Jen Merrill's Blog, page 30

Nine things I love about homeschooling my 2e son…and four things I despise

I’ve had a love-hate relationship with homeschooling since the moment we pulled A from school. Hell, evenbefore we pulled him. It’s a mental tug-o-war, a high-speed cha-cha, played out daily in my head. I love you I hate you get out never leave. At least the I love you never leave list seems to be winning.

No more homework battles. This alone makes homeschooling worthwhile for our twice-exceptional son. After a full day holding his shit together in the classroom he just didn’t have anything le...

940 Saturdays

This morning, after last night making known to the male residents of the home AND the dog that I would like to sleep in for the first time in awhile, I was up at 7:15 to let the dog out. As grumpy as this made me, at least I got the first hot coffee and some quiet time to myself. Time I spent playing Words with Friends (never everleave a triple word score block open, I will throw letters at that until IFIND a word), clearing out emails, ignoring today’s to-do list, and scrolling idly through...

Keeping those stereotypes alive

As a general rule, I’m not a girly-girl. I like short hair over long, I keep my nails super short (because typing and fluting with long nails is an exercise in crazy-making; I almost chewed off a few nails the other night in rehearsal), and I prefer jeans over skirts…though that may be more due to preventing thigh chafage than personal style. I wish I had power tools and the time to play with them, I can carry heavy things with a smile (no, that’s not a grimace!), and if I knew how to fix my...

{GHF Blog Hop} Self-care while homeschooling

The irony is not lost on me, that I am breaking my self-imposed self-care hiatus from my blog to write about self-care. (That is irony, Alanis!)(And if it’s not irony, hush, I’m tired.)

Fall has fallen with a resoundingthud here in Chicago, and with it comes Operation I Will Not Be As Unreasonably Cold As I Was Last Winter Because Dear God My Teeth Chattered All The Time And My TMJ-Riddled Jaw Went Into Spasm And I Cracked Two Teeth Clenching At Night And I’m Worth More Than That. I am notorio...

Rubber balls and glass balls

Raise your hand if you’re overwhelmed. Raise your hand if you think you might finally get down to just whelmed sometime after thesecond zombie apocalypse. Raise your hand if you’d like a break. Raise your hand if you think that break is just never going to come. Now raise your hand if all the chainsaws you were juggling just took turns slicing off your earlobes because you had your hands in the air waving at me.

I can relate.

Several weeks ago something came through my Facebook feed and of cour...

Angels, ninjas, to-do lists, and me

I have a love-hate relationship with super-productive days like today. Love because, well duh, task ninja all day long. Hate because I just know a metric crapton of THIS MUST BE DONE NOW OR ANGELS NOT ONLY DON’T GET THEIR WINGS BUT WILL GET EATEN BY ZOMBIES will descend upon my head tomorrow. And we just can’t have that now, can we?

My to-do list and I go way, way back. Middle school. In fact, we started dating in 7th grade, the very age my dear twice-exceptional, executive function-challenged...

There’s a hole in my bucket list

Earlier this week a columnist for the Huffington Post wrote about her anti-bucket list, things she absolutely will never do. While I have written various Wanna Do lists over the years (build a house -check, have kids -check), I’ve never been terribly serious about what’s on them. I’m in too deep with the day to day lists right now to try to imagine the Gotta Do items that live on a bucket list. But anI am never, ever going to do this, ever list? Ohh, I got this.

I am never going to jump out of...

Back to school, back to learning?

This was the first year in all the years I’ve thrown children into the education system that I wasn’t dying to drop kick them out the door to school. Summer ended far too quickly this year, and I didn’t want to send J to 4th grade today. I wasn’t ready. I’ve always been ready, some years I was ready ten minutes after the final bell in June. Not this year.I think I may be mellowing in my old age.

Or I just don’t want to return to crazy schedules. I’ve had my fill of crazy and would love to shar...

How to homeschool JUST LIKE ME

Forty-eight hours from now our schooling year begins. I will have one young son hopping on the big yellow cracker box, headed to a year of fourth grade, and another that will need to be dynamited out of bed to begin grade seven-or-whatever-it-is-when-you’re-a-Stealth-Schooler. This school year arrived on the doorstep far too quickly for my taste, but as I’m not In Charge of All the Things…Yet, I will roll with these particular punches. Also? When did I become the parent of a fourth grader and...

{Guest post} How to find a job after (or while) homeschooling

Today I’m thrilled to have a guest post from the very awesome Pamela Price of Red, White, and Grew and How to Work and Homeschool. Her first book,How to Work and Homeschool, has just been published by Gifted Homeschoolers Forum Press. Her topic of working while homeschooling has been one ofintense interest to me (as seen in my review of her book), and this post onhow to find a job while homeschooling is of even more interest to me, as I’ve been trying to do just that for the last six months....