Life Is a Journey...And Sometimes a Long, Windy Road

Well, I learned long ago that Life Is a Journey, not a destination. And for me, it is also A Long, Windy Road. (Yes, you could read that both ways: windy, as in curvy, or windy, as in blowing me to heck! Both are true!). And I type Life Is a Journey as if it is a book, because it is a story...my story...and one that seems to have a lot of moves involved!

For anyone who knows me, moving is, well, normal for us. This will be the 13th move in 13 years. If you are interested in numbers, as I am, that makes 7 moves for the 5-year old child, 9 moves for the 9.5-year old dog, and 2 moves for the kitten that turns 1 in a few weeks. No, we are not a military family, but I would bet that our moving statistics would rival most of them! And for those of you who know us really well, just roll your eyes again and say "whatever...there go the Dodges again." For my newest friends and colleagues...don't ask...the moving story is LONG and each move scenario has a novel attached to it. Really.

Anyhow, new adventures always await us when we stay open-minded to the universe, as a dear friend tells me. And a new adventure has revealed itself to my family in the last month....a move westward! That means, of course, that the The Well-Rounded Child is moving, too.

The winds (or windy, curvy roads) are blowing us westward to the East Bay. Not too far from our current perch, but far enough that many things are going to change in our world. And the biggest question is what to do about the playroom? My strong supporters have encouraged me to open up a playroom in our new town. And certainly, the new town would be a great place to have an educational playroom...there are lots of aware and hip families in our new town who greatly value learning, and are forward-thinking, out-of-the-box folks who I'm sure would support the alternative approach that WRC offers.

But....truth be told, starting up a new network of colleagues & families, and finding a new location is well, daunting. And very expensive. (Small businesses are small for a reason...the fees associated with running it are astronomical! Payroll taxes, sales taxes, estimated yearly taxes, quarterly taxes and then there is the cost of products [for retail], merchant service fees, bookkeeping fees, gateway fees for online boutiques like mine, marketing & advertising....the list goes on and on and on.) In this economy, I am weighing the pros and cons of staring up a new playroom and keeping the boutique around, given the expense. Sigh.....

Also, three little letters keep crossing my mind...p....h...d. I'm certainly not getting any younger, and completing a doctoral program will most definitely put me about half-way into the next decade, which is reason enough to just get going on it! My course of study would be education of course, but the focus? Well, I've been contemplating that for about 5 years now and am edging closer to these ideas:

• Learning Sciences & Technology Design


• Cognition and Development

Now, the out-of-the box thinker in me wonders if perhaps I could craft my OWN PhD program at a university...like a "green" education PhD. Hmmm...still pondering what that would look like. Ultimately, it will be something that allows me to conduct research in how children learn, and also to teach at the university level. Perhaps at my old alma matter, St. Mary's College?

So, WRC will probably go on sabbatical for at least the summer until I thoroughly explore the windy (blowing me to bits), windy (making me dizzy as I go) path before me.