She moved from Minnesota to be closer to her daughters. She moved to Ballard from Friday Harbor when her job no longer allowed her to telecommute. Now, Simone Vilandre is one of yet another breed of new Ballardites: a woman over 60 who is reinventing herself.

Simone’s request for magazines in Sustainable Ballard’s monthly update caught my attention.

I am becoming a vicarious collector – drawn to people collecting wood corks, pennies and now magazines.

Simone’s request was for used magazines to use in English as a Second Language classes (ESL).

For teaching purposes, she hoped for magazines with pictures of cars and household goods. But her notice in Sustainable Ballard gleaned mostly offers for National Geographic, Smithsonian and Atlantic Monthly.

She’s still hoping to crack the mother lode of other popular magazines that stores often return to the publishers.

The magazine hunt is just one part of Simone’s new life because she has not only changed her physical geography but her personal geography as well.

An opportunity to teach in China made her realize that she loves teaching adults.

Back in Seattle, she enrolled in Seattle University’s intensive Teaching English as a Second Language program.

Most of her fellow students were planning to use the certification to find jobs all across the globe. Simone chose a more constricted path; she looked for work locally.

She doesn’t have one full-time job teaching ESL, but she teaches at Renton Technical College and through the King County Library system. She also tutors at Seattle Pacific University.

In addition, she makes and sells purses and has collected rocks that she wants to polish and transform into jewelry.

Simone creates her own curriculum for each of her adult classes and has found what works best is pictures. Students use the pictures to create collages that they use to explain and craft stories.

She could also use props like old telephones and art supplies.

The migration to Seattle began with her daughters. One daughter moved here to study at Bastyr, then the second came out because of her sister.

“The three of us always seem to be together," Simone said.

Simone has lived near Ballard Locks for five years. Unfortunately, the house she rents has been sold to a developer.

A few years ago, she wrote a letter to "The Oprah Winfrey Show" asking her to do a show on women over 60 starting over without a pension or retirement.

She didn’t hear back. Perhaps she will when Oprah is over 60.

In the meantime, she’s creative, piecing together part-time jobs and interests the same way that her student piece together pictures to create a story.

Simone follows in the long tradition of hard-working, enterprising Ballard immigrants, who fished and worked the saw mills, started grocery stores and took in laundry, knocked on doors until they had enough money to build a community hospital.

Last week, The New York Times took notice of Ballard’s creative initiative with an article that featured John Morefield, the architect who began offering advice for five cents a pop at the Ballard Farmers Market last spring.

People are learning all over again that they cannot wait for opportunity to knock. They must go knocking.

In the scheme of things, a request for magazines is a very small thing to ask. But, it could lead to big things as Simone charts a new course in life after 60, teaching other adults how to navigate in this corner of the world.

If you have magazines or props of everyday life for Simone, call her at 206.915.7248.