Jen Merrill's Blog, page 23
November 4, 2014
Breaking News: Election Day and I’m sick of all of it
Yes, I voted today. I think I’ve missed maybe only one primary election since I turned 18, something like that. I take my civic responsibility seriously, even if I’m sick to death of all of it. I was more interested in politics and the races a few years ago, but the money wasted spent on …
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November 3, 2014
Music that classical stations should never play before 10 am or a pot of coffee
Every morning I haul my poor tired butt out of bed, haul other poor tired little butts out of bed, and curse the morning start the day. Because I have music playing nearly 24/7 here, I usually click on over to WFMT, Chicago’s classical music station, to start the day off right. The station has …
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November 2, 2014
Permission to hack
A few months ago we rearrangeda storage closet downstairs, packed up what was stashed there, and created a Maker Space for Andy. A place where he can keep computers and monitors and arduinos and breadboards and wires and switches and toggles and god only knows what else. It mostly stays down there and what migrates …
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November 1, 2014
…and then life happened
A whole lot of life, actually, and while none of it was terrible, my utter inability to manage it in a healthy way certainly didn’t make it any better. It’s felt as though every aspect of life lately has been under attack. Career, finances, mental health, physical health, you get the idea. A lot has …
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October 13, 2014
This is a test of the Mercury Retrograde system. This is only a test.
There was a time, not that long ago, when I’d have to keep on eye on the phases of the moon. Life here in the House of Chaos would go off the rails during a full moon, and I liked to stay on top of things. Of course, it wouldn’t beevery full moon, because that …
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September 15, 2014
Let me tell you about…why gifted identification matters
When a good(ish) idea hits you, run with it. It might be a slow jog, even a rambling shuffle, but run with it. So today I’m starting a “whenever I feel like it…or remember” blog series I’m callingLet Me Tell You About… I figure that’ll let me rant about damned near anything, from giftedness to …
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September 13, 2014
BLOCK THE POWER!
Two years ago I wrote very forcefully why I was not going to allow Minecraft in my home. One year ago I caved. Shut up. There were reasons. YesterdayAndy learned, while at our homeschool co-op with his geek friends, natch, thatMicrosoft was in negotiations to purchase Mojang (the company behind Minecraft) for roughly two billion …
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September 12, 2014
Change of seasons came early this year
Fall has fallen hard here in Chicago. No, that’s not quite accurate. Chicagohas run, laugh-crying and tripping over itself with arms wide open whilejostling others out of the way, into the cold and spindlyarms of Autumn. Chicago will regret this; Autumn is a ficklelover, all color and crisp air and bright sun at first, but …
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September 11, 2014
If you didn’t live it, it’s just history to you
Thirteen years. A blink of an eye and yet a million years ago. Andy was a newborn who scoffed at sleep, I was a new mom who wanted to set fire to the phrase, “sleep like a baby,” because mybaby didn’t sleep. And one beautiful September morning, after yet another night of it’s-kinda-sleep, after being …
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August 26, 2014
There’s a hole in my (ice) bucket
Sir Patrick did it best: I was really hoping to fly under the radar with this über-viral Ice Bucket Challenge. But alas, I was nominated twice this weekend. Such is social media. I’m not going to do it. But Jen! It’s such a worthy cause! Yup. I agree. ALS is a horrible …
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