taking time to get used to the changes

The snow still sits atop the San Juan Mountains and although each day with the warmth of the summer's sun it little by little disappears, the "white stuff" is still visible nonetheless.  I've never lived in a place where you could see the last vestiges of the winter's snow for such a long period of time.  Back in Kansas people were sure to be griping when a late winter snowstorm would strike part of the state in the month of April.  We couldn't wait for winter's moisture to disappear because by then it's time to make the garden.  Shoot, one time I remember going out with my garden hose, turning on the water and spraying down the snow that just wouldn't seem to go away alongside the flower beds to the east side of my house back there.  After all, it WAS mid-April for crying out loud and snow was supposed to be long gone by then.  People are surely silly sometimes and I stand at the front of the  long line made up of those folks.  Not only do I stand at the front, I LEAD them :)

You know I have been here living in Colorado for the better part of over a year now and I have to admit that I still am getting used to all of the changes that I have been a witness to.  You'd think that I would be well acclimated to my surroundings and life here by this point in time, yet I still struggle with some of them.  The snow on the mountains is one of the big ones that I've had to get used to but it is only one of many changes. 

Every once in a while, I still get a longing for my life back on the plains of the Midwest.  Sometimes I must admit that just a tinge of sadness overcomes me and I wonder what all of my friends and family back there are doing at any given time.  I used to worry a lot about that, the idea of being so very homesick, but now I know it was just a normal reaction to a very changed lifestyle for me. God was laying me over His anvil and with His mighty hammer in hand, was shaping me for my new life here.   It hurt sometimes but I survived and thrived to become the person that I am this day.  My extreme homesickness, the kind that could debilitate a person if they let it, has all but disappeared.  Sure, I miss Kansas and its people but not to the point that I just simply want to give up.  I knew that when I got to that point in time it would be a sign that I was getting better and what a relief that change in my thinking provided for me.  Life is proving to be quite "OK" in the Rocky Mountains of south western Colorado.  I do have a purpose here, a real reason for being over 600 miles away from my old home in Kansas.  When I finally accepted that, now so many months ago, life became quite a bit easier.  Thankful for that blessing and equally grateful for my new life here.

There have always been different things that I've noticed about my surroundings. things that tell me I am definitely no longer in Kansas.  I still cannot get used to the idea that lots of roads out here go by numbers.  6700 road connects up with 50 Highway and if I can only remember that then I stand a pretty good chance of never getting too lost.  Up in Grand Junction I always smile when I see roads like "23.25 road".  Kind of strange but you figure it out after a while.  There are plenty of other dissimilarities about life here.  People have ranches, not farms.  Boys wear cowboy hats, belts and boots to school, not because it is "dress up like a cowboy" day but rather because they truly are cowboys.  The whole theme of living in the Great American West is quite prevalent all the way from the shops that line Main Street to the tourists who fly into the Montrose Regional Airport to visit places like Telluride, just a ways up the road from us here.  I am a flatlander transplanted into the Rocky Mountains and I'm getting stronger each and every day.  I like that about me and I have no plans to stop growing in strength.  It takes time and when Mike Renfro told me early on last summer to take "baby steps", he knew exactly what he was talking about.  It worked then and continues to work now when something comes up that makes me question whether or not I could actually make it here.  It has never been an accident that I came here nor was it a mistake made on my part.  I'm living through and in the next part of the master plan for my life. 

Ok, ok....here's something you don't know.  Right before I started this post just an hour or so ago, I was feeling homesick for Kansas.  Not bad but noticeable.  I haven't felt homesick for a long time but I ran across something in a box that made me think of friends back there.  So I'm sitting on the porch asking God to help me take away the sadness and realize that it's "ok" to once in a while miss home.  And then, well then it happened.  The "sign" came and just like that I knew I would be ok.  We've got alfalfa fields all around us here in the valley and our home just outside of town is surrounded by them.  A couple of days back all of the fields were mown down and then turned in preparation for the baling of the hay.  As I sat there on the front deck meditating about life and why every once in a while I feel this longing for the people I left behind back there, I heard the noise of a tractor pulling a baler and realized that it was time to make the hay.  What a sight to see as around the corner came a John Deere tractor pulling a Massey Ferguson baler.  My father, a custom cutter in the Great Plains for over a quarter of a century, ran Massey Ferguson combines.  He always swore that they were very best to use and he never failed to run them.  Dad was NOT a fan of John Deere machinery and I had to laugh as I saw them come by.  You know, just the sight of those familiar things to me from the times when I was growing up with a father who was a farmer, lifted my spirits high and took away the sadness.  You know what?  I'm taking that as a sign, even a gift from somewhere so very far away that life is really pretty good and that some amazing things await me here in my new home and life as a Coloradoan.  I feel better now having written this which is generally the case with me.  It's always better to talk when you are sad about something.  I've learned the hard way what happens when you do not. 

Can you believe we have made it already to the 24th day of June?  Time for me to get this day started and even though we have lots of daylight available this day, I still cannot afford to be trading "daylight for dark".  Friends have I told you lately how much you mean to me?  If not, please consider it done this day.  Thank you for all you do for me and for others out there.  We'd all be in a world of hurt without one another around to pick up the slack when help is much needed.  Have a great day everyone~

                                         Don't you just love it when a plan comes together?

                                                Thanks for the "sign" Dad.

                                      The beauty of the mountains, ever present here.

                             Our first July 4th together, now nearly a year ago.  We made it!