~and it was the power of the human touch~

My mom and her sister Rebecca wore dresses.  
Always.

They came from a generation of women born between 1910-1920 who never succumbed to the purchase and subsequent wearing of pants or heaven forbid, jeans.  I never saw either of them wear anything but dresses.  It was just the way they were.

They actually had similar tastes in dress styles with both of them in their later years wearing ones made from a nice cotton and polyester blend, short sleeved and a couple of buttons down the front.  Mom always called them her "zip and dash dresses" although I really don't remember why.  Both of them loved dresses that were colorful with patterns of stripes, checks, or flowers.  I can still close my eyes and remember them standing there side by side, adorned by fashion that pretty much described the kind of women they were.

When Mom passed away in 2007, her closet at the nursing home was filled with those kinds of dresses and pretty colored sweaters to go with them on days when the weather outside was a bit on the chilly side.  The strange thing was that those dozens of dresses had very little wear to show on them.  In her later months, Mom was more comfortable with wearing just a select few, rotating them in and out of the laundry.  When she passed away, we went through her clothes and thought that perhaps it might serve good purpose to leave them there for others who might come in and could use them.  

And so we did.

Fast forward nearly 10 years later.  Mom's only living sister, my sweet Aunt Beck, passed away at the very precious age of 103 years.  After her death, her children went through her life's possessions doing much the same as my siblings and I did when we lost our mom.  It's not easy to do that sometimes but it is a necessary task that we must undertake, especially in sad times like the loss of a parent.

It hurts like crazy.

Thankfully her daughter had a good idea and one that would provide a gift to me that would be honored and revered for the rest of my life.  Yesterday when I went to the cemetery to visit not only my parents's graves but Aunt Beck's as well, I was given the most beautiful piece of handiwork I believe I have ever owned.  I could have cried to open the box that it was in and the minute I saw it, I knew what it was made from.

~the material from my Aunt Beck's beautiful dresses~

I can look at each of those squares and just about imagine her sitting there in her gray rocker recliner, holding my hand and talking to me.  Our visits were really special and after moving away from Kansas in 2013, I tried my best to be sure and see her every single chance I could when I came home.  It was important to me to check in on her and keep her up to date on all the happenings with our side of the family.  I knew that I would perhaps be too far away when the time came and she was gone, so it became very important to me to see her every time I could while she was still alive.  

And so I did.

My Aunt Beck was one of my role models, an example of what a woman could do and become in life.  I loved many things about her like her gentle spirit and kind ways.  I hope that some of that rubbed off on me and that people can see a bit of her in the woman that I became.  

I'm not much into material things these days.  The accumulation of stuff no longer interests me. Most possessions that I have could be easily given away and I would never miss them.  Not once.  There are however a handful of things that I will never part with and shall cherish until my own dying day.

Aunt Beck's gift to me is one of them.

Aunt Beck and I held hands each time we visited.  I think both of us needed to feel the power of "the human touch".

Because her eyesight was failing, I always tried to sit right beside her so she could see me a little bit better.  Talking to her was like talking my own mom once again and that made me feel good inside.  It helped my heart to be happy and my spirit to soar.

They were two sisters who became best friends over the course of their lifetimes.  Now they are reunited in their Heavenly home.

~and they matter to me~

It's Memorial Day weekend and so today we are going home.  For me it's Kansas, a state I'm proud to say that I hail from.  Although Mike was born there and attended his final 6 years of school in the little town of Haven, he doesn't feel the "home" feeling like I do.  His family was military and so "home" was in many different places, all around the world.

For 57 years, I stayed put in the same county of the great state of Kansas.  I was comfortable there, satisfied with no great desire to even live anywhere else.  Over the last decade or so, it grew fun to take a vacation once in a while to see what I could find out there in the great unknown.  But I always came back to that which was familiar to me.

Kansas.

The members of my family who have now gone on before me, are all lain in the rich earth of the state.  The little city cemetery of Halstead, Kansas is where most of them now can be found. One by one, their bodies made the journey there to rest in peace.  My folks, a sister and brother, a little niece, grandparents, great-grandparents, great-great grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and many friends are already now gone from the face of the earth.  

Some day in the future when the time comes for me, my body shall return to that great state as well.

It will be nice to go home today, not only to honor the dead whose lives have meant so much to me, but also to be amongst the living who still reside back in that very spot where I once lived. The passage of four years' time has come and gone since Mike and I were married in 2013 but I have never forgotten them.  Those good friends and family are special and continue to be held tightly in my heart.

They matter to me.
See you soon Kansas.

A Kansas sunflower along the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado got me through my first summer in a new home back in 2013.  This sunflower seed pushed through the clay filled soil of our front yard and managed to survive when 999 other seeds planted could not.  It survived.

So did I!

~to honor the living and the dead~

We are heading home to south central Kansas this upcoming Decoration Day weekend.  It's been quite a while since we were back there and it will be good to make our way to the north in order to visit family and friends that were left behind after Mike and I were married in 2013. Although I ended up loving my 2-year stay in Colorado as well as my 2 years here on the plains of Texas, I still consider the "Sunflower State" to be my home.

I always will.

Our stay there will be quite brief with only a couple of days turnaround time but at least we get to go and for that, I do give thanks.  Since it is Memorial Day weekend, one of the important stops that we will be making along the way will be the city cemetery at Halstead, Kansas where all of my family has been interred since the early 1900's.  Although it was never my hometown, I surely found that we spent much time there as kids growing up.  Halstead was the childhood home of both of my parents so when my dad died in 1982, it seemed the logical place for him to be laid to rest.  My mom, a brother and sister, a niece, most of my aunts and uncles/cousins, and all of my grandparents and great grandparents are there as well.  

It is time to pay a visit to them all.

When I was a kid growing up, Memorial Day was a sacred day on the calendar.  No matter what, whether we were busy or not, our family always went to take care of the graves of our deceased family members.  There was never any question about it, just something that we always did.  Decorating the final resting places of all of our family members on the Brown and the Scott side of the house took a little doing, but my mom, her sisters and their mom would not have it any other way. 

Back in the early days, the only thing I remember them using were real flowers like the roses and peonies that grew in Grandmother Brown's backyard garden.  Later, I remember that my aunts would bring along small bouquets of Sweet William to adorn the grave sites.  For days prior, all of them would save small jars and wrap them with tinfoil to be used as containers for the floral offerings that would be given.  Sometime later on, my mom started to use silk flowers instead and rather than just leaving them to be thrown away in the weeks that would follow, we'd make the journey out to pick them up and put them away to be used the year following.  

Memorial Day weekends and drives to all of the cemeteries weren't just about putting out flowers for our family.  That was only a small part of the purpose in going there.  For an hour or more, we would walk the cemetery with our mom and grandmother as we listened to them talk about the living history inscribed upon the gravestones of so many people.  As a kid, I swore that they must have known the life story of every single person whoever lived in town. There was no one that they didn't seem to know about.  It was from those yearly strolls amongst the rows upon rows of graves, that I began to learn so much about myself and who I really was.

I learned that a man named Charlton Brown was my grandfather's cousin and he had fought in the Civil War.  I was taught just by reading the inscription upon her headstone, that my great-aunt Mary died in her younger years, a victim to the influenza outbreak of 1918.  By visiting my great-grandparents grave, I learned that my Grandmother Schilling came to America from her homeland of Germany by boat in the late 1800's as a very young girl looking to find a new life here.  

And the history lesson went on and on and on.

Sunday afternoon I will pause a moment in time to honor those that have died in my family as I decorate the graves of my parents (dad died in 1982 and mom in 2007), my brother Mike who died in 2007 of ALS as well as my sister Janice who was killed in an auto accident in 1969.  I'll leave flowers for their graves plus the grave of my young niece Kimberly who was involved in the accident with her mother but managed to live until 1993.  I'll stop by the graves of both sets of grandparents, and even stop by my great-grandparents' grave in the old part of the cemetery.  

It will be like "old home week" or something.

At age 61 and looking age 62 square in the eyes come this late October, I realize that I'm closer to joining them all than I used to be when I first traipsed across this hallowed ground as a youngster.  As I've grown older, I've learned to appreciate all that much more the sacrifices that each of them made in their lives.  Stopping by the cemetery this Sunday upcoming is a way to honor them and to remember the great impact they each had upon my life. Perhaps some day when I too am gone from this earth, there will be someone who loved me enough to pay a visit to my grave as well.

I can only hope.

These will be a small part of the floral offerings that I plan to take to the cemetery.  When our mom passed away 10 years ago now, we covered her casket up with sunflowers and red roses.  It was a beautiful sight to behold.  I thought she might like them once again.  

Honoring and remembering both the living and the dead is what I was taught to do as a child.  

~I doubt if I ever left it in the first place~

My good husband always tells me that I need a hobby, especially one that will begin to carry me through the days ahead in the future when I really do decide to retire.  I kept telling him not to worry, that I 'd think of something.  But to be right honest with you, I had absolutely no idea of where I could start or what I could end up doing until last week when a random purchase began to change my mind.

And it was a package of paper dolls.

When I was a little girl, paper dolls were a form of entertainment for me, child number 6 of 7 growing up in a Kansas farm family.  I don't recall ever owning but a couple of sets of real paper dolls, the kind you would see at the store.  One of the sets was from my grandmother and it was always kept at her house in order that we'd have something to play with when we visited her.  The other set was at home in my bedroom but unfortunately the ravages of time and little girls playing with them led to their early demise.  The only other paper dolls that I had came from the most magical of places.

~the Sears and Montgomery Wards catalogues~

Thankfully I grew up in a time when catalogues such as those came delivered to the rural route mailbox for free.  All my little sister and I had to do was wait until the spring and summer season turned into the fall and winter one.  Then our mother would hand them off to us with a pair of scissors to cut out all the things that we wanted in order to have our own paper doll village.  

And so we did.

Hours and hours of fun could be had as we assembled families of paper dolls plus all of the accessories that could be imagined for them.  Back in those days, catalogues carried every kind of thing you could desire to buy and we didn't leave any of those out.  Once I remember we went to the baby section and proceeded to cut out 3 pictures of the sweetest little infants you could want to see.  We called them our triplets and gave them the names "Marilyn", "Carolyn", and "Cheryl Lynn".  (ok, weird side note here~That was 55 years ago and so tell me why I remember their names when I lose my keys/cellphone/or purse on a semi-weekly basis.)

So last week when I saw those paper dolls for sale, it brought back some very happy memories for this nearly 62-year old little girl.  I now have two granddaughters of my own and I wondered if paper dolls would some day mean as much to them as they do to me.  I bought the package which came along with dolls all ready assembled plus an extra kit that allowed you to design your very own ones as well.  With crayons, stencils, and stickers in hand, I began to make some special ones.  I guess you could call them "designs by Grandma Peggy" or something like that.  Three of my favorite ones so far are pictured below.  They are not perfect but they are definitely made with love and a smile on my face.

As I began to work on them, I realized how important it is to share remembrances with those we love.  As a grandmother, one of my hobbies in the days, weeks, months, and hopefully years ahead is going to be the creation of family history and traditions.  Not exactly sure how that will look as a finished product but I figure it's a work in progress and this set of paper dolls is the first step. They didn't take much money to purchase.  They only take a little time and  deep love for the hands that will receive them.

Perhaps I have officially entered my second childhood but come to think of it, I doubt that I ever left in the first place.  Perhaps the same could be said of any of us.

~and if a picture~

If a picture is worth a thousand thousand words, then listen to this one.  If every picture indeed does tell a story, then the story this picture tells is worth listening to.

At day's end yesterday, I finally finished up with my classroom for the summer.  I wanted to make sure that everything was clean, neat, and ready to go for the first day of school come this August.  I only need 16 desks to begin next year with, so the extra 5 that I had were sent back to my neighbor, Mr. Cook's classroom.  It looked strange to see an array of 4 groups of 4.  The floors were swept and mopped, trash all removed, and counters left orderly.  Even my teacher desk was barren of anything that looked like anyone had ever been there.

I paused for a moment before I shut off the lights and locked the door for the summer recess and thought about just what had gone on in here for the past 9 months.  It took my breath away to remember the story of what the sight above really meant to me.  It tugged at my heart and made a little tear well up in my eye.  What a unique story and wonderful message this means to me on this, the morning after.

Once 21 children (at one time 22 of them) and their teacher spent their days together here.  From the early morning hours of 7:30 each day until the bus drove away at 2:50, we grew together as a classroom community of learners, family members, and friends.  Academically we grew stronger in reading and math, social studies and science, English and writing, and a host of other ways.  We gave our all for state assessments and any other assessment that came our way. It wasn't easy at times and as a matter of fact, some of them were downright rough.  Yet, we seemed to make it.  Our classroom operated on one word with regards to all the testing and retesting we seemed to have to do.  And the word of the day was this.

Integrity

I told the kids that no matter what, I would be proud of them, even if they failed at something, as long as they tried their very best and remembered to do it honestly.  State assessments are just one single test and that computer in Oklahoma City that graded their work would never know the real person whose test was in their system.  No one would know how hard they truly did work this year but that would not matter because those who did realize their efforts were the only ones that mattered anyways.  I stand by that statement to the end.

If there was an audio version of our classroom on any given day, pretty much the word kind of/sort of noisy at times would be a really appropriate descriptor.  I smile as I type these words and realize how much I will miss that noise that came from the voices of so many sweet and dear kids.  For the record, we worked through that phase.  Some battles are never worth the fight and so we made compromises along the way.  I think the operative phrase in this would be one for all teachers to remember with regards to their students.

Try meeting them in the middle for a change.

Relationships were being built with one another every day.  With so many different kids and personalities to go along with them, sometimes we had moments that presented a few challenges but we got through those as well.  We all, teacher included, grew and changed.  Once I likened this situation to having 21 kids for a sleep over every single day of the year and all in the confines of one tiny space.  It pretty much was what it was like.

Now it is Saturday and the very first day of summer vacation for me.  Not sure what I will do but I'm sure to find something.  If the summer goes half as fast as this past school year did, then I better get a move on and quit trading daylight for dark.  

Life has been so good to me.  Big Pasture Elementary at Randlett, Oklahoma has been one part of that good life.  Happy Summer boys and girls!

We stopped for a moment on the last day of school to take this photo together.  We were missing Dani and Jeffrey that day.  These kids have been my world for the past 9 months.  Even on our worst of days, they knew for sure that their teacher loved them.  I promised them that I would never, ever trade them for anything in the whole wide world.  They were precious and will remain so to me.  I love them each!

~and now the time has come~

     The time has come to say good-bye to "the 21".  We have reached the final day of school for the 2016-2017 school year.  Just like that, "in the blink of an eye" 39 years of being a teacher have now come and gone.  We will dismiss at noontime today, right after the kids have enjoyed one last meal time together.  Before we know it, the lunchroom will be a deafening quiet.  The hallways will be empty with no physical reminder that anyone was even there.  For me, this hallmark of the last day of school can always be described in one way.

     Bittersweet~

     For a year to have come and gone as quickly as this one has, always make me pause to think about just what it is that I have taught these children that have been entrusted into my care. Have I covered all the standards set forth by the state of Oklahoma?  Do the students know everything they need to in order to be successful in the fourth grade next year?  How will their test scores look once they come in later in the summer?  All of these things are important to consider for it is I who will be held accountable in matters such as these.  Yet even as crucial as the academic side of this all seems to be, there is still something far more important to me that I have wished for them to learn.  

     It's a people question.

     What kind of people have they become in my classroom?  What kind of people will they find themselves growing up to be?  As their teacher, have I guided them along the right paths, even though I know that sometimes that road can be a little bit on the rocky side?  And if I have done the right thing by them, then how did I accomplish it?

     It really boils down to one thing and they call it a "classroom community".  

     I'm a believer, a rock solid one as a matter of fact, in the concept of classroom communities.  After 40 years or so of doing this, I guess you could say I have had some practice.  I know that in order for a school year to be successful, students and their teacher alike must be willing to work together for the good of all.  Kids need to feel welcomed and valued once they enter through that classroom door and that feeling needs to happen on the very first day that we meet one another.  That feeling of welcome and of worth doesn't stop on the last day of school either. It continues on for the rest of life.  It's that important.

     If a classroom community is working well, it can be seen in many ways.  It can be evidenced in the way that a teacher listens to the students far more than she talks at them.  This is something that I have constantly had to remind myself of, especially in these times when high stakes state testing takes center stage for the greater part of the school year.  If a classroom is being run on the concept of community, relationships that are solid in their foundation are being built each and every day.  Children and adults alike are learning to get along with another, accepting and understanding the very differences that make their classroom unique and so very special. Perhaps the greatest thing a classroom community offers is the chance for students to see that life is not perfect.  Some school days are good and some are not so good, but if everyone sticks together then things don't seem quite so bad and it all works out by day's end.

     It's 4:30 in the morning as I type these words.  Somewhere out there, "the 21" are asleep in their beds and perhaps dreaming of all the fun they will have during summer vacation.  I'm not crying now and as a matter of fact, I feel peace in my heart for having done the best I could this year in a brand new school.  Later on this morning, I cannot promise that I will not feel like crying.  Last days have always been tough for me.

     I began this school year with one goal in mind.  I desired that on this day, the final day of 3rd grade, that they would look back and say that it had been their best year ever.  If they could say that, then I would have accomplished everything that I set out to do.  When they get older and look back on the times that we had together, I hope they know in their hearts one thing.

     There was once a teacher named Mrs. Renfro and she loved them so very much.

 

There once was a little girl named Peggy and she was a third grader too.

I am so thankful for these good people and many others not pictured in the photo above for helping me to make my way through my first year as an educator in the state of Oklahoma.  No one gets through the school year totally on their own.  Only a foolish person would ever believe otherwise.

~on Mother's Day~

On the occasion of Mother's Day~

As a teacher, I cannot recall the number of times that a student has misspoken and rather than call me "Mrs. Renfro" they instead called me "Mom".  Later as time went on, they would let the word "Grandma" accidentally be spoken.  Always with an embarrassed look upon their face, they would say that they really meant to call me by my correct name.  I just smiled, well except for the first time someone called me "Grandma".  

That time was different but I got over it quickly.

One of the first things that I learned as a teacher was the awareness of just how many waking hours a child has in my care.  For a good 7-hour stretch of the day, everything that we say and do is done together.  For better or worse, it's my job to teach them in the best way I know that is possible.  Hours that are spent in the classroom can never be retrieved again.

Once there was a kid who said to me,

"You know what teacher?  It's like you are our mom and we are your kids."

And actually, that's kind of/sort of right.

I have often said to my students throughout the course of the last 4 decades,

"You know, I'm not your mother or your parent.  But I am your teacher.  I need to teach you and train you up in the way that your parents would wish for you to be."

And so I do.

I'm enough "old school" to allow the girls to line up in front of the boys at times.  I still ask my boys to remove their caps inside of the building and when they ask me why, I remind them that it is considered good manners.  When birthday treats comes to school, no one gets to eat until all are served and the birthday kid takes the first bite.  When there are difficulties in class and feelings get hurt, I have taught them to work it out amongst themselves and to shake hands while asking forgiveness.  

And the list goes on and on and on.

So if I get called "Momma", "Nana", or even "Great-Aunt Mary",  I figure it's ok to take that as a compliment.  I will continue through what very few remaining days there will be in my career to do just what I've been doing since August of 1979.

Training kids up in the way that they should go.

Happy Mother's Day everyone out there!  I miss mine.

This very dear and sweet woman became my friend long, long ago.  Jan shared her two kids with me during my first year of becoming a teacher.  She trusted me and looking back at it now, nearly 40 years later, I realize what a gift she gave to me.  Thank you my dear friend!

                                                  Amy

                                                Michael

Once long ago they called me "teacher".  As a matter of fact and come to think about it, they still do today.

~and things have changed~

The new eating habits of the Renfro family began in earnest this week and as would be expected, it's going to take some getting used to.  When Mike learned that he is diabetic after a routine dr. visit a few weeks back, we knew that it would be time to make some major changes in the way our cupboards, pantry, and refrigerator looked.  It wouldn't be easy but sometimes the most necessary things in our life end up being the most rewarding and life saving.

We shall see.

I don't think Mike or I really paid attention all that much to the labels on most food packaging. If we did, then I doubt either one of us gave much heed as to what those printed words were trying to tell us.  Oh yeah, I can remember once when I thought I might have been getting some high blood pressure issues that I actually started to peruse those labels for sodium content.  But other than that, not very much care has been given to it.

Things have now changed.
Big time.
And speaking of time, it was just that.
Time.

At ages 59 and 61 respectively, Mike and I both hope to have a long and healthy life still ahead of us.  There are things we want to do and certainly places we want to see and experience before our lives are completed on this planet.  If we don't take the steps now that will ensure better health for both us, we might be quite limited to what we can see and do in the years ahead of us.

If that's not a sobering thought, then I don't know what is.

Although my own blood sugar levels remain at the safe range for now, I am joining Mike on this nutrition journey because I am well aware of the fact that sometime in the future I too stand a good chance of becoming diabetic myself.  With a mother and a grandfather who both battled the disease, it's just a matter of time before I am added to the ranks as well.

This part of our lives together is just beginning this week and we know that it will be a lifetime of work and encouraging each other along the way.  Checking food labels for content and blood sugar levels is now a part of life in our house.  The way we figure, it's just one more part of the plan that began on May 21, 2013.

We are in it for the long run.
We'll keep you posted!

Here we are when we arrived for our first summer here in Texas.  Neither of us had jobs yet but little did we know what would lie ahead waiting for us.  Just a few days after this picture was taken, I received a teaching job in a town about 30 miles away from Burkburnett.  Only a couple of weeks after that, Mike received his position as the manager of a great hardware store here in town. God's plan for us~

~ we would all have smiles on our faces~

The days that remain of this school year have dwindled down into the single digits.  By the time tomorrow morning rolls around, only 7 1/2 days will be left to go.  If ever there was a school year that flew by at record pace, then it would be the one from the year 2016-17.  For some reason, I thought it might last a little bit longer.

It did not.

I was doing a lesson last Friday at school in preparation for a blogpost that I wanted to write on the very last day of school.  I asked the kids to help me think of ideas that I could use.  In particular, I was asking them what they felt a successful school year would look like and sound like.  I asked them to think a moment about it and then jot down their thoughts on sticky notes.  Once they were finished, we would share them with the group.  Just as an aside here, I wish I would have been the inventor of sticky notes.  I have gone through about a gazillion of them this year in our classroom.

Once they were finished, they brought them up and affixed them to the board.  Then we started to go through them, one by one, to see what everyone had said.  I realized by the time I got to the fifth or sixth one, that this lesson was not going to turn out as I had planned.  Instead, it would go a different way and one that actually was very eye opening and quite telling.

You know, silly me.  I thought that they would give answers like "we all would do well on the state assessment" or "we all would do well enough to go on to the fourth grade next year".  I was looking for answers that pertained to how far they had advanced academically as third graders.  Not a one of them gave an answer that mentioned anything about academic achievement.  Their perception was so far removed from mine and as I read them, one by one, I began to see how wrong I had looked at things and how right those 21 kids were.

One response in particular stopped me dead in my tracks and it was one written with 8 simple words, ones that after I had read them, made all the sense in the world to me.  One sweet child had captured the essence of a successful classroom as only a 9-year old can.

She wrote,
"We would all have smiles on our faces!"

Isn't it amazing?  A child would measure success by how happy and content the children and adults would be, simply by the fact that they were smiling.  Sure they might be smiling because their state assessment came back mark "proficient" or their grade card reflected that they were now promoted to the fourth grade for next year.  But what about other reasons to smile? Surely there would be plenty and I am pretty sure that dear little one was referring to many of them.

I hope they smiled today when I dismissed the boys to line up and go to lunch and forgot that I'd left the girls sitting quietly at their desks wondering what in the world their teacher was doing.  Once the boys were outside they looked back and said "What about the girls?".  Perhaps they grinned when we had fun doing something totally unrelated to the lesson plans of the day as we threw caution to the wind and had fun for a change.  Maybe their faces were happy when they enjoyed a great lunch with their classmates or rode in the back of a bumpy old school bus on the way to a field trip nearby.  There are plenty of reasons to smile and I hope that I have given them many.

When I send them home next week on the last day of school, I will try to smile but deep inside I imagine that I will feel like crying a bit.  Those 21 kids were total strangers to me back in August when we first met one another.  It didn't take long to realize how much that I loved them all and for better or worse, to spend the next 9 months together.  We have had our share of bad days along with the good.  If I told you that it was easy all of the time, well that would not be the truth.  But it has surely been worth it.

To be a teacher in the state of Oklahoma can be challenging.  I'm not getting rich here but that doesn't even really matter because I never got into this business for the money in the first place. There was something far more valuable than a paycheck that I found as a teacher.  School funding goes by two names, "Slim" and "None".  Teachers in our district clean their own classrooms because there is not any money to pay a custodian.  We wear more than one hat and do so without grumbling. It's just what I have learned you do here and in a way, it has continued to refine my character to an even greater extent.  My job this year at Big Pasture has given me many things and I guess the greatest of these things is this.

I have 21 reasons to get up in the morning and even better yet, a whole lot of reasons to smile.

~and we will keep you posted~

The cupboards at our house are fixing to look different by next week this time.  The pantry shelves will soon be stocked with a different kind of fare, one void of the many lovely and most delicious of things that Mike and I both really enjoy eating and drinking.  Gone from the refrigerator will be the sports drinks, diet sodas, chocolate candy bars, and dairy items that are high in fat and sugar as well.

For everything there is a reason.
At least that's what they say.

Mike learned that his sugar level was too high at his most recent doctor appointment and he was scheduled to visit with a nutritionist next Monday in order to lay out a balanced diet to bring the level down to a more reasonable number. Although my own sugar level is holding steady in the safe range, my intention is to join Mike as he begins the quest to eat a more sound and safe diet of food.  Diabetes runs in both of our families and that proverbial "handwriting on the wall" has been there since the day of our births.

It will probably only be a matter of time for me anyways before my fate will be the same.  Why not get a head start on it?  Makes good sense to me.

All of our lives, we have grown up around good food and plenty of it.  Both sets of our parents were excellent cooks and thankfully I can say that neither of us has ever known what real hunger feels like.  As a kid being raised up on a farm, our table was always laden with good food made with ingredients that were found as close as the backyard garden or dairy barn.  Looking back, I remember being a part of a generation of children raised to clean up every scrap of food upon their plates.  

Nutrition wasn't wasted.  
Not even one morsel.

Both of us tend to be stress eaters, snackers all evening long if we choose to.  There has always been a box of snack crackers or microwave popcorn to munch upon.  Our favorite hangout in town serves up yummy ice cream cones all year long, nearly 24/7 if you needed it.  When a person doesn't really think about it or has other intensely more stressful things on their minds to consider, it's easy to take in an extra 500 calories each evening.

Our days of doing that are soon to be in the past.

The older I have become, the more I realize just how important it is to take care of yourself.  It's important to eat nutritionally, to get plenty of rest and sleep, to visit your doctor and take the medicine that has been prescribed for you.  Better yet would be to not have to take any medications at all.  Hobbies and pastimes are great for the mind and the spirit.  All of those are things that both of us need to work on, especially me.  

And so we shall.

Our healthy bodies and minds are important things to consider.  Both of us wish to live long and to live well.  It will be quite a nutritional journey ahead for both Mike and I. 
We will keep you posted!   

We went back on our 3 month anniversary in 2013 to stand underneath the basketball goal in the gymnasium we got married in.  4 years have passed by and we are still together through good times and the not so good ones.  Life goes on.

(back home in Hutchinson, Kansas at Lincoln Elementary School)