How this Blog came to be called "The 'Amstr Wheel"

The title combines to quirky bits. First, at one time my email name was "amstr@ . . ." and a good friend still calls me by that particular email name. Second, I heard a quiz question on "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" about a hamster outrunning traffic in his little hamster ball somewhere in the UK (see story here: "Speeding Hamster Overtakes Rush-Hour Traffic"). In trying to come up with a blog name, the two seemed to collide.

Many things in my life right now seem kind of hamster-wheely. I'm a stay-at-home mom by day and a grad student in Renaissance Literature by night. Both things require lots of routine, and I don't feel like I'm making much progress when I take account at the end of each day. I'm learning to trust, though, that the lesson of the tortise and the hare is true. I'm deciding that 15 minutes of writing is better than none, and that spending time with my kids now playing hide-and-seek under clean sheets will pay off later. I'm certainly having to be slow and steady and to trust my own pace. With enough time, maybe I'll win the race, or at least pass by all those crazy commuters stuck on the freeway and going nowhere.