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I’ve been sharing my Minnesota Brass adventure with you, and here’s a quick update. Last Wednesday night, I went to rehearsal and practiced for 2–1/2 hours. Then I got up at 2:30 a.m. Thursday to head to New York City for a week with my husband. For the past week, I have ridden subways and eaten

I already knew that perfectionism had no place in my Minnesota Brass adventure. As a first-time spinner, I have no hope nor expection of perfection, and I’m not a perfectionist, anyway, in any areas of my life. I’m a pretty-darn-goodist at best.  But, when I know I need to improve in something,

As the next step in sharing my Minnesota Brass adventure, I promised to get a bit of video so that you can see what I’m working on if you’ve never seen a color guard before. Also, I’m tired of text, text, text. So one day as the temp hovered around 6 degrees, I

News flash: Making your body do stuff it’s not used to causes soreness. OK, I know that’s no surprise, but I’m being reminded of it now. It’s been 7 or 8 weeks of learning across-the-floors and flag spins and tosses for my Minnesota Brass adventure, and my body is feeling it. I’ve been black

Whenever I want to learn how to do something, I get a book. Replace the kitchen faucet? Get a book. Make a latch-hook rug? Get a book. Write a book? Get a book. But sadly, there’s no book of instructions for the dance and spinning routines I need to learn

Time for another Minnesota Brass update. Ever since I started this adventure about six weeks ago, I’ve felt out of place. I still do. And that’s one of the reasons I think I have to keep doing it. Last week the entire color guard was supposed to come. The veterans

Several weeks into my adventures with Minnesota Brass, I’ve realized that where I stand during practice really matters. When we do across-the-floors, my first instinct was to get at the end of the line. Then I realized that when my turn came, I was passe-ing and chasse-ing and jazz-running across the floor

That’s the question you always have to ask yourself when you say you want to do something–whether that something is writing a book or joining a color guard. Older Daughter bailed on practice this past week at the last minute. Why? Because she was going out to dinner with a

Maybe you saw my post last week on joining the color guard of an all-ages drum corps. I’m going to post each week, I think, on my (possibly brief) adventure there. I need a name for this series of posts–something to make them sound funnier and more relevant than they

One of the things I really want to do in my writing is take risks. I want to be knowledgeable about the marketplace and the “accepted” topics and approaches in kids’ writing, and I want to have a career as a children’s writer, but I also want to risk foolishness