Working Mama Wednesday - Update on the Chore List

A while back I wrote this post describing all the things I was looking forward to when I was finished with classes at school.  I have pretty much avoided all things school now for both the Summer and Fall semesters and seeing as how I don't want to not finish after all that I have decided to make it my mission to finish this year if it is in my power.  I'll do my part anyway, that's all I can do.  

With that I am going to attempt to complete my comprehensive exams (comps) at the end of February.  Between now and then I'll need to get ready for that and ideally put the finishing touches on my dissertation proposal.  It's pretty close to being ready for proposal defense, but I can't defend the proposal until I complete the comps.  It's all formal like.  

If I'm successful at comps then I'll be able to propose my defense.  If I'm ready, I could propose almost immediately after I pass the comps - like within an hour or so.  That would be cool because I can't finish my dissertation until I do the research - I can't do the research until they approve my proposal.  If all goes well I could potentially defend my dissertation in the Summer and graduate then.  That is my goal for now!

This means I have to get my behind back into the swing of things with doing schoolwork nightly.  Hubby is now home nightly so maybe I could even sneak away one night a week to do dedicated work on this stuff.  I happen to like the local McD's as a quiet place to work.  

As I get through that, I thought I'd go through my list of things I was looking forward to back in April last year to see how well I did on accomplishing them and see what left I have to do (that will have to wait...)

• Catch up with all the laundry - all washed, dried, put away, hung up, and ironed if needed.  Maybe even if not needed.   I did this and it felt good.  Of course recently with the washing machine broken I got behind but this weekend I mostly caught up.  I even ironed.  I'll slightly change this to "wash my suit jackets".  I usually get them dry cleaned but haven't in a while and they're in need of some service.  
• Scrub and sanitize the bathrooms.  Heck, every room  I promise I've done this at least once or twice since last April.  I've done a good job keeping toilets clean with Summer's potty training but this can use some revisiting.
• Clean the carpets I don't think I even tried this...
• Vacuum the stairs It has been done, but as I sit here today needs done again.  I did vacuum all of the upstairs on Monday just didn't get around to the actual stairs.  
• Catch up on couponing I've done good at this!
• Paint the inside of my house Wow - that was a lofty goal...my house is 4000+ sq. ft. so for mie to have expected to do the whole thing that's crazy.  I did finish the kitchen (except behind the fridge) and we did the girls room over the holidays, so I made some progress.
• Catch up with scrapbooking (I'm 4 years behind - and my son is 4...)  Yeah, my son is now 5 and we are 5 years behind...
• Do some gardening - set up where I want to have my flower gardens and vegetable gardens in the future not done either.  I just can't figure out where to do the gardens in the yard...  
• Setup my home office (right now its a catch all) Still a catch all and right now a staging area for Christmas decorating.  
• Spend super time with my kiddos, with lots of crafts, baking, and reading books.  I'd also like to figure out how to regularly get my kiddos to the pool, which I couldn't do by myself per state regulations but I wouldn't even try - that's a disaster waiting to happen. This is why I didn't do much work on school - I spent lots of time with the kiddos.  I didn't get to the pool as often as I would have liked but we went to the spray park nearly every weekend and did lots of other activities to spend time together.  I cross it out only because I did do well on this but it's obviously something that is ongoing.
• Mop the floor.  Maybe even everyday.  Who was I kidding?  Everyday?  Not quite, but I do mop it once a week or so which is a great improvement.
• Work on a project with my husband. Not sure which project I thought I'd work on but we did a few things together.  We did plant some flowers in the front yard so that was cool.
• Take a shower every day. Well, at least every other day.
• Get in shape physically.  I want to try to shoot to run the half-marathon at a Dallas area lake with a fellow foster/adopt parent who does it as a fundraiser (or, at least on behalf of what she's doing).  This would be no small feat as the farthest I've ever run was a mile and that was a very big stretch for me.  So, I'll settle at first for walking more with my kids.  I wouldn't say I'm in shape at all, but I did run 5.2 miles in the last leg of the Dallas White Rock Marathon Relay.  That was a HUGE accomplishment and I'm super proud of myself for doing it.  I haven't run since, but I want to keep training for different events including the one I mention above.  To make sure I'm not too distracted though I've committed to finishing my degree before taking on other projects like training for the White Rock n' Roll half.
• Get my craft room organized. How do you write out that under your breath laugh?  
• Sleep more. I did this....besides spending more time with the kiddos I definitely got more sleep.  That was beautiful and the biggest thing holding mie back from getting back into doing schoolwork at night.
• Get ready for baby Well you all know how that turned out.  

So - here goes nothing!  Wish mie luck and hold mie accountable!