Eliana Osborn

My Life on the Road (or MLR) is not what I expected...the idea of not waiting for experience to come to you permeates the book.

For you, dear readers, who are thrilled with the teacher in your life — be it your own teacher, the instructor of your child, or even the person who does piano or karate — this list is for you.

A new, exciting trend is to have food pantries for college students. I talked to an AmeriCorps volunteer running one of these centers and she was matter-of-fact about the need — and how little is being done. Today’s college students may be young and single, living la vida loca. But more and more are what we call ‘nontraditional’: slightly older, employed full-time (or close to it), supporting a family, a veteran, etc.

Hunger for nontraditional students doesn’t mean surviving on ramen: It means they are not the only person in the household who's in need.

After years in apartments that should have been condemned, even these sad restroom facilities were vast improvements. And so we stayed, the husband and I, vaguely embarrassed when guests stayed over and commented on the bordello vibe of the bathroom.

Then we had a kid. No working bathtub suddenly seemed like a big deal. And the functional bathroom spaces weren’t places you’d want to hang out. There’s a lot of bathroom time once you’ve got tiny humans. (You’ve been warned.)

Sometimes the nicest kids turn into whole new people when they come over to your house.

Now that I’m a mother, I’m much more sympathetic to a woman who just couldn’t take it anymore. Not saying I’d leave my kids in a parking lot and hope for the best . . . just saying that I can understand the impulse.

Baranta is a new martial art focusing on traditional folk dancing and activities.

I’m a sucker for an interesting woman, so Notorious RBG is obviously my sort of book.

My main reason for doing reading testing, enduring a bus ride to a field trip about weapons engineering, and other thrills? Stalking.

I wanted to write a book last summer. Then I realized what a terrible goal that was and modified accordingly.