A Running Collection

  We didn't know who we were, we didn't know what we did We were just on the road  - On The Road-John Denver. We are ramblers. We even kept a Vanagon way too long so that Amelia and George Wilder could pretend travel . It didn’t even run well enough to make a trip across town, so eventually we towed it to a garage where it waited more years. We thought we would put the work into it to put her back on the road, and ride her back west like we had done — over and over.  When we let go of the van, it felt a little bit like letting go of the traveling dream. We still traveled all the time, but it was always a familiar north and south route and to family and in the Subaru. The Subaru was our constant companion and friend. Cars, in our family, are family.  But then we didn’t fit. It was cramped driving across town, and travel was straight up uncomfortable with three kiddos sardined into the back seat and a dog and luggage stacked in the back. Final...

Picture this. Because I don’t have one, because it was too awesome to stop for one.  I teach a writing workshop to a group of kids between the ages of 7 and 12. We meet once every two weeks and embark on different writing adventures. We’ve created poems. They wrote stories with animals for characters. We’ve explored the personal narrative and we’ve written object essays.  I decided to introduce our workshop to writing news stories. Look at your newspaper. Look at your news screen. There are not very many stories that are respectable or decent enough to share with children. It is really almost impossible. There is death, destruction, and more death. And if it isn’t death it is a scandal or political. But, this week, SpaceX was the news as they prepared for today’s rocket launch. I would like to personally thank Elon Musk for being wealthy enough and brave enough and smart enough to send a gigantic rocket into space today.  I found some interesting news stori...

There are no words to explain. I'll just let the outfits do the talking. Every day is different and her own creation. She has a system for her combinations and dresses herself so there doesn't seem to be much of a reason to dissuade her. She keeps us on our toes.