Good morning dear friends and family with greetings from a place far away. It is Tuesday the 20th day of May in the year 2014. I awoke this morning and if you are reading this then so have you. It's a message to us, you know? A sign from above that says our work here is not through and as the "Good Book" would admonish us to remember-the day has been made just for us and we should really rejoice and be happy in it. Sounds like a good and right plan to me.
Life has been most good to me and even in all of the struggles and trials my 58 years of residency on planet Earth have shown me, I know without a doubt that my blessings exponentially outweigh my troubles. Not that things have ever been all that easy but as I sit back and realize how much more difficult things could have been, I surely do have to stop and give thanks. In the very greatest of things, in the very least of things. How about you? Do you feel the same?
It will very soon be time to say good-bye to "the 18" and in all of the classes that I have taught now since 1979, these children may well be the ones that I will remember as having the greatest impact on my life. As we were doing some of the last things yet to accomplish in class yesterday, I caught myself daydreaming and remembering back to the first day we all had together. At the first day's end, we all stood together for a picture.
Day 1-Now so very long ago it would seem to be.
One of the very first books I read to them was called "A Taste of the Blackberries" by Doris Buchanan Smith, a great read for children of their ages. It's the story of two best friends, a boy named Jamie and another boy who tells the story. As it would go, Jamie is stung by a bee one day and dies from his unknown allergy to them. The other boy is overcome with grief and at an early age learns the hard lesson of losing his dear friend when they are only 10 years old. The kids were good listeners as I read it and when we were finished we had some great discussions about it.
We had a similar experience together when I read Karen Hesse's verse novel, "Out of the Dust" to them in October. They were intrigued by the main character, Billie Jo, and the struggles she had growing up in Oklahoma during the great Dust Bowl of the 1930's. We ended up turning it into a social studies/history lesson as we read it. They began to make a "text to self" connection with the book and it seemed as though each day that I would be reading it to them, I'd notice that they were sitting on the edge of their seats listening intently. Now that's the power of a good book. I'm so glad that I was able to share many good pieces of literature with them this year. Surely, reading with children is one of the greatest rewards a teacher can experience during the course of a school year. We did just that!
As I was looking back through my blog posts from last August, I came across one that meant a lot to me and am reposting it below if you would so care to read. It was for them, for the children and one that I shared with them later on in the fall as I began to introduce them to "A View From a Different Window". They mean the world to me. They saved me and tomorrow when I tell them this is "it" and that we are now done....... well, buy stock in Kleenix TODAY friends. Buy lots of stock.
Have a great day everyone and much love and peace to all of you.
From 9 months ago, August 18th, 2013
A reason for everything, a part of the plan
Well, it's definitely time to get a move on because this is one day that I cannot afford to trade much "daylight for dark". The wind is blowing out of the east once more as it comes off of Cerro Summit and my bare feet are a little chilly right now as the early morning breeze comes in out of the kitchen window. I want you all to know that I am ok and that little by little life has become easier here for me. Being shown to me what I was supposed to do here has been a blessing to me, a REAL blessing. Although I will always consider Kansas to be my home, I am happy to finally say that I don't mind living in Colorado and believe me when I say to you, that is a definite change in attitude for the better. Thanks friends and family for all of the kind and encouraging messages that you have sent to me in the weeks that have passed. They came when I needed them the most :) Have a great Sunday all of you. This is the 18th day of August, 2013~a great day to be alive in and if you think it's good today, then just wait until tomorrow. It'll be even better.
A very good Sunday morning to you all and as the character Charlotte would have said from E.B. White's Charlotte's Web, "Salutations." It's so very early in the morning hours here and I am up and on cup of coffee #1 of many to follow for this day. It will be a long one, a day I have left to finish up everything on the old "to do" list before school starts tomorrow morning. As I peered into the bathroom mirror a moment ago and caught sight of my very weary and tired face, I'm sure I could have been the inspiration for the phrase "dead tired". Life made a very dramatic change for me, now 6 days ago when I accepted a position as one of the fourth grade teachers for a wonderful school near here, Olathe Elementary. I've been on the "run" since that day and although I'm exhausted I couldn't be happier. So it begins!
As school starts anew, now in about 24 hours, I cannot help to stop and think just what a summer this has been for me. It may well go down in the "Peggy Renfro history book" as the most memorable summer ever and not because it was all good either. It's not a government secret or anything that I have been extremely homesick. Shoot, as I look back over my blog posts from June and July, being lonely for Kansas, my family and friends and the old life I used to have was a very prevalent theme. I didn't like Colorado and just kept telling people that there needed to be one big fat hole bulldozed between here and my home state of Kansas so I could look back and see through. My dear husband Mike, whom I dearly love, spent many an evening listening to his new wife telling him that I missed home as well as generally adding in the phrase, "I want to go back." But I did not leave. How many times I imagined a pioneer woman, just like me, whose husband would tire of listening to the incessant whining and simply trade her to the Indians for a new horse or something. What I am telling you is that he did a whole lot of listening and still loves me.
Aside from the fact that I moved to Montrose to begin a life anew with Mike, all summer long I have questioned very seriously what in the heck I was doing here. What was God's purpose in sending me to this place that was well over 600 miles away from my home in Kansas? Did He have something in mind for me? What would happen to me? Would I ever be happy here or satisfied? I have been full of questions since I arrived here and it was beginning to get the best of me. And then came last Monday morning.
I'm not even going to try to explain how the opportunity came for me to teach fourth grade this year and perhaps we could just suffice it to say that it could not have arrived at a better time. And as in everything in my 57-year old life, when I finally stopped trying to figure out the reason or the purpose of this all, God made it known to me. I smile now as I think of Him watching my half-hearted attempts at figuring out what I was supposed to do here and finally after 3 months saying to me, "Hey, Peggy. If you would just leave this all to me it would be a whole lot quicker and easier for you kid."
And thus for me, I feel blessed to say that tomorrow begins my 36th year of returning to a job that I hold near and dear to my heart, that of being an educator. Never, never in my wildest of dreams did I think it would happen here in this place, south western Colorado. I've driven through the little town of Olathe a dozen times this summer and not even once did I say, "That's where I'll be teaching some day!" But at the right time, God's time, it has happened for me. I know now why I was brought here~it wasn't just some random act in my life's plan that I was transplanted from the flatlands of Kansas to the mountains of Colorado. Everything that has happened from January of this year until now was a small part my life's plan, drawn out long before I ever even arrived on the face of this earth. And although I have questioned it hundreds of times during my 21,116 days of life, I am at peace in my heart that someone who is so many times wiser than I am is in charge of it all.
As school starts anew, now in about 24 hours, I cannot help to stop and think just what a summer this has been for me. It may well go down in the "Peggy Renfro history book" as the most memorable summer ever and not because it was all good either. It's not a government secret or anything that I have been extremely homesick. Shoot, as I look back over my blog posts from June and July, being lonely for Kansas, my family and friends and the old life I used to have was a very prevalent theme. I didn't like Colorado and just kept telling people that there needed to be one big fat hole bulldozed between here and my home state of Kansas so I could look back and see through. My dear husband Mike, whom I dearly love, spent many an evening listening to his new wife telling him that I missed home as well as generally adding in the phrase, "I want to go back." But I did not leave. How many times I imagined a pioneer woman, just like me, whose husband would tire of listening to the incessant whining and simply trade her to the Indians for a new horse or something. What I am telling you is that he did a whole lot of listening and still loves me.
Aside from the fact that I moved to Montrose to begin a life anew with Mike, all summer long I have questioned very seriously what in the heck I was doing here. What was God's purpose in sending me to this place that was well over 600 miles away from my home in Kansas? Did He have something in mind for me? What would happen to me? Would I ever be happy here or satisfied? I have been full of questions since I arrived here and it was beginning to get the best of me. And then came last Monday morning.
I'm not even going to try to explain how the opportunity came for me to teach fourth grade this year and perhaps we could just suffice it to say that it could not have arrived at a better time. And as in everything in my 57-year old life, when I finally stopped trying to figure out the reason or the purpose of this all, God made it known to me. I smile now as I think of Him watching my half-hearted attempts at figuring out what I was supposed to do here and finally after 3 months saying to me, "Hey, Peggy. If you would just leave this all to me it would be a whole lot quicker and easier for you kid."
And thus for me, I feel blessed to say that tomorrow begins my 36th year of returning to a job that I hold near and dear to my heart, that of being an educator. Never, never in my wildest of dreams did I think it would happen here in this place, south western Colorado. I've driven through the little town of Olathe a dozen times this summer and not even once did I say, "That's where I'll be teaching some day!" But at the right time, God's time, it has happened for me. I know now why I was brought here~it wasn't just some random act in my life's plan that I was transplanted from the flatlands of Kansas to the mountains of Colorado. Everything that has happened from January of this year until now was a small part my life's plan, drawn out long before I ever even arrived on the face of this earth. And although I have questioned it hundreds of times during my 21,116 days of life, I am at peace in my heart that someone who is so many times wiser than I am is in charge of it all.
Well, it's definitely time to get a move on because this is one day that I cannot afford to trade much "daylight for dark". The wind is blowing out of the east once more as it comes off of Cerro Summit and my bare feet are a little chilly right now as the early morning breeze comes in out of the kitchen window. I want you all to know that I am ok and that little by little life has become easier here for me. Being shown to me what I was supposed to do here has been a blessing to me, a REAL blessing. Although I will always consider Kansas to be my home, I am happy to finally say that I don't mind living in Colorado and believe me when I say to you, that is a definite change in attitude for the better. Thanks friends and family for all of the kind and encouraging messages that you have sent to me in the weeks that have passed. They came when I needed them the most :) Have a great Sunday all of you. This is the 18th day of August, 2013~a great day to be alive in and if you think it's good today, then just wait until tomorrow. It'll be even better.
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