Along the Road to Home

After breaking my back in the autumn of 2023, I came to realize one thing immediately.   I don't bounce back like I used to. When I was young and growing up on the farm back home in Kansas, we lived in an old two-story farmhouse where all the kids' bedrooms were upstairs.  I can recall bounding up and down those steps, day in and day out, without even breaking a sweat.  Just for fun sometimes, I'd come down the steps every other one.  These days, I steady myself with my cane as I gingerly step-down taking care not to fall.  As a young mother with three children in tow, I used to delight in hauling baskets full of wet laundry to the clothesline each Saturday.  It was a task that I really enjoyed knowing full well that the clean clothes would smell like sunshine and the great outdoors!  Now it is a huge chore to carry much more than a couple of pounds because of the strain it puts upon my sorely aching back.   There was a time that I rode ...

It's been a long, long time since my first day as a teacher in August of 1979.  Over the passage of the last 45 years now things, as you can only imagine, have changed exponentially.  Change snuck in each year as new and more efficient/effective ways of doing things were found.  Looking back, I know that some of it I embraced with open arms while other things found me dragging my feet all the way to the door of acceptance. Change is inevitable. As I began to set up my new first grade classroom this week here in the northern part of the state of Oklahoma, I was reminded of how different it is today in the year 2024.  I needed a new pencil sharpener to take care of the gazillions of pencils we will go through this year in the first grade. Going online, I found at least a dozen different kinds, all electrical of course with special features that set them apart from the rest of the pencil sharpener crowd.  Back in 1979 our manual pencil sharpeners were mounted on th...

Yesterday was officially 9 months out since my accident on October 14, 2023.  It seems as if the days flew by like an eagle and moved at a snail's pace all at the same time.  Perhaps you have had a similar experience in life.   I only recall bits and pieces of the initial few days after getting hurt, things like nothing tasting good and consequently not eating hardly anything.  There was a flurry of people going in and out of my hospital room all day long, most of which I had no idea of why they were there.  The first few days at rehab were just a blur of those same people in and out of my room and excruciating  pain that knew no end.  At times, I believed it would be more than I could bear.  One thing I do recall was when the head physical therapist at Ascension Villa Christi took a look at my records from Wesley Medical Center as she listened to me tearfully ask her how long it would take to get better again.  Her answer was pretty pla...

  Newkirk has a wonderful little shop on Main Street that serves the most delicious cold/hot drinks around.  I have always enjoyed a particular beverage and made it a habit to get one as often as I could.  Going to the Mercantile became a "Saturday morning" thing for both Mike and I to do.  We looked forward to it each weekend with Mike getting his specialty coffee and a bagel while I stayed true to my own choice as pictured above. That all changed after I got hurt in October. After being released from rehab in early November, I made my way back home to Kay County.  I vowed that I had no intention of leaving this house until the springtime flowers made their appearance in mid-March.  There was no way I was going to risk getting hurt again and I meant it.  That steadfast vow lasted all of about a month when I realized that staying in the house like a hermit was not going to make me get better any quicker.  Getting out and about was the thing that I...

I have had plenty of life changing experiences in my almost 7 decades of life and breaking my back last fall was certainly one of them.  Oh, how I wish it would have never happened as I daily am reminded through the pain I now experience from it all.  Yet happen it did and for the past 9 months I've been working my way back to what used to be called "my normal". For the record, I haven't quite made it there just yet. Most of that fateful day is just a blur and I only remember a few of the things that happened right before the accident as well as the time right after it.  I won't forget the sound of the ladder collapsing upon the roof and then raining down on me.  As well, I am pretty sure I will always recall the feeling of the top part of the ladder swinging and smacking me right in the lower middle part of my back.  If you have ever broken a bone, you know the feeling of a once strong bone cracking into many pieces.  I felt that immediately.  In my m...

It's early, in fact it's 4:30 a.m. in the morning early, here along the plains of Oklahoma.  The house is remarkably quiet save for the once in a while snoring sound of Gus, our 7-year-old miniature Aussie dog.  I love the quiet and every chance I can, I sit in it and relish the gift of peace that it offers to me.  Soon enough the sun will arise, cars will wake up on the streets of our town, and children will venture up and down Magnolia Avenue on their bicycles as they yell back and forth to one another. The gift only lasts so long so I enjoy it when and while I can. Many years ago, I began blogging right before I left for the Bike Across Kansas in the summer of 2011.  Writing turned out to be something I really loved to do and so I continued during the summer.  In August of 2011, a really poor decision made while I was riding a bike ended up sending me to the hospital with a badly broken left arm and wrist.  The recovery was a long one, punctuated by nume...