last year.  The kids heard my story about a bazillion times about how I wish I had a chimp like that one again.  That was a surprise.  :)




My other favorite act was the "plate spinning" guy and he's the reason I'm posting this on my "Miller Bucket List" site this morning.  The plate spinning guy was pretty cool-and oh could he spin those plates!  The whole object of his act was to see how many plates he could get to spin at one time without any of the plates slowing down and then crashing to the floor.  He was talented and I can remember just being glued to the tv set waiting to see what would happen.  Sometimes he'd even add things, like a piece of fruit or something, to the plate, just to offset the balance a bit.  But he never failed!  I know he probably only had less than 50 plates going at one time  but to me, an 8-year old farm kid, looking on...it seemed like 500.


As I've gotten older and hopefully wiser with the years, I realize just how much my life has been like the plate spinner's act.  I was never happy with just a couple of plates spinning....I had to have 100 going at once.  My family and friends will confirm the fact that Peggy Miller has to stay busy doing something, and the more somethings the better.  I've been multi-tasking most of my 55 years....long before anyone ever coined the usage of that phrase.  And here's where the "bucket list" comes in......


The life of a plate spinner is pretty busy, tiring, confusing, and even very lonely at times.  You can find yourself doing things that don't really matter at all to anyone, especially to you, the plate spinner.  I guess you do it because it's all you know how to do.  Believe it or not, having a bucket list to work on has slowed me down a bit.  It has forced me to think about what is really the most important to me in this life.  I have started to remember some of the very little things that we often overlook each day because we are all just so dang busy!  Even this online blog has enabled me to pause for a moment or two each day and reflect back on what has happened to me. Thus, bucket lists are not only our desires for things to do before we die, but also a reminder of what we should no longer waste our time upon.


Are you a fellow "plate spinner"?  If so, take a look at them.  Are  any of them wobbling right now?  How many of them are plates that you could get rid of, could actually allow to fall and break?  As your friend, may I tell you that it's ok to let one go, hey even two of them.  Please don't wait as long as I did to think about a bucket list and those things that are most meaningful to you in life.  I have started to find that life is so much easier if you only set the table for a "few at a time."

He made it look SO easy!  Good thing our plates at home were made from melamine.  I'm sure that one of the 7 of us kids must have tried to do this at one time or another.  Sorry about that Mom!  :)

~for what it's worth~

"Her name was Miss Marmont and she was the kindergarten teacher at Burrton Grade School for a gazillion years or so.  Her birth certificate read "Josephine Marmont" but the only thing we kids ever knew was that she went by the name of "Jo".  One time when a little kid in my class asked why her parents gave her a boy's name, Miss Marmont turned that inquisitive five-year old's question  into an early-day teachable moment and explained to us the concept of what we would later on in our lives know as "gender neutral naming of baby boys and girls."  She was an impeccable dresser with beautiful red fingernails and lipstick, never a hair out of place in her perfectly coifed hair.  Josephine Marmont was an old-maid school teacher who never married or had children of her own.  That wasn't necessary for she had US.  We were loved, nurtured, disciplined, cajoled to do our best, and taught  during that kindergarten year by one of the most memorable teachers I have ever known in life.  She made quite an impression on the little five-year old Kansas farm girl that I used to be.  Now nearly 54 years later, I am thinking of her still this day."

There we are, the 29 kids of the 1960-61 kindergarten class of Burrton (KS) Grade School.  If you are looking for me, let me save you the time.  I bet that you think I'm on the top row with all the really "giant sized" little kids.  Go to the front row, all the way to the right.  There I am with Miss Marmont's hand lovingly holding onto my collar.  I am sure that she did that for a good reason and now all these many years later, I hope it wasn't because I wouldn't stand still.  Isn't Miss Marmont beautiful?  We all thought she was about 75 or so when she was our teacher that year and in reality I'm figuring she was much closer to her mid forties.  You know how kids can be, right?  Not so good at the judging of a person's age.  Yet we loved her and the most important thing was that she loved us too.  Like I always tell "the 18"~

"If you ever have a teacher who says that they do not love you, then it's time to find a new teacher." 

 A very stark reality was looking me square in the eyes last August 1st.  After years and years and more years of being a teacher, the 2013-14 school year was looking to be the first year that I would not have a class to teach.  Yes, it is true that I had already retired back in Kansas, not once but twice, but after arriving here that previous June as a newly married, really homesick "flatlander", I knew that I needed to get back into the classroom and around kids once again.  Just a few days later, as part of what I know has been God's good and right plan for me here along the Western Slopes, I found "the 18" waiting for me just up the road from home at Olathe Elementary School.  My outlook on being here, so very far away from Kansas, changed for the "good" the day that I walked into the place that I consider to be just like another "home" to me.

Looking back now, I realize that I was desperately looking for the familiarity of something I had known all of my life and I found it there in that small rural community, in a school house filled with people who love and care about one another each and every day.  My good friend Leroy pretty much "nailed it" when he commented to me last evening about them, saying of the staff there at Olathe, "they are life savers" and my dear friends, he was absolutely correct.  I could not tell you, not in a million words or more, just how good the folks there really are.  They watch out for one another and lift each other up when things sometimes get tough going.  For me, they were like "anchors" who helped me to get my feet firmly planted into the soil of this place in the Great West.  They recognized that I was "hurting" and needed some time to become accustomed to a new life far from the prairies of the great state of Kansas.  In great part because of them, I made it!  Mike and I both give thanks for that and recognize it as the beautiful and loving gift from them to us that it really was.  May I some day return the kindness to them that they have shown so much to me.

There was a young woman from long ago who went to school with me at Bethel College, over in North Newton, KS.  She was a year ahead of me and enrolled in the teacher education program just as I and a few hundred others were.  Kathleen was a beautiful young woman who aspired to be a teacher of music one day and we all realized how good she would be at it.  She graduated in 1976 and returned to teach music in her hometown of Pretty Prairie, Kansas.  What a beautiful year she had, doing the thing that she had always hoped she would.  At year's end, Kathleen's "part of the plan" came to a close as her life ended in a car crash not so far away from her home.  One year of teaching was all that she got but I'm guessing that she must have had a great impact upon the students that she was able to reach that year.  From the heart of someone who has been blessed with now 36 years in education, the sobering reality that there are some teachers whose time is quite limited, always makes me stop and think and be grateful.

I have told many, many people that this 36th year in education has been my very best one.  I've become the teacher that I always knew I wanted to be.  I have always felt I was a good teacher, still able to learn more each year of course, but a good teacher nonetheless.  Yet this year, I became a greater teacher, an even more empathetic teacher and I finally have figured out what makes me feel that way.  Perhaps it was because this is the first school year in my entire career that I nearly didn't have a class to teach.  It was my "wake up" call, my thump up against the side of the head from God reminding me of what I was born to do.  I'm beyond thankful for the chance that I received this year in a place far from where all of my teaching experience has happened.  Next year, I have been asked to teach  a classroom of first graders at Olathe and I'm looking forward to returning once again.  18 of my 36 years have been in the primary and one thing is that I still have the chance to be taller than my students, at least for a little while :)  My first year as a fourth-grade teacher is rapidly coming to an end, "the 18" know it and so do I.   I've learned so much with perhaps the greatest of lessons being that I don't know everything and there is still so much to learn.  So thankful to God above for the gifts of the presence of those 9 and 10-year olds this year.  I love them more than they will ever be able to know.

"There once was this silly woman who thought that after 32 years of being called 'teacher' that it was time to quit.  Time to retire and think about a different kind of life.  When she smiled for the camera on "picture day" at school, she was sure it would be her last teacher picture EVER.  Like I said, 'there once was this silly woman who thought after 32 years of being called 'teacher' that it was time to quit."

                          Teacher picture #32, Avenue A Elementary, Hutchinson, KS.

                                  Teacher picture #36, Olathe Elementary, Olathe, CO.

~as time went on, the things that I learned~

Good morning dear friends and family, wherever you may be this day.  Welcome to Monday, the 28th day of April, 2014.  What will it bring for any of us?  God only knows the answer to that one but I am thinking of you, all of you, right now and hoping that all will be well for me and for you too.  The new day has now begun.

From time to time, I like to sit down and figure out just how old I am in days instead of years.  Don't ask me why.  Perhaps it is because I am easily amused at things just like that and for the record, I'm celebrating my 21,369th day of living right now.  Lucky for me there is an online website that does all the calculating for me as I simply plug in my birthday of now over 58 years ago and "magic, magic" the number appears.  And when I look at that number it does make a person pause to think just how many hours and days have gone by in a life that moves NOT at a snail's pace. 

Mike and I have had many visits about what we will be doing this summer, the places we want to go and see and the projects that we want to do around the house here.  Our list of "to do" things grows longer each day and if you could see the inside of our house, you'd find about a gazillion projects started and nary a one of them close to completion.  Seems like more often than not we get ourselves into trouble when someone suggests buying a gallon of paint and a paintbrush and before you know it, a new project begins.  Life is so short, and the days are precious and few, so it would seem good and right to live each day to its greatest potential.

More and more as the days go by, I find myself looking forward to the upcoming summer and the chance to do some of those things that we have talked about.  Last summer was a "not so good" kind of moment for the both of us, with the first 6 weeks being the hardest of them all.  I hung on through some of the worst bouts of homesickness I've felt in my whole life.  Although I love Kansas and its people so very dearly (and always WILL  for that matter), I cannot remember the last time I said to Mike, "I miss Kansas too much.  I just want to go back home!"  That, my friends, is a good sign. 

Last night, I was looking at some of the blog posts I did last summer when I first arrived.  I was looking for one of them, ANY of them, that showed a "hint of hope" that I was trying to overcome the initial shock of leaving home and make it here in this new life of mine.  Hey, I'm not gonna lie to you, it took a little doings to find one.  But I came across the one shown below, done about 3 weeks into being here and I have to admit, I smiled as I read it.  It was my very first effort of sincerely trying to find my place here in south western Colorado.  I didn't even tell Mike that I was doing the things I did that day and when he came home from work, I asked him to sit down at the kitchen table so that I could read it to him before I posted it online.  We both laughed at a few of the parts and if I don't say so myself, I think I grew a couple of inches taller that day.  Life here is a work in progress but I bet you can say the same thing for yourselves.  Nothing goes as easily as we have planned it 100 percent of the time and shoot some days, I'm satisfied to find it going smoothly just on Monday :) 

Time to ready myself for school now.  Somewhere out there "the 18" are nestled safely into their beds, still fast asleep.  Soon even their time will come to arise and prepare themselves for our day together.  May your Monday be a very good one friends and from a place so very far away, someone is thinking of you and hoping you are "ok".


A BLOG POST FROM THE 13TH DAY OF JUNE, 2013


A DAY IN THE LIFE

Good evening everyone, friends and family~Greetings from south western Colorado where, so far so good, on any forest fires.  We are thinking of all the folks on the eastern side, the Front Range, who are now enduring what may be a long-spell of fire danger.  Praying for everyone to be safe and that no lives must be lost in this.  It is my first experience with things of this nature and it is easy for me to see now, how one careless spark, one little flame can cause so much damage and wreak such a great amount of havoc.

This morning when I got up, I realized almost immediately that there were some things that I needed to do, some "fears" that I needed to face this day.  I knew that if I could do so, that I'd probably stand a much better chance of being less homesick and also feeling like I would fit in here just a little bit easier in my new home of Montrose, Colorado.  Now that the day has come and gone, I'm very glad that I did.  I have a ways to go yet but hey, don't we all?  I kinda/sorta conquered these 3 today and who knows?  Maybe another day I shall conquer a few more :)  They, like most fears that we all have, can "rob us" of much happiness.  I got tired of allowing them to rob me of mine.  I went "3 for 3" and in my books, that's a pretty good record.  Here they are.  Perhaps you shall see yourself in one of them.  I'm not perfect and not sure that I ever will wish to be.


Unfounded Fear #1

"I cannot ride my bike here unless Mike is around just in case I have trouble."

7:48 a.m.~I saw my bike sitting in the mud room area of the house looking about as lonely and lost as I have been sometimes here.  I thought to myself, "What's the use of having a good bike if you never get on it to ride?"  I've only ridden it once since I've been here and that was one evening after Mike had gotten home from work in Grand Junction.  The altitude took its toll on my lungs that evening as I struggled to even do 5 miles around the section where we live.  An overwhelmingly steep hill just to the east of our house was a hard "cross to bear" as I finished up my ride.  Huffing and puffing with lungs that felt as if they could explode any moment, I parked the bike on the porch and never got back on it again.  That was a week and a half ago.  Today I determined it to be a different story and with or without Mike here, I was going to get on that bike to try once again.  If I had a flat tire, if I got altitude sickness, if I got lost...well I would just have to figure it out on my own.  Guess what?  None of that happened.  I made the journey east to the stop sign, coasted downhill to Highway 50, turned west towards town and never pedalled once until I got to the stoplight on Hillcrest.  Then the REAL ride began as I struggled uphill to the four-way stop to Locust Road and turned back east towards home.  That same hill that nearly did me in not even two weeks back was there waiting for me.  It hadn't gone anywhere and although I was determined that I would make it to the top of it without stopping, I unfortunately got off and walked it the last 15 yards.  No sin in doing so I guess~seen a lot of cyclists around these parts doing the very same thing.  Back home, alive and well.  I am more determined to get back on that bike out here than I would ever be afraid of getting lost, having a flat tire, or even breaking an arm or two.

I actually got to conquer two fears at once here.  When I went to set the automatic timer on the camera to go off, the dreaded message "Internal Memory Full" came up.  Dang~that's what I'd been having trouble figuring out right before I left Kansas. I said to my kids that morning, "Hey, what does this mean?  How do I get rid of it?"   My daughter Ursela (who can do all of this kind of stuff in her sleep) said to me, "Mom, what do YOU think you should do?"  Oh how I hate it when  my kids talk to me like that.  I know exactly what that means...it means that they believe I should try to figure it out on my own.  Well, this morning I did and after pushing a zillion different buttons, sometimes with one eye open and the other one shut, I did figure it out.  It was an accident, that's for sure, but I DID manage to take care of the problem.

Unfounded fear #2-
"The mountains that surround me have trapped me here~I wouldn't be able to get out if I want/need to."

10:38 a.m.~ok, ok...so I admit this one right up front.  I'm a slight claustrophobic under normal circumstances.  I'm an even greater one in the state of Colorado.  At times in the last 3 weeks, I've kind of felt the presence of the mountains as a "trap" and that I couldn't get over them  if I wanted to or needed to return to Kansas for anything.  For "flatlanders" like me, the mountains might be beautiful the first time or two that you see them but after that, you're soon to be thinking that they would look a whole lot better if someone would just blast a hole through them so you can see what is on the other side (unfortunately, that's probably going to be a whole lot more mountains LOL).

When you stop to think about it, if anyone should have felt as if the mountains were impossible to traverse and that you wouldn't make it back over to the "other side" once again, it would have to have been the pioneers who settled this area in the late 1800's.  For crying out loud, if THEY could do it without a GPS, AC in their automobiles (that they didn't have), or cell phones to stay in touch with one another, then surely I could do it if I had to.  Having done it six times before now, some of those times in the dead of winter, then I know that I can as well.

I wanted to learn more about the area that I now live in and Mike suggested that I stop by the Bureau of Land Management Office located in the south part of Montrose.  He told me about the maps and other resources available there that I could pick up in order to perhaps find some fun things to do.  So today was the day and I'm really glad that I did.  A wonderful woman name Helen greeted me at the door. She's a volunteer there and although I don't know this for a fact, she appeared to be in her late-80's and still one spry gal :)  We spoke at length about the area and when she learned that I was from Kansas she proceeded to tell me that her grandparents were buried in the Butler County town of El Dorado, Kansas.  Helen was a wonderful ambassador, a unique one-person "Welcome Wagon" for our city.  She showed me a variety of brochures and maps, free for the taking, and encouraged me to get out and explore the immediate area.  One brochure I picked up instantly gave me some ideas for my upcoming "Bucket List" here in Colorado.  Another pamphlet told of the Dominguez-Escalante National Conservation Area, a place that Mike has said would be very fun and interesting to visit.  Another one showed 10 interesting day hikes around the Montrose area.  Perhaps those will be ones that we take some day in the future.  As I get more familiar with my geographical surroundings, my hope is that the mountains will not be so foreboding to me.  There are much worse mountain ranges to cross over than the ones we live by.  For the least of these things, I give thanks.

My first time to see something like this.  I know, I don't get out a lot.

A great facility in Montrose that provides a lot of educational information and material for residents and visitors alike.

Glad to have made the trip there this morning.  Still am not completely over that feeling of being closed in but at least I understand a bit more of my surroundings.  Understanding the terrain in this "neck of the woods" helps tremendously.

Unfounded fear #3-
I cannot go to the bowling alley on my own.  It would be way too embarrassing to have no one to bowl with.  Everyone would stare at me and say, "Wow, I wonder why that woman is bowling (so poorly I might add) all by herself?"

Straight up 1:00 p.m.~One of the things I first learned about Mike was that he not only enjoyed bowling on a league once a week, but also that he was a pretty dang good bowler.  Since I've been here, now going on 3 weeks, we've gone down to the Rose Bowl together a couple of times and actually had some fun.  I'm not such a good bowler, in fact over 35 years had passed since I last picked up a bowling ball.  I am not the world's worst bowler but I did want to be able to bowl a little better than a 100 pin average.  Mike has been so kind about it all, encouraging me to keep at it, congratulating me when I rolled the ball well and even gave me some pointers on how to pick up spares, even when the pins that remained were miles apart from each other.  Yet, I STILL wanted to do better.  I knew that I would need some practice and today seemed like the perfect day to just suck it up and walk into that bowling alley all alone and tell them I was there to rent a lane.  And so I did.

Here's the crazy thing...there wasn't one person there who cared that I was going to be bowling alone. That didn't  matter to them, not even in the least.  I made some remark about wanting to get better at bowling and that I was there all by myself and what did I need to do?  Shoot, they just asked me if I was old enough to qualify for free shoe rental as a "senior".  With a shocked look on my face I asked them, "Well that depends.  How old do you have to be here to be a senior?"  When they said "50", I replied, "Heck ya, by 7 years already."  And off I went.  I ended up bowling 4 games, adding in that extra 4th one since I didn't have to pay for the shoe rental because my parents had chosen to have a baby in 1955.  I can tell you this right now and would probably be able to say the same thing as I took my final breath in this life, "I will NEVER be good enough to join the Professional Bowler Association Circuit and never will I bowl a perfect game nor would I attempt to.  Yet despite all of that being said, I still have found it to be a fun pastime, one that I can enjoy with Mike in the months and years to come.  It just took a little bit of courage to walk into  that bowling alley on my own this afternoon.  My scores from my lowest of the four games and the highest of the four games are shown below.  Please don't die laughing any of you, ok?  For some of you, your "low" score is the same as my "high" score.  My bowling prowess is still "in the works".

Day's end is drawing nigh and soon the darkness will fall upon this side of the earth again. I've had a good day today because I made myself get out and do something different.  When I begin working next week, I won't have the luxury of just dropping everything and doing things totally on the spur of the moment, on a whim.  But today I did and friends I must tell you, I am so very glad.

Good night everyone and have a great evening wherever you are this day.  Love you guys all!

Sometimes I need a "kick in the seat of the pants" to remind me just where I have come from and that I'm really a whole lot tougher than I admit to at times.  I made it then, I will make it now.

~having once been a kid myself~

Welcome to Friday everyone, the 25th day of April in 2014.  Hard to imagine it once again but "good heavens!" how amazing it is to realize just how fast this life of ours flies by us.  It's our day to go on a field trip for all of the fourth graders at Olathe Elementary and we will be traveling the 20 miles or so up to Delta, Colorado to visit Fort Uncompahgre for the day.  I've been through that part of the state many times since I arrived here last summer as it on the direct route to Grand Junction.  I have always wished that I could visit the fort some time but never had the occasion to until today.  It will be a learning experience for my students and an even greater one for the their teacher.  That's one of the nice  things about my classroom position this year, that chance for growth as not only a teacher but a  person as well.  I may never know as much about the Centennial State as I do the Sunflower State but that won't stop me from trying.

We are making a lot of memories together, the "18" and I are, as we wind down the last remaining weeks of a school year that I never thought would be.  I find myself pausing more often than not and looking out at them, gazing into their faces and hoping above all hope that life will be good and kind to them.  In the years to come, I hope that they can remember back to their fourth-grade year and know in their hearts that the woman they called "teacher", Mrs. Renfro, loved them very much and only wanted the best for them. 

You know friends I think back often to my own fourth-grade year, especially now that my teaching position has been  this particular assignment.  I remember how hard my teacher, Mrs. Harris, must have had to work to teach the more than 20 kids she had all year long.  1964-65 was a lifetime or two ago and bless that dear and now sainted woman's heart, she did it all alone.  There were no classroom aides that came in to help her ride herd over us kids, no computer to access the internet on, no Smart board or for that matter even a dry erase board.  When we went on a field trip, and by the way that was the ONLY field trip for the year, it was usually to Hutch and Mrs. Harris took care of us all by herself.  I don't ever remember her taking along mothers or fathers to help in the supervision of our perhaps sometimes rowdy class of ten-year olds.  The really cool thing was that if we were lucky, there was the outside chance that her husband, Mr. Harris, would be the bus driver for the day.  I loved that woman and how I wish that I could pick up the phone and call her this day to tell her how much of an impact she had upon the life of the shy little girl called "Peggy" who sat in her classroom that year.

I have thought back this year more than ever to my mom and with a thankful heart I realize just how many sacrifices she made for me and my six siblings, especially during my fourth-grade year back in my hometown of Haven, Kansas.  It was during that year that she took a job, for the first time ever, over in the small town of Halstead.  My parents wanted to build a restaurant in Haven so while it was being constructed  that year, she became a waitress at one of the local eateries there in order to learn more about what it was like to manage such a business.  Mom always wanted to be at home in the morning to get us kids up and out of bed, on the bus and safely to school each day.  Because of that, she worked the evening shifts always and thus when we got home, she wasn't back from work yet.  Our dad was there to take care of us but I can remember that I sometimes wished she didn't have to go work, that she could be there just like every other kid in my class' mom was.  She had to miss so many of our school programs and sometimes I would imagine that she really was there so I wouldn't have to cry.  I never told her then, nor in the years to come, how sad that made me.  Mom did the best she could.

Funny how you remember things after so very many years have passed by.  Ever have that happen to you friends?  From deep inside the brain, from time to time, a memory surfaces that you haven't thought of in so very long.  It happened to me last night as I watched our fourth-graders at Olathe perform at their final music program for the year.  I looked at all the boys and girls, dressed in their finest, with hair perfectly coifed and smiles on their faces and it reminded me of a time of so very long ago.  Suddenly in my memory, I was thinking back to my own last music performance as a fourth-grade kid and the night that my father had to make sure that I looked my best.  When I got home from school and wondered what I would wear to the school that night, I saw that my mother had taken care to lay out my good clothing.  There hanging up in our old farmhouse, right by the floor furnace that separated the living room and dining room, was my best dress.  It was one that my older cousin had handed down to me and when you come from a family with seven kids in it, you tend to have a lot of those kinds of what we now refer to as "gently used attire".  Mom had washed it that day in our old wringer washer and ironed it crisply to make it look as nice as she could.  I can still see it hanging there and I remember most assuredly that the color was red and navy checked.  It had short puffy sleeves, a little Peter Pan collar, and a belt that tied in the back.  But the sweetest thing about it all was not the fact that she had laundered it so nicely but rather of something she had attached to it.  At first when I saw it, I wasn't sure what it was but when my father took it off the hanger for me, I soon found out.  Mom had gotten into her own jewelry box and picked out one of her pins that she felt would be a nice accent to my dress and had safely and securely attached it to the left hand collar.  All of a sudden that dress that I realized really had belonged to someone else to begin with, was a better dress than any other girl in my class might wear that night.  My dad combed my unruly hair, made sure I'd washed my face and off we went for the evening.  Mom might not have been there in "the flesh" but she was most certainly there in my heart.  I wish that I would have told her how much that really meant to me but sadly, I don't think I ever did.  Perhaps now she may know.

Every day at school I see parents and teachers working together to make the difference in the lives of the children that walk through the doors of Olathe Elementary.  Good people, all of them and friends it is no different in any other city or town in this land of ours.  Know that when you pass by a school on your way to work or as you travel through town that inside of those walls, lots of good things are happening.  When you say your prayers at night, remember us, will you?  Sometimes it takes more than  "a village" in fact a couple of villages some days. Teachers and parents everywhere gladly thank you for everything you do in the course of a day with the welfare of a child in mind.

There once was a little girl named Peggy and she was a fourth-grader too.

 

~friends, I will remember you~

I have this friend back home in Kansas that lives in the beautiful Flint Hills.  Let's just call him "Dennis", ok? (cause that is his name, really)  We grew up in the same small south central Kansas community, with his family's home just across the street from my folks' restaurant at the edge of town.  Dennis graduated just one year ahead of me in school but after high school, we pretty much lost contact with one another.  Many years later, I would catch up with him once again on the pages of Facebook where we made our "reconnection" with one another.  It was from that chance online "crossing of paths" that we renewed our friendship, picking up from where we left off decades earlier.  I appreciate Facebook for that fact and the truth is that I not only found that red headed, freckled faced trumpet player there but many other friends from my youth as well.  Now I keep up pretty regularly with the news from back in the "land of long ago and far, far away" and for this transplanted flatlander who now lives 611 miles away from them, that is GOOD news.

Last year at this time, I was anticipating how I would spend my last month of living in Hutchinson, Kansas and the list of things to do was growing exponentially each and every day that passed by.  Things had to be finished up at school before I "retired" for the second time of being a Kansas school teacher, my belongings had to be packed into boxes for moving, and a gazillion other loose ends needed  to have their own tying up.  Yet in all of that, perhaps the most important thing that was on my mind and in my heart was the fact that I had a whole lot of family and friends to say "good bye" to. 

Over the course of living in the same state, shoot the very same county, for more than 57 years, I had occasion to meet lots of different people.  Many of those people became my friends, lifelong friends.  I never once gave thought to the fact that I would not live in the same area that they did but after May 21st of last year, that changed.  Amazing thing about friends though.  They remain with you, whether you live on the Atlantic side of the great Continental Divide OR on the Pacific side of it.  For that I am most grateful.

When I return to Kansas throughout the month of May, I hope to see many of them once again as we catch up on the news of what is going on in our lives.  The good folks over at Bogey's on 17th Street back home in Hutch will be surprised to see me back again.  It's a great place to invite a friend "over" for a coke and good conversation.  Having done that a thousand times in the past year or so, I can attest to that very fact.  Friends, I have not forgotten you.  Dear friends I will always remember you.

It's the early morning here along the Western Slopes of the great state of Colorado, my new home.  In a few hours I will be in the company of many new friends, the good people of Olathe Elementary.  Funny thing about friends, you can make new ones even when you are not sure you ever will again.  It has been the greatest of gifts this year to have met them, to have worked alongside them, to share in the "ups and downs" of a normal school year, to now call them "friend" as well.  May you  share your work day with people of the same quality and caliber as I have been fortunate to experience.  It has been a year to learn and they are great teachers, all of them.

And speaking of friends, last year about this time I wrote a blog post that told the story of an "unknown" friend whose simple act of kindness at his death years before ended up saving my badly busted up left arm in 2011.  I was the recipient of bone material from an unknown man from Missouri and when I was asked to be one of the speakers at the annual "Celebration of Heroes" event in Wichita, Kansas my answer was a resounding "YES".  I share my story of that experience any time I can and am reposting it below, if you would so care to read.  The giving of LIFE is a precious thing and being the recipient of that wonderful gift is a most humbling "get on your knees in prayer" kind of moment that one could experience.  Have a great day family and friends.  I am thinking of you right now and holding you close to my heart always.

From April of 2013-a year ago now already.......
When I expected it least, yet needed it the most~

Good morning everyone~greetings on this wonderful Friday to you all.  In these parts of the world we have survived a week of weird weather, even by Kansas standards.  From tornadoes to ice and snow, sleet and hail, and everything in between...a week to remember.  Even in the worst part of it, we give thanks for whatever moisture hit the ground.  Sometimes it was delivered in forms we weren't too crazy about at the time but you gotta take the bad with the good, especially in drought stricken areas like our state of Kansas.

Tomorrow I will be in Wichita, over at Christ Lutheran Church, to be one of the speakers at the Celebration of Heroes event sponsored each year by the Midwest Transplant Network.  It honours the families of those people who have died and subsequently donated their organs, tissue and corneas to those in dire need of them.  Because of my experience with "old lefty" I was asked to share my thoughts.  Gladly I am so doing and this blog post is to share with you what I am going to say to them tomorrow.  I vowed when I went through this ordeal that if anything good could come from it, if I could tell as many people as possible about the value of "donating life" upon our own deaths, then I would do so...even with my own very last breath.  This is my way to share it with you.  The text of what I will say to them follows below, if you would like to read.

Have a wonderful Friday, my dear friends and family~May the future be bright for each of us out there.  Thank you for being my friends, one and all.  Love you guys!


Hello to you all this afternoon  and what a privilege and honor I do count this day~to be able to be with you and to  join in this celebration of the lives of many people, both the living and the dead. My name is Peggy Miller and on August 4th, 2011, I was involved in an accident that would forever change my life and I am thankful to be able to join you here today and to tell you the story.
I'm a cyclist and yearlong, especially during the summer months, there is nothing that I love doing more than riding my bike.  The summer of 2011 was a great one for riding, well that is  as long as you rode before the scorching sun came up every day.  Each morning I would rise and by the time the clock said 6:00 a.m. I was hitting the streets of my hometown,  Hutchinson, Ks.  I was always happy to get in a fast 10-12 miles each day and during that summer, there never once arose an issue of safety or concern.  Not even record breaking heat or drought conditions could stop me from having fun on my bike and by the time early August had arrived, I already had logged over 1,000 miles for the year. Then came August 4th.

You know, I remember a lot about that day and I guess one of the things that will always stick with me was the beautifully cool weather that had been ushered in overnight in south central Kansas.  I was so used to riding in early morning temperatures already in the 80's and 90's, that when the thermometer registered 72 degrees outside at 6:15,  I couldn't get on that bike fast enough.  For the next hour I rode the streets, following the path that I always did.  It was fun and I couldn't help but to notice the smiles on everyone's faces as I passed them along the way.  Many folks, just like me, were out riding, running or walking in the FINALLY  pleasantly cool breeze of the early morning hours.  By the time I headed back home to my house, I was really "flying" on that bike of mine, going so fast that I was unable to make the driveway into my own front yard.  Rather than slowing up and taking the next driveway, I made the fateful decision to try to jump the curbing instead.  Wrong choice~

My front bike tire hit the curbing head on at about 10 mph and this much I can tell you, they made curbing to last back in the "good old days" of 1936.  The concrete didn't give an inch and when my 55-year old body hit the hard earth of my front lawn, my life changed forever and it was a change for the good.  They told me in the ER at our local hospital that I had shattered the radius of my left arm so badly that it looked as if a "bomb had exploded" inside of me.  I knew I was in trouble when the best orthopaedic surgeon in our city said to me before I went to the operating room, "Peggy, This is bad~I don't know if I can help you."  After an emergency surgery later that morning in Hutchinson to patch me up as best they could, I was referred onward to Dr. Prince Chan of the Kansas Orthopaedic Center here in Wichita.  6 days later on August 10th, I re-entered the surgery room for the first of two procedures there in order to try to save my left arm, in particular my badly busted wrist.

After everything was over and I was brought back to the recovery room, the first thing that the nurse did was to hand me an envelope from the Midwest Transplant Network.  She told me something that surprised me, shocked me beyond belief.  I learned that during the procedure to save my wrist,  I had been given the bone tissue of someone who had died and donated it after their death.  She told me that the envelope contained information about how I could contact the donor's family if I wished.  A string of numbers by a bar code on the outside of the envelope was the identifying marker for the person who had been my donor.  I remember as she walked out of the room that my eyes filled with tears and I took my right hand and reached over to hold my left arm in its cast at about the same place I thought the bone material would be.  It was if I was giving that person a hug from the bottom of my heart and I remember saying, "I love you.  Thank you for saving me."

As I lay there on that table while they monitored my vital signs for the next 30 minutes I began to wonder, who was this person who helped me?  All of a sudden, the strangest thing happened~as I was lying there and thinking, the name "Eleanore" immediately popped into my mind.  It was such a strong feeling and I just couldn't shake it.  Was the person who died named Eleanore?  Was it a woman or a young girl?  Maybe their Grandmother's name was that?  A thousand thoughts ran through my mind and they would be thoughts that would haunt me in the days and weeks to come.

When I made it home and started the recuperation process, I sat down to write a letter to my donor's family.  I wasn't sure what to say but I knew that they would understand.  I thanked them for what their loved one did for me and for, I am sure, countless others.  I told them a little bit about me, that I was a 55-year old school teacher from south central Kansas who was riding a bike that morning like a ten-year old instead of the responsible adult rider that I should have been.  I wrote them again at Thanksgiving time but didn't hear back from either of the letters.  I understood totally and even though I was sad about not knowing who they were or how that name "Eleanore" played into all of this, I was ok and at peace.

Later on towards Christmas and the fast approaching second surgery to fix the appendage that now had become to be called "old lefty", I was given two pieces of good news.  I received an email telling me that my donor had been a man, age 45, from my neighbour state of Missouri.  I didn't learn anything further than that about him but you know, I really didn't need to know any more.  It was enough for me to know that much.  But dang, that name Eleanore, why couldn't I get that out of my mind?  I didn't give up searching.  I knew that the man had come from Missouri, so I searched the Internet.  Was there a city in Missouri called Eleanore or perhaps a county?  Maybe an Eleanore Street?  I got the answer to all of those questions a few days later when my sister Sherry came to visit me for the holidays from her home in Altus, Oklahoma.

Seems she had done some researching on her own and of all things, she learned of the original derivation in both the Latin and Greek languages for that special name.  From the Latin word, lenire, it means to soothe or to heal.  From the Greek word, eleos, it means compassion.  When my sister told me of what she found, it meant the world to me to finally understand what I believe was a message from God that afternoon now almost two years ago. Eleanore was the gift of healing, given with great compassion from a man in Missouri to a woman in Kansas.  It made perfect sense to me then.  From that point in time, I knew enough of who my donor was and finally I was at peace.  I will see him in Heaven some day and when I do, I'll know exactly who he is.  And the first thing I am going to do when I see him is to give him a big hug around his neck.  

I have told this story many times to different people along life's way.  Today marks the first time to tell it in front of such a group as you folks are.  I cannot imagine, not in my wildest of dreams, what it would have been like to have had to make the decision to allow your family member's usable and still viable organs, corneas and tissue to be used for transplant.  I would not even pretend to understand.  But on the "receiving end" of this whole process, I do know what a life-altering moment it was for me.  From the minute my donor's bone tissue was grafted into my body, Peggy Miller's life was to never be the same again.  What a bitter sweet moment it was in time....one man's life was given while the lives of many others, mine included, were saved. 

I believe that having that accident and getting hurt so badly was the best thing that ever happened to me in this life.  No longer do I take things for granted as I once did, no longer do I put off doing something that I really want to do.  Every day I live life to its fullest in much the same manner that I know "Eleanore's" donor would have hoped to have done.  I wish to thank you, all of you, for the loving decisions that you made at a time when people, just like me, expected it the least yet needed it the most.  Where on earth would we have been without you our dear friends?  

From where I stand today, the future looks very bright and promising.  In just 5 weeks, I will be married to a most wonderful man named Mike Renfro.  I'll be retiring from teaching after 35 years, so we have chosen to have our wedding on the very last day of school in front of all of the students.  We'll be living in the beautiful city in Colorado called Montrose.  For all of the blessings I have been afforded in this life, I give thanks.  It took the gift of someone's bone tissue to make me realize just how many blessings that I really did have.
From the "Good Book", John 15:13  
"No greater love hath a man than this, that he would lay down his life for a friend."

Ok, looking back now I guess "old lefty" was a little bit on the messed up side :)

With my good friends from back in Reno County, Kansas~
I really do know how to ride a bike safely...I just made a very bad call in judgment that August morning now so very long ago.

~as we honor the dead~

"611 miles to the west of here, in two small country cemeteries near the south central Kansas town of Halstead, lie the earthly remains of all my Brown and Scott family members who have gone on before me.  When their time came to leave the earth, their bodies were taken to a  final spot of rest, a place of slumber.  As a small child, up to and throughout all of my young adulthood, I was taught by my parents to visit their graves to pay respect to them.  I learned early on that I didn't have to be afraid of things like funerals and graveyards.  That paying honor and respect to those no longer among the living, was the right and proper thing to do."

Good morning dear friends and family from the "other side", the Pacific side of the great Continental Divide.  The skies above Montrose are mostly clear right now and our temperature is sitting at 43 degrees.  Later on today, we'll be seeing a high of nearly 75 for the day  and borrowing a line from Sammy John's hit of the 70's, "That's all right with me!"  Yesterday was a beautiful Easter Sunday and everywhere you looked, folks were out and enjoying the day.  Family dinners, hunts for eggs, parking lots at churches full for morning worship, and smiles on the faces of most folks that you would meet indicated that life was well here along the Western Slopes.  Mike and I  had a great day also and we are most thankful to have spent some time yesterday afternoon at the home of our good friends, the Fletcher Family, as we accepted their kind invitation to Easter dinner. 

We are down to just about 21 days left of school now and where the time has gone, I do not know.  During the month of May, I will probably meet myself in that all too familiar spot called "coming and going".  I have a list of 1,000 things to do at school and an even greater list of things to do back home in Kansas.  I will be journeying the 611 miles to the Sunflower state 3 different times during the month of May as I begin to tie up the last of the loose ends of my life there.  But at the top of my Kansas "to do" list, is one very important thing that I cannot neglect.  May 26th is Memorial Day, a time when my family has always gone to the Halstead Cemetery and the Fairview Quaker graveyard to decorate the graves of our deceased family members.  I made a promise to my mom several years back that even when she could no longer go to make sure that each person had some flowers, that I would continue to take care of it for our family.  So far I have been able to keep my "word" to her and this year shall not be the exception.  A promise IS a promise.

I learned early on as a kid growing up the practice of "Decoration Day".  You know, we always referred to  it as  that and I can recall once hearing this strange term of "Memorial Day" and thinking to myself, "What the heck is THAT?"  Whatever a person calls it really matters not because it's the act of honoring the dead that counts.   To me, there is nothing more beautiful than to drive by a cemetery and find it filled with beautiful flowers and to see people out there paying their respects and remembering the lives of others who had great impacts upon their own.  When everything is all said and done, my going there is the very least I can do and perhaps when my time comes, someone will honor me as well. 

In one of my very earliest of blog posts back in July of 2011, I wrote of making a special trip to the Laurel Cemetery near my hometown of Haven, Kansas.  It was a very hot Kansas day, dry as a bone and windier than the dickens.  But something special happened to me as a result of that visit and I will carry the memory of that life changing moment with me forever.  I'm reposting it below if you would so care to read it.

I have found my dear friends and family that life is full of surprises and sometimes when you least expect it to happen, the chance comes along to throw off the excess baggage that we sometimes carry around with us.  I love those kind of moments and every chance that it has happened for me to do so, I've found the end result makes my spirit soar.  Take care dear ones, all of you.  This day is ready to begin and I am thinking of you from far away.

the past is passed/that's why they call it that-a blog post from July 11, 2011

This is definitely one post that I never planned to make.  In fact, it was a post that, just a few days ago, would have never entered my mind.  But things change and God continues to give Peggy Miller a "whack upside the head" from time to time.  And THAT leads me to yesterday.


When I look back on my life's journey from my childhood in Haven, Ks. to my years of being married and having children, to my time now in middle-age, a single, divorced person who is only in "charge" of herself, I remember a lot of "ups and downs".  The "ups" were great, fantastic! And the "downs" were, well, downs.  Depending on the circumstance, some of them were DEEP downs.  


Friends, it's those "deep down" times that seem to have a lasting impact upon us, at least in my case it has been.  Yesterday, I think I got the "message" that it was time to take care of one of those times in my life so long ago.  


If you don't mind, I'd rather not mention names or any particulars.  But I can tell you that it involved friends  now long gone from this earth as well as friends very much alive and well.  And it meant a trip to the cemetery, a simple bunch of flowers to decorate someone's grave on a very hot July day, and a common prayer, uttered with hopes of peace and reconciliation.  That was it-but in the end, for sure my life was made better for it.


For perhaps the very first time in my 55 years of existence, I believe I understood how it felt to really let go of something that I'd carried with me for a long, long time.  It was the strangest of feelings....my heart was lighter, my spirit lifted.  And when I came home from the cemetery and looked into the mirror I saw a "new person".  It was strange, I REALLY saw someone different.  And she looked a little less "stressed"out and a little happier.  And you know what?  I kind of liked seeing her that way!  :)


Having a "bucket list" continues to change my life each day for the positive.  And for the "life of me"  I cannot tell you how it happens for sure.  Maybe I'm just having an "awakening" or something.  Perhaps it was my time to start shifting gears a bit and preparing for something new that's waiting for me.  But whatever it is, my outlook on life has not been the same.  And that's a GOOD thing!  


Friends, have I known you long enough to ask?  ...."Are you carrying around some leftover baggage from life "long ago"?  If you are, then you know how heavy it is and what a burden it is to hold onto for so very long.  And it's always in the way, coming between you and life right now.  Just a thought, how about letting it go? And if you aren't ready to let all of it go, then how about starting with a little bit of it?  Baby steps, baby steps. It's easier than you think, PROMISE!

  I've always loved hearing this quote-sorry but I don't know who to attribute it to-


"Yesterday is history, tomorrow a mystery.  Today is a gift...that's why they call it the "present".   My friends, may we always hold those words close to our hearts.

~the practice of faith~

Good morning to you my  dear friends and family on this very early Easter morning.  The weather forecast for today looks pretty much "ok" with me as we are going to see a high in the 70's with partly cloudy skies.  Yesterday's 30 percent chance of rain only came to fruition about 30 percent of the time it was supposed to, yet the moisture that did come down was most welcome and surely needed. 

In between the rain drops, at times all 14 of them, I tried to help Mike with putting up the walls of a new storage shed that he is building adjacent to our house.  Seems like we'd just get going good and then it would begin to sprinkle.  But at day's end, we had finally gotten all four walls up without anyone's feelings getting hurt.  I'm surely glad that Mike knows what he is doing because I was only along for "the ride".  When it is all finished, we will finally have a better place to store our things and free up some room inside of our 100-year old farmhouse.  We took a couple of photos of our progress at day's end. 

I quickly learned several things to NOT do and that's all I have to say about that :) 

Mike and his good friend Mel had already made the base and a wall last weekend before the weird weather of this Sunday past blew in.  Yesterday he was just very thankful to have the four walls up and in place.  It's still the very early morning darkness as I write this here along the Western Slopes but I turned on the outside light when I woke up to check to see if it was still there.  It was.

This weekend has been a very good moment in time to practice my faith about a lot of things in life these days.  I have a lot on my "plate" to think about in the weeks coming ahead of me but I am no different than any of you, my friends.  We all have things that demand our attention and the worries that  I have on my mind pale in comparison to the things that other folks are struggling with.  For all of the things that I do NOT have to do, I give thanks this day. I am healthy and well.   Nowhere on my day planner does it say, "Oncologist appointment, Wednesday at 3 p.m.", yet I have a friend back home in Kansas that does.  Because we have no place for a washer/dryer here, I generally can find myself grumbling about having to take our clothes to town to wash.  But yesterday as I was sitting there waiting for them to finish, I saw a gentleman drive up in a truck that might well have been on its proverbial "last legs" bring perhaps every piece of clothing he owned inside to wash.  All in one tattered black garbage bag.  When I arise in the morning and head off to school, there will be a wonderful group of boys and girls waiting for the woman that they call "teacher" to be there for them.  Although I don't know what I will be doing next year, I do know what I was doing THIS one.  In all things, in the very least of things, I do so give thanks to God above.

When I wasn't helping Mike yesterday afternoon, I spent some time getting a few seeds more into the ground and as we talk about having faith, I did.  Mike found an old coffee can filled with the leftover seeds that we had ordered already last March, two months before we got married back in Kansas.  I had forgotten all about them, not even realizing that we hadn't planted them all.  That early spring day last year was my first experience in sowing any kind of seed into the clay like soil we have around our house here near Montrose.  I will never forget that day and the thought I had that like "magic, magic" when I came back in the early summer, I'd have a forest of sunflowers growing along the fence row next to the alfalfa fields.  I did not.

        Seven gazillion sunflower seeds planted that day in late March of 2013.....

                                                             Seven made it.

I remember being  disappointed to find out that so many of the seeds had died before even breaking through the topsoil.  I wanted to just yank out the ones that had made it and say that it had been a horrible idea in the first place.  But something stopped me from doing that and the "something" was the whack upside the head from God that I have often received in my life.  It was that gentle but noticeable nudging that told me at LEAST I could enjoy the few that had.  I did. 

So yesterday when Mike handed me the packages of seeds, I never even gave it a thought that it would be a bad idea to try and plant them again.  Out I went to the very same spot that had so dismally produced nigh onto nothing last year, carved out a place for them in the Colorado soil, and put them inside.  I remembered what my mom had always done with seed that was more than a year old and it was as if she was right there alongside me, encouraging me with her words.

"Sew the seed pretty thick, Peggy Ann.  Plant one for you, one for the birds of the field, and one for those that won't be able to make it.  You can thin them out later as they begin to sprout and grow.  I'm glad you are trying it once again.  This year will be better, just wait and see."

The moisture that came down in the course of the afternoon hours wasn't a lot but was sufficient enough to at least wet down the soil and hold the seeds in place.  Will they grow?  Not sure but whether they do or not doesn't really matter.  If they don't grow then at least I know THAT I HAVE.  It takes a lot of faith to set your sights on seeing 8-foot tall sunflowers come forth from seeds that didn't make it only one gardening season ago.  Yesterday was a lesson in believing that something good might indeed come forth from my efforts.  Time will tell.

The zinnia seeds made it up through the soil and now it is a "so far and so good" kind of wait.  I nearly missed noticing them sprouting and had it not been for the need to give them a little drink, their small sprouts would have gone unnoticed by me.  With a happy smile on my face, I yelled over at Mike while he was working on building the last wall of the shed.

"Oh my gosh I cannot believe it!  The zinnia seeds are coming up.  They actually made it!"

In just a couple of weeks more, I will be making the trip back home to Kansas, one of several during the month of May.  The very last of things that I need to do await me there and although I know everything will be ok, I will be glad to finally have everything finished with my house back in Reno County.  While I am there it will mean so much to me to connect with my family members that all live back in the south central part of the state and to see at least a few of the very good friends that I left behind when I moved here to Colorado.  My mind is full of thoughts of things yet to accomplish but my heart is even fuller of the love of people who care about me and want me to be "ok" in this life.  Even in all of the worries that this life can bring us, one thing is for certain.  In the end, it all turns out exactly the way it was supposed to.  I will be fine and dear friends, so shall you.  I love you guys, all of you, and from a place very far away I want you to know that I am thinking of you always.

Happy Easter everyone, for He is risen!

 

 I was not a very skilled "shed building construction assistant" yesterday but I did my best.  Even when the process didn't go quite as smoothly as he had anticipated, Mike was very kind to me and always remembered to say the words "please" and "thank you" when he would yell for me to come over and help him.  A month from tomorrow will mark one year of life together here along the Western Slopes of Colorado's Rocky Mountains.

~still growing, still changing~

The zinnia seeds that I planted two weeks ago before the weird weather of last weekend hit have shown no signs of sprouting but then again, they have shown no signs of dying either.  So with faith, I keep the soil moist and an eye upon the outdoor pots that they were sown into.  Some day there will perhaps be the evidence of one of my favorite plants of the summer sprouting or else, well or else I'll just be buying more seed to replace them.  The seed potatoes that I brought back from Kansas nearly a month ago were sprouting like crazy in their brown paper bag  by the back door and I had to get them into the ground soon or lose them.  Last weekend, just prior to the "what the heck kind of weather was  THAT?" episode of Sunday morning, I quickly put them into small beds of soil just outside the bedroom window.  Not sure if they will make it or not either, but yet once again with faith I continue to hope that some time I will see their emerald green signs of life come forth.  Weather has that uncanny ability to "change on a dime" anywhere in this world of ours and south western Colorado is no exception.  I spent my whole life in Kansas for crying out loud, I should remember that.  And just for the record as if you didn't know already :), I LOVE Kansas.

Seems hard to imagine, nearly impossible to believe that it will soon be one year that I have lived here along the Western Slopes.  Last summer was a "not so much" kind of happy time for me as I struggled to find my way here.  This summer will be different for me and I know that just like all of the plants I attempted to put into the ground to make me happy, I have begun to put down some roots for myself.  It's a lot easier to be content and at peace, to feel as if you belong some place other than where you have always been, if you can plant your feet firmly into the soil.  It took me a long time to realize that yet once I did, life became exponentially easier.  I believe that's a sign that things are getting better for me.  Do you think?

Last night before we called it a "day" and headed to bed, I told Mike that I would probably start hauling the geraniums out during the day to get them used to the outdoors once again.  Those crazy things, plants that pretty much stubbornly sat in their 5 inch pots and did nothing all last summer, took off during the winter months as they sat in the warm sunshine of the east kitchen window.  I laughed to myself as I just typed those words because they remind me so much of their caretaker :)  I was no different than they were in those initial days of life here.  Hey, we finally grew.  We ALL do.  Each in our own time and each in our way. 

You know I'm not sure what life will bring me in the future here in the Rocky Mountains but I guess no matter where a person lives that would indeed be the case.  Last summer I worried about the unknown a lot, so much so that it nearly did me in.  This summer, I would love to believe that I have way more faith that what is supposed to happen to me will indeed be so. 

For all of the friends I have made here along the Western Slopes since I arrived last June, I am surely thankful.  My "Olathe Family" has been my anchor and without them, life would have been a bit of a struggle.  Each day as I walked into the doors of a fine school known as Olathe Elementary, I have felt welcomed, needed and much cared about.  What a privilege it has been to work alongside each and every one of them.  I could not have asked for a better experience or environment to spend my 36th year of education in.  I will always be beholden to them, all of them.  When we leave for the summer, in not all that many days now, I will miss them.  But we are friends now and to THIS once very lonely and homesick flatlander, that means everything.

How about it....are you still growing and changing too?  Sometimes it's a little painful, sometimes a necessary "evil" but in all things, it's good for all of us.  I love you dear friends and family.  This morning, from a place so very far away, I am thinking of you all.

"Perhaps they shall grow, perhaps they shall die in the soil before they even have a chance to grow up.  Was it time wasted?  Not in the least."

"Although I never dreamed that I would be, I am so thankful to have been an "Olathe Pirate" this year.  What a great experience it has been for me.

"Can you believe it?  Soon to celebrate one year of life together with 'the blessing'.  How the two of us have grown and changed together."

~from the heart~

From a place far away, over a big mountain and nestled deep into a valley, good morning my dear friends and family.  In the darkness of the early hours here, I can look out our bedroom window and catch a glimpse of  the city of Montrose as its lights twinkle for all to see.  We live atop a small hill, a rise in the road, just outside the city limits and I will never forget the morning that I saw that view for the very first time.  The sight is a peaceful one for me, almost like that of a fairytale place you might read of in a book one day.  Of course, when the sun arises and the townspeople awaken, the hustle and bustle of normal everyday life takes away any kind of semblance of peace and quiet.  But at least for a while, in the 4:30 a.m. slice of the day's beginning, I see it.  I feel it. 

Yesterday one of my students at school asked me a very good question.  We were finishing up the last part of the very limited time we had for writing yesterday and the subject of my being a blogger came up.  One young man met  me at the door and asked about it.  When I had mentioned to the class that I had written nearly 700 times since I started my blog back 3 years ago now, his face had a perplexed look upon it.

"How long are you gonna keep DOING that, Mrs. Renfro?  I mean, that writing the blog thing", he asked me.

Hey that was an honest question, a good one and my answer was pretty much straightforward and to the point for him.

"Until I run out of things to say, I guess",  I said back to him with a smile on my face.

One of the subjects that I have loved to teach children this year is that of writing creatively. It's been so interesting to watch them as they have grown and changed in their ability to write down their thoughts and ideas.  From a blank piece of paper or two, their words have come forth.  At times it is a struggle, without a doubt, for some of them and yet for others two pieces of paper cannot even begin to hold the myriad of their thoughts.   I love to watch the expressions on their faces as they begin to make their pencils transmit their ideas from brain-to-paper.  Once in a while, I will see them pause and look back at what they have written, trying to determine if that is really the way that they wanted it to sound.  I'm proud of them and their efforts, remembering back to that very first month of school as they struggled in their attempts to do their best work, to do ANY work.  Oh, we have come such a long way.

We are getting ready to do our last  "cold write" for the year, a time when students throughout the Montrose-Olathe School District receive the same writing prompt and students have one hour to create their very best response to it.  It's totally an "on your own brothers and sisters" kind of moment with no help at all from classroom teachers.  We have to hope that everyone remembers everything that they have been instructed about writing a good piece.  Capitalization and punctuation, sentence structure, staying to the topic, paragraphs for crying out loud, and a dozen other little things all go into play in the scoring rubric.  And in as much as I preach to them daily about remembering all of those little things, I stress even further one of what I consider the most important things about being a good writer.  I took the opportunity to remind them of it yesterday at the end of the writing time.

         "Remember you guys what I have told you since the beginning. Who can tell me where all good writing really comes from?", I asked them.

Quick as a wink, several hands shot up in response as I knew they would because they have been reminded of it many times. 

"It comes from our hearts, Mrs. Renfro", a young man replied.

And his teacher smiled.

The  fourth grade kids shown in the photo above probably had their share of "writing trials" too.  The little short girl in the blue dress on the second row right was quiet and shy, with very little to say most times.  I guess I have changed a bit since then.  From the "land of long ago and far, far away", my fourth grade class at Haven Grade School, 1963-64 school year, and the best fourth grade teacher EVER, Elizabeth Harris.

I didn't realize how fast the time would really fly by us.  Their teacher loves them so very much and will miss them when we all go home for the summer.  God blessed me with the gift of  the "18".