~sometimes I am reminded~

     The view from my window is a little bit different these days.  No longer do I gaze out and see the beautiful San Juan Mountains frosted over with snow capped peaks or watch the sunset each evening over the Uncompahgre Range.

The old view as I gazed out the kitchen window each day from our home in Montrose.  I grew so used to seeing it.  The city seemed like part of a little kingdom and the mountains were its protectors.

The sun disappears into the western horizon on a cold January evening last year.  That lone Cottonwood tree, barren of its emerald green leaves, stood like a sentinel that kept guard over our house.

     I miss the sights that I had grown used to in the course of my two year stay along the western slope side of the great Continental Divide but more than the sights, I acknowledge from deep in my heart just how much I miss the people back there.  Although it could be sometime much later in the years to come, I am sure that Mike and I will return there one day to pay a visit to our old home and to see the dear friends and family that we left behind.

     Here in Texas we have been making our way, slowly but surely.  Each day we find ways to acclimate ourselves to life here even more so than the day before.  Little by little with each passing day we have found ourselves much at home here and for that I am grateful.  We know our neighbors and most of the businesses in town now.  I can drive around the area without a GPS telling me which way to turn.  The road over to Petrolia and my classroom is easily navigated and save for one tricky corner, I can almost get there without a hitch.  For all of those things we are grateful.  It seems as if we are home and what a wonderful feeling that is to have.  Although Texas is not Kansas, both the state of my birth and the state where I now live seem so much the same.  Perhaps that is why it has become so easy to become a part of life here.

     Sometimes I am reminded that it took a great deal of courage and faith for us to leave the security of our jobs and our way of life back in Montrose to head here to a place nearly 800 miles away.  Truly, Mike and I both came here on faith, knowing in our hearts that it was the right thing to do.  It's a little stressful at first to not know for sure what will happen to you but in the end as all of the pieces of life's puzzle are slid into the correct place, it definitely gets better.  

     Make that a whole lot better.

     Absolutely nothing that was in our original plans actually came into fruition.  We had never given Burkburnett or even the little town of Petrolia a second thought.  As a matter of fact, had it not been for an impromptu trip to the little community of Byers one Saturday morning, I might never have even known there was a place called Petrolia to begin with.  God works things out in some strange and mysterious ways.  After submitting what seemed to be a thousand different applications to school districts in the area and wondering if I would ever find a school, in His perfect timing everything worked out according to the plan.  

     In the nearly 7 weeks that we have lived here, Mike and I have made a serious attempt to get out and explore the communities around us and to learn more about what goes on in each of them.  We enjoyed the peach festival at Charlie, have gone to the farmers' markets in Wichita Falls, slipped over the state line and went to the city wide garage sales at Randlett, and made the drive to see Mike's aunt in Olney many times.  This weekend we are going into Oklahoma once again to visit the small of Duncan and partake in some of the cowboy events that are going on there.  There is more than a plenty to see and do here and even though the scenery is a whole  lot different it really doesn't matter because there is good and beauty all over this great country of ours.

     You just have to be willing to find it.

One place that I dared to venture in Oklahoma City was to the home of my friend Kyle where I got the chance to get over my fear of snakes in an "upclose and personal" kind of way.  That's the real thing that I'm holding in my hands there.  We are only a couple of hours drive away from OKC now and so who knows?  Perhaps I will go to visit him once again. (August of 2012)

I think it took more courage to do this than anything I have ever done in my whole life.  I was doing really well until it started to make its way up "old lefty".  I lived to tell the story :)