Peggy's list of 60 things to do before turning 60~

     Good morning dear friends and family from a place where darkness still surrounds us.  The clock on the wall reads "5:40 in the a.m." and the house is so quiet right now.  Sally the dog joined me for a while at 3:30 but even she had the good sense to get back to sleep.  Outside the kitchen window, the little city of Montrose is still fast asleep, save for an occasional car or truck that makes its way along Highway 50.  Soon enough folks around here will awaken and the day will come to life.  I love the early morning hours and I relish the peace, quiet and tranquility that they offer me.  I need that from time to time. How about you?
     Fast approaching is my 59th birthday and I know the sequence of counting numbers well enough to say that after 59 always comes 60.  Earlier this summer I started to fret about that a bit.  The idea of being 6 decades old just kind of gave me that proverbial "smack in the face".  60?  What happened to being 40?  Shoot, what happened to being 55?
Life continues on and on and with the blessing of being alive comes the reality of being older.  You can fret about it all you want.  It's gonna happen if you wake up each day.  I have to be honest here when I say that I didn't just stew over getting older for a moment or two and then go on.  I thought about it quite a while, actually off and on all summer.  But somehow or another, a few weeks back, I decided that since the inevitable happens sooner or later, why not embrace it?  Why not throw wide open your arms and say,



"Hello "age 60"! I've been looking for you.  I thought you might never find me :)"

And so it shall go for me.  A little kid born in 1955.  The sixth child of seven.  One who is just like her Grandma Scott.  One who says that they are not afraid to die but surely still loves living.
     
     When I turned 49, now ten years back, I came up with a list called "Peggy's list of 50 things to do before she turns 50".  It was filled with all kinds of fun things to do as I reminded myself that just because we get older, life doesn't end.  In many ways it truly just begins.  I found that out in the past decade and most surely can verify it to be true.  I went back to look at that list and found out that I had done everything I set out to with the exception of a couple of things.  Figured that was a pretty good track record for someone who had never really entertained the notion of having a bucket list.  As the years went by, I actually did develop a list of things that I wanted to do and I've accomplished all of those as well.  So now, here I am, fast approaching the next decade of life here on the great planet Earth.  Why not think of 60 things this time?  Well, all right then.  I did.  
     So here they are, in no particular order of importance, my list of 60 things to do before I turn 60.  I was going to wait until my birthday later on in the fall but realizing how fragile and brief things can be in all of our lives, I thought it best to get a bit of a jump start.  I'll be sure to let you know how things go.  Heck, some of you may even be able to help me with a few of them.  
     What kind of exciting and fun things do you wish to do before your next birthday dear friends and family?  The possibilities are indeed endless.  Make a list and try some!  You won't regret it if you do.  You might regret it if you don't.  

Some day I will look at this photo and remember a time long ago when I was only 58 :)
Figuring to get busy on the list pretty dang soon.  The next 442 days will pass by quickly.  "Time" flies when you are living life.

60 things to do before I turn 60~
Deadline Day~October 26, 2015
"On your mark, get set, now GO!"

1.  Try acupuncture to see if it really does help aches and pains and whatever else ails me.
2.  Take a hot air balloon ride, just once.
3.  Design my own grave marker, complete with a peace symbol.
4.  Visit the site near Silver Plume, Colorado where the WSU football team's plane crashed in 1970 and leave flowers at their memorial.
5.  Buy a good book, read it and then pass it on to another person each month.
6.  Actually GO to Utah.
7.  Go power-parachuting once again back home near Hutchinson, Kansas.
8.  Document the most beautiful sunrise and sunset, one time each month.
9.  Save a dollar bill every day until my birthday next year and refuse to spend them until then.  No matter what!  Then do something that will make a difference for someone else with it.
10.Convince zinnias to grow from seed here in the clay-filled soil of south western Colorado.
11.Discover the "secret to life" before I die.
12.Go whitewater rafting in the Colorado River.
13.Camp in the beautiful Rocky Mountains.
14.Walk across the swinging bridge once more in the Harvey County East Park back home in Kansas.
15.Go to the city park in my hometown of Haven, Kansas and just sit there to enjoy a nice visit with friend(s).
16.Stop to meet and visit all the good people who helped our good friend Norman Horn with a place to stay for the night as he came through western and south central Kansas.
17.Learn how to scrapbook.
18.Finally get all of my pictures organized and off the computer and my cellphone.
19.Have another great Scott Family Reunion.
20.Ride a combine once again during a Kansas wheat harvest.
21.Make a difference in the life of a child somewhere.
22.Carry someone else's burden for a while to give them a break.
23.Eat some garlic salad at Doc's Steakhouse in Wichita once more.  If you haven't tried it you don't know what you are missing friends.
24.Travel over the big mountain in wintertime and not be afraid to get out and inhale some of that crisp and cold 14,000 feet + air.  
25.Try sewing another pair of pillowcases once again.
26.See my dear and sweet little granddaughter once again.  Be with my children as much as I can.
27.Figure out how to worry less and enjoy life more.
28.See a concert somewhere.  Remember life when I was younger.
29.Try something totally new to me.  Be brave.
30.Go back and walk through the Laurel Cemetery near my hometown of Haven.  Spend time amongst the graves of people who meant so much to me when I was a kid there growing up.
31.Do something for no good reason at all.
32.Write a letter to someone.  Really write it.  You know, with a pen and a stamp?
33.Go to Manhattan Baptist Church back home in the Flint Hills of Kansas and listen to my good friend Dennis Ulrey preach the word and maybe even sit right there on the front row.
34.Go to Gander Mountain in Wichita, Kansas and buy something, even if it's not on sale.  
35.Downsize, downsize, downsize.
36.Continue working on a photo album I started back in 2011 by finding all of my Facebook friends, buying them something to drink and sitting down with them to talk about life.  I've only got 200 more to go.  I can do it!
37.Stay healthy.  
38.See the Dakotas once again. The land of my father.  Visit Mount Rushmore.
39.Learn how to make something from scratch that I would normally have to buy.
40.Find a really good deal on an airline ticket.
41.Find an equally good deal on a rental car, for a change :)
42.Think more about what is really important in life and spend less time worrying about things that can't be changed by me anyway.
43.Throw "caution to the wind" and buy $20 worth of hot tea bags at the Spice Merchant in Wichita rather than just the usual $10 worth.
44.Ride down Kansas Avenue in Haven, KS in a golf cart with my good friend Sylvia Davis driving it and my other good friend Dennis Ulrey hanging on for dear life.  It can happen.  Just wait and see :)
45.Learn how to bowl better.  To actually beat my good husband Mike once.  Just once.  That would be enough for me.
46.To see my family once again back home.
47.To do something kind of crazy with my sister-in-law Paula that doesn't involve the taking of dancing lessons with total strangers.  (and she will know what I mean)
48.To maybe raise a few chickens.
49.Find a way to be a hospice volunteer.
50.To not take myself and life so seriously all the time.
51.To do as Morgan Freeman's character "Carter" did in the "Bucket List" by helping a total stranger for the good.
52.Love myself way more than I do.
53.To find peace in whatever life deals me.
54.To continue to teach and make a difference wherever I might be needed.
55.Organize, organize, organize.
56.Keep better track of my cell phone, glasses, and car keys.
57.See my nieces and nephews that I haven't seen in forever.
58.Take one day to volunteer to do something that I have never done before.
59.Enjoy life.  Enjoy life.  Enjoy life.
60.Remember always the One who made me.  

~here is where God sent me~

Good morning everyone from a place that seems far away sometimes, the Western Slopes of the Rocky Mountains in the great state of Colorado.  It's the early morning here and darkness is surrounding us and with the inching ever closer each day to autumn, the sun comes up later and later each day that goes by.  Out along Highway 50, only a few cars are passing by because most of the sane people are still in bed asleep :)  Not me.  Hardly ever.  Someone asked me the other day why it was that I got up so early every morning.  Why was it that 4 a.m. seemed like a reasonable time to get up?  I'm afraid that I don't even have an answer for that one.  I guess I just do.

It now makes nearly 16 months' time that I have lived here in Colorado and as each week of those months has passed by, things have become so very much easier for me.  Although I don't miss Kansas every day now, I still have a longing to return there to visit from time to time.  My family and lifelong friends are there.  The places that have always been familiar and welcoming to me remain back over the big mountain.  Clear over there.  On the other side.  611 miles to the east.

Folks back there have been checking in on me from time to time, making sure that I'm doing "ok".  I always assure them that I am.  It was fun just about this time last year to find that my little sister Cindy had mailed me a package to help me to remember all of those familiar places back in Reno County.  I read these special magazines through and through, more times than I can remember to count.  It was just like Christmas time in September for me that day!

And for the record, it still stands.

I am doing "ok"~in fact, I am doing better than that :)

I still take the Hutchinson News, a decision that I made about this time last year as well.  Even though by the time the paper reaches me the news is already "history", it is still fun to go to the mailbox and pull out the paper and read what is happening back there.  Old news to some, brand new to me.  Reading the paper used to be a morning ritual back in my old house on 14th Street.  I'd get up at the usual 4 a.m. each morning and wait with old Oblio the Roundhead, my faithful cat.  Obie was always good about hearing the paper guy toss the newspaper against the outside porch.  That was the "signal" for me to open up the door and bring it in.  I'd read the obits, scan through the news and then head straight to the crossword puzzle section.  After a couple of cups of coffee (or three), I'd be ready to get the day going.  Just like that.  Just like clockwork.  Just like always.

This is me and old Obie trying to take a "selfie" during one of my trips back home to Hutchinson this past spring.  I miss that old cat and the joy that she brought me always.

So, what is life like here 16 months down the road?

I can answer that question in one word with a smile on my face.  Different.

This is not Kansas nor was it ever meant to be.  If I want to see the "plains" here, then I need to travel east towards places that have become all too familiar to me in my recent journeys back and forth.  Places like Lamar and LaJunta, Rocky Ford or Holly.  No one has taken me up on one of my original requests to bulldoze a hole between the mountains so I can look back and see my old home in the flatlands.  People laugh to hear me even mention that but in my first 3 or 4 months here, that was the only thing that would have made me happy :)

I have changed and I have grown in so many ways.  I wish that back in the summer of 2013 that I could have seen how much better things were going to become but unfortunately sometimes we have to go through a few trials in life before we know that when they say "in the end it all turns out ok", well they really mean it.  I have said before and will continue to say until the end, being laid out upon God's anvil and being refined into the person you are to become is not always the most pleasant of experiences.  Actually it kind of hurts from time to time.  But you make it.  You survive.  You even end up thriving from the whole ordeal.  What a gift.

Here is where God sent me.  A wife now to this "boy" from the "land of long ago and far, far away".  40 years is a long time to wait to find someone but that we did.  Oblio the roundhead no longer lives with me here but there is a new companion that waits every evening for her "person" to get home.  These two are here to greet me every evening when the day is done.

Mike and Sally the dog, up on Cerro Summit last year in late September.  I am a firm believer in the fact that our pets help to keep us healthy and sane in this crazy world of ours.

Well, it's time to get this computer shut down and head up the road a ways because not only did God send me to Montrose, He sent me to the community of Olathe, Colorado as well.  To a place they call Olathe Elementary School.  A place where I spend my days, at least in the Monday-Friday world (and a Saturday or Sunday once in a while as well).  "The 22" will be looking for me and I shall be for them as well.  It's interesting, you know?  All last summer when I was just SURE that I wouldn't make very many friends here, an entire building  full of them, the staff at OES,  was just waiting for me to open my eyes.  I did just that and when I finally saw what was there all along, it surely seemed good.  As my spirit soared, I saw for the first time that I wasn't out here all alone after all.  It had only seemed like I was.

The Rocky Mountains of Colorado~my new home along the Western Slopes.

22 "little pirates" call me their teacher this year.  What a wonderful job to have.  I love it, and them too!

~upon what we like to do for fun~

     Yesterday at school, "the 22" and I shared things in conversation as to what we liked to do for fun.  Not to my surprise, I had a nice little mixture going there sitting in front of me made up of tree climbers, LEGO builders, readers and drawers, kids who liked to play with their friends and those who like to spend time with their pets.  And then there was this kid who was the last one to tell the others, a short girl wearing glasses who said she loved writing in a diary.  An online diary.  A thing that they nowadays  refer to as a "blog".  The kids looked at her with strange expressions on their faces, not really understanding what she was talking about.  Some day soon I will write a story just for them.  Perhaps it shall help them to better understand.

     As it turns out I have grown to love blogging, figuring the time spent writing out my thoughts beats doing a lot of other things that are not near as beneficial for me.  Time spent writing is pretty much time well spent.  Usually my blog posts take about an hour to write, give or take a minute or two.  I write what is in my heart and on my mind, then go back to edit my work for all the many mistakes I make (more than I care to admit to) and then hit the "publish" button for better or worse.  Sometimes an hour or two later, I will be rereading one that I have just completed and posted online and find a dreadful error or two and find myself cringing as I read what I have actually typed.  

     Like Sunday for example, when I was talking about Norm Horn's journey thus far and remarked that he was entering the state of Indiana, "the land of Lincoln".  Panic came upon me and I thought "How in the world did I write THAT?"  Talk about confusion.  I couldn't get to the computer editing program fast enough to take care of that little problem.  It wasn't as if I had used the wrong kind of "through" or anything. I'd completely displaced/misplaced/replaced an entire state's worth of its citizenry.  So to those good folks who normally call themselves the state of Illinois, I really do know that Honest Abe is yours for the ages.  I just type too fast.

     Speaking of fast, it seems that is the operative word for life these days as the time refuses to slow down.  Not for a minute.  Not for anyone.  School moves on a rapid pace and those dear 22 little ones are on my mind a lot, even when I come home at night.  I have very little time, in the whole scheme of things, to accomplish that which is set before me.  I pray to make the difference that is needed for them in this part of their world.  As I sit here this morning at home and drink cup of coffee #2, the clock on the microwave tells me that in 3 hours exactly we will be back together again.  Praying that we all have a good day together as we continue to find the "just right" mix of activities and lessons that will bring us to the achievement of our goals ahead.  It's kind of an "on your mark, get set, and GO!" kind of moment each and every day.

     And the ultimate kind of "fast life" will be arriving here for me exactly 2 months from yesterday.  October 26th will mark the passing of my 58th trip around the sun and at exactly 10:32 in the a.m. the spaceship  leaves for the start of my 59th year.  It seems so strange to me to realize that I am now going to be the same age as my father was when he passed away.  And just for the record Daddy, I no longer look at you as an old guy.  You were so young.  

     It seems like the proverbial "yesterday" that I turned 49 and the very thought of being a half-century old kind of unnerved me for a bit.  I shook that off pretty quickly, deciding that it really wouldn't be as bad as everyone proclaimed it to be.  It's only a number, right?  And so, I entered my "50's" and although there were some good and bad times in the past 9 years, all in all I survived and came through them just fine.  One of the things that I did to kind of ease my transition into those early years was to develop a list of 50 things to do before I reached the age of 50.  It ended up being a precursor to the idea of having an ongoing bucket list of things to do, a practice I've been employing since then.  I loved it and as I looked back upon it just the other day, I've done nearly all of those things on the list.  Some of them have been done numerous times.  So I figure what the heck?  I think it's time for a new list only this time as I celebrate nearing the age of 60, I'm going to have to compile a list of 10 more things to add to 50.  Sounds like fun and something I should do.  As a matter of fact, I already have several things in mind.  I'm going to continue to develop my list of things and when I blog on my birthday later on in the fall, I'll let you know what I came up with. 

     The time has come to get the computer turned off and be ready for starting the day.  Somewhere up the line, 22 little children are still fast asleep in their beds.  Soon their mommas and daddies or grandmas and grandpas will tell them it's time to arise and head out the door themselves for the starting of another school day.  I am anxious to be with them again :)  We have already lost our "first tooth" and already had our first disagreement.  We worked it out with not much ado.  I like that about the world of little people.  The solving of problems with both parties involved shaking hands, forgiving one another and going on.  Geesch, if only the grownups  of planet Earth knew how to do the same :)

the day I learned to hold a snake for the first time without screaming~
Thanks to my good friend Kyle down in Oklahoma City :)
Summertime of 2012
I wouldn't call it "fun" but it wasn't as bad as I thought it was.
They just kinda feel like a garden hose that is sound asleep, in case you were wondering.

~OK, so THAT was a fast week~

With the best of intentions I cleaned off the kitchen table yesterday morning, finally finding the bottom of it after at least a couple of good weeks of even making the attempt.  I guess I've been busy doing other things as was evidenced by the fact that four Hutchinson News papers remained in the unread state from mid-July.  Before I pitched them to the recycle pile, I read through them any way.  Old news to some yet new to me.  I wasn't in the obit section and the crossword was still quite viable.  The "good" was gleaned from them and before I knew it, the table was clean. 

For about one hour.

It's Sunday morning here along the Western Slopes in the great Centennial state of Colorado.  This place, nestled deep into a valley with all kinds of scenery surrounding me in one gigantic panoramic view, has been my home now for nearly 15 months.  Although it seemed to take forever and  a day to get used to being here after living in the great state of Kansas for over half of a century, I am doing so much better at it.  I found my place here, my niche, my reason for being and have settled into life now.  It took a while.  In thinking about life yesterday, I was inspired to think that this place, so very far away from home for me, is where God has chosen for me to complete my magnum opus, what ever great work that was set out for me to do.  I am determined to continue with my part of "the plan".

The week that has just completed flew by at supersonic speed and I'm sitting here this morning wondering where in the heck all the time went to.  The first week of school is in "the books' and tomorrow starts a new week for us there.  "The 22" are a sweet bunch of little people and we are slowly getting used to one another and what it will take to have a successful year in first grade.  The time we have is limited and most precious and as their teacher I have to be ever mindful of that.  We are working to build a community of learners, children who will be friends with one another for the next 170+ school days and beyond.  Many of them will stay together throughout elementary, middle and high school.  For better or worse~  I desire for them to learn now at their young and tender age that they need to support one another, to encourage each other, to "hold their feet to that proverbial fire" in order that they make it in life.  The way I figure it, there is no easier or more convenient time to learn that lesson than right now.  Friends reading this, if you are so inclined to do please pray for us to have a successful school year.  Not only my class but classes everywhere in this world.  Children need all the guidance and love and prayers that can be offered up on their behalf.  Thank you~

It was a week of ALS Ice Bucket Challenges as was most apparent by all of the wonderful videos that I saw on Facebook as well as nationally on TV and online.  Mike and I decided to get ours taken care of a couple of nights back and I challenged the rest of my family members to do the same in memory and honor of our brother Mike who passed away from Lou Gehrig's disease in 2007.  I was touched to see videos of the good folks at Shep Chevrolet back in my hometown of Haven, Kansas as they did theirs in respect for the passing of my brother.  His home there was only a block or two away from their business.  I nearly cried....  Ok, Ok I DID shed a tear to see that one done as well as the one my older sister, Sherry St. Clair did, at her former school in Altus, Oklahoma.  She has health issues of her own going on but that didn't dissuade her from allowing her former principal dump a bucket of ice cold water atop her head in front of the students there.  Her trusty walker/sidekick "Sophie" was parked to her side and bravely she announced with a kiss to Heaven above that she was willing to do it to bring awareness to the disease that took our brother's life less than a month after his diagnosis.  Some of the most inspirational and heartwarming challenges have come from ALS victims themselves, so many of them already in wheelchairs or confined to their beds.  May the cure be found someday very soon, that others may be spared the trial of going through what so many families have thus far.  The Scott Family included~

Day is trying to break here along the Western Slopes and the sky is filled with clouds making it nearly impossible to know that the sun is arising.  Silverjack Mountain is standing tall, like a sentinel watching over the people in the valley below.  The San Juans are barren of snow but it won't be long before that is no longer the case.  The Black Canyon is cloud covered too and the road back to Kansas and "somewhere over the rainbow" would be a wet one to traverse this day.  Up on Monarch Pass, it's in the low 50's and by the looks of their forecast for the week, it will be a wet and rainy one as well.  The seasons are going to change so very soon and as summer hands off the baton to autumn, it always seems a little sad.  Autumn is beautiful here and I hope that winter allows fall a little extra time this year.  We shall find out in the weeks and months ahead and as always, we accept what comes our way.  Be it bad or good, it is just what it is.

What shall happen to us in the week that lies ahead?  Well, pretty sure that only God knows the answer to that one.  Whatever it will be, I figure it's as good an idea as any to just hold hands and stick together to see one another through it all.  For all the people who have lifted me up and picked up the extra slack in life on my behalf, I give thanks.  May someday I return the kindness to you.

Hey, I hardly ever sit at it during the course of any given day but I do try to keep it cleaned up from time to time.  I am so very blessed to be a teacher at Olathe Elementary School in Colorado.  The bottom picture was taken in late July before I got started getting the room ready.  It looks so much better now :)  22 little people helped to add the much needed finishing touches.  They gave it the "human touch".

~a following Norman update/Norm comes to school (kind of/sort of)~

     He made it to Indiana this week.  Norman Horn, the young man that Mike and I encountered back in the early part of June this year as he was walking east on Highway 50 near our home in south western Colorado, crossed over from the "Land of Lincoln" state into "Hoosier land".  He is alive and well, a little tired perhaps but in probably the best of spirits that one could imagine for a guy who will have walked over 3,000 miles when his journey is complete come this October 11th in Atlantic City, New Jersey.  I cannot imagine what it would be like to do so and even the thought of doing it brings phantom pain to my feet :) 

     I was very determined that when school began in earnest this week, that I would tell my class of little people about him and the mission he is undertaking one step at a time to bring about awareness of childhood cancer.  Wednesday of this week we did just that during our morning meeting ritual that takes place before anything else can each school day.  I told them about meeting Norman as he pushed his cart, filled with things he needed to survive on the road, emblazoned with a then hand-written sign proclaiming the words "Fight Childhood Cancer FTK".  I showed them his picture, the one alongside me as we stood near the border of Colorado and Kansas, even playing the video that Norm and I made that day as we walked along the highway in the hot and humid air.  We put stickers on the United States map on each of the states that Norman will pass through on his journey towards home.  Their eyes got big when they realized that he had indeed walked right by our town of Olathe, Colorado in the early part of June. 

     Each day, for as long as it takes for us all to do so, the kids are going to think of an appropriate question for Norm and I will post it for them on the Coast 2 Coast Facebook page that he has.  Norm has graciously agreed to answer their questions for them and for that, I am most happy.  "The 21" (soon to be the 22) will not have the chance to ever meet him in person more than likely, but they will know who Norman is regardless and just like with the other adults who have encountered him, he will be a stranger to them no more.

     I wasn't sure what the kids would remember on day 2 of our conversation about him.  I was afraid, in a way, that I had put them on "information overload" with too much going on in those first few days this week.  But bless their tender and kind 6 and 7-year old hearts, they remembered nearly everything and what information they had misunderstood was quickly cleared up by others who were around them.  It was the sweetest of things to hear a tiny little boy look up to me with a smile on his face and say,

"Mrs. Renfro, do you think he is REALLY going to get to Jersey?  I just can't believe it!"

     Before we stopped our conversation about him on Wednesday, I passed out the blue and yellow bracelets that Norm had given me back when we stopped for dinner with him in Gunnison only two days after we had originally come across him as we were on our way back to Kansas for a weekend stay.  I told them that the letters "FTK" stamped in yellow actually stood for them.  That  what Norman is doing by hiking across America will benefit kids that are like them only they have a disease called cancer.  I wasn't sure what they would say, if they would even know what I meant by that word.  But sadly, so many of them already knew even at the  young age of 6.  Stories spewed from their hearts of grandparents or uncles or aunts and a host of others who had already lived and died from the dreaded "C" word.  Once again I was reminded that children know way more than we could ever hope to give them credit for.  It's hard to "pull anything over on them" because, well because they DO know. 

      Well, the day has begun here along the Western Slopes of the state of Colorado.  It's time to get a "move on" and get dressed, pack up my things and begin this day anew.  The first week absolutely has flown by and as I have said many times along the way, I don't even know how that happens.  We are welcoming a new student to our classroom community this morning and for that, I am very happy.  Now the count will be even at 11 boys and 11 girls.  I am most blessed to be called "teacher" by each of them every single day.  I will never lose sight of that and forever hold them close to my heart.  It is a little bit on the crowded side in there but we are just going to skoosh ourselves over and make more room.  The human heart~forever expandable.

     It has been so much fun to follow Norman.  Wishing you well our friend as you enter the last leg of an incredible journey.  Godspeed your way towards "Jersey".

    
Remembering all of the loved ones and friends who have left us after being stricken with cancer.  They were important to each of us.  All of us.

~THE GREAT ICE BUCKET CHALLENGE~

Good morning to you all my dear friends and family from home here along the Western Slopes of Colorado.  The microwave clock says "4:31" and in just a couple of hours more, I'll be making my way towards the community of Olathe as I get ready for day number 3 with the little people in my first grade classroom.  I'm kind of tired and by my somewhat scratchy throat and runny nose, I guess I'm getting ready to have my first cold of the school year.  It happens to me every year, it should not be a surprise.  The arthritis that is settling into my fingers and knees rears its ugly head from time to time but I press onward.  My next birthday, come the 26th of October, will proclaim me to be a 59-year old.  I'm not really crazy about the effects that come to us as our bodies age, but you know it is still a blessing to wake up every morning, alive and well.  If you are reading this, then you too have awoken.  There must be a plan for us.  Each of us.  Any of us.  All of us. 

There is a movement going on across the country, everywhere around the globe, called the "Ice Bucket Challenge".  It began in earnest earlier in the summer and has spread virally all over the place in just a short matter of time.  There have been many ice bucket challenges that support awareness for various chronic and deadly illnesses but the one that has captured my attention and my heart is the current one in regards to ALS-Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis or sometimes more commonly called "Lou Gehrig's Disease".  I knew little if anything about ALS before a few years back but my ignorance was quickly "called out" when my brother became afflicted with it and died from it less than a month after his diagnosis at the KU Medical Center. 

I come from a big family, seven kids in all.  Of the seven, only five of us remain.  My brother, Mike Scott, passed away in November of 2007.  Gone now for nearly 7 years, it seems hardly imaginable to me how quickly ALS robbed him of his health and then his life.  Back in 2011, in one of my blog posts for the month of September, I wrote about him and how special he was to all of us.  It was just prior to our family participating in the annual ALS Walk over in Wichita, Kansas along the Waterfront.  It's an annual event to raise support and funds in the fight against the disease for which there is no cure.  It is fatal.  The blog post is reprinted below, if you would so care to read.

I have participated in two of the walks, the first in 2008 and the other in 2011.  I'm sorry that I won't be able to return to Wichita this year but I will be with all of the other walkers in spirit.  Last evening I posted a "challenge" to my family members back in Kansas and other points beyond that we need to do a Scott Family Ice Bucket Challenge in honor of the guy who meant so much to us in our family.  I hope they do!  Mike and I will be doing ours here along the Western Slopes, probably on Sunday afternoon when the weather is supposed to be sunny and 82.  A little bit of an uncomfortable feeling, more than likely, but when I dry off and put on warm clothes it won't feel so bad after all.  A small thing to do~one person and one bucket of ice water.  But if it brings awareness to even one person who has never heard of ALS before, then it was worth it. 

My brother would have said, "What took you so long?"

Have a great day out there all of you!  I am thinking of you this morning from a place far away.

A blog post from September of 2011 for my brother, the late Mike Scott.  His life was taken from the ravages of ALS but even though it took his body it could never take his spirit.




"FOR MY BROTHER~DITTO"

 He gave me the first, last, and only Barbie doll I ever had.  That Christmas morning of 1964, I FINALLY got what every other little girl in the whole United States of America (or so I thought) already owned!  And I ripped off that paper with a smile on my face while he looked on, acting like what he had done was no big deal.  He was just that way.

3 years later, we would be delivering him to an airport runway in Wichita where he boarded a flight to a place they called "Viet Nam".  And the little "11-year old" girl that I used to be would cry and cry and cry for fear that he would never return home again.  But return he did, a year later, safe and sound to our family's farm back in south central Kansas.  We were blessed but there were plenty of other "little sisters" who were not so fortunate.

Years later, he would lend my date for the Tasmanian dance his ONLY vehicle in order that I might go out on my very first date.  He did it not only once, but three times more in the weeks that followed.  It was done with a no strings attached clause, without even so  much as a "be sure to fill that gas tank up again before you bring it back."  Not many brothers would do that for their kid sister, I was pretty sure.  But he did!

And on November 12, 2007, on a crisp and cool autumn morning, he passed away from a brief bout with ALS-Lou Gehrig's disease at his home in Haven, Ks.  He was my brother and I miss him......

For those of you who didn't have the chance to know him, this is my brother, Mike Scott.  This photo is one of my favorite of him, taken a few years before he died.  I can just close my eyes and see him sitting like this, arms folded, intent on the conversation at hand.  Sitting here, he surely puts me in mind of our dad, who also seemed more comfortable with arms folded.  Guess that's a "like father, like son" moment or something like that.

I have thought of Mike many times during the past few weeks, especially when the effects of my accident seem overwhelming to me.  I remember the struggle that he went through as he briefly battled a disease that I knew little about.  All of us, his wife, his children, and his brother and sisters got a crash course in "ALS 101."  It was a hard lesson to learn but we did.

For those of you not as familiar with the disease of ALS, I'm thinking pretty sure that Mike would be glad if I'd tell you a little bit about it.  You never know who you might  meet in this life that is affected by it--we sure never thought that our family would need to find out.  But, just goes to show you that we humans have no idea what lies in store for us in this life.  Probably a very, very good thing!

ALS stands for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and it sometimes just goes by the name of the very famous NY Yankee baseball player who succumbed to it at the very young age of 38, Lou Gehrig. It is a progressive disease whose victims have an average life expectancy of around 5 years, once the diagnosis is made. Some live longer and some live much less.  It is always fatal.

ALS is a progressive neurodegenerative disease. It affects  nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord by slowly degenerating them to the point that they no longer help send the brain the needed impulses for voluntary muscle movement and the power that those muscles can generate. Most of the time ALS symptoms show up in weakened limbs first and then progress onward to the point where swallowing and breathing capabilities are impaired.  Little by little, body part by body part, the disease eventually takes its victim's life.

In ALS victims, the mind remains extremely sharp and I know in my brother's case, he was keenly aware of all that he was going through.  Mike's journey through ALS was very brief--he passed away from it in less than a month from his official diagnosis at the KU Medical Center.  At the time, I remember so well how all of us couldn't believe that he could be gone so fast, with little time for any of us to be ready to say goodbyes.  In the months that followed, we learned more about ALS and how some of its victims linger on for years and years.  Time has a way of healing a little bit of the hurt and we now realize and accept how very fortunate he was to have not suffered any longer than he did.

Mike spent most of the last 4-6 weeks of life in hospitals in both Hutchinson and the KU Med Center in Kansas City.  His greatest wish was just to just get the heck out of the hospital and GO HOME!  Although it wasn't easy, his wife, Paula and children, Jessica and Christopher, found the way to make it happen for him.  On November 8th, after waiting for what would have probably seemed FOREVER, he left Hutch Hospital wearing his Denver Bronco t-shirt and cap-SMILING ALL THE WAY OUT THE DOOR.  A few days later he was gone.

Tomorrow several of his family members will be joining together with about a gazillion (translate that into a LOT) of other people to do the annual ALS-Keith Worthington Chapter Walk.  We'll all meet up in Wichita at the beautiful area they call "The Waterfront".  Walks like the one in Wichita are happening all over the U.S. in order that further awareness can be raised about the disease that took my brother's life and the lives of countless  others world-wide. Even though huge advancements are being made in the study of it, ALS will continue to take more lives at the very moment you read this.

If I could send him a message in Heaven, it would have to say this:

Dear Mike,
You would be happy to know that your memory and spirit are still very alive and well here on earth! Your last days were an inspiration to your family and friends and hey, I think  the whole town of Haven.  I admire you that you fought until the end and never really totally gave up. Talk about determination-I could sure use a whole lot more of that these days my brother!  May I continue to grow up to be just like you were!

When all of us walk tomorrow, each step that we take will be done in your memory and in remembrance of all the kindness that you showed to everyone, each day of your life.  Although I miss you, I will STILL NEVER wish for you to return as you were in those last few weeks.  Heaven is a wonderful place where no one has to worry about ALS or any other bad thing.  Wow, what a peaceful place that must be.....Until I see you there, peace to you my brother.  Love, Peggy

PS....by the way, "ditto"  :)

~a letter to the children~

Good morning friends and family from a place so very far away from the most of you.  It's early here, 3:59 in the a.m. early and even Sally the dog has refused to come out to greet me from her special spot underneath Mike's side of the bed.  My first five hours of sleep were solid and restful but the last one was fitful and cause for tossing and turning about.  It's the first day of school today here in Montrose County, Colorado.  It's my official 37th "first day" and for that I give thanks.

You know, I never even figured there would be a 37th one for me, or a 36th, 35th, 34th, or 33rd one either.  Year #32 was supposed to be my last one and when I made up my mind to turn in my official retirement papers on my 54th birthday in 2009, I was just positive that I was doing the right thing.  Well, I am here to tell you that I was very wrong in that assumption.  I still had "teacher" left in me and how grateful I am that I have the chance to continue on for a few more years.

This is now my second year as a teacher along the Western Slopes of the Rocky Mountains in Olathe, Colorado.  This year my assignment will be different than last.  I have moved from the fourth grade to the first grade where this morning I will meet "the 21".  I have looked forward to this day all summer long and now finally, in about 3 hours more, we shall meet together for the first time.  The primary grades are not new to me, having taught 18 of my 37 years in first and second grade.  I did my student teaching in the little Amish community of Yoder, Kansas and then went on for 15 more years to teach a combination first-second grade classroom there.  95% of my students were of the Old Order Amish faith and a sprinkling in of other non-Amish (referred to as English) students.  I found my niche with the little people and I loved all of the opportunities that were mine.  Although I learned how to be a fourth-grade teacher last year and enjoyed my time tremendously, it will be kind of nice to return to the same age group where I first started out now so  very long ago.  1979 seems like a distant memory to me.  I was 24 then, young and ready to give my life to the teaching of children.  I'm older now, a lot older and soon I will be reaching the age of 59.  God willing, there may be the blessing of a few more years in the classroom.  Life is a gift, you know?  Being a teacher, well that's a special gift.

Last year on the first day of school, I read my blog post for the day to the kids in my fourth-grade class.  It was a letter that I wrote especially for them.  In it, I told them of how happy I was to be their teacher and how knowing them would save me from the extreme homesickness and loneliness that I had felt as a newcomer to the area only a couple of months before.  I would be the very first to admit that I had to pause from time to time to collect my thoughts and grab a kleenix before I could continue on.  But I got through it and when I had finished reading it, they knew that their teacher loved them very much even before the first day had begun.  That first day was the beginning of a great school year together and I surely do wish for them all a successful fifth-grade year.  But now there are "the 21" and instead of writing them a letter and reading it to them this morning as we begin our day, I'm going to be doing something different.  All day long I am going to read them bits and pieces of their own letter only this time it won't be written down on paper or on a blog site.  It will come as I need to tell them and it will come straight from my heart. 

I have this little bulletin board over by the west windows in our classroom and on it I have displayed lots of different things about myself when I was a kid growing up, just like them.  I want them to see that their teacher has been where they are today and as for their teacher, well it's a great reminder to me to show some empathy for them when things might get to going on the "tough" side from time to time.  I want them to know that I understand when sometimes they miss their mommas and daddies and just want to go home.  So did I.  I want them to know that sometimes we have to get to the bathroom at times when a break is not scheduled and all they have to do is say "Hey, I have to go!"  Having an accident at school is not fun and who among us cannot identify with that?  I want those 21 children to understand that there is much for them to learn and that some of it may not be all that easy but all of it is attainable.  My wish is for them to somehow by the last day of school, get to where they need to be in order to find success as 2nd graders come the fall of 2015.   My mind is full of all the hopes, aspirations, and dreams of lessons that I want to do with them as their teacher this year.  My prayer is always that I do my best to provide the kind of education that they need to survive in this world of ours.  It's kind of a rough place sometimes, but I hope to show those little 6-year olds that the world is filled with much more goodness than it will ever be with things that are bad.  And even in as much as I have planned to teach them along the way, on the last day of our school in May  it will probably stand true the same thing that I have learned after finishing all the other school years before this one as I realize.........

They will have taught me so much more about myself than I could have ever taught them.  I used to look at that notion as a sign of weakness.  Now I know that it is a sign of strength.  Every day, every person is a learner.  Until the end.  Until our last breath is taken.  I want to teach and I also want to learn.

This is Monday, the 18th day of August in the year 2014.  It's a great day to begin the first grade on and an even greater day to be alive in.  I will do as the Good Book admonishes us to and be happy and give thanks in it!

Even though I am a grown up now, I  wish some days that my momma and daddy were here to tell me that they loved me and to wish me well on my first day of school.  They are in Heaven now and I feel sure that they still watch over me, their little girl.  I always  try to do my best in whatever it is that I do.  It's the way that I was brought up and I honor my parents by always remembering that.
   

~A following Norman update~ Calling on teachers and their classroom communities :)

~from a place far away from so many of you, "Good morning!"~

     Over two months have now passed since Mike and I came across a young man walking along the roadway near our home here on the Western Slopes of Colorado.  Seems hard to imagine that hiker, who later became our friend, has now made it nearly to the state line of "the land of Lincoln" in the great place they call "Illinois".  The day that Mike and I walked with Norman Horn the last 4.5 miles from Holly, Colorado to the state line of Kansas is a very distant, hot and humid memory now.  To think of all the footsteps that Norm has taken since we said our farewell to him there is hard to imagine and my own feet kind of hurt just thinking about it.  But one step at a time, heading east towards Atlantic City, New Jersey he continues on.  He'll make it there by October 11th and I can only imagine the scene when he arrives.  Wish I could see it myself but Montrose, Colorado is a little more than a day's drive away yet I will surely be with him in spirit.  As I have said several times before as I have blogged about his progress~

"Not everyone can walk across America.  Few actually do.  But we can all, each of us, do something."

     I've been thinking all summer long about how I might be able to bring Norm's story and his mission to school with me when the children return from their summer vacation.  I wondered if there was a way that I could turn this into one huge, gigantic "teachable moment" in time.  Could I present to my class of 21 first graders a challenge to follow Norman for the last 55 days of his journey?  Perhaps might there be a way to learn something from all of this?  It intrigued me enough that a few weeks back I began to formulate a plan, an idea of what we might do. 

     When school begins in earnest on Monday morning, come the 18th of next week, "the 21" shall meet Norman.  It can't be in "the flesh" of course but they will hear his incredible story of a journey that has taken him straight through the country on foot.  I will tell them of the good folks that he has met along the way, people who have cared enough about his welfare to be sure that he has been sheltered and fed for his daily hike.  And I will tell them why he is walking and that it is for children, some of them their own ages, who have been diagnosed with cancer and need our help.  Desperately.  Right now, before it is too late for them.

     I have met many people in life who do not believe that you should talk to children about certain things. Things like living with and dying from cancer are taboo subjects for some.  There are people who  believe that children cannot handle that much, that they are not old enough yet to understand.  I respectfully disagree with that idea.  Over the course of nearly 4 decades now in education, I have seen many times over just how wise children are.  They are full of compassion and empathy for those around them, especially their own tender ages.  Their little hearts are full of goodness and they want to know and  understand more.  They want to offer up what little help they sometimes can.  We grownups need to let them and I guess that's all I have to say about it.  Thanks for allowing me to tell you how I feel.  It has become that important to me.

     On Monday morning on that very first day back, we are going to sit down in a circle as a group.  "The 21" and their teacher are going to have our very first morning meeting.  It's going to be a daily ritual in our room, sacred if you will.  For 15 minutes each and every Monday-Friday, we are going to discuss "life" and how we are feeling about things on any given day.  We are going to learn to listen to one another, learn how to speak with one another respectfully, and make our game plan for the day.  Just as an aside here, it goes for the teacher as well as for the students.  At the very first morning meeting, after we have heard Norman's story, I'm going to ask the kids to brainstorm some ideas about how we can be a small part of the last 8+ weeks of Norm's hike across the country.  I just know they will come up with some great ideas and I cannot wait to learn of them!  Children are like that you know?  They see things through the eyes of a "little one", eyes that haven't been influenced by the things that grownups now see.  Come to think of it, that's an extra perk of being a first-grade teacher.  Spending a school day amongst kids who think of life in a different, much less stressful kind of way.  I like that idea.  Very much :)

     I have come up with a couple of ideas that I'd like for us to try.  We have a walking path at our school, Olathe Elementary.  Every day the kids are encouraged to get out there and use it.  In fact, we even have a walking club day each week where kids walk with little cards that are punched off each time they make a lap.  This year for our first 8 weeks, I'm going to ask the kids to considering doing an activity called "Walk A Mile In Norman's Shoes".  It's a little late in the game for us to walk 3,000 miles like he will have by the journey's end.  But we can walk a lap every day together during noon recess and when I say together that's what I mean because their teacher will join them for it.  We will formulate a plan to convert each lap we take with one mile that Norman has walked.  Sounds like a big undertaking but we are going to make it work out.  By the time we are finished, we should feel a lot stronger :)  Norm is a nutritionist by trade and I'm sure that he would tell the kids to remember to eat healthy foods and cut down on the amount of unhealthy snacks they partake of each day.  Somehow we are going to incorporate that idea into our plan of following Norman.  I've got a couple of other thoughts as to how we can help but I'm going to get the input of the kids in our room first and see what they say about it.  There are so many ways to learn from this experience and I'm really excited to get started with it.  You've got your math, reading, health and fitness, geography, writing skills and oh yes....the most important one as far as I'm concerned~

"The human touch~compassion and empathy for others."

     If you are reading this and you are a teacher, may I extend a friendly challenge to you and your community of students?  Join us in this endeavor in some way, will you?  Perhaps you as well can challenge your students to do something during this next 8 week period of time that will benefit Norm's cause and allow them the opportunity to do something for others.  Let me know how you feel about it.  Wow, I just thought of something.  If we all pool our resources together and work on it as one gigantic "Walk A Mile In Norman's Shoes" community, geesch can you imagine the impact.  I see some chances to have one big "pen pal" group formulating.  I like that idea already.  Let me know, please?

     The day is beginning here in the Rocky Mountains of south western Colorado.  It's the first official day back for teachers and staff here at our school.  How wonderful to return once again!  For the blessing, the extreme blessing of being an educator I will always give thanks.  I love children and being able to teach them what they need to know to be successful in life.  My favorite lessons to teach will never be found in a lesson plan book or deep inside of a curriculum guide.   Those lessons are important, don't get me wrong.  The favorite lessons that are held close to this teacher's heart come from the school of life.  You can be the smartest mathematician ever known, the speediest of readers around but unless your heart is good and kind, filled with compassion for others my thought is that you might be missing something.  Something very important.

     Have a great day everyone out there.  Thinking of you all this morning and holding you close to my heart.  It's kind of full in there but if we all skoosh together, there will always be room for more.

The day that I gained a whole new appreciation for what Norm does each step he takes for the kids.

Learning can happen in a variety of ways if you only are willing to look for them.  "Calling all teachers!"  Are you willing to join us?


    

    

teachers are like that, you know?

     The last few precious days of summer vacation are looking us square in the eyes and for the children around these parts of the country, it is down to only a matter of a week come tomorrow morning.  The 18th of August will be the first day of school for children in the Montrose and Olathe school system while teachers and our support staffs will officially return to their respective schools on Wednesday.  I smile as I type those words because in all honesty most of them have been in their classrooms for over a week now, working diligently to get things ready to go on their own time.   Teachers are like that, you know?

I've been trying to get things ready in my first-grade classroom at Olathe Elementary for the past couple of weeks now.  I'm still not done but some how or another things will find their state of completion by the time that first bell rings on Monday morning.  One thing that I have found lacking here in south western Colorado is the availability of teacher supply stores.  Back home in south central Kansas I was used to either running over to Wichita or up to Salina to pick out whatever I needed.  I know it's easier to buy online these days but I still like to see what it is that I am getting first before buying it.  There are a few stores around here that have small sections with things that teachers might be able to use and I frequent them often.  I particularly like going to the Dollar Tree because, well, because things are a dollar.  Yesterday  I was there looking for some math ideas for my bulletin board and when the cashier started to ring up my purchases she asked me if I was a teacher.  I smiled and said that I was, probably for longer than she had been alive :)  I told her how glad I was that the store had a few of the things that I was needing and that I could get them for such a good price.  That young clerk had the nicest smile on her face and as she handed me the receipt she said how sorry she was that she couldn't just give them to me, to use for the kids.  That sweet young woman was sincerely thinking about my having to use my own money to buy things for school and she felt badly about it.  I told her not to worry and that's just how we do it.  Teachers are like that, you know?

Yesterday towards noon time, I met Mike for lunch at Wendy's and as we sat there eating, I couldn't help but to overhear the conversation of the folks sitting right next to us.  It was a young mother with two energetic young boys in tow.  They had stopped in to eat and it was apparent that their morning had been filled with clothes shopping for school.  They were in for a bite to eat and then they too were going over to the Dollar Tree to get their school supplies.  I heard her say to her sons that they needed to remember to thank their grandmother for providing the money to use for school shopping.  I will never forget the sound of that young mother's voice as she admonished her sons to be grateful for the gifts that they had been able to get yesterday, their lunches included.  It was one of sincerity and kindness, filled with gratitude for that amount of assistance in getting her sons ready to enter the classroom.  For what ever reason, that momma may have needed a little help.  Back home in Hutchinson it was always the good people down at First Call For Help who rounded up the backpacks and school supplies for kids that would have to do without.  All over the country, Kansas and Colorado included, people donate to the "Stuff the Bus" campaign for the kids in their area.  Private individuals, some who no longer have to buy school supplies because their children are now grown, buy them anyway.  To all the people who extend their hand for the benefit of a child that needs their help, I say a sincere word of thanks for what they do.  For the least of things and the greatest of things, everything that is done on behalf of a child is so very needed.  I have found over the course of the last 37 years that people who do that kind of thing are pretty much humble folks and they'd be the first to say something like~

"Hey, it was no big deal.  I was in the school supply area anyways and I just threw in a couple of boxes of crayons, half a dozen glue sticks, and a few packs of pencils.  No problem.  Glad to help you out."

I should not be surprised to hear a response such as that one because good people are just like that, you know?

   My days in education have been many and if I do the calculations kinda/sorta correctly,  I come up with the number 13,140 as you give or take a day or two.  36 years times 365 days because you don't stop being a teacher when the last day of school bell rings to send us home.   I have been blessed to be given the chance to be a teacher for the 37th year now and I remain most thankful for it.  Having failed retirement not once but twice now, I've had the opportunity to meet new educators and students here along the Western Slopes.  I know that I cannot teach forever and that sooner or later, it will be time to say it is enough.  But I do hope that I can remain in the classroom for at least five years more and when I am done that perhaps there will be another way to help kids even when I am 64.  Hey come to think of it, maybe there will be a way that I can help kids when I am even older than that.  The possibilities are endless and I think it would be a sad day when I wasn't able to help a young person.  Until the day I die, whether I'm in the classroom or not, I don't think I'll be able to give up who I have become as a teacher.  I'm not alone here.  There are thousands of gazillions of educators out there, just like me.  Ask one of them and they will more than likely tell you the exact same thing.  Good teachers are like that, you know?

At this age, she was always going to be a nurse.  Later on, someone mentioned to her that nurses see blood from time to time.  A new game plan was quickly  formulated for life.  To all of the nurses out there who take care of people every single day, whether they see blood or not, the woman that the little girl would grow up to be says "Thank you!".

She thought it would be fun to be a secretary in an office somewhere.  I'm not sure where that came from but it didn't last long.  I admire all the people that are.  I have come to learn that secretaries and folks in the front office have a most important job.  "First impressions" are formed with them.  Olathe Elementary School has some of the very finest ones around.

When you finally figure out what to do with your life, it sure does make things a whole lot easier.  

~Upon over watering and not giving up~

                         You know, I had an awakening about myself just last night. 

I over water plants way more than I should in this life and that's not always a really good thing. 

 My husband Mike and I share a common interest in gardening as well as growing plants inside our house.  Between the sunroom and the east kitchen window there are 28 plants growing strong.  Well, I have to be honest and say that  26 are doing just fine while the 2 African violets are looking like someone (that'd be me) tried to drown them.  Not once but twice.

I had been noticing their sad and drooping state of appearance for a few days now and thought maybe that they just needed to be transplanted into another pot better suited  for them.  So I hauled them outside last evening and began the work of relocating them into another container.  Just as soon as I placed my hands into the soil to loosen them up I felt the problem.  Way too wet in there.  Really wet.  Sopping wet.  Geesch, what had I been thinking?

Quickly I began the work of transplanting them  and I'm sure that if they  could  have spoken in words understood to me that they would have relayed the message~

"For crying out loud lady!  We just need a little drink now and then.  NOT a quart of water every other day. Put us back in the window and leave us alone."

Now they are in new containers in soil that is much more appropriately not so wet.  I can only wait to see if I caught my grievous error in time for the plants to recover and send forth their beautiful purple blossoms once again.  I hope so.  I come by my love of them naturally.  My mom always had them sitting in our kitchen window back home on the farm at Haven, Kansas.  She learned to love growing them by watching her mother-in-law, my Grandma Scott, grow them in her kitchen window as well.  I've been trying my hand at keeping them for the last twenty years or so.  I'm almost as good as they were at doing it :)  Well, at least I used to be until I started watering them too much. 

Plants and I have usually gotten along together quite well.  There are many, many things that I cannot do that lots of women do regularly with no trouble whatsoever.  They are able to sew clothing for their family with ease, crochet or knit beautiful sweaters and caps for little babies, stitch fine quilts, or make gourmet meals for their husbands every night.  I'm not all that gifted with "home economics" kinds of stuff.  But growing things?  I was the fortunate recipient of that gene.  Is my thumb "green"?  I guess you could say that it is and with the exception of a few instances of overwatering, most of my plants have thrived and looked healthy in appearance. 

When I first moved here to the Western Slopes in the summer of 2013, I had high hopes of making everything that I planted into the clay filled soil of this area grow and thrive.  I put all kinds of stuff into the ground that Mike had helped me break up for planting.  I planted three or four entire packages of Russian Mammoth sunflowers into the flowerbeds along the fence row, just adjacent to the alfalfa fields that are south of the house.  I was so happy that day, positive that what ever went into the soil would sprout forth and look absolutely radiant when they bloomed later on in the summer. 

A gazillion or so seeds planted resulted in less than a dozen plants at the end of the season.  Disappointed, to say the very least.  But I nurtured the few that made it and enjoyed what I could of them for the rest of the summer.

This year as late April approached on the calendar once again, I determined that I would give it another shot and plant about a gazillion MORE sunflower seeds into the earth at the very same spot that I tried last year.  At first I thought I shouldn't even attempt  it.  Why set myself up to be disappointed once again when they probably wouldn't  even sprout from the ground?  But from inside of me I heard the voice of the 9-year old that still lives within and she said to please try one more time.  For her.  For fun.  So I did and true to last year's record, only this time only worse, not a one made it. This time I was only disappointed momentarily and I gave up the notion that I could ever make a seed grow out here.  I'd just buy seedlings from now on.

Yet last night as I was bemoaning the fact that I'd nearly killed my two African violets, I happened to look over at the flower bed to the south and it was there that I saw it.  A Russian Mammoth sunflower was actually growing out there.  I'd heard Mike mention earlier that one looked like it had made it but I hadn't even bothered to notice it.  Not once in the entire past two or three weeks had I paid any attention to it.  That is until last night.

So there we stood together last evening, that renegade sunflower and I.  Not sure how big it is but since I'm only 5 feet tall and it comes up just past the middle of me, I will say it's about a yardstick or so high. It looks healthy actually and who knows, if I don't get too "water happy" it could stand a chance of making it.  The idea that one of those seeds had actually grown from the soil made me very happy.  I kind of felt like Nemo's father in that very popular movie from several years back.  I'm going to nurture that little guy shown in the photo to its maturity somewhere in the months ahead.  I kind of like it :)

 A few of the plants out in the sunroom will be making their way to our first grade classroom at Olathe by next week.  Not sure which ones will go but I want to take a nice variety of them for the kids to watch and take care of  during the school year upcoming.  We have a pretty nice set of windows facing the Uncompahgre Range to our west and I hope that the sunlight will be sufficient for their continued growth.  I think it's important for children to understand how to take care of them.  Plants are science and science is life.  They may have never heard of a Christmas cactus or an airplane plant.  Perhaps they have not yet had the chance to see a philodendron or a geranium.  But they will this year.  In the world of teaching, our task is to help children grow and what better way to help them understand that concept than to be mini-gardeners themselves?

It's the early morning here and darkness still surrounds the city of Montrose and our home just outside of town.  Sally the dog has been up with me now since 4 a.m. and soon it will be time to tell her to go and wake up Mike.  I love the early morning and the peace that it brings with it.  The world will begin to awaken very soon and the peace will fade away with the noise of the start of the day.  But for this moment in time in the last hour or so, I've enjoyed writing about life here.  Some day when I am older and can no longer write these words down at least I can go back and read about the things that happened to me.  I may not remember all of them but at least I will know that the experiences were mine to be blessed by. 

Take care of yourselves everyone out there~
Enjoy this good day that we have all been given.
I remain alive and well along the Western Slopes of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado.