Letting My Geek Flag Fly

My “regular” life doesn’t give me much time to indulge in my geeky interests. I edit books, feed chickens and cows, write articles, attend meetings, spend too much time on the interwebz, run errands, interact with the kids I’ve spawned, make dinner, and at the end of each day try to spend a some conscious moments with my spouse.

But I have an outlet.

GeekMom.

Despite the pesky time constraints of real life, my geeky interests have actually expanded now that I belong to this lively community of GeekMom writers and readers. Every single morning, GeekMom posts give me trends and ideas to explore, projects to do, books to read, adventures to follow, people to admire, and much much more. I’m endlessly grateful to the ridiculously smart, wildly diverse women who write for GeekMom. They feed my brainpan epic stuff.

I’ve had the distinct pleasure of being a GeekMom writer almost back to the inaugural pageview. My first post was about making veggie-laden popsicles and I keep writing with a maniacal this-is-my-time glint in my eye. My various geeky obsessions head in all sorts of directions, but the 200-something pieces I’ve posted on GeekMom don’t follow any pattern.

• I out myself as a hopelessly out of it and strangely asymmetrical bag lady and library nerd who is still waiting for some of her four kids to grow out of the picky eater phase.
• I rant about the lack of data to support school testing, awful female role models in movies, the effect of diet on kids’ behavior, and mean world syndrome.
• I share inspiration like the story behind Monday Hearts for Madalene, finding tiny libraries everywhere, and asking the most important question.
• I pass along a few tips like a subversive way to get kids using maps, how to boost learning through special interest groups, 12 ways to make healthy food fun, and suggestions for getting little ones into the volunteer mindset through guerrilla encouragement efforts.
• Some of my favorite posts to write are collaborative, brimming with input from my fellow GeekMom writers, like the songs we find the sexiest and which childhood books had an impact on our lives.

Every day GeekMom demonstrates that fostering our own passions requires us to value them. Give them a little space. Hoist up our geek flags and let them fly. This works in my life. And since I see my own four geeklets pursue interests even more obscure than mine I’m pretty sure it works for the next oddly interesting generation too. Yay for GeekMom!