KidsOutAndAbout.com newsletter

Sent August 14, 2008

Dear KOA readers:

Have you ever noticed that sometimes, it's all in how you tell the story, both to your kids and to yourself?

Approaching a stream of bad luck as an adventure, a challenge that you can cheerfully work through together and talk about later really beats letting your kids see you frustrated or dejected. Like, yesterday. After a couple of days of wet and cold camping in the Adirondack Mountains (an "adventure" in and of itself...it's the law in New York State, right, that you have to try tent camping with your kids at least once, preferably in the rain), the girls and I were driving downstate on the Thruway and the 2000 Subaru I love so dearly gave up the ghost. The engine just self-destructed while I was going 65 miles per hour. No danger, though, I was able to pull over without incident. And it's now dead as a doornail in Kingston while I'm driving a rented car, taking temporary sanctuary at a friend's house in New Rochelle. You can see the backside of my poor car in the photo above.

I realized what a difference it makes to a situation to focus on the positive, especially while we were waiting on the side of the Thruway (BEHIND the car on the other side of the guard rail, not in front of it...really important tip, in case someone hits you). We were LUCKY, I told the girls. It was a beautiful sunny day in August rather than a snowy midnight in February, we had just come back into cell phone range, and the Thruway Authority came within half an hour. We read Calvin & Hobbes on the side of the road. We talked about how much fun we'd had canoeing the day before (see my photo, taken with a camera that had just dipped for a millisecond into Eigth Lake). I was able to rent a Kia nearby and load in our camping stuff. An adventure, truly. If I can find a replacement motor, so they say, they can fix it...next Wednesday. We shall see. In the meantime, we are getting by on sheer cheerfulness fumes, and the generous hospitality of an old friend--seven hours away from Rochester--and the fact that no one is sick or hurt, so nothing can be that bad.

This, though, brings me to the fact that I haven't been able to compose a newsletter for this week, or update the web site with any new giveaways or articles, or actually send out any email--although I can get some occasionally, it seems I can't send any for some reason...I won't be able to do this until I get home, whenever that is. So, I apologize for not being able to bring you a lovely summary of the weekend's activities, or any actual pithy commentary; I'm just lucky to grab a computer for a few minutes. I leave you instead with these links so you can check everything out yourself:

This weekend and next week's upcoming activities:
http://rochester.kidsoutandabout.com/calendar-search-display.php?dr=tw&EventCity=1

Live giveaways (and there are a couple of cool ones that expire tomorrow, even though I won't actually be able to remove them until I get home):
http://rochester.kidsoutandabout.com/city-articles/giveaways.html

It's time to plan for this fall's upcoming classes. Did you know that we have a whole list of extracurricular classes held around the area? That's at:
http://rochester.kidsoutandabout.com/classesandcamps/classes/index.html

If your organization offers classes that you would like listed, we can offer generic (not date-specific) descriptions in that section. Just check out the list, and then email me your description in the same style. (Although I won't be able to post it until I get back.)

Okay, gotta run...please enjoy this weekend up there in beautiful Rochester.

Debra Ross
Publisher, KidsOutAndAbout.com

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