~time and the DNA test will tell~

     I don't believe that I've ever treated my saliva more reverently than I did yesterday as I collected enough to provide a DNA sample to send off in an effort to find out more about my family history.  Using the kit that Mike purchased for my 62nd birthday this week, I carefully read the instructions at least a couple of times before I even broke open the seal on the collecting equipment.  I didn't want to make a mistake, partly because of the expense involved and partly because I wanted everything to be right.  

     I was actually kind of amazed at just how much spit was needed in order to collect the sufficient amount for testing.  It took me about 5 good attempts to make the saliva level rise to the bottom of the black wiggly line.  Each time I spit, I had a strange feeling as if every ancestor that I ever had was watching over me to be sure I did it right.  By the time the bubbles had settled down, it was time to add the stabilizing mixture.  I felt a bit nervous because it seemed difficult to tighten down the cap enough for the mixture to be released.  You would have thought I was a brain surgeon doing a lifesaving procedure or something by the way that I stared down that cap with my steely eyes.  Just when I thought I had totally messed it up, the most amazing thing happened.

     My saliva turned blue. 

     I tightened the cap as securely as possible, slipped it into the collection bag, and then placed it into the box.  After sealing it up for the trip to the mailbox, I just stood there and held it in my hands for a moment.  I wondered what I might find out when the results come back some time around the Christmas holidays.  Would I be in for a surprise like some folks are?  Would my prediction of being 100% European come to light?  One thing is for sure.

     Time and the DNA test will tell.

Elizabeth Burch Brown, the daughter of a Revolutionary War soldier, was my great-grandmother and her blood runs through me.  

                                These two kids each provided me with part of who I am.  

                        And so who am I and where did I come from?  I'm fixing to find out.
     

~and so who am I anyways?~

And so this is me.  Kansas farm kid.  Teacher.  Wife and mother.  Daughter, sister, cousin, aunt, and grandmother.  A friend and a child of God above.  But I've always wondered.  Just who am I anyways?

For my birthday this year, Mike ordered an online DNA kit from a quite reputable company and later on today I will provide my 1/2 teaspoon of saliva and mail it off.  When the results come back in a couple of months, it will be quite interesting to see just what I am made of and how many cousins I have out there in this big yet ever shrinking world of ours.  I'm excited to learn more about myself and to pass that information down to my own three children.

I already know a great deal about my family history.  I am a combination of Scott and Brown blood, with both families providing a part of who the little baby girl born 62 years ago was to become.  My mother's side of the house came from London, England and northern Germany.  My father's people came from Scotland.  On mom's side, I have traced my lineage back to the 1700's when my great-great grandfather was a soldier in the war for independence from Great Britain.  I'm a daughter of the American Revolution and proud of that heritage.  (As a side note here, my mom's side of the family is spread way out in years.  Great-great grandfather Burch married my grandmother when he was in his mid-70's and she was only in her late 20's.  He lived long enough to become the father of my great-grandmother.)  The Browns were Quakers who lived in the heart of London, England.  They brought their family and their faith with them to America in the 1800's.  In recent few months I have learned much more about my father's family members and the results are pretty interesting to me.  I feel like I know a lot but the truth is that the more you learn, the more you realize that you truly know very little.

One of my goals to accomplish before I die is to be able to provide my children and their children an idea of our family heritage.  I hope to document as much as possible both in online research as well that the photographs that my mom passed on to me many years ago.  At the age of 62 now, I'm happy with where life has taken me but have the desire to find out so much more.  In the end, wouldn't it be great to answer the question?

Just who am I, anyways?

~and she was my mother~

     62 years ago tonight, my mom and I were kind of busy.  She was somewhat preoccupied trying to deliver a little 5 pound baby and I, well I was the baby.  A lot of time has passed by since that Tuesday night long ago now.  Tomorrow is my birthday and even though it would be wonderful to celebrate it just one more time with my mom here alongside me, that shall never be the case again.

     She died in 2007 just a month before I turned 52 years old.

     I will forever remember how she told me the story of my birth.  I'd heard it so very many times over the years and surely I am glad that I paid attention to Mom's words.  Her remembrances of it all are tucked deep into my heart and any time that I wish to call those memories back, it's no trouble at all.  Knowing about the circumstances surrounding my birth provide a comforting feeling to me.

     I was the 6th kid out of 7 born to my parents.  Mom was already 35 years old by the time she got pregnant with me.  Back in those days I suppose that was considered quite old for having a child but even so, that would have never dissuaded Lois Scott from having a baby.  Even her 6th one.

     Mom went into labor the day before I was born and I'm sure that she probably figured child #6 wouldn't plan to wait as long as any of the others.  She told my dad it was time to get to the hospital over at Newton because the baby was on the way.  I cannot even imagine what that car ride would have been like.  We were living in the country between Halstead and Burrton, Kansas and the hospital was nearly 18 miles away.  I'm sure they wanted to get there before I surprised them in the car along 50 Highway.  So in the evening hours, off they went.

     When they got there, Mom's doctor was nowhere to be found.  The nurses called all over town trying to find him to no avail.  Meantime, I was getting in rather a bit of a hurry to get there and I would have come with or without a doctor.  It mattered not to me.   They finally traced him down in the late evening hours at the supper club where he and his wife had been drinking and dancing.  When it was apparent that he wouldn't be able to get there for awhile, the sweet Catholic sister who had been Mom's nurse through the 5 kids that came before me, offered Mom the best advice she could.

"You know Lois, we really don't even need him.  We've been through this together 5 times before."
     Not sure how much solace my mom took in Sister Marianna's words but when old Doc Schmidt came whistling down the hall half of an hour before I was born at 10:32 the next morning, I can only imagine my mom giving him a piece of her mind.  Mom said he just smiled at her, delivered me, spanked my bottom, and pronounced me a healthy little baby girl.

     My father gave me the name of Peggy Ann, honoring a family friend named Peggy Carter who lived in nearby Sedgwick, Kansas.  They brought me home and raised me up in a huge, hard working, and largely farming family.  While I might not have had all that I wanted, I always had more than I needed.  As a soon to be 62-year old woman, I now realize just how much Mom sacrificed in order that I might be given life.

     I have my mother's eyes, nose and smile.  She more than likely gave me her troublesome teeth while she was at it.  When I look in the mirror, she regularly peers back at me.  It's a little unnerving when you first realize it but I long ago stopped trying to deny it.  I come by it naturally because of one thing.

     She was my mother.

~and I say 'thanks' Dad~

The best news of the day so far came with a phone call from the state department of education back home in Topeka.  After about a 3 month wait in time, I found out that my Kansas teacher's license had been renewed for another 5 years.  I'm good to go until 2022 now and still have another 5 years available to me simply by using my teaching experience and my master's degree.  Even though I don't anticipate ever teaching back in Kansas again, that was not the point in it all.  I figured I worked too hard for it in the first place and I would be foolish to just let it go and expire on its own without even trying.

$130 and two fingerprint sessions later, it is now mine to keep once again.

I took the long, long way through college.  After graduating high school in 1973, I should have been able to finish by May of 1977.  Unfortunately that did not happen.   I took a semester off of my senior year in college and that following summer of 1977, as a newly married 21-year old woman went with my father as the cook and errand girl for his summer wheat harvest crew.  I had never ever given any thought to staying out of college for awhile and certainly never entertained the idea of going on a harvest crew either.

Times changed.
I changed with them.

I learned so much that summer about life and of just who I really was.  I went from a young girl who had a closet full of clothes, accessories, and shoes to choose from to one who managed to get by with one pair of tennis shoes and only enough clothes to fit into a medium sized duffel bag.  My dad gave me his best advice about what to take with me in 8 little words.

"Don't pack much.  There's no room for it."
And so I didn't.
For the record, I survived.

I returned to school in the spring of 1978 taking enough classes to catch up from the ones that I missed out on by going on the harvest.  By then it was apparent that I'd need another year before all of my credits would allow me to earn my teaching degree.  It was a sobering experience to realize that I could have already been done had I stuck with it instead of traveling with my father's harvest crew.  In my heart though I knew that I had done the right thing by going along to help, and so I just stayed with it until I had enough credits to graduate by May of 1979.

Now all of these many years later, here I am still teaching and not all that far from where my father used to traipse up and down the Great Plains of America.  I'm less than 50 miles away here in Burkburnett from the towns of Davidson and Frederick, Oklahoma.  Those were the first two stops in the wheat harvest of 1977.  Little did I know where my life would take me many years and several miles down the road into the future.

Yes, I took the long way through college and when I walked across the stage that cloudy day in late May of 1979 to receive my diploma, my father was there to see it.  I remember how we both hugged each other after it was all over and how I cried tears of joy that it was finally finished.  3 years later, we would bury my father in a little cemetery near the town of Halstead, Kansas.  I will always be thankful for many things and one of them is this.

I'm glad that I invested a summer of my lifetime to join him on the road.
It was time well spent.
It was time not wasted.
It helped me to become the woman that I am today.
Thanks, Dad.

He was the finest man I ever knew.  I'm so glad that out of all the daddies out there, God chose him to be mine.  I love him still and will always be John Scott's little girl.

~just like Pond Creek~

The glorious month of October is rushing by us all with little regard as to whether or not we wish for the days to slow down.  Today marks the 22nd day of the 10 month of the year.  As for me, this is day #22,642 of life.  Can that really be?  Seems like just yesterday I was only at 22,000.

Time flies.
Especially if you are living life.

I had a good trip back home to Kansas a couple of days ago.  My journey was quick and full of things to do.  So glad that I had the chance to return once again to reconnect with family and dear friends.  I took a slight detour along the way up north, totally unplanned by me but thanks to a GPS with a mind of its own, I got to see plenty of new sights.

One of them was the little town of Pond Creek, Oklahoma.

It had been 40 years since I'd been there.  In the summer of 1977 during my father's last wheat harvest run, I went along with him to help for the summer.  Pond Creek, Nash, and Jet were all small Oklahoma towns that he found work in.  At the time, they were just little places to me and yet another stop for cutting several hundred acres of hard red winter wheat in before moving on.  Yet when I saw the sign shown above, it was somehow different.  I felt as if I might have found my father again and you know what?

It was a good feeling.

I decided that it would be fun, since I already was there, to find the elevator that we always hauled the wheat to.  It wasn't difficult to locate it.  Those small town Oklahoma skyscrapers stand out in the crowd and turns out I was only a block or so away.  

Although I didn't stay long, I did turn the car off and walk over to get the best picture I could of it.  A couple of folks drove past and waved as they saw me take the photo.  Not sure that they get much traffic in a town of less than 1,000 people that stops for photo opportunities in front of the community's only grain storage facility, but one thing is for sure.

They did on Friday.

My father has been gone such a very long time now.  In the early morning hours of his 21,865th day of life, he passed away from lung cancer.  Now all that I have left of him are sweet remembrances.  Memories abound in my heart of people and places he once knew in small towns up and down the Great Plains of America.

Little towns, just like Pond Creek.

~best be ready~

Today marks the end of the first nine weeks of school for this year.  I tried like crazy to get the days to slow down a bit but it was to no avail.  Time came.  Time went.  A week from today and the good Lord willing, I will find myself affixing the number 62 next to any form that asks me my age for the next year.  I never really saw how quickly it was all speeding by me, but after awhile it becomes inevitable as well.

Time comes.
Time goes.
Best be ready.

I get asked every once in a while by friends if I would have changed the way anything went for me in my life.  If I could go back in time, knowing what I know now about it all, would it make it a difference as to the way my life turned out to be?  The answer is this.

Probably not.

Here's how I look at it.  Everything that has happened to me since the morning of my birth in 1955, the good and the bad alike, has led me to the place where I am today.  I'd be lying if I said that my days have all been wonderful, because they have not.  I've had more bad times than I care to remember but the nice thing is the knowledge that the good days have far outweighed and outnumbered those that were not so good.  

I can live with that.
I sleep ok at night.

I have nothing really profound to say here, only that I am thankful to still be here.  If you are reading this blogpost then you are a part of that nearly 62 years of my being.  If I haven't told you lately, then consider yourself to be told this.  

Thank you for being my friend.  Where would I be without you?
In a world of hurt, that's where.
Take good care of yourselves, all of you.
I kind of like having you around!

I'm sure glad that I lived long enough to see my very first lighthouse!  I took out on my own back in 2012 to journey over 2,000 miles to the beautiful state of Maine.  It had been my lifelong dream to visit a place such as the one shown above, and I did it all by myself.

~they understand stuff~

The simple truth about kids is this.

They understand stuff.

I was reminded of it once again today.

     My 2nd graders never once met my sweet sister Sherry before she passed away this summer.  She knew that I would have them once school started in the fall, but didn't get the opportunity to meet the kids in person.  Her life ended in mid June and now what remains of her for the kids are the stories they hear me tell about Mrs. St. Clair and the items in "Sherry's Corner" in our classroom.    

    We've been using an idea that Sherry gave me last year to try out as I struggled to find the just right way to teach kids about the simple act of kindness.  She said that I should take her jar of marbles, about a gazillion of them in all, and tell the kids that every time they did something nice for one another that they could put a marble in an acts of kindness jar.  Once the jar was full, the class could receive a reward of some kind or another.  Later as time went on, the kids could recognize their acts of kindness without being the recipient of something special.  The whole idea was to get kids to fill the jar simply because it was the right thing to do.

     My second graders at Grandfield are already on their second go around with our acts of kindness jar.  They have learned to recognize the many different ways that kindness can be represented and it has been fun and heartwarming to hear them say~

"Mrs. Renfro, that was an act of kindness right?  Can I put another marble in the jar?"
And so it usually goes.

     We are doing something special during the month of October in our classroom.  We have the opportunity to write our own book and get it published at a student publishing site that is actually located back in Topeka, Kansas.  Each of the kids will do two pages of the story as well as provide their own illustrations to go along with them.  I've never had the chance to do a project like this and so when the advertisement for it came to my mailbox at school, I jumped at the opportunity.  It took only a moment or two of thinking before I knew what I wanted the kids to write about.

~our acts of kindness jar~

     We have begun the process, first by group brainstorming the general ideas we wanted to pursue, and then sketching out our first preliminary illustrations and rough drafts of what the pages should say.  Then I asked the kids to consider adding one special thing to each of the illustrations.  I determined that I wanted to add a touch of my sister to each page and so I asked the kids to do the following thing.

"Boys and girls, Mrs. St. Clair loved KU basketball.  Could you add the letters "KU" somewhere in your work?"
     
     I had forgotten about it until this morning when I saw the actual illustrations they were working on for their book.  I was at Kylie's desk, standing next to her picture when I saw that right smack dab in the middle of her sun were the two letters that I had requested.  They were my sister's letters and I found myself getting choked up about it all.  Somehow or another, I was able to swallow that huge lump that welled in my throat and say the following.

"Thank you for doing this for my sister.  She would have loved you kids all.  I think she is watching down on us and smiling."

     They didn't know it, but I could have bawled right then and there.  I grabbed a tissue and walked to the back of the room before anything could happen.  I stood back there in the corner a moment while they continued to work and I swear you could have heard a pin drop.  They knew how moved I was by their acts of kindness towards the memory of my sister and to me as well.

Kids understand stuff.
Really.  They do.

     I have to say that I have not cried at my sister's death.  I hope that does not make me a bad sister for I loved her so very much.  I cried for her while she was alive and struggling with every breath she took.  My tears were shed when she told me that she loved me even more than I loved her.  In Heaven, she is at peace and rest.  So in that I take much solace.  

     Some day soon our little book will be finished.  It will be dedicated to the memory of Sherry in remembrance of the many acts of kindness she performed each and every day.  There will be a little bit of her in each of the pages and you know what?

     I think she would have liked it that way.

We were just two Kansas farm kids, sisters who grew up to be the very best of friends.  I miss her and will love her always.

Wherever we went, if we were together we usually wore our KU t-shirts.  I keep up the tradition these days.  Why stop now?

~just a very small town girl~

There are 318 miles between Burkburnett, Texas and Haven, Kansas.  Today we are going to travel every one of them as we find ourselves going home for a visit to "the land of long ago, and far, far away".  This is the year of Mike's 40th class reunion and it's time to go back and see what happened to everyone in the 4 decades since they all were kids together in that little farming community located in the south central part of the state.

Haven, Kansas is my dear and sweet hometown.

Although my home is no longer in that town, my heart for sure is.  I lived there from 1964 until 1984 and you don't just exist somewhere for 20 years and then forget it.  You don't.  My old memory bank is full of the times, both good and bad, that were to be had there.  I smile and laugh at the thought of all the wonderful friends I made during my years as an elementary and high school student.  I still feel a sense of loss and sadness at the memory of November 4, 1969 when our dear friend Mabel Nicklaus stopped my little sister and I as we were walking home from school.  She had been sent by our folks to pick us up as well as sheltered from the news that our sister had just been killed in a car accident only one county away.

Cindy and I were right in front of the post office when she finally found us.

Haven was one of those places in small town America where every adult took care of every kid in town.  It was of no consequence that you weren't one of Mrs. Carmichael's kids (she didn't have any and yet she had us all), if you were dawdling as you made your way to school and she caught sight of you, her message off the front porch landing was the same for any kid.

"You kids get a move on.  You're going to be late for school!"
And you know what?
She was right.
And so we did.

 My folks ran the town's only restaurant/filling station combination.  Every customer who walked through the door had a vested interest in the Scott family and the 7 kids they called their own.  I met them all, beginning at the very tender age of 12 when I was barely able to see over the cash register as my father taught me how to ring up folks' tickets and give them back change.  Now that was a painful memory in math.  It took me a little while but my father and the customers seemed patient. They watched me go from a gawky kid to a young woman.  From a little girl, to a teenager, to a grown up young woman, they witnessed it all and were a huge part of the life that was shaped for me.  

To the people of Haven, both then and now, I will always be beholden.
See you all soon.

She was just a very small town girl who never dreamed of a life anywhere else than Haven, Kansas.  The future was ahead of her but she didn't know it and she is me.

Life in high school went way too fast!  This group of kids had many things in common, one of which was that we loved to sing.  This was a picture of some of us who took solos to contest that 1971-72 school year.  Crazy, I can still remember that the song I sang was in Italian, Caro Mio Ben.  Does anyone know where I put my cell phone last?

I enjoyed being in the service organization Kayettes for all my high school years.  This photo was the group of girls who were officers and board members.  If you are looking for me, just look for the shortest one wearing a black floral print short sleeved dress.  She is me.

The little guy on the left was born in Hutchinson, Kansas but traveled all over the world because his father was a Navy guy.  Mike went to school at Haven from 7th grade through his senior year in high school.  He has many experiences to remember and plenty of them didn't even happen in Kansas.

Mike and I both remember the old high school although I was the only one who attended it.  The class of 1970 was the last to graduate from the old school.  I began my sophomore year there but midyear we moved everything over to the new high school.  Tonight's reunion will find many good folks who once called Haven their home and probably still do.

~and this one is mine~

In a blog that sometimes finds itself full of photographs, it is hard to imagine choosing a favorite one.  If it is true that every picture has a story to tell, then the 500+ photos that are archived on my blogging site could surely speak one interesting tale.  

If not for the Bike Across Kansas of 2011, I would have never started writing at all.  In the beginning, my only thought was to write for a month to keep my friends and family posted along the way.  After it was over, I was ready to take this site down and go back to whatever it was that I was doing before it all started.  

1,220 stories and 6 1/2 years later, I still like to write.
Everyone's life has a story to tell.  This one is mine.
Have a great day everyone out there!

The route for the BAK of 2011.  I made it all the way to McPherson, Kansas until I had to drop out because of heat exhaustion.  It wasn't how I wanted it all to end but at least I got over halfway there.

I had a t-shirt for each of the days I was gone.  My sister-in-law Paula embroidered messages of encouragement for me on each one's sleeves.  This one is the shirt I had on the day I had to finally drop out.  Mike was my brother and he died 4 years prior to this of ALS.

I had a batch of stuff to take along with me and had to learn to pack lightly.  Even at that, this was too big of a load to carry along.  I learned that lesson the hard way.

The ride started at the Colorado-Kansas line just west of the city of Tribune, Kansas.  Little did I know that 2 years after this ride, I'd be moving to the mountains to begin a life there with Mike.  

Clint and Shelly Rodriguez were my riding partners that year.  All three of us were teachers for USD 308 in Hutchinson.  Shelly and I put many miles in together in the spring before we left. They were a blessing to me.

It was a strange little place to call my home for that week.  This tiny tent and I got along pretty well together.  The night before it all started, everyone met at the playground area of a local school where we set up our tents and unrolled our sleeping bags.  I remember that it was the year of the stickers!  It was advisable to watch where you stepped as well as where you lay down for the night.

Day 2-Scott City, Kansas
It was about 130 degrees in the shade that day but I was so happy!

~and life sure seems funny that way~

From our home along the Red River in Burkburnett, Texas~

The day has come to an end here in this north Texas town.  It started in the early morning hours of 4:00 a.m. and made its way through a day at school with 10 of the dearest children I have ever known.  We worked hard.  We played hard.  At the appointed time, we said our good-byes to one another and promised to see each other in the morrow for yet another day of school.  It was quiet before they came and even quieter after they left.  Although I love a bit of peace and tranquility like the next guy, I would take their 7 hours of laughter and talking over solitude any day of the week.

I'm funny that way.

Now it is the nighttime and the sun has long disappeared from the sky above us.  One last load of clothes is washing in the laundry room in preparation for our journey home to Kansas later on this week.  Sally the Dog has already figured out that something is up.  Once Mike pulled down the suitcases and we started to pack things inside of them, she disappeared into the living room to pout in the corner.  It's impossible to take Sally along this time and she will be missing us I am sure.  

Sally's funny that way.

This morning I had an unusual question from one of the kids at school who asked me about this blog and why I wrote it.  She wanted to know how I got an idea of what to write.  I told her that the blog's stories are nothing special and that they tell only of my life here on the prairies of this area they call Texoma.  I told her that sometimes I just sit down and write, not really having any notion of what to say, only that I feel the need to say something.

To say anything.
And that's kind of like tonight.
Tonight I am thinking, perhaps too much.

As the years have gone by, I've found myself holding on to many memories of people and places that I've known in my now nearly 62 years of life.  Everywhere I have went, a piece of my heart was left with the people I knew there.  It was heartbreaking to leave different places and folks behind.  I'm remembering so many of those dear ones tonight.  Things I have long forgotten sometimes come to my thoughts and in my heart I find myself saying,

"Hey.  I remember when that happened."

Tonight I am feeling nostalgic and sentimental.  Perhaps it because we are heading home to the "land of long ago and far, far away".  Maybe it's because of renewed friendships with people that I long ago last saw.  Whatever it is, whatever is giving me the feeling of needing to talk about it with you within the words of this blogpost, well sometimes we just don't understand.  It really doesn't count for all that much in the end I suppose.  All that matters is that it happened and all those people and places really meant something to me and to my heart.  One thing is for certain.

Life sure seems funny that way.

For as much as I was homesick for Kansas while I lived in Colorado for two years, I do indeed miss the mountains.

Mike told me before I came the first time that the view out the kitchen window of his house was worth $1,000,000.  

We made the journey back in 2013 for my class reunion at Haven.  These kids from the land of long ago, and far, far away were the friends of my youth.  

~and I am so glad that I didn't stay that way~

8 years ago I retired from teaching.  It was on this very date back in 2009 that I wrote a short and simple letter that would announce my intentions at the end of the 2009-10 school year.  I was at a good place in time and found myself at the top of my game.  32 years of education in the state of Kansas seemed to be enough and at age 54, I was imagining what else life might have in store for me.

So in the very early morning hours of dark thirty on my 54th birthday that year, I stopped at the local Dillons back home in Hutchinson and picked up 3 dozen donuts.  I left them at my school with a note to my friends there that I was taking the day off to celebrate officially retiring.  Soon thereafter, I took my paperwork to the district office and spent the rest of the day celebrating life.

And then I wondered.

When school let out in May the following spring, I walked out the door.  My sons picked me up at school to help me carry out what few things were left for me to take.  I never made it past a couple of yards from the front door before I burst out in tears.  I'll never forget that feeling, a combination of "I made it!" and "What in the world did I just do?"

The long story short of it all ended up being this.  I only stayed "retired" for 5 months.  In very early October I received a call from the principal at one of the schools in Hutchinson, one that I had taught at for a couple of years in the late 1990's.  She had a simple question for me and it was one that took all of about 10 seconds to answer.

"I know you are retired and all, but I need a teacher right away.  Would you consider coming back to help us?"

I said the only thing that a sane, retired too early teacher would say.

"Yes.  When can I start?"

My 5 months of retirement in 2010 were ones that showed me just how much teacher was still left in me.  I had actually applied to go to nursing school and make a late in life career shift.  So after years of taking the prerequisites for admission, I was almost there.  But right before I did the final paperwork, I realized something.  I didn't really want to be a nurse and even though those in the nursing profession are at the top in my books, I wanted something more for me.

I wanted to be a teacher again.
And so that's what I did.

Fast forward to October 9, 2017.  My life has changed tremendously since that infamous day of retirement.  I ended up teaching in Hutchinson for an additional 3 years before getting married in May of 2013.  From there I went on to Colorado where I taught for 2 more years in the mountain community of Olathe.  In 2015, Mike and I moved to north Texas where I was able to spend a year teaching down the road a ways at Petrolia Elementary.  Recently I received my Oklahoma teaching license and taught a year at Randlett and now am in my first year at the elementary school in Grandfield, Oklahoma.  

One of the very important lessons that I have learned in all of this is that finally, I have become the teacher that I was meant to be all along.  It's not that I didn't consider myself to be a good teacher for the many years that I taught before 2009.  Had I considered myself any less than that, I would have never stayed to begin with.  It's a difficult feeling to explain to people, truly it is.  But these days I teach every lesson each day with the feeling that it could well be the last time I get to teach it.  When you are a 62-year old teacher, there really is no guarantee that your job will be there in the years ahead.  I feel great health wise with a heart and spirit that still loves so much what I am doing in the classroom each day.  But yet I carry with me the realization that I'm only one serious health issue away from having to retire for good this time.

I'm not ready for that.
And so I stay healthy as I can and pray for one more time to do this.

It's the early morning hours here.  The clock on the wall says 4:05 in the a.m.  Save for the sometimes rustling about from Sally the Dog, I'm the only one awake.  Across the Red River into the state of Oklahoma there are 10 children sound asleep in their beds.  In a few hours more they too shall awaken and join me for another day at school in the second grade.  I know we will have a good day.

Yes I would admit there are some rare occasions when I sit back and think about what really retired will look like.  I guess I wouldn't mind taking a nap right after lunch or wandering about the house in my pjs until mid morning.  But for now, I am doing what I was destined to do from the start and you know what?

I'm happy.

                          They were to be the last ones but I am sure glad they weren't.  

I would have never had the chance to meet these guys if I had stayed retired.

Or these sweet kids either!

Can't forget about this group of young ladies!

                                  These dear 3rd graders were a part of the plan as well.

In just a few hours more, I will get to see their smiling faces.  I believe you could say I've been very blessed.

~and I believe I still have one~

3 packages of tulip and jonquil bulbs have been taking up space on the dining room table for nearly two weeks now.  We picked them up on a recent shopping trip and thought they would look good when they came up in the spring.  The blue planter seemed to be the best container for them and so this morning I made the decision to finally take care of them.

You know I kind of like referring to it as being "optimistic".  

There are about 5 different squirrels that frequent our backyard on the outskirts of town here.  They are critters known far and wide to have a voracious appetite for bulbs of any kind.  As I nestled them into the soil and carefully covered them over with more rich earth, I imagined in my mind that somewhere out there, a squirrel was watching me.  When I least would figure it to happen, he would bring back a friend or two for a late afternoon raiding party on the morning's work.  

Yep.  I would say you need to be optimistic to plant bulbs of any kind in this part of the world.

We are settling into the season of autumn here and all around us things are changing.  The grass needs mown less and less, the hardware store has a full array of colorful mums displayed in front of it, and each morning as I ready myself for school I check to see if I will need a jacket for any given part of the day.  The hot days of our Texas summer are pretty much behind us and before we know it the calendar will be flipped towards December where the premiere of winter awaits us.  Sometime in mid-March if the good Lord is willing and I'm still around here to see it, the springtime flowers that I set to grow this morning will be popping up for all to view.  

A good friend of mine told me that it's wise plant for the future and the great thing is this.
I believe I still have one.
And so should you.

She didn't know how it would go but her future was waiting ahead for her.  45 years later, she is me.