~have faith~

I have decided to return to using my original blogging site.  The new program I was trying out for the past month just didn't seem to be what I wanted.  This one has served me well for 5 years and so I'm going to give it another try.  Thank you for reading!

It's hard to imagine that in just two short days more we will be entering March.  I say it over and over again....."Where does the time go?"  The first two months of this year have flown by us at their usual "record speed" and it's a given that more than likely the rest of the year will do the same.  Please dear friends, enjoy every day of life to the utmost.  

I decided to take a look back at where I was about a year ago at this time.  I came across this blogpost from late February and am reprinting it below for you to read.  It was about snow and lots of it!   We haven't had any of the "white stuff" here in our new part of the world, save for the 3 inches that fell and then promptly melted back on moving day in January.  So to read this post once again was a good reminder and actually a very pleasant memory from our old life back in the mountains of Colorado.  

Mike and I are settled in our new home now.  We have dug into the soil here, both literally and figuratively.  It is not only our belief but our conviction as well, that this is where we need to be. We have no idea what the weeks, months, and years ahead have in store for us but the truth of the matter is, neither do you.  Because of that, there really is only one thing left to do.

Have faith.

Tuesday, February 24, 2015

~I am~

The snow began Sunday at midmorning with tiny flakes that seemed to float down and melt in the sky before they even had the chance to hit the ground.  Mike and I had been watching the snow line get lower and lower all morning long.  First the mountains went away and then the Black Canyon, the Uncompahgre Range as well as the Grand Mesa.  Then the adobes vanished into thin air and finally, it came to us here in this valley.  

18 hours after it began the snowfall continued on and on and on.
By 4 a.m. Monday there were 10 inches and counting in all.
The grand total was somewhere in the 15-16 inch range, depending upon where you were.

Mid afternoon Sunday, Mike and Sally took one last walk for the day before the snow came down even heavier.  They walk together in any kind of weather, loyal friends to one another.  Sally is a very fortunate dog.

It was bound to happen, this massive dumping of snow upon us.  We have had a mild winter, well at least up until this past weekend.  Mike and I were able to return to Kansas for a week at Christmas time and not have to worry about any storms along the way.  Old Monarch Pass didn't present a problem at all and even the route home through Kansas along Highway 50 was without issues.  The Front Range folks, those on the eastern side of the great Continental Divide have had their share of snow and then some this season.  Those who live on the Western Slope side have been spared the coldest temperatures and the snow/ice combination.  We've been fortunate, as those kinds of things go yet one thing is for certain.

We desperately need the moisture.  
Even a non-lover of winter like me needs to accept that.

In my now nearly 60-year old memory bank that sometimes appears fuzzier by the day, I have no wonderfully happy remembrances of snow and wintertime weather.  There is absolutely no childhood memory of making a snowman or snow angel, having a snowball fight with friends or  even just saying the words~

"Oh I wish it would snow so I could go out to play in it."
Not sure why I was that way.  I just was.  I only recall little hands that were very cold, bedrooms in our old farmhouse that could freeze water in them overnight sometimes, waiting at the end of our driveway forever for Floyd King to pick us up on the school bus and a deep desire for summertime to arrive so we could finally go barefoot.  

Mike and I were thankful to have returned home from California on the day we did.  Had we got a later start in the week in the journey back home to the mountains, we might have encountered a  bit of a slippery drive.  Somehow as I sit here next to the kitchen window typing this blog post, the thought of our week long stay in the sunny and warm high desert country of California seems like a faraway memory.  In reality, it was only 7 days ago.  Time flies when you living your life.

Today it is back to school after a rare snow day here in the mountains of Colorado.  It has been over a week now that I saw "the 21" and I am anxious to be with them once again.  Our time together is growing shorter by the minute and even though we have 3 months yet together they will not last for long.  We have plenty of lessons to learn about reading, writing, math and of life itself but of one thing I am positive.

We will make it.  

On a totally different note, a word about something I learned while visiting southern California last week.  We watched a video that Mike's aunt had received in her email and it was one that made you laugh and smile, big time.  It was a local weatherman out there who was speaking to a group of "seniors" and giving them his version of getting older and the accompanying challenges that go with it.  He was hilarious and I could have listened to him over and over.  Even amidst all of the laughter and smiles, he stopped to make one very somber and serious statement about getting older.

"You should celebrate getting older because if you are then it means one thing.  YOU MADE IT!"
And how right and true that statement surely is.  How many folks have we all known who did not?

As the "seasons" go in our human lives, I realize that in the short years ahead I will be going into my own personal winter.  By the way and just for the record, I hope it has the chance to last about 30 years or so.  I loved my "springtime" and most assuredly my "summer".  Autumn has been interesting and even though it has had a few challenges along the way, I have loved it as well.  I'm not sure what will become of me in the last of the seasons of my life but whatever it is, why not be ready? 

I am.

It kind of put me in mind of an angel food cake when I first saw it at 4:30 a.m. yesterday.  At the time there was 9 inches of snow on the ground. Several more inches fell before it was all over.

~amazing how it all worked out~

I don't believe that I've ever drank as much hot tea as I have since marrying Mike, now nearly 3 years ago.  Seems like there's always a pot of hot water boiling on the stove at night and a cup with a tea bag steeping away.  My mom would wonder what had happened to me.  She was never a drinker of tea, hot or cold, and I'm sure her face would have a frown upon it at even the notion that her daughter was.

I guess she'd probably understand.

Funny how a person gets into the habit of doing things in a certain way, just like the drinking of tea at night.  Even just like the habit of writing in this blog, something I've been doing for a long, long time.    Any way that you look at it, I doubt there's any harm in doing either of them.  As a matter of fact, I'm going to guess that the both of them do me much good.

So here I sit tonight, sipping mint flavored herbal tea out of my favorite cup from Colorado, one that I got during my first visit to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park 3 years ago, just about this time.  I'm typing away on this blog post yet I really have nothing profound to say, as if I ever do.  But it just feels good to talk about how life is going and to send a message to anyone who reads this that I am doing just fine.  As a matter of fact, I'm doing better than just fine.  You need not to worry about me.  God is watching over me, even here upon the plains of Texas.  You know what?

I kind of like that idea.  It's reassuring to me.  Thus, what would I have to worry about?

Mike and I both agree that we really do feel a part of this great state of Texas.  We feel to home here and although it was a scary proposition to leave not only Kansas but Colorado as well, we are positive that we did the right thing.  Little by little, we have begun to figure out just why we were drawn here and it all started out with a circle on the map.

Back in March of last year when we were trying to figure out just where in the world we should locate in Texas, Mike got a pen and after looking at the map for about a minute, he began to make a circle.  It was a circle with Wichita Falls, Texas smack dab in the middle.  We had no idea why we would have chosen it.  Montrose, Colorado was 800 miles to the north.  It seemed strange but we knew without a doubt that we had been pointed in this direction by a hand much mightier than ours would have ever been.  Three months later, we were here.

Amazing how it all worked out.

~so why not make the best of them?~

It's amazing what can happen to an old empty house when people buy it and begin the process of showing it some "tender loving care".  We've seen it happen before and are witnessing it now with the house that we just bought a month ago.  

When we found this house, we fell in love with it immediately.  Mike and I could both see huge possibilities in it.  Sure there was plenty to do to make it even better, but with a price tag of $50,000 we knew this house would be a great investment.  It was an easy decision to buy it.

One of the first things that we knew would be changed was the landscaping around the house and all throughout the huge backyard.  Some type of bush, and we aren't sure what to call it, had been planted all the way around the edge of house.  Months of neglect had allowed it to grow up into an unsightly mess.  Neither Mike or I have been fans of things like that and so we made the decision to get them taken out as soon as possible.

Yesterday the process began.

I took this photo in early January to show what a transformation might look like without the plants growing around it.

After yesterday, the east side of the house looks so much different now.  It really opens it up and makes it look so much cleaner and nicer.

The huge bush that had grown on the entryway side of the house was a little bit bigger and not quite so easy to get out.  Later on today, the nice young man doing all of this work will return to remove what's left of the stump before moving on to the rest of the project.  Although it's difficult to see at first, he found 2 soccer balls and 4 baseballs that had been resting underneath that vegetation for quite some time.  They are still in good shape, protected from the north Texas elements all this time.  

Soon when the weather warms up for the good and springtime returns to us once again, we have big plans for this area that has now been freed up.  Flowers of all kinds will be planted there and soon rather than seeing the overgrowth that once was there, beautiful colors of reds, pinks, yellows, oranges, and whites will be seen.  

Before we do lots of planting, we intend to be researching for plants that take as little water as possible to live.  Mike and I arrived last summer, after the severe drought that hit this part of Texas had been broken.  We know how precious water is and so as we plant, we are trying to keep that in mind always.  Plans are to purchase a rain barrel collection system and to use it to water the things that are close to the house.  Although Mike and I are going to be planting seeds aplenty, we intend to buy as many perennials as we can.  We are facing the fact that at our age, perennials will work out much better for us and save us work in the long run.  Working "smarter, not harder" seems the most reasonable thing to do.

Built in 1955, this old house and I are the same age.  I believe we've got quite a few good years left between us.  Why not make the best of them?

~it did~

     A week has now passed since I started getting sick from strep throat.  Thankfully today I feel like I'm about 90% back.  I wasn't alone in my suffering, that's for sure.  Whatever the strain is this year, it is quite easy to catch and not so easy to get over.  Praise God for days of feeling better!

     A person doesn't always think about good health until they end up getting sick.  

     I have felt so bad for the children at school that have fallen ill to this in the course of the past two weeks.  One by one, it seems to have hit them.  They are so little and it hurts to see them get sick but the truth is, being sick from time to time is a part of life.  At best, all we can do is get some type of medicine in them, push the fluids, and send them to their snug warm beds for lots and lots of sleep.  Sounds like wise medical advice for any of us that come down with illness.

     For some reason, I thought about the days of being a kid and sick as I was lying in bed on Monday of this past week.  My 60-year old brain has dimmed a bit in the remembrances of the days of my youth, but one thing I have never forgotten are the times when I was really sick.  I came around before the days of immunizations for childhood diseases for things like measles, mumps, and chicken pox.  So when the first MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine was made available in 1971, I was already a high school sophomore who had long ago experienced those maladies of children.  My little sister and I caught the mumps together, closely followed behind by the chicken pox in the summer of 1960.  Although I was only a 5-year old, I have bits and pieces of that awful time stuck in my mind.  My mom filled me in on the missing parts of the memory later on in my life when I was a mother with 3 little children of my own, telling me how miserable that we two little girls felt.  I came down with the hard red measles on the very last day of school in third grade thus making the summer of 1964 a very unhappy one.  It wasn't fun but I managed.

     The absolutely worst disease ever to be had, whooping cough, was mine for the better part of the early spring of 1961.  There was only one way to remember and describe it.  Awful!  I can remember coughing like there would be no tomorrow, and I'm sure my parents might have felt that way for me from time to time.  I recollect my father coming over and picking me up and carrying me around, trying to soothe the cough in whatever way he could.  Once I remember them taking me out into the chilly evening air and for some reason, it really did help.  More than one trip was made to the doctor over it.  I don't know how my folks did it, because I wasn't the only one of their 7 who had been sick with it, but they did.  When the last cough was "whooped", I am sure that they breathed a sigh of relief.  I know I did!

      Today begins another new day and since I'm really behind from being sick so long, there's a lot of catch up work to do with school and here at home as well.  Our house is about 75% in order from the move a couple of weeks back and a thick stack of papers needs to be graded.  One way or another, I'll get to them both.  But I'm also remembering how important it is to take care of myself too and so I'm for sure going to be scheduling some time for myself in the form of a nap later on this afternoon.  When the ER doctor told me last week that this stuff could last for a week, I thought he was stretching it a bit.  Nothing could take that long.

     Come to find out, the good doc was right.
     It did.

I have no idea how they did it when all 7 of us were sick at once.  We didn't run to the doctor unless it was an absolute necessity.  Mom would simply grease us all up with Vicks and send us to our beds.  Each of us survived childhood by God's grace and our parents' undying love.

~we would~

We were emptying out several boxes from the spare bedroom just a moment ago when I came across one that held framed photos.  I dug through it to see exactly which ones were inside.  I smiled as I came upon 2 of them that I recognized from about 3 years ago at this time.  I called out to Mike, 

"Hey I just found the Valentine's Day gifts that I sent to you when we first met, Mike."  

At the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, National Park near our old home in Montrose, Colorado. (January 2013)

At Box Canyon-Ouray, Colorado just up the road aways from Montrose.  (January 2013)
These two pictures will always hold special memories for us of the chance meeting we had that mid-January weekend in 2013.  It was one that changed both of our lives for the good.

It surely doesn't seem like 3 years ago now that I took out after school one day and headed 611 miles to the west of my home in Kansas to reconnect with this kid from "the land of long ago, and far, far away".  40 years of time had passed by since each of us were teenagers going to the very same school in the south-central Kansas town of Haven.  Now, 4 decades later, we were about to meet up with one another once again.

Looking back now, I see how crazy I was to just take out like that on my own and venture solo to a place that I'd never even seen before.  Shoot I didn't even know that people lived west of Denver.  It was in the dead of winter, mostly in the dark but even that didn't stop me.  I followed Mike's advice to just stay on Highway 50 and keep on going.  I'd cross over the Continental Divide at Monarch Pass and before I knew it, I'd be where he was.  

I will always remember that first drive out there.  Western Kansas was a piece of cake and I had no trouble making it to the border in about 4 hours.  Eastern Colorado might as well be western Kansas, so it didn't present any worries either.  By about the time I made it to Pueblo, I began to feel a little sleepy and I mentioned it to Mike when I called him.  He suggested I just pull over and get a motel room.  I'd be able to make it better that way.  I decided to keep going on.  Next was Canon City and even though it was the very dark of night, about the 10 p.m. hour, I knew that I was really getting into the mountains.  The road was a series of one curve after the other and I had absolutely no idea of where I was.  I remember seeing the sign announcing the entrance to the Royal Gorge and shuddering for a moment thinking that one wrong move and I'd be at the bottom of that giant abyss looking upward.  By the time I made it to Salida, I decided I'd had more than enough and pulled over to sleep for the night.

Early the next morning, about the 4 a.m. hour, I decided to get up and cross the mountain.  I called Mike quickly and told him of my plans and he said he'd see me when I got to the other side.  When you leave Salida, you are at the base of the mountain and the only way to cross it to get to the other side is straight up and over.  It was dark with little light to guide me, but onward I drove.  I will never forget the fact that save for one snowplow at the top of the great Continental Divide, mine was the ONLY vehicle on the road.  I was never so glad to see that I had made it to the summit of that 11,000 feet + mountain.  I was even more happy to make it to the bottom of it.  By the time I made the descent and was only a few miles away from Gunnison on the other side, the sun came up and I saw in my rear view mirror the monster of a mountain that I had just crossed for the first time of my life, alone.

I made 4 more trips back to Montrose that spring of 2013 before Mike and I decided that it might be cheaper to get married than to drive back and forth every month :)  So we did.  On the last day of school, May 21, 2013,  in front of all of our families, friends, and the students and staff of Lincoln Elementary, we married one another underneath the basketball goal in the school gymnasium.  

988 days later, we are STILL married.

We've been through so much already and 99.9% has been very good.  Some people suggested we might be crazy to get married.  Some have suggested we were crazy to move to Texas from Colorado.  Some (rightfully so) might have thought we didn't know what we were doing to come here with absolutely no job prospect or even a real home to call our own.  Yet we did all of those things anyways and now as we look back, one thing seems certain.  If we had to do it all over again.......

We would.

~and I forgot to take care of myself~

Not very often do I have the experience of being "Laid Out" by sickness.  I get your usual kinds of "run of the mill" things, your colds and such.  Give me a couple of days and I'm over them, ready to go back to business as usual.

Not this past weekend.
Not this time.

Saturday was the final push to get everything done at our old rental home on the other side of town.  We had 48 hours left on our lease and there was at least a good day's worth of stuff to do.  By Saturday morning as I awoke, my throat was really sore and my whole body just felt tired and worn out.  I took some over the counter type medicine, even called the doctor on the phone but was told it would probably run its course and be done soon without anything.  So I waited.

By Sunday morning, things were looking no better.  As a matter of fact, they seemed to get worse.  As we finished up the last of the rental house business about noon, I paused to take a photo of the finished work.  I was feeling feverish and chilled but I took the picture anyways.  Perhaps it was my 60-year old ego that was saying "There! Take that!" to whatever it was that was making me sick.  In less than 20 minutes, I was home and in bed.

By 5 p.m. on Sunday, it was very obvious that I needed to see a doctor before it got any worse.  Mike whisked me off to the ER in Wichita Falls where we waited to get some help.  It was a long wait, as most ER visits seem to be these days.  Everyone was ill, not just me.  I laid my head on Mike's shoulder and waited until it was my time to get help.  After seeing the doctor, I received the diagnosis of strep throat.  It wasn't a surprise to me at all.  They gave me a high powered shot of Rociphen and 5 days worth of antibiotics.  I left 3 hours later with their final instructions to drink lots of fluid and get plenty of rest.  I was happy to oblige.

Yesterday I headed back to school and even though I was tired and worn out, it was good to be back with the kids at school once again.  We have much work to do as we prepare for the state assessments coming later in the spring.  My sweet partner teacher at school brought me a bag full of goodies to help me to get feeling better.  I used every single thing she placed into the brown sack she handed off to me.  It's nice to have someone right next door who cares about me and my sometimes "frail" health :)  

I'm not at 100% yet but I'm getting there.  Little by little, I can feel my strength trying to come back.  It's gonna take a couple of days more before I get back to whatever "normal" used to be before last Saturday morning.  I'll make it though!  This all has been a great reminder, one of those "whacks upside the head" from the good Lord above.  I was doing way too much, spreading myself more than thin.  Between getting my house ready to be sold back in Hutchinson and then moving here to our our new one, getting children ready to do their best on the state assessment and a thousand other things I deemed important, I forgot to do one very valuable thing.

I forgot to take care of myself.

Mike is the best doctor/nurse that there ever was.  He helped me get through it and never complained once!  I hope he doesn't get this but if he does, I've got him taken care of.