Moving On

 Time, the way it changes things and the way the important things remain unchanging in the face of the passage of time, is the underlying theme in the book, Double Time On The Oregon Trail, and in my life.  Lately we have been very focused on waiting for a date we both anticipated and dreaded.  Our son, and the daughter of our heart, were moving away to start their first year of college.  The time seemed to both drag slowly and fly by as other people their age started at schools on the semester system and they waited for a class that didn't begin until Sept. 27.

 Then they were hired to work at the dining hall and their arrival time moved up to September 18, but we still had lots of wonderful days to watch movies and eat big meals and play at the river. And then there was no more time. We were loading the van and driving and driving and driving and realizing that it is a long, long way to anywhere from Del Norte County California.

There were hugs and tears and a last day exploring around the San Francisco, Tiburon, Great Highway area and then more hugs and tears and SMILES.  There is so much joy in seeing babies turn into wonderful people, and seeing impossible dreams become reality.

 I have not written much in the last month, but now there will be time, and I have been lucky enough that some people are starting to discover my books.  I had a teacher of a 5th grade class order a class set of the Oregon Trail book.  I was thrilled by that of course, then I came home to find that "Lisa Day on the Web" had posted an excellent review of the book too.

http://lisaday.weebly.com/4/post/2012/09/double-time-on-the-oregon-trail.html

 It is funny, sending your kids to college, and publishing your book are two things with a lot in common.  You put so much time and love and effort into both writing a book and raising a baby, and then you offer it up to the world and open your hands and wait to see what happens. You hope that you have built it a strong enough bridge that it can move on into the rest of the world and find welcome and love and success.