Not All Who Wander Are Lost

I feel like I'm running on fumes this week. My students graduate tonight and I have a classroom to pack up tomorrow. It will be the usual magic trick. All that stuff originally came out of my closet, therefore it should all fit back into the closet. Right? I need a bag of holding. And a few extra hours in the day. Hmmm . . . that makes me think. Think about all those science fiction and fantasy books you've read. All of them have some really neat toys, don't they? I mean, who wouldn't rather be beamed somewhere instead of dealing with the hassles in the airport? I'm just happy they're not making everyone take their shoes off anymore. That's always been fun. And disgusting. When I travel I travel during the summer (the whole teaching gig is not conducive to travel in the off-season) so I'm always in sandals. Never think of that when I'm pulling myself together at four am, but when I'm in that line and I have to stand barefoot on that floor . . .

I was watching my four year old daughter the other day. Some of her friends were coming over to play with her and she was bent over the coffee table frantically scribbling away on a pad of paper with a pen. She told me she was making a list of everything they were going to play. When I looked over her shoulder I saw random letters and lines. She so badly wants to be able to write and read. Do you remember that time? I don't. I really don't ever remember no knowing how to read, how to write. It's amazing watching her discover letters and sounds and start to put them together. I recently got her a little series of books with sight words and she loves to read to me. I've been reading this book this week--it's called DARKNESS FALLS by Jessica Sorensen. I picked it up for my Kindle for $1.99 because I'm a sucker for vampire books and post-apocalyptic fiction and this one has both combined. In it, is a world controlled by the Highers, a "perfect" race th